MOD POST ↠ AUGUST UPDATES, AGAIN

[faderifting]

AUGUST UPDATES, AGAIN

RIFTER APPLICATION CYCLE CHANGE

We're going to be making a major change to Rifter apps: instead of waiting until October for the next Rifter round as usual, we'll instead be having an app round in September. After September, we will be skipping the next couple of rounds and there will be no rifter apps until 2019.

We're doing this for plot reasons that will be revealed later, as well as to finagle the rifter app schedule to better fit with the new plot cycle and to focus on making sure plot needs are met and the OOC logistical changes we're making are implemented as smoothly as possible. We'll announce in the new year precisely when rifter apps will resume.

FAQ & RIFTER ARRIVAL CHANGES

For the new players who are joining us and any recent arrivals who still have some questions, we've updated the FAQ with more information about rifters' arrival, their relationship with the Inquisition, and answers to some other questions that rifter players indicated would be helpful.

We're also adding another mod-posted log in addition to the arrival post to try to provide a more structured introduction to the game. It will include prompts for arriving in Kirkwall and the Quarantine period in the Gallows with some information about what that experience involves, and it will be open to all--we encourage established characters who want to help 'teach' new Rifters about Thedas to make top-levels, and everyone to go tag in and welcome the new arrivals. We hope this will help clarify what the first few days/weeks in Thedas are like and make it easier for new rifters to RP getting their bearings without the pressure of having to immediately make open posts on arriving in the game. It'll also allow players whose characters aren't able to travel to the rifter arrival to still easily find and interact with the new kids and help with their integration.

We'll be making other changes in the future as well, but these seemed like the most important and immediately useful ones!

TEVINTER PLOT UPDATES

Thanks everyone for your patience as we've tried to get plans and timelines here straightened out a little bit. We appreciate the enthusiasm! and apologize for the initial confusion and subsequent holding pattern.

While we aren't going to stick hard dates on any of these things because it would probably only confuse things more at this point, we do want to clarify the order of plot-related events for everyone so people can keep their ducks in a row.

The following are all occuring on the same day, in this order:

The first closed thread with the Archon in the mod plot log

The open city prompt in the mod plot log

The capture/loss of the five characters who are staying behind in Minrathous

The three escape threads in the mod plot log, more or less simultaneously

This crystal announcement, during the catacombs escape

After that, characters who were escaping Minrathous will have spent several days on their own, while those planning to go meet/rescue them will have had a few days to make preparations for that. More information about what people will encounter during those adventures is below, but a rough overview/timeline:

Those escaping by ship will not be thrown overboard upon discovery, but will later realize they've been pursued by Venatori, at least in part because they have Archon Radonis with them (surprise! see below!).

The catacombs escapees and those who traveled to meet them midway will stop on the way back to the Gallows for this month's rifter arrival.

Those in the Deep Roads are suffering enough just by being in the Deep Roads.

The Archon

Archon Radonis was meeting with the Inquisition's diplomatic delegation at an undisclosed location in Minrathous at the time Corypheus attacked. While the details of what happened there are currently known only to Herian, Thranduil, and Romain, the end result was that those three arrived at the Inquisition meeting point at the docks with the Archon in tow—disguised, and delirious from the effects of a poisoned stab-wound. Radonis was sneaked onto the ship along with the escaping members of the Inquisition, and will remain below-decks for the entirety of the voyage, unconscious and feverish, suffering from the effects of a magic-resistant poison.

Invasion Status

Information about the situation in Tevinter will be slow to emerge, but after a few weeks, everyone will have fairly reliable information saying that Corypheus has established himself in the palace for the time being, but not taken the title of Archon, which instead has gone to a magister who was previously of minimal importance and esteem—Ilrian Amladaris. Perhaps surprisingly, while the change in leadership has been met with some consternation among the upper classes, there is surprising enthusiasm from those lower and particularly slaves. Reportedly the name on their lips is not Amladaris, but Calpernia.

Minrathous is locked down, and as for the rest of the country beyond it, the Venatori are said to've taken several other cities in the region--Val Dorma, definitely--and to perhaps be moving on more, either openly threatening attack or seizing power via coup. There's a great deal of rumor and confusion and fear at the moment, which makes it difficult to tell precisely how wide-spread the threat really is.

Rescue Teams

The Inquisition is sending three teams to meet the agents escaping Minrathous. We will not be posting logs for these adventures, but those involved are entirely welcome to do so on their own.

THE DEEP ROADS:
OOC plotting post here

Those who escaped through the Ambassadoria into the Deep Roads will find exits up to the surface blocked by heavy dwarven fortifactions. They will have to remain underground, following the map provided to travel roughly southwards. They will hit occasional small pockets of darkspawn, all heading in the opposite direction, along with the inevitable deepstalkers and spiders, which they can choose to fight or detour to avoid, if they want to risk straying into smaller tunnels that are not as well charted.

They will meet the Inquisition team coming to find them roughly halfway to Kirkwall, somewhere beneath the area around Nessum near the Tevinter border. The combined team will then travel south, remaining underground to avoid having to skirt what is now a warzone between the Blasted Hills and the Minanter, and finally emerging around Arlesans. They'll walk south to the river and catch a ride with the many riverboats ferrying supplies back and forth to the front. It's a slightly winding trip down to Val Chevin and then a short sail back to Kirkwall.

The Deep Roads rescue team will be led by Alistair, accompanied by Nate, Isaac, Jester, Marcoulf, Newt, and Rey. They'll travel to Arlesans to enter the Deep Roads, and make their way up toward the meeting point near Nessum. Along the way they'll run into a few darkspawn, but not many. The main obstacle they'll encounter is a herd of wild cave-brontos, blind albino versions that are very angry and territorial. On the way back they can detour around the brontos' domain, but doing so will require crossing a narrow-enough-to-be-terrifying rock bridge over a chasm.

THE CATACOMBS:
(OOC plotting post here)

Those who escaped through the catacombs will follow them into a natural cave system that connects to the mainland. Finding an exit will be difficult, and they'll have to keep working their way roughly southwards before emerging in the foothills of the High Reaches south of Minrathous. If they head back to the Imperial Highway, they will find that it seems normal at first, business as usual, right up until the point where they encounter a roadblock some ways north of the turn-off to Asariel, clearly searching for escaping foes (both Inquisition and native dissenters). If the team chooses to fight their way through the Ander and Venatori forces manning the checkpoint, they can do so, but will be pursued by the enemy throughout the rest of their journey. Their best bet of continuing south safely (whether they choose to engage the checkpoint or slip away ahead of it) is to head back toward the mountains, and to travel south along the High Reaches. The higher up they go in the mountains, the safer they'll be.

As the range peters out, they'll again have to brave the countryside. The area around Weisshaupt and Val Dorma is crawling with enemy, with the Imperial Highway heavily trafficked by enemy forces. There are patrols all over, checkpoints and roadblocks on every road, and the only safe way to proceed is to head through the country, seeking shelter in barns and the like before heading into the forest between Weisshaupt and Val Dorma. The deeper they stay in the forest the safer they'll be. An Inquisition team will come meet them near the southern edge of the woods northeast of Nessum. From there, they'll make a quick stop at a village to collect a new assortment of rifters.

A team organized by Kitty, consisting of Iorveth, Jang, Kylo, Resa, Silas, Six, and Yseult will head to meet this group of escapees. Those still in Kirkwall will ride like the wind to the edge of the Silent Plains east of Caiman Brea, at which point the party will slow down disguise themselves as traveling missionaries (of the Chantry Chantry not the Tevinter Chantry), complete with leaflets, robes, and a wagon that opens and unfolds into a (Chantry) Chantry shrine, in case it's necessary to transport wounded or hide more-conspicuous party members. They'll travel through small country roads to reach the meeting point, but even so will have to talk their way through a couple enemy patrols or else travel off-road through the more arduous desert parts of the region to avoid them.

THE SHIP:
(OOC plotting post here)

The stowaways will manage to surprise the Antivan crew aboard the Galicia, who will kind of freak out when they discover they've been secretly boarded by a bunch of mages. They will surrender very quickly, and then be relieved at the discovery that their hijackers are not, in fact, Vints, and will agree to continue sailing the ship without trying to pitch their new passengers overboard. The relief will linger among the men for the first couple days, and once the situation is understood they won't really mind the guests so long as they stay out of the way. The captain will shift with impressive rapidity to concern about being made to miss their scheduled drop-off in Antiva, and whether they will be appropriately compensated for providing passage, the risk of doing so, and for any potential delay.

The shipping lanes through the straits they're traveling are narrow and busy, so it will take a couple days before they realize they are being chased by a Tevinter warship. The captain will be extremely displeased at this news, and it will require either serious threats of magical violence or very convincing promises that (i) they will not be caught and captured, and (ii) any damage his ship, crew, cargo, or person should suffer in the effort to evade will be handsomely repaid. The warship is much larger than the merchant vessel and can't maneuver as nimbly through the coastal waters, but once past Seheron and out into the open sea it gains steadily each day, and it becomes clear that it will be a race to meet up with the Walrus, sent by the Inquisition, before the Venatori ship can catch them.

The three ships will meet near the Northern Passage between Par Vollen and the tip of Rivain. The Tevinter ship, which is indeed manned by Venatori, will signal a desire to parlay once in range, and will demand that the Archon be turned over to them, promising that they will allow the merchant ship to depart in peace afterwards. By this point, the Inquisition agents aboard the Galicia will be aware that the Walrus is within striking distance, and can decide whether to ask it to come show itself and threaten attack, or to ask it to remain just out of sight around the point while they turn over the Archon. As soon as the Walrus is seen by the Venatori, battle will be the only option.

The Walrus can defeat the Venatori ship, but it will be a hard-fought battle complicated by the presence of the Galicia in the middle, which will need to be gotten out of the crossfire. The Venatori would clearly prefer to board the merchant vessel, but will try to sink it instead when they sense that they are losing. How this situation is handled and resolved--whether the Antivan ship is sunk, if/when/how some or all of its occupants are rescued, what is done with the Archon, etc.--we leave up to the players involved, but please make sure to make a clear decision OOCly among yourselves upfront and let us know, since these are key events that will have a major impact going forward.

Once this is resolved, whatever remains of the party will sail back to Kirkwall without further incident.

The Walrus will be sent to meet those fleeing Minrathous by sea. It will be captained by Flint, but the Inquisition will have put Araceli in ultimate command of the mission. Accompanying them are Arohaerd, Darras, Evie, Gwen, Silver, Tessa, and Vane. Their voyage to meet the other ship will be a quiet one, because the one big battle + Archon is enough complications for one mission.

Captive Rescue Planning

In addition to the general rescue-ish missions describe above, there are also the five captives in Minrathous who will need to be rescued. (We assume you guys want them back, anyway.) Getting them out will be a difficult and dangerous mission that will require careful planning and execution, which we're going to split into two parts.

First, there will be a small team of characters chosen based on their skills in stealthy infiltration and combat, who will be tasked with breaking in and back out of the city with the captives. How exactly they do that will be up to them to figure out, with some information we will help provide (based on reports from Max during her brief period of freedom and other informants in the city).

Second, there will be a larger team that will be sent to create the diversion that will make this assault possible. More information about that will also be provided later, but it will likely involve staging a loud attack on the outskirts of the city or nearby in order to draw attention and forces elsewhere.

If your character would be interested in volunteering for either part of this mission, please fill out the sign-up form below. For Team #1 we'll be choosing a maximum of 6 characters based on applicable skills and IC suitability, and for Team #2 we'll take another 8-10 characters, who will also have to meet a basic threshold of suitability—the Inquisition isn't going to send anyone who's obviously incapable of discretion or combat—but beyond that will be chosen by RNG if necessary.

You can sign your character up for Team 1, Team 2, or indicate you'd be happy with either, but if you do that make sure to tell us which you'd prefer. Only one character per player will be allowed to participate. If you're unsure which of your characters is better-suited, you can sign up more than one, just make sure to indicate which is your first preference there also, in case we decide they'd both work.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[faderifting]

Yo.

Re: QUESTIONS

[connorrk800]

Hi! I've been looking through the rules for the policy re: threading with your own characters. I set in mind that I wanted to thread with everyone involved with the rift when my characters arrive, which would include Anduin threading w/ Connor 60.

Is that allowed? And if it's allowed, does it count for reward AC?

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask such a thing.

CAPTIVE RESCUE SIGN-UPS

[faderifting]

If you're interested, sign up by 11:59 PM Eastern on August 18!

<b>Player:</b> <b>Character:</b> <b>Team:</b> Are you signing your character up for Team 1, Team 2, or either? <b>Skills & Suitability:</b> What skills and experience does your character have that would make them a good fit for this mission? For Team 1 we're looking for a team that can plan and carry out some sort of sneaky rescue raid, so primarily stealth skills like infiltration and quiet types of fighting, plus things like being cool under pressure and not having a history of defying orders or causing trouble. For Team 2 we're looking for more conventional combat abilities, and in fact may have a preference for loud and flashy.

[swordproof]

Player: Rachel
Character: Six
Team: Team 1 preference, but either
Skills & Suitability: Six is incredibly cool and calm under pressure; she worked as a mercenary for years before being trained as a Paladin and she's never been the type to have much of a temper. She takes orders well and will do what is asked for her, especially since she is incrediblyts dedicated to getting her sister back as soon as she can. Her experience lends itself more towards combat over stealth (she's capable of using practically any weapon, despite her greatsword preference) but she is capable of being quiet and under the radar when necessary. She could easily swap to daggers/bows and leave her chainmail at home if it meant she was able to be of some help. She has a hugely vested interest in making sure whatever plans they agree on actually work because she wants her sister to be safe (and to possibly princess carry her home).

[sorcerised]

Player: Kerry
Character: Arohaerd
Team: Team 2
Skills & Suitability: Loud and flashy combat abilities are Aro's forte. His magic is focused on dealing damage quickly, and his affinity for lightning means that many of his spells are lightning or thunder-based. He can shoot out lightning bolts, create crashing thunder, and spell both himself and others with a lightning breath weapon. Basically, his spells are noisy, bright and distracting, as well as capable of dealing significant damage. He can also bring his dragon Iessa with him - she has a lightning breath weapon as well, and though she's still a small dragon, she's likely to be distracting. On a less violent front, Aro can also create shields and put people to sleep, which also might be useful here.

[altusimperius]

Player: Cami
Character: Benedict
Team: Team 1
Skills & Suitability: Intimate knowledge and connections within the Imperium, and thus the ability to help sneak people in and out even if he himself isn't much for the actual sneaking. Also able to spin a story and throw money where necessary to encourage the wrong witnesses to forget what they saw.

[hassaran]

Player: Cass
Character: Yseult
Team: Team 1
Skills & Suitability: She's a spy and assassin, with most of her work done in urbanish environments in the north of Thedas. She's more used to working alone getting info than stuff like a team rescue mission, but getting in and back out of places in all sorts of sneaky ways is right in her wheelhouse, whether it's quiet b&e, strolling in disguised, whatever. She speaks Tevene and probably has a few old contacts in Minrathous that could be dug up, but it's been a while. Relatively new to the Inquisition, but has been keeping her head down and following orders.

Alternatively, second preference:

Character: Nell
Team: Team 2
Skills & Suitability: She can definitely do big loud combat and cause a lot of eye-catching damage, she's good with fire and lightning and especially with throwing stuff around and making things explode + there's the knight-enchanter glowing blade made of light. I wouldn't say she's trustworthy precisely, but I think she's enough of a known quantity by now that Wren could be certain she'll help with this particular mission without causing trouble.

Re: CAPTIVE RESCUE SIGN-UPS

[keenly]

Player: Tori
Character: Colin
Team: Team 1. Am open to team 2, but I prefer team 1.
Skills & Suitability: Impeccable poker face, easily overlooked. Can infiltrate Disguised as any manner of employee or contractor. Absolutely capable of acting the part. His forms of magic combat are quiet and unflashy. He is not suited for the battlefield. Demure, unassuming, quick-thinking, and determined. Has numerous mundane skills he can use for the con.

[exsecutus]

Player: Cee!
Character: Nikos Averesch
Team: Team 1
Skills & Suitability: spy/assassin/part-time revolutionary, and he's spent the past ten years or so in those lines of work working mostly out of Antiva. he usually works alone and will be really annoyed that he's expected to be a team player but will put up with it. good with knives, decent with crossbow. highly sneaky and stays calm under pressure. good at disguises. con: he did not bring enough wine to share.

[exequy]

Player: mj
Character: Kostos
Team: Either, Team 1 pref?
Skills & Suitability: His primary use for sneaking is little wisp scouts who can wander away and come back with intel. He’s cool under pressure unless someone dies and then he might coolly lose his lunch. For Team 2 he can’t actually contribute much to flashy loudness, but he can make other people’s flashy loudness flashier and louder.

[justice_is_blond]

Player: Jackie
Character: Anders
Team: Team 2 preferred, team 1 possible
Skills & Suitability: Well-practiced with combat magic for team 2, has fun being loud and flashy. If needed for team 1, can heal injured former captives and help get them ready to be on the move.

[esquive]

Player: Abby
Character: Marcoulf
Team: Team 2 preference, but either is fine
Skills & Suitability: Marcoulf has [conventional combat abilities] and some experience in coordinated fighting/assault given his time hacking and slashing his way through the Orlesian civil war. He's trustworthy with the added benefit of having a roughly a zero percent chance of being emotionally compromised by any of the related dramatics.

[tactical_alert]

Player: Shawna
Character: Malcolm Reed
Team: Either, but pref team 1
Skills & Suitability: Capable of being a sneak with good tactical planning skills, quiet, bowman but can also get down and dirty with daggers if really really need be. V orderly. V chill under mission pressure. For team 2, eh, good fighter, if you give him something to be loud with (anyone call for flaming arrows and something to ignite with them?), he's v speak softly and carry a big stick when it comes down to it. Could bring his horse and doggo into it if need be.

[faithlikeaseed]

Player: Lark
Character: Myr
Team: Either, but probably much better for team 2
Skills & Suitability: Knight-enchanter, barriers, can do crazy things with glyphs and bees that are Very Loud and Very Distracting if needed. Also fairly trustworthy, tends to glue himself to his commander in the field so unlikely to run off and do something dumb.

[limier]

Player: k2
Character: coupe
Team: either
Skills & Suitability:

has murdered people quietly before

literal silencing

mostly a grownup

can also be a loud trainwreck with an axe for part ii and might be helpful for making it look legit

THE SHIP plotting n stuff

[katabasis]

KICKS DOWN A DOOR

Hi friends, let's figure our an order of operations! To my mind, the most sensible thing to do is to sort out the bare bones structure of what happens when everyone rendezvous oocly for the benefit of the poor overworked mod team but also so we can log out a bunch of junk without worrying about stepping on each other or having to wait for one thread to wrap before the start of a new one. But obviously if someone else has other idea/thoughts/etc, holler and pivoting can happen accordingly.

BIG QUESTIONS:
- Do the folks on the Galicia want to parlay/want the Walrus to stay hidden? If so, will the Walrus respect that?
- What happens to the Galicia?
- What happens to the Archon?

Chime in below and we can hammer out the details together! I'm tentatively thinking about putting up a log tomorrow but obviously there's no reason that has to cover everything/be the only one/or that any major decisions need to be made in the next 24 hours.

[katabasis]

My thoughts on BIG QUESTIONS:
- I would love to write some ship to ship combat and really want to try capturing that warship for the naval presence project so my vote would be for rolling in metaphorical guns blazing at some point whether that's at the first sight of the Venatori, the Walrus pointedly ignoring instructions otherwise, or just after giving everyone time to do their diplomacy thing so the Galicia can escape and then stab some Venatori in the back?? What seems most fun to everyone?

- Cool with whatever re: the Galicia's fate.

- Flint would really love to kill the Archon for a long list of not at all biased reasons that he would definitely try to make sound reasonable and impartial (y'all if he lives, he's just going to try to use the Inquisition to retake his power blahblahblah weakening support for the fight in Orlais, etc etc) but oocly that's probably a terrible idea. So like obviously I want to do it because I live for unintended consequence, but I'm also totallt happy to live with a 'Flint gets held down by ten people and made to temporarily see reason' scenario. Help.

[elegiaque]

- im here for SHIP BATTLES js.
- also cool with whatever but how dramatic would be rescuing everyone from a sinking ship be, what if we did that, it would be like a wet tshirt contest with real stakes
- see above: gwen will be like "you can only kill him once" but also be really easy to sway to "but killing him once is great", so. someone possibly save the archon from flint, it probably won't be gwen.

[foxsays]

- Naval battle! And this time no red lyrium kraken or sea serpents which are much fairer odds. She might bring up some diplomacy but considering the people it's probably better to not risk losing the Venatori ship. Which Naval Presence wants anyway so why not get their people and the ship both in the most dramatic way possible?

- Saving people from sinking ships means people might drown, Vane was doing swimming lessons and there are only so many lifeboats after all...

- would argue for saving the Archon; people are going to spin the outcome either way but Inquisition saves Archon can probably be played a bit better than with his corpse especially when he's being saved from Venatori/Corypheus. But she's tired of arguing.

[galvanising]

Nell is probably on the side of keeping the Archon alive because (1) fuck the Venatori, we should not give them anything they want, and (2) politics? probably? The Inquisition can't really afford to get another leader dead even if it's one nobody liked, and maybe he'll turn out to be helpful somehow. He could always get "unfortunately" "assassinated" by "Venatori" later, after all. She could potentially be swayed by compelling revolutionary rhetoric to the contrary, though.

In terms of big-picture what happens in the scene: I'm in favor of naval battle, I'm cool with the Galicia folks getting pulled off quick so they can help fight or fighting on their own and being rescued from a watery grave, whichever.

My one main suggestion is that we do the "what happens to the Archon, do we parlay, does the Walrus come out of hiding or not???" conversation IC as a network post because I think that would be a fun argument to get to play out, and a great way to quickly build CR among this big group of very diverse characters. It can't drag on forever because there's the IC time pressure of the Venatori ship waiting for a response, but it'd let everyone shout about it for a bit.

[staysail]

BIG QUESTION stuff

- strong agree on having a naval battle and would love to capture the Venatori warship if possible, how cool would that be! we've got some professionals here, surely we can manage to capture a new ship.

- VERY into the idea of the Galicia sinking and having people fighting from a sinking ship/having to rescue people from a sinking ship, that sounds fun and dramatic

- neutral on the Archon's fate. Darras is pretty anti-authority and does not genuinely care about the Inquisition's profile since he's not that about the Inquisition and is really just here for [ PERSONAL REASON REDACTED ]. that being said agree with Abby that it is probs a terrible idea ooc so I'm absolutely willing to be ic-ly swayed to the side of moderation.

[hornswoggle]

1. i shamelessly want ship to ship combat can they capture that warship who knows definitely not john if the walrus men + everyone aboard the ship pushes to engage, he isn't gonna try to stop them.
2. john doesn't care very much about what happens to the Galicia but he will care in a very small way about what happens to the folks on it.
3. don't murder 'em. john's going to be of the opinion that the archon is going to be of more use to them alive than dead in the long run. he'll be gluing himself to flint for the duration primarily to try to be flint's anger translator.

Re: THE SHIP plotting n stuff

[sclavus]

- SHIP BATTLES SHIP BATTLES
- but also consider, sneaking around or cloaking some lil'er boats of Walrus crew over to the merchant ship, while they parley with the vints, and then murderating them, a la vane and the spanish man o war or vane and ned low's ship idk idk just throwing it out there
- vane will vote that they keep hold of the archon bc that seems too valuable to give back to the venatori. i will not be clear if he wants to kill the archon later or not, it's just a big piece that should be played better than just handed over because oh no we might have to have a boat war oh no, who tf u think he is??? also, vane can sit on flint if needed
- ps: vane's going to point at that venatori war ship, turn to flint, and immediately be like THAT'S MINE. I NEED IT.

[faithlikeaseed]

i think people have already covered most of what i would say--i really like the developing idea of the Walrus crew + folks from the Galicia getting on board the Venatori warship & stealing it, totally down for the Galicia sinking and everyone requiring a rescue (and perhaps....NOT GETTING RESCUED /dramatic chord). just putting in a +1 for crew vs crew combat/boarding action of some kind since we have SO MUCH FIGHTY POTENTIAL.

myr will be on team "don't kill the archon" largely out of reflexive wow no we can't just murder people who are helpless/support for Research Dad having worked so hard to rescue the dude, though he'll also echo the "he COULD be a good strategic asset and [squirms uncomfortably] we can always execute him later if he really needs to die" argument if pressed but like, no one's liable to ask his opinion rofl. but if it really requires ten people to sit on flint he'll help that pile on.

he also, as mentioned above, cannot swim so gl if he goes in the drink i guess hohoho

[zombra]

LOL, those poor Antivans. Looks like their ship's going down.

1. My vote is for the Walrus to roll out like a badass and for there to be a naval battle.

2. Sink it for the drama! Then rescue from the water ensues (but don't forget those unfortunate Antivan sailors!)

3. Okay so my vote as a player differs from Tessa's. She thinks they should strap him to a flotation device and toss him overboard. If the Venatori get him, whatever. If he dies first, even better. But as a player I feel it would be better for the Inquisition to hold onto him. Therefore! Tessa could be swayed to agree to keeping him.