Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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allthisshitisweird2023-05-02 05:40 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2023-05-02 05:40 pm
Entry tags:
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 9:49, and the war continues. An enemy force partially occupies Orlais and has decimated several Marcher Cities, while the Chantry, aided by the Inquisition, has marshaled 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. 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.) an organization, dubbed Riftwatch, that split off from the Inquisition several years ago. Riftwatch consists of these 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. Their goal is to do what the Chantry can't or won't do, to go more directly after Corypheus and the dark magic he employs, and to keep the Veil from coming apart entirely.
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 killing you. 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.
NOTE: This is a static test drive! We post them once per year or so and continue to use them for a long time, so you're never late. Current players are encouraged to track new top-level comments.
I. THE FREE MARCHES: Hasmal, Tantervale, and most recently Starkhaven have all fallen to the Tevinter incursion, leaving Kirkwall the largest city-state in the Free Marches to remain unoccupied. For Riftwatch, that means the war is closer to home than ever, and traveling anywhere north of the mountains runs the risk of running into enemy scouting parties. Perhaps you've been sent out to find these scouts before they find the unwary, or perhaps you're just trying to pass through unnoticed to Antiva or Rivain when you run into trouble. Or maybe you're more in the thick of it: joining the Free Marches armies in harassing the occupying army as best they can from outside the city, or slipping your way into one of them to gather intelligence or meet with an ally.
II. THE WAKING SEA: When Riftwatch isn't traveling by griffon or magic mirror, it frequently travels by sea, courtesy of a small assortment of allied pirate ships. So welcome aboard. The sea is choppy and frequently violent—violent storms, violent enemy ships, or both at once—and the crew may not have much patience for incompetence, so either make yourself useful above or try not to get sick below.
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 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. 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.
While in some alternate, tidier timeline, the War against the Elder One ended years ago, you're not in that timeline. It's 9:49, and the war continues. An enemy force partially occupies Orlais and has decimated several Marcher Cities, while the Chantry, aided by the Inquisition, has marshaled 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. 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.) an organization, dubbed Riftwatch, that split off from the Inquisition several years ago. Riftwatch consists of these 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. Their goal is to do what the Chantry can't or won't do, to go more directly after Corypheus and the dark magic he employs, and to keep the Veil from coming apart entirely.
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 killing you. 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.
NOTE: This is a static test drive! We post them once per year or so and continue to use them for a long time, so you're never late. Current players are encouraged to track new top-level comments.
I. THE FREE MARCHES: Hasmal, Tantervale, and most recently Starkhaven have all fallen to the Tevinter incursion, leaving Kirkwall the largest city-state in the Free Marches to remain unoccupied. For Riftwatch, that means the war is closer to home than ever, and traveling anywhere north of the mountains runs the risk of running into enemy scouting parties. Perhaps you've been sent out to find these scouts before they find the unwary, or perhaps you're just trying to pass through unnoticed to Antiva or Rivain when you run into trouble. Or maybe you're more in the thick of it: joining the Free Marches armies in harassing the occupying army as best they can from outside the city, or slipping your way into one of them to gather intelligence or meet with an ally.
II. THE WAKING SEA: When Riftwatch isn't traveling by griffon or magic mirror, it frequently travels by sea, courtesy of a small assortment of allied pirate ships. So welcome aboard. The sea is choppy and frequently violent—violent storms, violent enemy ships, or both at once—and the crew may not have much patience for incompetence, so either make yourself useful above or try not to get sick below.
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 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. 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.
no subject
so at least they don't have to wait long. He walks slightly ahead, a looming figure in muted tones of black and grey, servant's clothes but finely made: the sort of attendant expected to attend when how presentable he is might matter, or he had been. Unclear exactly what he is right now, besides someone who knows how to get to the alienage swifter and more familiarly than does Gwenaëlle, the bag requested in evidence but the woman holding it making no gestures as if she personally considers having brought it a matter of any urgency.
Taking in the scene she arrives to—
“One person tell me what the fuck is going on.”
no subject
Schwack. His ears ring, and the ground lurches in seasick memory that the demon wasn’t all that long ago. This is the last time - and sure, he's said that before, but this is truly the last fucking time - that he doesn’t fetch a helmet.
It’s late afternoon, and as the evening trickles in, a crowd collects: Heads thrust out windows, laughing with a bottle at the end of the lane. A show's a show. Someone shouts for them to shut up. The baby just went down,
Abrupt, the mood shifts. Mouths tighten, words quiet, in the wake of some tall-shadowed Shem.
(In the scarred thing behind him, Orlesian, and angry, and dressed far too flash to not spell trouble.)
"Get ‘im, Marge!" A girl whoops, and is shushed by another, tugging at arm’s length toward tenement door.
"Reggie saw her wandering, took her here. Someone sent her," Cedric's drawn himself up, taking all his four inches on Marge for their worth. Better that she catch a shoulder. As she's doing, repeatedly. "Dunno who. Get answers when we get - Ma’am, if you don’t stop with that, you’ll ruin your bag -"
He sounds a deal less patient than this began, eyes pinched against the light.
no subject
Marge’s grandson makes another squeaky appeal for help, this time handing Franklin to Herian so he can make sure she doesn’t put herself (and the rest of them) in danger from the shemlen.
Franklin stops thrashing, though his lips remain curled back, ire etched about his nose.
It seems evident enough that Franklin was the catalyst for things going awry, initially, and as more people arrive she does not know their position on snarling dogs. For all that she cannot feel, she knows he was her companion, that he was being protective, and that she had an obligation to him. She does not need to feel to recognise that calming him is a necessity. Ear scratches, then: a well-proven method.
“Enough, Franklin.”
Flat, not quite the same as calming. (He whines as he tries to lick her face, and though he’s not growling any more, each exhale comes as an extended grumble.)
“The Knights of Midnight Sun ordered me hence,” she says, before falling silent once more. Gwenaëlle had said for one person to explain, hadn’t she?
Her appearance might tell something of a story. None of her usual warriors garb; a dress that might have been feminine, though the dirt and muck ground into it make it hard to tell much of anything about it. She has shoes, at least, but they’re not of any decent quality, things that are falling apart, a big enough hole in one showing most of her toes. The brand on her forehead is fresh, but her skin is smeared with sweat and grime, obfuscating parts of the wound and blistering.
no subject
She doesn't immediately acknowledge anyone else. Prior experience tells her she must be specific, so she is, her irritation increasingly flattening under a mirror of Herian's own affect—
it is not useful to be angry with her. It doesn't mean anything that will satisfy Gwenaëlle, any more.
“Explain the circumstances of your Tranquility and,” pointedly, “why you chose to disobey that order.”
This isn't Riftwatch. This is a fucking mess. If Herian has a good reason, then fine. She can stay in the alienage as it suits her. If she's been held here against her will, then they can deal with that, too.
Guilfoyle folds his hands behind him, looking for all the world as if he could stand patiently at his lady's elbow for so long as she requires him to do so, unmoved and unmoving.
no subject
Franklin, the first dog (shark?) Cedric's found occasion to dislike, is contained. Herian's named what's got to be a cult. Gwen is cursing at a fucking Tranquil, and he's halfway to an Easy - that she's only gonna ignore when her manner shifts; uncanny-flat.
Several things are happening that he'll unpack later, maybe,
But for now he's stepped around Marge, put himself between Guilfoyle and the young elf, the old. He doesn't like the way the man holds himself. Sets the hairs of his neck on end.
(There's at least one knife under those sleeves, he'd lay money for more. This ruckus doesn't need to escalate.)
no subject
“The party I travelled with for an assignment was ambushed. The other mages were executed, but my name was recognised as a past Ambassador to the Inquisition and Riftwatch. They were aware of Riftwatch’s stances, and the advocacy I had done here and within the Chantry. ‘An example would be more powerful than another head on a spike,’ words to that effect.”
She knows this was an affront to her. Knows that this was horrifying, something she fought against tooth and nail, but she cannot feel it. There is no relief, only a gap in who - what? - she is.
Franklin has stuck his nose into her hair, essentially burrowing in.
“Reggie intercepted me. I knew the Gallows were inevitable but…”
She takes a moment trying to lay it out in a shape that would make sense.
“Their urgency and concern allowed a delay. The sooner I alighted at the Gallows, the sooner those dear to Herian-that-was, and who held her dear, would suffer.”
Herian looks to Cedric. “I did not foresee Franklin reacting as he did. I do not have the regret to offer what you deserve in sincerity.” Apologies should be sincere, never lip service. Practicality may need to outweigh sincerity, now.
no subject
that, at least, is not exactly unfamiliar when she'd pulled approximately none of her punches when she felt Herian needed to hear something during their years of friendship. Whether it's entirely essential right now is another story, and her tone hasn't changed at all. Maybe the next thing she says is more unsettling for the flat, matter of fact delivery,
“We may have to test their theory on that spike thing, when we meet these knights. Guilfoyle, make a note; I want at least twelve spikes before that happens.”
That it's going to, obviously, goes without saying. He inclines his head in acknowledgment, his gaze not moving from the tableau in front of them.
Considering that matter settled at least for now,
“Right now, I need somewhere to work, a basin of water, and clean cloths. Decide amongst yourselves whether someone is making that happen here or if we're leaving now.” No, there are not other options on the table.
no subject
Tastes more political. Political, and unsanctioned - folks in the March got opinions, plenty he wouldn’t air around here, but the March needs troops. Needs them bad. Sure, someone might take a pot-shot, neglect a helping hand; write off a wound that could’ve been saved. Opportunism.
Not organized like this, premeditated as you've got to be to take on a pack of fucking mages. Maker knows they lost enough men to it. Herian-that-is apologizes, and,
"It's well," It's not. "He’s just looking out for you."
(Must've smelled the lyrium. It's not a secret; it's not the time. Marge might start screeching again any moment, and Gwen looks about to split her jaw. Twelve spikes.)
"Infirmary," He decides. Gallows'll be safer. Herian means something to the people here - but she’s not the only person here. Doesn't need to get uglier. "Serah Amsel, we'll escort you to Riftwatch."
Strict reasoning can't be all of it. There’s something in there, a system. Courtesy, maybe. A code. What're rules, anyway, but a list of expectations? What're orders, but what you find past feeling?
"Let's go. You can come back and thank these folks later," Without shifting his eyes from Guilfoyle, "I’ll see to it."
Don’t get another bag, he’s already moving.
no subject
She’d come to the conclusion that wasn’t in her best interests some months back, but it is quite another thing, now: looking at it without the pang of guilt or the head of personal entanglement. Had she not torn her own life apart with that same instinct?
Herian doesn’t make any comment on it. That seems like it would be equally unproductive.
Rather than turn to pay her thanks as she ought, she follows the directions given, moving with the current she is caught in. Without hesitation she begins the familiar walk, carrying the dog that’s peering through her hair, nose accusingly pointed in Cedric’s direction.
She proceeds in silence, unless addressed.
no subject
Cedric is bleeding. There is not much thinner her mouth can get.
“Keep the dog under control,” she says, flat enough that the absence of threatened consequence doesn't mean she hasn't got any in mind, and jerks her chin at Guilfoyle, who correctly interprets this as an instruction to walk at Herian's elbow and not hers.
There's no threat in his affect, beyond that he is an unavoidably unsettling presence; on the contrary, it's clear from the way he falls in step with her that he expects to be there to accommodate if holding a wriggling corgi makes any part of this journey challenging, particularly as the fact of an open wound on her face might well mean aches and disorientation in and of itself. That it's also an open discouragement of anyone trying to accompany them is a side benefit rather than the outright purpose.
Gwenaëlle catches Cedric's elbow, “Don't think I've forgotten how many knocks to the head you've taken recently. You're going to the infirmary as well.”
slaps a bow on unless there's anything you guys wanna do
Will pass for agreement. Not about to argue when she sounds like that, can wash out the bite while they check her head -
Thinks of those names again: Niehaus, Seershaw, Sabine,
A sidelong glance; they won't be news to Gwen. She catches his elbow. He folds a hand over it, squeezes light before releasing.
At least it’s a short walk back.