allthisshitisweird | TEST DRIVE MEME!

Guess.

go on, guess.

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 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. BEARIED ALIVE

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. NICE PLACE FOR A SPOT OF CAMPING

If there were an inn, which there's not, there wouldn't be room for you in it. Traveling with the Inquisition means carrying your own bedrolls, putting up your own tents, and sleeping alongside whoever you've been told to share with--no matter how much you hate them or how loud they snore. If you really can't stand it, the alternative is sleeping outside. On the ground. With the bears.

3. A BIG CRAZY LIGHT IN THE SKY

Not everyone thinks the Breach was a bad thing. In the southeastern mountains, a burgeoning cult has taken up residence in Winterwatch Tower to wait patiently for the Maker to reach through the tears in the veil and gather the faithful to his bosom. They're a little kooky, maybe, but harmless, and they're happy enough to share their wine and lager with travelers in the area. The demon-spewing rift behind the Tower, on the other hand... Too bad the Herald didn't close that thing before she bit it. Watch your step.

4. TROUBLE IN THE DEEP

The Carta is everywhere, but it's here in force, occupying dwarven ruins in a chasm behind a waterfall. Inquisition forces have already cleared most of the smugglers out of the hold, but there's still a vault to break into, bodies to loot, and old texts to search through for anything worth adding to the Inquisition's growing archives. Also: darkspawn. Sorry.

5. 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stargazing is one of Kain's favorite past times... it's so different from back home that he still finds it fascinating to look at. He's heading to do just that himself, when he realizes he's not the only one with such an idea. He approaches slowly, noticing that it's another rifter, one of the newer ones. He knows how that feels all too well. He's wearing his typical dragoon armor, of course, complete with dragon-shaped helmet.

"Incredible, isn't it?" He says this as he glances upward.

"Familiar, yet so different," Dany replies, glancing at her visitor after a moment. The armor is a surprise, she had heard tales of Rhaegar wearing similar, but she'd never seen the like. The colors were wrong, of course.

"I keep looking for constellations I've grown up with my whole life, but they're nowhere to be found."

Kain nods agreement, knowing what she means. Sometimes he used to stubbornly try to find ones he knows, try to make them fit, but the arrangement of the stars makes it pretty much impossible.

"That was when it really sunk in for me that I was away from my world, when I saw those stars..." That had happened back in the gods' war too, but that's too long of a story to get into now. "I've read some about them, though. Many have to do with this world's gods and the legends surrounding them. There are some interesting ones as well... a wolf, a sword... a dragon..." The last one being his main interest by far, of course.

"I spotted the dragon," Dany replies, a smile creeping onto her face as she traces her finger over the line of the wings and tail. "There are a few less stars than the one from my home, but it's always been my favorite." Maybe it's predictable, to be so fond of the creature that represents her house, but when you're the Mother of Dragons, it's probably forgiven.

Kain nods, appreciative of anyone who can figure out a dragon-constellation so well. "It's a favorite of mine as well. It was one of the first things that made me feel... a little less out of sorts about being here. Something about knowing that dragons still command the skies, even here, whether literally or in the stars above..." He glances over. "Are they important to your home, as well?"

She tilts her head a little in a shrug at his question, her eyes moving with the motion. "Important to me, at least. Whether or not they're important to all people where I am from remains to be seen." Certainly people were afraid of her dragons. But the Sons of the Harpy had tried to kill Drogon. They clearly had not grasped how important the last living true dragons were.

"My house's sigil is a three-headed dragon. It is said we have dragon blood mingled with our own."

That certainly gets all of Kain's attention. Not only because he wonders how it might be possible, but because he quite recently went through a ritual involving just that. Though what she means might be completely different. "Dragon blood? Are you saying... are your people descended from dragons in some way? Or was there some other means they took the dragon blood into themselves?"

"It seems we have much in common." He figures he may as well explain his own connection further as well. "I'm a dragoon, a warrior who emulates the dragon in battle. I'm trained to leap to great heights, and I have a great affinity for the element of wind. There once was a time we dragoons even rode dragons..." He trails off, wistful, missing his father and his father's dragon dearly. "And just recently, I became a Reaver, in this world, by drinking the blood of a dragon."

TEST DRIVE MEME!

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