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]

Thanks, Korrin. I'll pay for another later, if you decide you want more.

[Maker knows she gets enough hazard pay, even if a lot of it goes to her parents. Now or later, whichever; she'll make good on a promise to an ally. Harding takes the fresh cup gratefully, pushing the sorry excuse for mead away. To health, and such.]

Scout Harding. [There's a pause. What do you mean there's a first name to go with that? The title rattles off too easily. She continues,] ... Scout Lace Harding. Too much rank and file, sorry.

[gatheringstorm]

[Taking her own mug as soon as it's offered, Korrin wastes no time in taking a sip before she replies.]

Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's hard to turn off work-mode when there's so much to be done around you.

And I might take you up on that. Between bandits, rift demons and those Maker-damned bears, the Hinterlands are more interesting than I ever thought they'd be. [And that's not even touching mages and templars, which should go without saying.] Still, it's getting better, isn't it? Not quickly, but even so. The Inquisition's making a difference.

[lacere]

It's not really that. [She admits, a tad sheepishly. Lace. Why Lace. What kind of image does that give the new recruits?] But you're right about the work. A scout's work is never done. Especially with all those bears coming from... maker knows where.

[Is there a rift that leads to a bear realm? It feels like it.]

They've been quieter, especially before the war. The bears were never this much of a problem though. You had the odd wolf, but the bears usually stayed away from the sheep - but if the Inquisition keeps doing what it's doing, I believe it will.

[She tilts her class appreciately towards Korrin.] With thanks to our new agents, too.

[gatheringstorm]

[Nothing wrong with Lace in Korrin's opinion, but then she's met plenty of her kind that were fresh out of the Qun and new to names in general. Undoubtedly, she's heard odder names. She flashes a smile at that thanks, nodding. Not that she joined for acclaim, but it's still nice to be appreciated nonetheless.]

I try, but I can't say I've made that much of a dent in their numbers, since there always seem to be more. Perhaps the Breach drove them mad? I swear a couple of them were fade-touched, too.

[If only she hadn't destroyed their pelts in the process, they probably have interesting properties.]

I'll stay where I'm needed, that's not an issue. But I'll admit, if there's work that needs to be done elsewhere, I won't say no.

[lacere]

Who knows? [As long as the bears don't take over the bar next, they'll be fine.] It's probable, though. The longer you're with the Inquisition, the sooner you'll realise that the weirdest explanations? Those are the most probable ones.

[Let's just say she's redefined her defintion of what's possible and what isn't a lot since the Breach appeared in the sky.]

Oh, there will be. Maybe not right now, with everything that's going on in the Hinterlands, but soon enough you'll find yourself in a desert. Or a mire.

[gatheringstorm]

[Korrin's response to that is a shrug, not especially fazed.]

I've spent time in both before, so I think I can adapt. That's the way it is with the Valo-Kas; you go where you need to go to do the job. If the worst that happens is that I'm soaked through or somesuch, I'll count myself lucky.

[Not that it's fun, but she'll deal. And that smile returns at mention of weird explanations as she stakes another sip.]

You must have seen plenty of weirdness already, in your time with the Inquisition. Is there anything that stands out from the rest, aside from the obvious? [The Breach doesn't count, since everyone's seen that.]