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.
vandren verminius | native oc
“You’re short.”
Two men at the end of the dock, one in simple merchant’s cloth and the other in soldier's regalia, robes and armor and staff agleam in the low early light. A captain, from the look of it, or some other rank of middling consequence, shaking dregs of coin about the bottom of the open purse he has in hand.
The rest of his detachment is nowhere to be seen. Investigating enemies of the Imperium elsewhere this morning, it seems.
“I’m good for it.”
“Hmm.”
There’s a docked boat bumping gently against the buoys beside them, low in the water and strangely still amidst the great bustle of fisherman and merchants and sailors making ready before dawn. It’s not a very large boat -- room for a dozen or so refugees below deck if they were, say, packed into large crates with holes drilled in them.
Verminius turns to look at it, a contemplative tilt to the crest of his helmet.
For just a moment, there’s an opening: his back turned to land, and the handful of crew standing anxiously by for the go ahead to unload.
2. A BATTLE
It’s been a very run-of-the-mill clash in the field for whatever conflict this is over the past ten years: bloodcurdling screams and shouted orders and the ozone crack of magic. Gore on the grass, bodies caked with dirt, blades on shields etc etc etc until the howling shriek of something larger and more terrible pierces the air. Demon, dragon, or darkspawn -- it’s hard to say.
The energy in the scuffle goes slack; the fighting peters. A few heads turn.
Near the front, a vint with scythes bolts from the field.
In closer quarters, Verminius lowers his staff, raised as it was with murderous intent, and proposes very politely through the muffle of his helmet:
“Truce?”
3. I FREW UP
A rustle, a hiss of cloth over cloth, a shape in the night.
A man crouched in your tent when you wake.
“Hello,” he whispers. “Your watchman fell asleep.”
3
A high-pitched gasp acts as prelude to the tent’s occupant folding in on himself like a jackknife, immediately throwing out his hand to cast a little glowing barrier around his bedroll.
“What the fuck,” he squeaks, whispering only because he can’t seem to find his voice.
:3
“Don’t get excited.”
His reproach peaks just above a whisper, pressing for civility.
“Who are you with?”
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"What?" you can't just ask someone who they're with
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Verminius shifts his weight with a grunt, and an audible creak at one knee. The beat of quiet that follows is laced with impatience.
“The March? The Qunari?”
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His incredulity only grows: bitch you broke into my tent and you don't know what side I'm on?
"I'm sorry, were you looking for someone specific? Do you need a directory?"
He has one, by the way.
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Verminius drops his barrier, and there’s a glint along the edge of the blade he has in hand -- threatening only in that it is present at all. He hasn’t lifted it yet.
“If I wanted to hear from your leaders I’d have written a letter.”
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"What is it you want then?"
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“Tell me about it. Working conditions, where do they keep you, what do they pay.”
There’s a scuff where the tip of his knife picks itself idle down into a bit of blanket.
“What don’t you like?”
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...not where he saw the conversation going. Benedict blinks disbelievingly at the stranger, his nose wrinkled up in a decidedly Vinty, scornful type of confusion, until he glances away to consider.
"Conditions are good. Pay is. ...as far as I know, it's good." Some of us have never had a job before,
"I don't like the lingering possibility that I'll be out in the field and a madman will sneak into my tent to ask about my quality of life."
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2
He might articulate, were his shield not lifted, veins not afire; braced to step into the blow and slash for the soft strap of armor joints, as in any other day and battle.
Fuck you — another top contender, were that shriek not followed by the thunderous flap of wings. Hair prickles, lifts; the smell storm gone sharper, seconds before lightning bolts through the air. Private Scythes fries like a spit lizard. Cedric's looking at it, which would be a great time to brain him with a spell,
"Yep," Everyone's looking at it. It's a fucking dragon. "Run."
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Many combatants are making that choice, as it happens, and making for the treeline. A few are losing their heads for it. Perhaps if they’d used their words --
Verminius runs.
There are a few scraggled trees around the field closer by to hide under, thatches of bramble blotted dark against the rock: lightning rods and tinder respectively. He passes several such options before stutter-stepping past the backside of a boulder, reversing, and ducking in behind it.
The rock is a solid basalt slab, jutting at an angle from the earth like a thrown javelin. Someone’s already crawled under it to die; Verminius rolls the corpse out to make room for himself with a shoving kick.
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Somewhere in the scramble, the shield drops to mud. Corpse flings out and it's absurd the way he darts over it, half-balletic for a clanking tin can. It's a bad day to be in plate. It’ll be worse if he doesn't find cover.
The slab's not room enough for two. That doesn't slow him, shoving under so far as it'll go, ass to elbow to tenuous truce. Maybe it'd be smart to put the mage on the outside, but that's not an argument he's winning. A low rumble. The earth rocks beneath them. Cedric flings out a hand, and something less real than that metal heater springs to life: An arc of shimmering green above them.
The tail smashes blind. Something in the Fade cracks for impact, the anchor-barrier dissipating above an arm that reels as if broken. That's not gonna work twice.
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Gravel lifts around them with the shock of the impact.
It gives him pause.
Not so much that he fails to track the fling of Cedric’s arm through the slats of his helmet
“Broken?” he shouts to inquire helpfully, and maybe a little hopefully. Someone else making for their shelter catches a slap of ice full to the face for their efforts, no-scoped into tumbling back downhill in a flash of Vandren’s staff. Hard to say whose side they were on.
No vacancy.
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An answer, probably, if the way he clutches it weren't already. Say this for bracers, they do fucking brace. Light warps about glove, an after-haze that reflects queasy from the sockets of his helm. (Nevarran, and they've really got one theme.)
"She's mad," He bites out. If this was only hunger, she'd be crunching on their comrades, might take a nap after. They're not that lucky. "Wait it out?"
Or break for the trees, maybe while the dragon's distracted. He might only be trying to send Vandrin ahead, as bait or decoy,
But then he probably wouldn't have agreed to the truce. In the distance, someone's screaming. They've been at it a while.
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“Break for the trees,” Vandren proposes.
He jockeys a bit with his elbows, emboldened by the lack of a no in answer to his question. Less like a sandwich now and more like a horny toad puffing itself up so that it’s harder for a big electrical bird to tear it out of a hole.
“I’ll cover you.”
That same someone is still screaming.
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For which dragons and Venatori oughta care about the same. What choice do they have? If he books it, and Vandren worms deeper into this hole, odds just split on who dies. She can still get at them here. An unlucky blast, a flung boulder, a sudden interest in the squabbling morsels below; and at least their headstone's ready.
Cedric works hand over wrist. The shield won't come again. Shame, because it's not Vandren doing nothing that's the threat: Five minutes ago they were trying to run each other through. A spell from behind's all it would take.
"You'll wanna follow quick,"
He takes off. The shield won't come again, so Vandren better. He'll make sure of it, in a minute, when he turns and lifts his arm — the broken one. Green energy flares, and cracks off the top of the makeshift shelter. Loud. Flashy.
Exactly the kind of thing to turn the wyrm's attention.
three.
which speaks to the way she’s been living her life before she joined Riftwatch, but nevermind that. The second thought she has, after knife, which is barely a thought at all— that’s, what kind of assassin wakes you up first. Alright, so the watchman’s asleep and some lunatic is crouched over her in the dark and it probably would have been easier to carry out any nefarious plans if she’d still been asleep, so…
“And you want something,” she says, pitching for slick and landing on sleep deprived. She sounds less threatening than she does like someone’s mum.
It’s a bit demoralising for her, in the moment. On the other hand, she’s still got this knife.
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He doesn’t seem to mind, past some pause for the knife and the suddenness with which it’s introduced as a variable.
With the way he’s squatted there like an ape in the dark, it’s difficult to tell if he may have a blade of his own -- knees out, knuckles bent close to the ground. It seems likely. Something in the angle of his wrist, or the way he’s invited himself in here in the dead of night.
Regardless, it’s too late for him to choose another tent now.
“I’m interested in learning more about your organization.”
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“Mate, you and most of the rest of Tevinter.” This is less an answer than it is buying her time to wake up enough to do more with the pieces of this over-large jigsaw puzzle than just bang them together,
it would be an inspired method of espionage. Element of surprise and all. Seems unlikely.
She hauls herself into a proper sitting position, her bedding at her waist and the shirt she’d gone to sleep in decent enough to make conversation in because you never know when you’re going to have to wake up suddenly and pull a knife on a stranger in the dead of night. There’s a cold lamp in the center of the tent and she lights it with a gesture for a better look at her inquirer, less worried about offering him the same benefit in return. People have a tendency to underestimate her for her size.
And the prospect of the Tevene situation being bad enough among their own to have defectors cold calling— interesting.
“First off, it frowns on whatever the fuck this is.”
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Cold light blanches the tent’s interior and promptly stifles the air of any intrigue afforded by shadow. This man could’ve wandered in from any city market were it not for the accent and the little golden snake at the clasp of his cloak: an older gent with silver hair, quite handsome in spite of blinking like a dazzled rat in the lamplight.
“So sorry,” he says. “As you may imagine, there are complications to seeking out civilized conversation.”
He has a spellblade held close to the ground across his toes. It is long and wicked and notched with use, but there’s no fresh blood there, or drying in the creases of his hands.
Everyone in this camp is probably still alive.
“I have come all this way.”
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Civilized conversation. Interesting.
In the new light, she is an elven woman, younger than he is but past the first bloom of adventuresome youth; slight even sitting, striking in shades of violet and vitiligo. Her mage’s knife is a businesslike affair— a practical weapon, for someone who has need of it. On one side of her head, her improbably long hair has puffed up where she was sleeping on it.
“Question for question,” she proposes. “You can even go first, since you came all this way.” It’d be impolite to suggest she might knife him if he proceeds to then renege, so that remains implicit, or, depending on his degree of suspicion, a fun surprise if this goes sideways.
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He’s had time to adjust to the light.
Realization crosses his face, stifled under a jut at his jaw and a glance down across the foot of her sleeping arrangement. Cozy.
It’s gone with a sniff, composure returned to him, easy as that.
There’s no threat in his posture while he considers, his knife gripped loose between his knees, maybe cocksure under the circumstances. If anyone knows a lion in your tent doesn’t need to be snarling (or even particularly spry) to be a real problem, it’s the lion.
“Alright.” He looks back at her to agree, something in the creases around his eyes, not quite a smile, but something very stabbable nonetheless.
“Do you like who you’re working for?”
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“Early days,” she says, measuring the distance between them and the inconvenient angles that he’s at. How much he probably doesn’t want to have to pay whatever price for the damage he could do if he had to; how willing she thinks he is, regardless. I have come all this way. “I haven’t had complaints as yet, and I’m not well known for my willingness to stick out a bad scene.”
That sounds less like an earnest attempt to impress upon him her credentials than it does something in the nature of a private joke,
that no one she’s left in her wake probably finds very funny.
“Do you not?”
Like who he’s working for. Since they’re having this conversation.
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He is watching her as closely as he ought to be, though, one ear turned to the camp beyond them. Ridges in his cloak betray armor beneath it.
His investment in living isn’t what it could be these days, but he isn’t un-invested.
Politely, begging her pardon:
“Like who you’re working for or who I’m working for?”
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