Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
allthisshitisweird2016-01-01 03:35 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2016-01-01 03:35 pm
Entry tags:
Test Drive Meme!
New Year...
...Same Old Hinterlands
Maybe the Inquisition sent you, maybe you came seeking the Inquisition. Maybe you fell out of a rift into this world last week and are still just trying to find your feet. However it happened, the first days of the new year find you in the Hinterlands. Tucked between Ferelden's massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains, the Hinterlands are a hilly region covered in patchy forests and small farms trying to eke out a living between the boulders. Though somewhat remote, the area is rich with game and minerals and home to Redcliffe, a bustling town on a busy trade route.
Lately the Hinterlands have also been full of mages and templars and rifts, all threatening to turn once-peaceful countryside into a dangerous warzone. The Inquisition has set up several camps and sent personnel to try to restore order to the region, unwilling to let it slip into chaos. There's a lot to be done, some of it straightforward killing bad things, some of it weird and nebulous morale-building.
STILL WITH ADDED SNOW.
1. SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT
You have turned the wrong corner in the snow, forded the wrong stream in the snow, crested the wrong hill in the snow, entered the wrong cave in the snow. Maybe you are far from camp, in the snow. Maybe you are in camp, which is also snowy. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased through the snow by bears. Did you throw a snowball at the bears? Are they huge and snow-dusted? Babies burrowing through the snow drifts and coming for your ankles? Fade-touched in addition to snow-touched? Controlled by cold mages who are hiding in the snow? Popping up out of the snow like a game of whack-a-mole? What are they chasing you away from in all of this snow? What are they chasing you into, other than more snow? What warm things do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them in the snow? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you in the snow? P.S. It's still snowy.
2. WE TWO HAVE RUN ABOUT THE SLOPES
Farmers have been forced to abandon their homes after a series of vicious attacks by wolves. Packs of them are roaming the foothills and stalking paddocks and even roads seemingly without the usual wariness of humans. Inquisition agents and local volunteers guard travelers through the affected region, hunt the wolves through snowy woods, and track them back to their cavernous lair in the edge of a canyon. Only eliminating the demons that lurk there will free the wolves from their influence and allow the area to return to normal.
3. AND PICKED THE DAISIES FINE
Winter snows freeze and bury the ground, but the need for healing herbs is as great as ever. Stockpiles are thin after the chaos of the last year, and Corporal Vale is desperate enough to send people out to search caves and hollows and cliffsides and beneath overhangs for any plants still clinging to life. The weather is brutal, the search tedious, the footing often treacherous, but that last patch of Crystal Grace could be a key find. Getting it requires clambering up a slippery hillside and stretching up to a ledge and hoping whatever creature lives in that foxhole beside the plant isn't at home, but it's worth it, right?
4. WE TWO HAVE PADDLED IN THE STREAM
With many roads through the hills and ravines blocked by deep snow, some crazy, desperate few have begun traveling by river. The ice is thick and jagged along the shores but in the center the water rushes, just deep enough for a shallow draft boat lightly laden. Supplies are carried down from the passes toward Redcliffe this way, a white-knuckle process that you, for some reason, have become involved in. Maybe you were hired to help fend off the bandits that haunt the calm shallows and try to demand tolls for passage, maybe you're paying your way downstream by helping port both boat and cargo around the steep falls, the mist so thick and cold it coats whatever it touches in a thin sheen of ice. Maybe riding a glorified canoe through rocky rapids and narrow gorges just sounded like a good time. Don't rock the boat!
5. WE'LL TAKE A CUP OF KINDNESS YET
It is still snowing, and the tavern in Redcliffe is still the closest and warmest place to duck into to wait it out, and not only is it packed to the gills but it seems that the First Day celebrations have continued within long past the dawn of the second day. The Gull & Lantern is so packed with thawing visitors that it's hard to walk from one side to the other, the owner has given up on telling these Fereldans they can't bring their dogs inside, every few minutes the group in the corner breaks into a traditional First Day song that will be stuck in your head for weeks, and that lady in the corner is almost definitely someone you've tried to kill before, or vice versa. But there's a fire going, and the bartender seems to think that giving everyone half-price drinks might prevent a brawl instead of causing one, and there aren't any demons indoors, so it could be a lot worse.
6. WILDCARD
Hunt game in the snow, kill demons in the snow, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits through the snow, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow, get lost circling the same hill ten times trying to find a way up to the weird glowing skull on a stick you can see is up there in the snow, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon in the snow, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot in the snow was, set up camp and chat around the fire because it's snowy and cold, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are yourFrostback Mountainoyster, topped with snow.
Mary Read | Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Rifter!)
that boat prompt ofc;
Come on man, ain't you ever tied a poxy line before?
[ it's a grumble raised from what appears to be a young man, fairly ill outfitted for this kind of weather, and trying his (or hers, more so) best not to shiver while watching the dock hand trying to secure the rope from the barge. Mary'd just rode in, after coming from up river as this carrier's bodyguard, albeit, she'd spent more of the time squinting at the ship's crew, as they went around with not even a quarter of the skill she'd expect from a sea-faring, proper pirate outfit. that, and, freezing her ass off. which is largely the reason so lets out a grunted huff and takes a long legged stride over the edge of the ship onto the dock, giving the worker a shove as she takes the rope from him. ] Off with you, lout. It's handled.
[ crouching down, the pirate's making quick work of tying the line, moving on to the next in half the time the dock hand had been managing it, muttering to herself as her teeth chatter. ]
Bloody Round Table dandies. Wouldn't know the right end of a ship if a damned galleon rammed your crocked backside with it.
[ too used to the west indies for this shit. too pirate. can't deal. ]
gull & lantern;
Now we are ready to sail for the Horn... Weigh hey, roll and go... [ a voice, low and half mumbled, emits from one of the tables snuggled close to the fire pit, singing something probably unfamiliar to most here, but a shanty Mary could voice in her sleep, these days. she'd be lying to say she doesn't miss home, and the open sea, and the sun baking at her cheeks and chapping her lips, salt water clinging to everything. thedas is an incredible adventure, and a wonder at every turn, but it's felt weird spending so many nights on a soft mattress that doesn't rock to and fro with waves lapping at a hull. ] Our boots and our clothes, boys, are all in the pawn... To be rollicking randy dandy-O...
[ not that mary plans on brooding all night, and she's perfectly capable of making her own buddies to fill the time she's snowed into the tavern. you may catch her later on in the evening, when mary's gotten a lot more tipsy, and made several more friends, she's much more noticeable, standing on a chair and leading a corner of the tavern in a more jaunty sailing tune, one that's only half sung back correctly with her, as she's just taught these men the song a few moments ago. ]
Windy weather, boys, stormy weather, boys, when the wind blows, we're all together, boys! [ a wooden flagon is raised to clink against another man's (probably one of the sailors from the boat she'd taken a job on recently), sloshing ale over the rim, and none of them seem concerned about it as they continue belting along. ] Blow ye winds westerly, blow ye winds, blow, Jolly sou'wester, boys, steady she goes!
[ come hang, get shit faced, hear pirate stories, sing shanties, help mary stumble her way to her room. it's a good time. ]
wildcard;
[[ idk hit me with whatever, i'll do network things too if anyone would be looking for a pirate/sailor/really awesome rogue?? come at me. ]]
Tavern
You sound almost like something out of those books Merrill likes. But you've got the look of the sea about you. Rare sight around here. Who are you working for?
isabela :DD
Aye, lass. Though, ain't much in the way of sailors nor sea 'round these parts. Less you're counting iced over streams. [ which she's not. but she is lifting up a spare mug of ale to offer to her. ] Lately? Merchants shipping down river, 'til I can make it to a port.
Re: isabela :DD
It really is a shame they had to pick a fortress without navigable water. But, it's the best paying gig you can find for the most part. I'm surprised more of the Raiders haven't taken more jobs from the Inquisition.
no subject
T'be fair, it's a mighty fine fortress. If fortress living is your kind of ideal. [ it's a good spot, and it has a lot of charm. just not really for her. ] Where's it you come from, then? What found you here?
no subject
Oh, it is, sweetness. But I don't do fortress. Seen too many prisons made out of them.
[Another long drink.]
I'm Rivaini, originally, but I've been kicked out of more taverns and brothels on two separate coastlines than I can remember. I've got some friends here, and, like I said, the pay's not bad. But I'm like any sailor. The best things to have are the sea, strong drink... and booty. Both kinds.
[She winks.]
pirate stories!!
!!!! this is too cute
[ mary doesn't miss the adorable little gasp the slightly thing with lovely art under her eyes lets out, grinning a wide smirk, but continues on with the tale for the moment. ]
Cannon fire lit up the bow like an rising inferno, and we hear ol' Thatch cackling like the lord of hell himself. [ turning, she shoots the little elf girl a grin, a hand lifted to pat her head a short moment as she reassures. ] Don't you fret, lass. Kenway, Ben and I took the dive off the starboard side, and the good man Blackbeard fished us out. We sailed back to Nassau with a hold full of English treasures and spoils, safe as houses.
merrill is always too cute
Oh, good! I mean, I knew you got out, but it's good to know about the others.
Did they try to come after you, later? Though- I suppose that would be another story, wouldn't it?
[ And now there's not irritation or delight, just a bit of embarrassment. ]
2tru
Not that lot in specific... [ because they are now at the bottom of the ocean, woops. but merrill's such a gentle thing, she'd feel bad telling them how they'd... gone back on the ship, killed the crew and the captain that'd captured them, then sailed off with all their crap. ] But the English? Always, mate, always. Them, the Spanish, the French, any lord with an acting navy. Ain't no king or queen on God's blue Earth willing to let a man go unruled over.
Likely don't help the fact we tend to make off with their loot now and again. [ read: always ] But all stories pile up into one, don't they? So's we'll call it the next chapter.
Hm, how about... [ what's another good one... with maybe less on the side of carnage and gruesomeness. ] The one where Kenway won his Jackdaw, and ended up Captain half by folly and half by skill.
no subject
Probably not, [ Merrill agrees, but giggles. ] My people, the Dalish -- we don't go after treasure, but there are plenty of humans that go after us for living by the old ways, for hunting and traveling and not backing down.
[ Some clans were more violent about it than others, of course. But still, being hunted because of what you are? She knows all about that. ]
Oh! Were you there?