Test Drive Meme!

[faderifting]

You'll Never Leave the Hinterlands Alive*

Welcome to Fade Rift's very first Test Drive Meme! Use one of the prompts below or make up your own, and tag around! Have fun, try out the setting, generate samples for your app, coerce your friends into joining you.

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, early fall finds 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.

1. In the Deep Dark Hills of Western Ferelden

You have turned the wrong corner, forded the wrong stream, crested the wrong hill, entered the wrong cave. Maybe you are far from camp. Maybe you are in camp. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased by bears. Did you provoke the bears? Are they huge? Babies? Fade-touched? Mage-controlled? What are they chasing you away from? What are they chasing you into? What do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you?

2. There I Read on a Hillside Gravestone

The rebel mages and renegade templars have ravaged the Hinterlands, skirmishes breaking out all over. It looks like you've just missed one-- great spikes of ice melt slowly in the cool autumn sunlight and patches of grass and trees have been scorched away. Three bodies are scattered about, two templars and one mage judging by their clothing. You could bury them. Or search their pockets. Or track their friends. Or all of the above, if you're feeling industrious.

3. Won't You Walk With Me Out the Mouth of this Holler

Whatever task you were actually sent out here to do, you are going to be late. One-Eyed Jimmy asked so nicely for your help finding his prize ram, Lord Woolsley. It's been in the family for years, so smart for a ram, it's a good luck charm, their business has boomed with it around, and it's lived for so long, he just can't abide thinking of it getting eaten by some mangy apostate. And then he went and offered you money, too. How could you say no? Maybe you're still wandering, asking everyone you pass if they've seen a ram that looks like it's wearing an orangey-red sweater. Maybe you've found it and are chasing it around a lake or trying to lead it back to the village for your reward. Maybe you've gotten fed up and gotten out your sword to bring Jimmy a new sweater instead and discovered that lucky Lord Woolsley is a demon in sheep's clothing. Surprise!

4. Fill Your Cup With Whatever Bitter Brew You're Drinking

Just because the region's had a rough time lately doesn't mean the tavern at Redcliffe is any less crowded than usual. Bella behind the bar dishes out tankards to refugees and soldiers, scared villagers and angry farmers, merchants traveling through from Orzammar and Orlais and families fleeing the rifts in the foothills. It's packed, basically. The Inquisition has only recently extended its influence into the region, and while some have already seen the benefit-- demons killed, fighting broken up-- others are skeptical.

5. Spend Your Life Just Thinkin' of How to Get Away

Choose Your Own Adventure: hunt game, kill demons, gather herbs, track bandits, haggle over the price of armor, fall off a deceptively tall rock, 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, rummage around in empty homes, run from a dragon, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot was, set up camp and chat around the fire, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your Frostback Mountain oyster.

*Yeah, I had this stuck in my head. It's a good song!!

Comments

[lacere]

[This someone might be slightly shorter than Ellana was expecting, but Harding turns at the question, nonetheless.

She was busy tracking something (not a ram, but bears, where are they all coming from?), so her answer comes as a preoccupied-] Sorry, can't say that I ha-

[-until it actually registers. She pauses. Reassess.]

Huh. Actually, I saw one that looked just like that earlier.

[serannas]

[ A dwarf! One of her clan members told her of dwarves. They really are as short as he described. She looks rather delighted to get to experience this, because to her, everything outside the clan is new and exciting. Well, except the war and the refugees its left in its wake. Those parts certainly aren't exciting. ]

You did? Could you point in a direction that I might follow it?

[lacere]

Sure. [Harding half-smiles, dusting off her gloves. If she's surprised about Ellana's delight, she's not showing it - she's somewhat used to it. A lot of surfaces wind up in the carta or the merchant's guild (which are the same thing, to be frank), not sheep herders. Or inquisition scouts, at present.] It was over by the lake - you know, the one up in the mountains, south of the Crossroads?

[serannas]

Oh, no. I came down from the north, so I haven't been in that direction yet.

[ But if that's the way the ram went, she'll go there. She'll just be on her guard. ]

South of the Crossroads, you say? How far is that from here?

[lacere]

The north, huh? With your clan? [It's genuine curiosity, but Harding feels something of... not quite dread the second after she asks it.] If you don't mind my asking, miss. [She's seen a lot of wandering Dalish, as of late... just as many now clanless.]

A few hour's travel at most, if you know the way. The directions can get a little complicated, though... [Harding smiles.] ... I can take you half way, if you wanted.

[serannas]

With a few of my clan. We wanted to come and help.

[ She looks surprised to be addressed so politely. Maybe it's because this woman is a dwarf? Are dwarves on average more polite to elves than humans? Who can say? ]

Oh, would you? That's so kind. Would I be taking you away from anything? I wouldn't want to bother you over someone's lost ram.

[lacere]

You all picked a good time for it. We definitely need it. [What with Redcliffe and the mages, Theirinfall and the templars, the Herald's gambit at Haven, the move to Skyhold... the list goes on. Any help they'll gladly accept, as always.

Harding's smile widens. Not so much dwarves, more of a surfacer thing. Maybe just a Scout Harding thing.] Nah... I need to go back to one of the Inquisition's camps near there anyway. It'll just be a little earlier than I was planning. Besides, I used to heard sheep. Whoever's looking for that ram probably misses him. A lot.

[serannas]

He did seem to be quite... attached to the ram. Hopefully the creature hasn't gone far.

[ Though she's not a halla keeper, she can sympathize with having an animal around that is far more than a pet. The Dalish don't see the halla as pets at all, rather they're friends, brothers and sisters to the People. ]