faderiftooc | a rifter phylactery thing

a rifter phylactery thing

Hello, Fade Rift!

This is going to be a TLDR post relating to an ic diplomatic effort to interact with the Chantry and appeal to them to adjust their stance on rifter phylacteries, originally discussed here.
(This is separate from Thrandruil’s delegation, but hopefully complementary.)

I’m going to chuck it behind a cut, but hopefully there will be opportunities and things of interest for native and rifter characters, new and old.

One: Reassurance concerning rifters’ powers.
It is already known that rifters powers can be nullified by Templars in the same way that mage powers can be, but this may not be wholly known/understood by the Chantry.

A display to the Chantry that rifters power can be nullified and to help them witness/understand it for themselves may help to reassure them that phylacteries are not necessary and that mages aren’t super alarming, powerful beings that cannot be stopped.

Two: Support from native non-Inquisition NPCs
There will be supporting letters/spiels from NPC Kirkwall Chantry members involved in the Chantry Relations education effort who have had encounters with rifters and witnessed their good efforts who will advocate their virtues, etc.

However! This could be a great chance to do throwbacks to previous missions since the game’s beginning that rifters have been involved in and lead that had a positive impact, especially if any of those impacts would be stuff the Chantry would approve of. The actual letters or speeches done by towns/individuals/etc could be hand waved, but if you think there is a mission that would be relevant, please reply to this post with a link to the mission & report so that it can be catalogued and its impact figured out.

This is a really cool chance for past plots of have current impact!

Three: phylacteries as a risk of harm.
Largely in the context of spells being cast on a phylactery to remotely harm/influence the person who it belongs to. This is probably the least likely way to be effective, because tugging the heartstrings re: harm & phylacteries isn’t traditionally effective. However, possibly letters or accounts from those effected by the recent phylactery thing and how it impacted Inquisition efforts and work against Corypheus has the potential to help with support. (Again, letters can be hand waved, although if you’d like to write one up then please do.)

Four: embracing rifters benefits the Chantry.
Kostos put it really well ICly, so I’m just going to C/P that:
“The benefit to them… would be the narrative. If this—great evil, threatening the foundations of Andrastian civilization— If it is to defeated by mysterious beings from beyond the Veil with magic they cannot explain, it is in their interest to be able to tell the people—the people who pay their tithes and look to them for guidance—to tell them that we owe Thedas' salvation to blessed agents of Andraste, not to demons they never trusted.”

The most difficult to pull off for sure, but an idea with a lot of potential for pay off, if people are into the idea.

HOWEVER, this would require long-term ic effort from rifters, in the form of:
- not publicly decrying the Chantry and proclaiming their desire to overthrow or destroy it
- not stating religion is evil/foolish
- some conversions to Andrastianism
- public pro-Chantry work

Being blessed agents of Andraste would give the rifters a lot more security and make the Chantry look good, but it would require a consistent effort to pull off. The Chantry isn’t going to give any kind of stamp of approval and holy authority to publicly revolutionary heathens.

Feel free to dive in with any questions in the here, and if you’d like to volunteer your character for particular possibilities, please reply to the post and lmk so we can start to discuss and hammer out ideas.

Ideally some stuff will be hand waved and some stuff played out, but I haven’t got a super strict ideas of numbers of each element yet because I wanted to check interest first - realistically it can’t be a huge group for actual discussions, but for displays etc there might be more opportunities. There will also be an ic network post about it, but again, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to tackle everything.

(I am travelling for the new few days and so may be slow with my replies, but will get back to folks as soon as I’m able to.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are probably so many things I haven't thought of or addressed.

I don't know if you're looking for additional angles to drive at or not, but Aro said this to Thranduil so I'll say it here too!

What about the possibility of phylacteries hindering the war effort since they would present Corypheus with an easy way to capture, track or remotely control all rifters, who are needed to close rifts? The danger of that is surely something the Chantry would consider

Also there's the angle that rifters are different species and not all command magic at all, aside from what the shard puts in them. Showing that some, though not all, rifters are ordinary humans might help to an extent, though I don't imagine that argument would get them very far.

Yes! The first point is definitely something that has been discussed and mentioned, so I think will come up with the Chantry as a possibly point for discussion - I'll edit the post to add it in in a little bit.

And yeah, I fear the latter might not make much headway because they're "ordinary" people who have come through rifts and that has all the Fade and demon baggage, but it's a good thought! We don't know (afaik? I need to read through more comments) yet if they will work, and ICly they wouldn't know either, so it'll be interesting to figure out :]b

thranduil has already volunteered them for the soap opera andrastian wedding so i am clearly generally on board for going ham on number four with gwenaëlle contributing some extreme native support - i am ALSO gonna comb back through and see what martel was involved in when he was alive because he was one of the early rifters that hit the ground running and did Dramatically Die Fighting For The Inquisition and it'd be a neat call-back for that to get some play, maybe? he got himself legitimately adopted into a noble family and it could be (purposefully icly) fudged that he'd converted as well, believable under the circumstances. martel's last will and testament explicitly gave the inquisition permission to use his memory in whatever way served their cause.

ALSO petrana and anders were discussing how wrt the rifters essentially being extremely complex fade-beings, it may not be possible to track them via phylactery at all. AND MHAIRI SHOULD COME TALK ABOUT "MAGIC SERVING MAN" WRT THE MAKER'S THIRD CHILDREN, E.G. RIFTERS bc it's coooool.

Edited 2018-06-03 11:56 (UTC)

I would be super interested in both of these things, and yeah, I might need to work on Herian going through reports and RESEARCHING. she might need research assistance, because obviously we have a number of dropped rifters who can't mention their rad work they did.

AND YEAH for sure, we don't even know if phylacteries would work, although it might be preferable to have the Chantry take a more positive view re: rifters rather than leaning too hard on it not working (because we don't know, etc etc).

oh yeah i think in terms of the phylacteries not working, that's less a potential thing to go "fuck you" @ the Chantry, more potentially a way of getting rifters on board—if they can potentially be appeased with "we need to get people to calm down, but you aren't in direct danger", that might help give more elbow room to work in, less likelihood of going off the rails.

but yeah i purposefully had martel give explicit permission on that when i killed him off, so this is PERFECT for beating the dead horse of his corpse.

Chiming in to this (though Kate can correct me if I've got any of it wrong, bc she got the direct mod response), phylacteries will work on rifters when they get made, though there's some nuances to it (they require way less blood & different spells to function exactly as mage phylacteries do--otherwise they're vastly overcharged and can't be use for tracking but DO amplify any spells cast on them).

So while we don't know ICly yet (or actually we might--Thranduil did talk Myr into making one for him but idk when that's supposed to have happened timeline-wise) & can probably continue to lean on uncertainty about it, OOCly they can work.

That's interesting that they can't be used for tracking, though, which is the Ostensible Purpose of having them /chinstroke

edit for clarity of rereading that they can be altered BUT STILL, interesting

And y there's a lot of "icly we still don't know some shit" that can be useful

Edited 2018-06-04 04:53 (UTC)

chiming in to verify that if it can be spun as a YAY ANDRASTE slash general propaganda thing, I'm in to get Thranduil hitched; Libby hasn't abducted use of him for her purposes.

we should make this happen because SOAP OPERA WEDDING is peak us. they could get romain on board, maybe?

ABSOLUTELY as long as it works in their favor and doesn't like

idk

set off a wave of anti rifter sentiment

fifty-fifty hands on "he's not stealing orlesian heiresses because she's been disinherited" vs "rifter marries disgraced orlesian, gross"

BUT definitely an example of rifters investing in their new homeland.

Hello I see I've been summoned for the "magic serving man" spiel because there's maybe a way to use the Chant of Light, Chantry rhetoric, and the nature of what the rifters are themselves especially after the whole blood plague/binding shebang so here are a few super quick threads because this kicked off way back!

(I've been sitting on this for a long time I'm so excited it's coming up because I've been a fan of this idea for months! Even if it doesn't get used I'm here for it being discussed!)

Thranduil and Araceli's original discussion
The idea being floated in the Division/Project Head discussion
Araceli bringing the idea up to Gwenaelle

She's done a lot of reading just to understand Thedas/the history - she doesn't understand magic or spirits on anywhere near the level of mages or Templars - but she does understand the way that spirits-as-children learn or learnt from watching since that's how she grew up. So if rifters are spirits or turbo-charged spirits doing their very best to save the world with a combo of some other measures then aren't they just serving man real goddamn hard you guys???

Herian also had a diplomacy mission that she did during the tourney which could be of use in relation to this - I won't make the mods come up with like, actual rhetoric and proof etc, as it'd just be painful and cruel, but this was the mission:

Herian will be asked to persuade Sister Avisa of Antiva to put to paper her theological theories on why the rifters cannot be demons. She'll succeed, but Avisa will refuse to put her name to the document, instead entrusting it to Herian and saying she hopes they can find someone with an equally respectable reputation but more insulation from threats to endorse her ideas.

So like, maybe building on that, and trying to find more Chantry support for that paper on theological theories could be a background project for them to be doing, and Araceli could be good for that bc bard + charming + the legwork she's been doing on her own research and efforts?

Christine would be willing to write a letter regarding being attacked through her phylactery if there's a call for mages to share their story. As for Tessa, she hasn't been here long, but during the Tourney her espionage mission was a success and she had Poe (another Rifter) help her accomplish it. For context, here's the exact mission: "Tessa will be asked to stop Corso Acolti of Hasmal's plans to sabotage the Inquisition's jousters by drugging their horses. She'll pull it off handily, earning the Inquisition some respect for its competitors and Hasmal's apologies." So that's something to add to the "positive Rifter experiences" pile.

I'd say Christine's letter could be really handy.

Tessa's mission is good, but since it mostly benefitted the Inquisition it might not be as compelling for the Chantry to consider. Have any of yours been involved in missions where rifters were present in missions that assisted non-Inquisition linked natives? Closing rifts, clearing up red lyrium, and so on?

Off the top of my head, Church was present in my plot to stop Red Templars. This benefited Orlesian soldiers at the front of their civil war, as they were being harassed. I looked through my thread logging and I'm not sure if it will be relevent as the character is no longer here, but Elros called for help with Kirkwall sailors whom he rescued from a capsized boat.

There were a few rifters that were directly responsible for evicting the bandits that were holed up in Caer Bronach way back when

they had that whole chanty feel in the town someone could probably write a letter idk

that's awesome, thank you! do you happen to recall or know if there were particular NPCs/leadership in Crestwood who would have been the most influential people to write such a letter? It'd be handy to just figure out who I can have on a list to give the mods

There's a chantry sister called Sister Vaughn, she likely would have been appreciative of the effort since it meant they could drain the lake and then she was able to give dead bodies Andrastian last rites.

i'm going to go through the actual OOC/log comms/the old advisor inbox/war table/etc after i get back from groceries, since i know there's a lot in there, especially prior to my time in the game.

but FOR NOW here's a list of everything (i think) that has a report for it, in rough order from maybe we could get some NPCs to talk about it / the chantry to care, to we cannot get anyone to talk about this / the chantry will not like it:

Rifters searching for books on blood magic and giving them back

Rifter gives University speech

Rifters help get Maric back from a nasty Magister

Rifters help look for Venatori activity

Rifters save captives from Red Templars

Rifters gather intel on the Venatori in the Anderfels (just don’t mention…Anders….)

Rifter gains allies against the Qunari (but the allies are pirates shh)

Rifters help Markus Pentaghast kill a dragon (throws blanket over the rest of Nevarra)

The rest of Nevarra, aka Rifters Meddling

Rifters introduce new medical procedures pt. I

Rifters introduce new medical procedures pt. II

Rifters tally Inquisition animals

Rifters testing leather

Rifter helps with moth problem

Rifters mud-wrestling

Rifters impressing Vints

Edited (how could i forget the war table. w/e GROCERIES) 2018-06-04 01:43 (UTC)

rifters close some rifts! then get abducted by the fuckin venatori.

i haven't gone through the comms yet because i'm a LIAR, but here's a war table op

Rifter helps rescue Orlesian refugees

rifters save some Rivaini mages/kill renegade Templars possibly dubious but hey The Outsider isn't here now to be a black-eyed whaleboy in person, only in our hearts

so THAT'S why my heart is cold and black and full of salt

would you be up for us saying that Wren and Herian maybe worked on going through and figuring out some missions where rifters did a good, and then they can get others - player characters or perhaps a couple npcs or they can do it themselves - to secure letters of support from leadersin those communities etc telling of good shit rifters have done?

hella, bella

i have like so many tabs open from the logs and ooc comms, still. like. so many

but i'm not going to look at them until tomorrow probably because gestures wearily at this week. SO WHEN I DO, i'll dump a list in your discord and we can make up some names maybe like

"john wilfred of bumblefuck, who writes about the time a rifter fixed his roof [thread link]"

and say whoever is interested from PCs + them got letters of support from john wilfred of bumblefuck and his dozen or so pals

James would be pleased to be, again, a Shiny Beacon of Templar Goodness, and show some Chantry bigwigs that Templars can take out Rifter abilities no problem. He'll also helpfully pass around his thick volume of notes on the differences between demons and Rifters and how the Rifters have consistantly been proven not to be demons, blessed be the Maker, all that. He's also ICly got pull here because everyone knows he's a big defender of the faith and all that, so he will happily write letters to all the people he knows.

Mal would like to tackle this phylactery issue from another angle and that angle would be - 'Hey we don't know if doing blood magic on Rifters will cause more rifts and do you really want us to do this without trying something else first? Possibly that will not help Corphyeus?' Because magical science is her jam, she also would be happy to write letters.

Iorveth will pretty much do whatever he's told to (by someone he respects aka Thranduil probably) in respect for this effort, so long as it isn't committing blasphemy against his own gods, or uh lol pandering to humans/oppressors to a point that he feels like is insulting 8||| nope, ok, ETA, that's a lie. he won't do pro-chantry work bc he is legit grossed out by pretty much everything he's heard of or from the chantry, and he's a terrible liar, so it's a bad idea in general. SO BASICALLY the best thing Iorveth can do right now is just shut the hell up, sob. Or wave the tourney prizes/bow and fancy sword around that he won and be like GLORY TO THE INQUISTION???? idefk

Luca could maybe write some letters? He's a Seeker, so maybe that'll hold some weight? Alternatively, maybe he could teach the rifters some stuff about then Chantry and the culture/doctrine to maybe help them familiarize? Or be more friendly with it? Or lmfao try not to be so offensive? :'D He can tell this bullshit is more about politics than actual fear of the Rifters being a danger, thus, thinks it's stupid, so he's up for helping out with making it a non-thing.

Edited 2018-06-05 02:06 (UTC)

here to support "quiet about religion but fuckin loud about being an inquisition champion"

adalia has told a couple people that she'd be willing to go through a harrowing if it would help quiet any concerns about rifters, and she's willing to put her money where her mouth is as far as that is concerned. she hates the chantry and finds the very idea of monotheism ridiculous, and so the most she'll do as regards that end of things is not vocally shit all over it, but as far as showing that rifters are no more dangerous than the mages who won their freedom from phylacteries, she'll do what she can.

I barely go here but I am SUPER about testing rifter harrowings for fun & profit—I guess it's kind of separate from what's being discussed here but if folks wanted to put together like "a rifter does the Fade thing with a mage supervisor to determine how rifters handle it" or something I can volunteer either of my Templar types to hang around waiting for demons.

wrong journal but i would love for this to be a thing!!! i'll definitely be keeping an eye out for opportunities for it to come up, and i would love adalia to have to deal with silas (and vice versa).

Jang will volunteer the HELL out of something for the phylacteries mess. If anyone actually wants her to be within 10 miles of the proceedings is another story.

SO ALSO:

mj - Today at 19:04
getting info out of tevinter where THEY'RE mad about or condemning rifters
to be like do you really want to be on the side of tevinter here
libbitybibbit - Today at 19:04
oh my god yes o_o
that's a GREAT idea
mj - Today at 19:04
none of mine would have that idea
so, puts it in your pocket
libbitybibbit - Today at 19:05
STEEPLES FINGERS
petra would absolutely have that idea

who wants to conspire to make everyone Not Want To Be On Tevinter's Side?????

I think that could be a great project to add as support, would you be up for Petra spearheading that? There was that mission Marisol recently did where some people in Tevinter were ofc super intrigued and into rifter magic (how whimsical! etc) but that party was also people who were not so much invested in current Tevinter society/social order.

Two possible ideas:

1. The Lasecas are shamed and lose influence in Tevinter for their rifter displays at the party. Tevinter attitudes against rifters because they are magic but not the right type of magic could be an avenue to pursue, and maybe a drum that could be banged to make it a bigger deal? The downside is that it would advertise that the rifters were at a Tevinter party, although it was in a """non official""" capacity.

2. Maybe rifters could also come out as being anti-Tevinter and we could at specific anti-Tevinter missions that have been run involving rifters (if there have been any?) or some could be done?

yyyy i am Very up for that! she'd absolutely consider it as an angle; and i seem to recall you running a mission where the venatori abducted a bunch of rifters (including The Late Great Very Dead Martel), so maybe that could be nicely tied into it?

Conveniently Dead We Swear He Was Heroic Rifter With Orlesian Noble Ties Died At Hands Of Dastardly Venatori, Kind Of, Probably.

for sure, maybe contacting Belle to ask if the LeBlancs would be willing to provide letters regarding Martel, as well? as a respected Orlesian family that'd have some good sway, potentially

does someone have her plurk still? otherwise we can probably just handwave some relevant stuff.

sure thing, I can include it as a note

A+ he makes a pretty good case study for Rifter Assimilation, conveniently dead so he can't put his foot in his mouth but pretty successful while he was alive - and of his cr, araceli is still around and involved, so that's possibly a thing.

adding in RE #2 -- cosima was in dark future so she's been kidnapped by the imperium twice (lucky gal)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a rifter phylactery thing

questions!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

a tally of past rifter actions re - support

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject