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
she thinks of andraste, burning. ah, she thinks, there are other rhymes here. )
That's sort of what I was taught to think of Tranquility. A broken thing, given purpose instead of the void by the Maker's grace. ( it doesn't really sound like that's an opinion she holds now, even if her views on tranquility are more complicated than is commonplace in thedas, ) Here, though, it's— the saying is magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.
I don't know if Andraste meant so lock mages up and use them like tools instead of people when she said it, or if she was just trying to make a point about not doing crimes. You can see how it's turned out.
no subject
Anyway, to say that the final bit makes her snort in been there before is to put it mildly. ]
Magic exists to serve man, therefore mages exist to serve man - what a lovely little fallacy. [ Through gritted teeth.
She purses her lips, unclenches her fists. ] To your previous point, curiosity is good.
no subject
she is nearly unrecognisable to the girl who was hauled weeping and unwilling up the frostbacks. )
Which is why I have a collection of marked up medical treatises, ( more ruefully, a nod to where they'd begun. (or: begun again, unbeknownst.) ) I have a little bag of tricks that I take into the field with me that are lately head healer approved, to that end, I can give you some notes on the recipes I keep it stocked with.
( it's a little release valve, maybe, for a conversation that has become heavier than either of them had probably anticipated at the beginning of it. a moment of elbow room, amidst all else: something boringly practical to think about, while the rest settles. it could be indicative of bringing the interview to a close,
but she doesn't seem to be making the moves to leave. it's just a breather, if hermione wants it. )
no subject
There's a light and bemused smile that flashes across her face upon mention of the Head Healer - she's been to orientation now, she knows who that is, and it is strange to see him here with no memory of Akhuras. If she's been generous in considering parallel timelines and the possibility of Actual Hermione continuing to exist despite her falling from world to other world, then she can consider that Stephen Strange is possibly affected by the same.
(A shame about not remembering her. A shame she hasn't thought too hard on how that makes her feel.)
So the release is desired and welcomed, with a small smile. ]
I will not say no to anyone's notes or research to expand upon. I may still act a bit bewildered that there are notes, but that's a byproduct of where I was before. But brewing potions and alchemy is similar in no matter which world, so if I get instructions I should be more than capable of replicating.
no subject
gwenaëlle is not entirely as unsympathetic to them as she appears. maybe not as sympathetic as her many close relationships to rifters have led to a reputation for, either, but who doesn't contain multitudes these days. )
Before all this, ( with a light gesture of her left, dully-green glowing hand, ) I'd been a poet and a debutante, a courtier,
( 'socialite' would be pushing it; if she could make it through an evening without having to actually speak to anyone, that had been a win in val royeaux, )
and about half of these recipes I'd got the hang of back then.
( so, you know. cake walk, probably. the punchline is no one thought very much of her back then, but it's subtle enough that she doesn't hear the disapproving sound of loxley's voice in the back of her head, wishing she wouldn't do that. )
But it did mean my primary skill upon arriving to the war effort was writing things down; you'll get bored of my handwriting before I run out of things I can lend to you, if you're interested.
no subject
(Don't think about Fred Weasley, dead. ) ]
I can appreciate a good handwriting, you know. [ A smile again. ] But I'm interested - at the moment, I think I've got some time on my hands to get familiar with this place and its history, before I waltz into the war efforts and make a mess about it unintentionally.
no subject
there have been other grudges in the near decade she's been at this, people she gives less (what she considers) grace than just arrived, probably needs to be told; moments that felt ascribed more to callous selfishness than choosing fight instead of flight, freeze or fawn. )
Half the trick of it is that everything's still — ( a twirl of her finger in the air, ) in motion. The rebellion's not resolved, just tabled while we try not to get annihilated. The war's made for strange bedfellows which might or might not last. The world's going to look different when all's said and done, but in what way?
( a shrug. )
Everyone's got an agenda. But there's so much to catch up on to start tilting things the way you like— that's not unique to rifters, either.
( she'd by no means arrived fully formed. )
no subject
Not likely to be long, and she will remember this conversation when the time comes. Everyone's got an agenda, and everything is in motion. Mage rebellion and Templars working together now to defeat Corypheus doesn't mean they always will. Doesn't mean they won't turn on each other as soon as that threat is cleared.
And when that dust settles, what then? What becomes of Hermione then? There is no Merchant to promise her a beacon home here anymore. Is there a way home? (Does she want a way home?)
(I wanted this, didn't I? It's my own fault, for wanting more adventure.) ]
Do you think...[ she bites her lip, hesitates. This is, after all, a stranger. A stranger who knows about how she was tortured and why, but nevertheless... ] Are there notes on rifters? Anything that speaks about what happens... Do we ever leave, or is this just the newest normal?
no subject
the way she looks at hermione, in this moment, is in a way an answer. it isn't pitying, not that; a kind of strangely brisk empathy. it is plain that it doesn't cross her mind to lie; that she isn't prevaricating about what to say or how to say it. she simply exists for a moment with the awareness that she has nothing kind to say, and it is unlikely to come as welcome news.
to some, sure. but less than most. )
You went to sleep, ( she says, at length. no one's ever come through a rift awake; it's how they work. ) Wherever you were before this. You went to sleep, and you woke up falling through a rift.
And, you didn't. Probably, you also woke up wherever you went to sleep. You, as you exist now, you're not just connected to the fade. You're— made from it. In a way, you're as much a part of this world as I am. There's evidence to the idea that you're sort of like, super-charged spirits of the fade, like the fade coalesced so hard around the dream of you that it made a person.
Your magic works differently to the way you're used to. You'll react to things here that you probably didn't, before. You're physically changed, ( not unkind but frank and firm: this is probably not fun to hear and she is probably not going to process everything she feels about it all at once, but it's information she should have and having been asked for it gwenaëlle doesn't hesitate. )
Rifters don't go home, no. Everything that we know about you, and it's not an insignificant amount of study and observation— the likeliest thing is that you never left home.
( let that sit, a moment. but it's not the worst part, )
Rifters don't go home, but the fade sometimes takes them back. They'll be here for weeks or years and then one day, gone, nothing, like the dream was just gone come morning. Sometimes they return, and they do remember more of the lives they were leading; sometimes they return and they don't remember ever having been here. Sometimes they were dead, where they came from, and Thedas is time they wouldn't have had. Provost Stark was one of those. Doctor Strange and he were from the same place, but out of time with each other.
It's nice to think that the rifters who dissipated went home, in some fashion, but it isn't likely. And a rift wouldn't take you there — think of it more like the orifice of a body which is the fade. I've been in there and I don't recommend it.
no subject
And so, here it is: she is a parallel of herself. A version that split from the original, and fell into a new world. Twice. A dream, turned real. And maybe that dream was whatever part of Hermione stayed away from every reactivated beacon, for months, for years on end, claiming she felt responsible for seeing everyone able to leave Akhuras safely. That selfish part that had learned how to use her spells in service of someone else, how to use her brain for a cause that wasn't Save Harry Potter, and had grown incredibly fond of that lesson. The selfish part that had wanted more.
If she went to sleep before it had been her time at the beacon to go home, or if the dream happened while she was being whizzed away - does it matter? This Hermione is here now. (Was there another Hermione here before?)
She'll have to make do. Live, and learn, and follow, and fight, and do all those things she'd secretly wanted to do. Maybe even go as far as to admit those secret wants to someone.
Despite all her silence, and her clear listening to every word, she is still quick to pick up a name. Her eyebrows raise - Doctor Strange? What would be the odds... ] Stephen Strange?
no subject
you just have to keep going. there isn't anything but to keep going. )
The head healer, (is both confirmation and callback, ) I let him tell me what to do when I'm working in the infirmary so he feels better about the fact I pay for everything.
( is this an effective puncture of the emotional tension or— )
You've met?
( likely. he has more direct contact with quarantined rifters than gwenaëlle tends to, unless they're out wandering near the houseboat; it is, technically, within the confines to which they're ... well, confined. )
no subject
Someone with a similar name. [ She will brush that off with, ] A coincidence. Surely. I'll have a chance to verify it when I go through my... check-up.