allthisshitisweird | Test Drive Meme!

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!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It is very large isn't it? [What? You left yourself wide open for that one...and Dante isn't above jokes that involve the size of his...sword.

But the point still stands and with a sigh he drops the sword and then kicks it out of reach, sorry Rebellion. Next he removes both Ebony and Ivory from his holster and flings them off to join the sword...sorry ladies.

Finally Dante raises his arms in a surrendering gesture.] Does that work for you?

[What kind of crazy just throws away his weapons?]

Almost enough to make one wonder if you are not compensating for something.

[ Even in a tree and on the defensive, Zevran cannot help his barbs. But. Sword and...whatever those were gone, he feels slightly more comfortable in dropping down, though keeping a fair distance. ]

Well enough, I suppose.

Big talk coming from a man who was treed by a demonic sheep.

[All's fair when you're throwing barbs around, and Dante's are just as sharp as the next person's, even though the...elf? (Yes, Dante does a double take on that one, elves are a first for him) Anyway, he's out of the tree, but Dante still keeps his arms elevated.]

I figured elves would be taller for some reason. [Though coming from this giant of a man, most people are smaller than he is by comparison.]

Have you yet smelled the blood of that thing? It is impossible to get out of leather and I have just purchased these boots. Such a mistake is only made once.

[ Practical above all else, is Zevran. ]

And I figured strange men with large swords would be more accustomed to seeing elves- but from your attire I do not suppose you are from around here, as it were.

I've learned not to wear my good shit while I'm demon hunting...or when I'm footslogging it in the wild. Never know when you're gonna step into a great big steaming pile of bear crap.

[Dante raises an eyebrow at him, practical indeed.]

Oh no, definitely not from around here...I feel like I've stepped right into medieval times. 'lot less tress where I come from, more strip clubs, bars, and fast food restaurants. What I wouldn't give for pizza.

[ None of that really made much sense to Zevran, except- ]

Strip clubs? [ Now that is intriguing. ] Depending upon where it is you wish to travel I may have a fine recommendation for a tavern and brothel, though I am not all that certain as to what a 'pizza' might be.

Well...a brothel isn't quite the same a a strip club, but I get your meaning. [Not that Dante hasn't brought home a few strippers and slept with them.]

How can you not know what a pizza is? [Yeah, he groans at that, no pizza means no real food...by real food Dante means junk food.] I'm trapped in the dark ages and you have no fucking clue what you're missing.

Technically, you're trapped in the Dragon Age. While there was a Black Age some time ago, we have not ever truly had a 'dark' age. Though considering the holes in the sky and demons falling out I would not be surprised if people started considering this a 'dark' age.

Wait, wait, wait...[back that up just a bit, because did he just say...]...did you just say "Dragon Age," as in real dragons? Or fancy title?

[Because elves, okay, weird new world, shitty, but okay...Dragons?]

That is why it is the 'dragon age'. Dragons have returned to Thedas in force. Quite a few of them.

Well...[and here's Dante looking around as if he might actually spot a dragon at any moment. He didn't seem the least bit distraught over the news, excited maybe, which is when he moves to retrieve his weapons again.]...this might not be so bad after all. Demons I've seen in all of their fucking shapes and sizes, dragons...now that sounds like fun!

[Yeah, he has the look of a man preparing to hunt down a dragon, thanks for putting it into his head.]

Test Drive Meme!

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