allthisshitisweird | TEST DRIVE!

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TEST DRIVE!

TEST DRIVE MEME

While in some alternate, tidier timeline, the War against the Elder One ended years ago, you're not in that timeline. It's 9:45, and there's a war raging in northern Orlais, where the Chantry, aided by the Inquisition, marshalling Orlais and the faithful of Southern Thedas into a new Exalted March against the army of demon-bound Wardens, Red Templars, Venatori loyalists, and darkspawn Corypheus has amassed over the last four years. Rifts are still scattered across the continent, periodically spitting out strangers from strange worlds with green-glowing anchors embedded in their hands. There's no Herald of Andraste to save Thedas. Someone else is going to have to do it.

You're part of (or allied with, recently hired by, imprisoned by, etc.) a new organization that's an offshoot of the Inquisition, dubbed Riftwatch, that consists mainly of the otherworldly new arrivals, rebels and Wardens, and other people who want to prevent the apocalypse without necessarily marching under the Chantry's banner to do it. Their headquarters is an island fortress called the Gallows—formerly a Circle of Magi, more formerly a prison for slaves, but its new occupants have done a good job removing the more grotesque reminders of that past and making the place livable.

Maybe you're here because you want to help. Maybe you need the money (though there isn't much of it). Maybe you acquired an anchor and sticking around is the only way to prevent your hand from falling off. Maybe you've been sent by the Chantry or some other entity to keep an eye on everyone—they're rumored to be a lot of weirdos and troublemakers. Or maybe you're a new rifter and just going where the nice people with swords tell you that you need to go.

I. THE CROSSROADS: This month, Riftwatch members are spending most of their free time in the Crossroads, a pocket of magic-infused reality that connects a network of magic-mirror portals, called Eluvians, that are scattered across Thedas. The roads between them have mostly crumbled, but sometimes the magic can be manipulated or a series of interconnected eluvians can allow reaching one of the ruined buildings or bridges that now hang like floating islands in the distance. The portion being explored now is also densely populated by spirits trying to fulfill some ancient purpose—which apparently largely entails annoying or embarrassing everyone they come across.

II. THE WESTERN FRONT: Riftwatch is no longer part of the Inquisition or directly engaged in the war that it, the Chantry's faithful Exalted Marchers, and Orlais are fighting against an invading Tevinter and Ander force in northern Orlais. But frequently enough, Riftwatch's business—delivering helpful intelligence, spending quality time with prisoners of war that might have information, assisting soldiers with a rift they've found too close to their camps, or passing through on the way somewhere else—requires spending time in camps. After a year, with the weather turning cold and a dragon occasionally hurtling overhead to breathe a few bursts of chaos onto the army in its sleep, morale is middling at best. But there's space around the campfires if you need it.

III. KIRKWALL: Even when enormous evil darkspawn are trying to take over the known world and you and your colleagues might be the only ones who can truly stop him, you can't work all the time. And when you aren't working, Kirkwall is there for you with its dingy Lowtown taverns, its flashy Hightown establishments, its market stalls and street musicians and cellars hosting gamblers. Or maybe you can work all the time, and you're in the city to do some official shopping, try to spy on a suspicious character, or show a potential financial backer a good time.

IV. SEND A MESSAGE: Each member of Riftwatch (or rifter, or ally) is assigned a blue crystal, small enough to wear around the neck, that can transmit voice messages, as well as an enchanted book tied to that crystal that can be used to exchange written messages. They're secure enough to discuss the war, if you'd like to get down to business, but loosely controlled enough to ask a question or play a game with only a few rolled eyes from people who hate fun.

V. BANTER: Sometimes the walk is long, the herb-cutting is dull, or the watchtower is quiet, and there's nothing to do but talk to the person next to you. So say something.

VI. WILDCARD: From the Gallows' library to the pirate islands off the coast, from Hightown's high-priced market stalls to the bloody frontlines of the war, Thedas is yours to explore.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

❖ Kirkwall - Lowtown

[ She's perhaps a curious sight. Human, certainly, with dark skin and a dark brown mohawk, laced with strands of purple. She's taller than an elf, but has the physique of one regardless - somehow just a little longer and thinner than everything about her should be, although she's not even particularly tall for a human.

And the glances she occasionally throws up towards the sky are reminiscent of sheer dwarven distrust. There's a distinctive tattoo around her neck, and on her chest as well that might seem not unlike the brand of a casteless dwarf to the local.

And yet... decidedly human, this one.

Perhaps you meet Naomi Nagata staring at the stretch of water between the Gallows and the rest of Kirkwell, overwhelmed and in some visible discomfort

Feeling eyes on her, she looks up, wide brown eyes a little cloudy with pain. She shrugs with her hands, not with her shoulders. ]

I've never seen this much water before in my life.

[ Or perhaps, you meet Naomi Nagata when she takes an unsteady step in Lowtown, and her foot lands a little too heavy, like someone walking down a flight of stairs and expecting another step where there is none. She overbalances, oddly unsteady on her feet, and grabs a hold of the nearest arm she can find. ]

Sabaka...

[ She presses the curse word through clenched teeth and gives a tight lipped smile to the person she used to stabilize herself and prevent a fall. ]

Sorry about that.

❖ Banter

1. "No, I'm not drunk. I'm just saying I find it deeply unsettling that there's nothing keeping the air around us."

2. "Well, I'll trade you a good cuss word in your language for one in mine."

"What would keep it around us?" Laura's half-curious, half-suspicious of the idea--though her voice is mostly flat, with a touch of Nevarran to the way she shapes the words. The best she can think of is a box. Or walls, a room. "It is air."

For her, that's explanation enough, but it might not be for everyone.

Naomi's mind rattles through technologies. People from planets don't know how good they have it - the fact that air just exists around them and can't be taken away easily. She contemplates her answer, how to phrase it without having to explain space stations - lots of people here don't know that sort of tech, lots more don't know tech at all.

"I'm from a place that has no air of it's own. So you need to build in ways that allow for air to be contained and distributed. Water, too."

It sounds like some kind of puzzle, a riddle with an answer she can't quite see. Laura considers it in silence, a thin little shadow walking beside Naomi to whatever latest mission they've been assigned. Dark clothes, dark hair, old green eyes in a young face.

"How?" she finally asks, and the one word contains multitudes for her. How does a place have no air? How do people reach it in the first place, in order to create a place that does? How do they keep the air where they want it, and nowhere else? It's difficult to fathom.

Naomi Nagata | The Expanse | ota

❖ Kirkwall - Lowtown

❖ Banter

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CR I didn't know I needed

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