TEST DRIVE MEME

[faderifting]

A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like

it's the 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. WILL IT EVER BE WARM AGAIN WE JUST DON'T KNOW

1. AND THE BEARS THAT ONCE CONTROLLED ME CAN'T GET TO ME AT ALL

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. In case you hadn't guessed, it's still snowy.

2. LET IT GO

At first it sounds like a folktale, passed around tavern hearths and campfires after a few too many tankards. An evil witch with a heart of ice atop a frigid mountain fortress, casting endless winter upon the land, turning those who oppose her into snowmen. But it turns out it's true-- or at least partly. Maybe. Sort of. If you can weed through the stories, the common threads are these: several locals and travelers claim to have been accosted on the back roads through the hills by a female mage who used ice magic to trap them and steal their belongings, sometimes freezing solid those who tried to fight back. Some said she claimed to own the land, others that she was collecting a toll, and several that she cackled wildly about ranted about endless winter. Whichever version you choose to believe, there seems to be an apostate who needs dealing with. Perhaps you'd like to wander the roads in the guise of a wealthy traveler and lure her into an ambush? Scout the caves in the hills and try to track her to her lair? Make a friendly visit and recruit her to the Inquisition?

3. LET IT GO

The Hinterlands are dotted with lakes and ponds and streams, nearly all of which are frozen solid. The locals sometimes travel this way, pushing goods across on sledges, or strapping blades to the bottoms of their boots to skate, carrying messages and supplies or just racing when the weather is clear. Some enterprising souls have even attached sails to their sleds or runners to their rowboats and skitter across the ice hoping not to tip over or stray off-course into rocks. There are other hazards, too: in some places the ice is deceptively thin, and you may come across a stranger unlucky enough to have lost a boot or gotten a leg stuck or fallen through altogether. Maybe you're the unlucky one, treading icy water and calling for help.

4. I AM ONE WITH THE BLAH BLAH BLAAAAAH

The tavern at Redcliffe is rid of both cakes and rats, but is still filled to the brim with rowdy drunks. Tonight they are both rowdier and drunker than usual, and something sets someone off. Maybe it's you, maybe it's the guy next to you, maybe it's someone all the way across the room and you don't even see it happen, but suddenly the entire place is engulfed in a knock-down drag-out glass-smashing chair-swinging bar fight. Dive right in, pick a side, pick no side, get caught off-guard, hide under a table, try to sneak out, it's up to you but you'd better decide quickly.

5. THE COLD NEVER BOTHERED ME ANYWAY

Hunt game, or kill demons, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits, open a streetside scarf stand in Redcliffe, 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, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon, definitely don't kill any fennec foxes, set up camp and chat around the fire, sing a rousing solo about your love of the weather, do whatever the hell you want-- the Hinterlands are your endless frozen playground.

Comments

[tactical_alert]

[Good thing Kirk can't see the face he makes at the word 'zombies'. What an odd term.]

Druffalo, they're big, shaggy, horned, thick-headed, not very bright, slow grazers until you annoy one. I don't have to tell you what to do when an angry animal of any kind comes charging at you. Apparently.

[universal_charm]

_{[ Huh. Sounded like a buffalo then, but he was willing to bet it differed somehow, like those bears that had been trying to eat him. Well, he thought it was eat him. Either way he wanted nothing to do with them. ]}

Survival 101: Don't let the angry animal catch you.