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This is a joint effort by Project Jeshavis and the Scouting Division to expand Riftwatch's intelligence network by leveraging Riftwatch members' existing contacts and developing new ones. To that end, characters will be assigned a potential contact to connect with, or an existing personal contact to go reconnect with.
OOC, the point is to flesh out more of Riftwatch's intel-gathering apparatus and provide excuses for players to do CR-building mini-plots, to get characters out of the Gallows, to make characters go visit places or talk to people from their mysterious pasts with a witness in tow, etc. It is meant to be lowkey and not require anyone to do anything elaborate.
There are two options: using your own NPCs/ideas, or asking us to make one up for you.
GET AN ASSIGNMENT
Members of the Scouting Division can be assigned to a contact anywhere in Thedas. Characters from other divisions can assist with Project Jeshavis, so you can request contacts for them also, but they'll be limited to Orlais and Ferelden. If there are particular types of people you'd be most interested in having your character assigned to or particular places you want them to go, you can indicate that in the form.
The information and mini-plot we'll provide will be on the level of "Bob is the head of the Berry Gang. He's ambivalent about helping Riftwatch, but if you find his missing contraband berries, you could exchange them for information or threaten to turn him and them in and hold that over his head to make him work for you." Nothing super complicated.
There's no deadline to sign up, but once we give you a contact, you'll lose your dibs/sign-ups if you don't RP something and update us within two months.
PROVIDE YOUR OWN NPC
If you have your own NPC to provide, members of any division might be asked to reach out to people they already have some type of inroad with. (Please be reasonable and make sure these are people your character is a logical fit for reaching out to--people they already know, places they're particularly familiar with, people engaged in a line of work they have experience in, and in all cases people who can reasonably be dealt with by someone with your character's skill set.)
NPCs can range from members of criminal organizations to servants in households it might be good to keep an ear on to members of court who might be persuaded to privately snitch on their fellows. The contacts we're establishing here should be firmly in scouting/spying territory, with a focus on building a pool of secret informants rather than on improving Riftwatch's reputation or making public friendships, and have some element of subterfuge or secrecy. We're looking at people who might provide information because they're being tricked, blackmailed, coerced, or in some way paid; people or organizations who Riftwatch can't be publicly known to associate with or who will provide information that authorities would not be happy for them to have; or similar. If you have an NPC in mind who you think could be convinced to be friendly to Riftwatch in a more general sense or by less underhanded means, that's awesome! But not in the scope of what we're doing here, so take those ideas to the Diplomacy Division and/or submit a player plot.
Characters will generally need to be willing to voluntarily reveal that they know or have ties to these contacts in order to be told to go talk to them. However, Yseult and Bastien are both spies, so if you want either of them to somehow acquire information about your character's secret past so they can be ordered/strongly encouraged to go deal with it, that's fine. Just let us know.
Using your own NPCs as contacts means you do have to consent to other people potentially mentioning them in a "this tip about Venatori activity that kicks off my plot is coming from Sue the Elf" or "we can go to Village and Bob will help us hide" way. If your NPC is someone closely connected to your character that you don't want other players making major decisions about without consulting you (e.g. it's your character's mom so if somebody got her arrested it'd be a big deal), please let us know so we can note that on the list of contacts we'll be compiling.
GO PLAY
Once your character has the assignment, they can go make contact whenever you want. They can take a partner or two or three with them for back-up/assistance. What you actually RP is up to you. If you want to get a little group together and play your NPC for them, that's fine, but it's equally fine to not actually RP meeting with the contact at all and instead just use it in the background as justification for sending your characters to a new setting, doing an "only one bed" meme thread in an inn, running into an old rival on the road, making your character pass through their hometown so they have no polite choice but to stop and introduce their friend to their mother, etc.
As long as the only significant plot-related outcome of your RP is that PCs make or fail to make a connection with the NPC in question, no plot request is required, since the plot request for "build a network of informants" has already been approved. If they do something in the process that could have a larger impact or affect Riftwatch's reputation in the public sphere, that does need a separate plot request submitted in advance.
Once you've RPed about it in some capacity, you can reply and let us know, and we'll put your contact on the list of informants we're making. You don't have to write a report. You can write a report if you want to, of course, especially if there are details about your character's life that you want them to have to reluctantly make a matter of official Riftwatch record. But this is technically our player plot, so we'll submit a report that sums up the whole effort, and it's not required for you to do your own.
OOC, the point is to flesh out more of Riftwatch's intel-gathering apparatus and provide excuses for players to do CR-building mini-plots, to get characters out of the Gallows, to make characters go visit places or talk to people from their mysterious pasts with a witness in tow, etc. It is meant to be lowkey and not require anyone to do anything elaborate.
There are two options: using your own NPCs/ideas, or asking us to make one up for you.
GET AN ASSIGNMENT
Members of the Scouting Division can be assigned to a contact anywhere in Thedas. Characters from other divisions can assist with Project Jeshavis, so you can request contacts for them also, but they'll be limited to Orlais and Ferelden. If there are particular types of people you'd be most interested in having your character assigned to or particular places you want them to go, you can indicate that in the form.
The information and mini-plot we'll provide will be on the level of "Bob is the head of the Berry Gang. He's ambivalent about helping Riftwatch, but if you find his missing contraband berries, you could exchange them for information or threaten to turn him and them in and hold that over his head to make him work for you." Nothing super complicated.
There's no deadline to sign up, but once we give you a contact, you'll lose your dibs/sign-ups if you don't RP something and update us within two months.
PROVIDE YOUR OWN NPC
If you have your own NPC to provide, members of any division might be asked to reach out to people they already have some type of inroad with. (Please be reasonable and make sure these are people your character is a logical fit for reaching out to--people they already know, places they're particularly familiar with, people engaged in a line of work they have experience in, and in all cases people who can reasonably be dealt with by someone with your character's skill set.)
NPCs can range from members of criminal organizations to servants in households it might be good to keep an ear on to members of court who might be persuaded to privately snitch on their fellows. The contacts we're establishing here should be firmly in scouting/spying territory, with a focus on building a pool of secret informants rather than on improving Riftwatch's reputation or making public friendships, and have some element of subterfuge or secrecy. We're looking at people who might provide information because they're being tricked, blackmailed, coerced, or in some way paid; people or organizations who Riftwatch can't be publicly known to associate with or who will provide information that authorities would not be happy for them to have; or similar. If you have an NPC in mind who you think could be convinced to be friendly to Riftwatch in a more general sense or by less underhanded means, that's awesome! But not in the scope of what we're doing here, so take those ideas to the Diplomacy Division and/or submit a player plot.
Characters will generally need to be willing to voluntarily reveal that they know or have ties to these contacts in order to be told to go talk to them. However, Yseult and Bastien are both spies, so if you want either of them to somehow acquire information about your character's secret past so they can be ordered/strongly encouraged to go deal with it, that's fine. Just let us know.
Using your own NPCs as contacts means you do have to consent to other people potentially mentioning them in a "this tip about Venatori activity that kicks off my plot is coming from Sue the Elf" or "we can go to Village and Bob will help us hide" way. If your NPC is someone closely connected to your character that you don't want other players making major decisions about without consulting you (e.g. it's your character's mom so if somebody got her arrested it'd be a big deal), please let us know so we can note that on the list of contacts we'll be compiling.
GO PLAY
Once your character has the assignment, they can go make contact whenever you want. They can take a partner or two or three with them for back-up/assistance. What you actually RP is up to you. If you want to get a little group together and play your NPC for them, that's fine, but it's equally fine to not actually RP meeting with the contact at all and instead just use it in the background as justification for sending your characters to a new setting, doing an "only one bed" meme thread in an inn, running into an old rival on the road, making your character pass through their hometown so they have no polite choice but to stop and introduce their friend to their mother, etc.
As long as the only significant plot-related outcome of your RP is that PCs make or fail to make a connection with the NPC in question, no plot request is required, since the plot request for "build a network of informants" has already been approved. If they do something in the process that could have a larger impact or affect Riftwatch's reputation in the public sphere, that does need a separate plot request submitted in advance.
Once you've RPed about it in some capacity, you can reply and let us know, and we'll put your contact on the list of informants we're making. You don't have to write a report. You can write a report if you want to, of course, especially if there are details about your character's life that you want them to have to reluctantly make a matter of official Riftwatch record. But this is technically our player plot, so we'll submit a report that sums up the whole effort, and it's not required for you to do your own.
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