faderiftooc | WAR TABLE ASSIGNMENTS: COASTING AROUND

WHAT: In an effort to better understand the Venatori's movements around the Waking Sea, scouting and various agents of Riftwatch abroad have uncovered a series of locations and times when valuable information is being passed and/or suspected Venatori agents may be meeting. Members of Riftwatch are to intercept this information/crash these meetings/spoil dead drops for the purpose of intelligence gathering.

FLAVOR: Self-directed adventures. If you get a slot, you will be provided with a short scenario (think 5-6 sentences) that you can then explore however you like. Do a network post about the world's most boring solo stakeout; chat about it in inboxes; thread an adventure-y action sequence with a pal! Interrogate an npc (with the caveat that you will need to write that npc)! Whatever your heart desires, as long as something related to the intel overview you get given gets written.

WHO: There are four potential dead drops and/or clandestine meetings to investigate. Slots will be rng'd with preference for members of Forces and Scouting.

A report which summarizes the findings of all four investigations is due by September 19th.

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Edited 2021-07-10 17:00 (UTC)

WHAT: A formerly well appointed merchantman (Alphonse Sideris) displaced from Nevarra City to Cumberland has become increasingly desperate in the intervening years to diversify his interests. Diplomacy has offered use of the mercantile ship, the Basilia (currently among the Riftwatch fleet but unworkable due to her size), in exchange for a minority percentage interest in whatever she takes in.

Having already taken care of the finer points of the delegation—Sideris has agreed to reserve a small percentage of the hold for the trade for low-cost foodstuffs which will be sold to Cumberland at market minimum to create a stockpile for refugee relief and in case of extended siege, and that Riftwatch's Diplomacy department will be directly supplied with a cut of any luxury goods in order to grease future wheels that might require a wheel of fancy cheese or a bolt of silk—, Riftwatch will see to the initial recruitment of a crew.

FLAVOR: Talking heads with some gentle resource management on the side, but with room for more action-y approaches or hijinks if you prefer. You'll be provided a scenario overview and some choices to make regarding potential recruits, but the exact way in which characters handle that (and setting up a log/posts) will be up to you.

WHO: 2-3 slots, with preference for members of Forces and Diplomacy.

A report which summarizes the final hiring decisions is due by September 19th.

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Edited 2021-07-10 17:00 (UTC)

WHAT: Diplomacy is preparing to cut a deal with the hard-on-his-luck Merchant Prince Raffaelo Ramires. Contingent upon an agreement that the ship not ply any trade to or from Tevinter, Riftwatch means to trade Ramires the mercantile ship, the Odalys (currently among the Riftwatch fleet but unworkable due to her size), for four smaller vessels in Ramires' own fleet which have been deemed unfit for a season's extended work and he currently can't afford to either repair or replace.

While the Odalys is in good enough working order, she is at this point desperately out of fashion. Before running her up to Antiva to finalize brokering the exchange, members of Riftwatch will need to repaint and thoroughly redecorate if she's to be up to scratch to the standards of an Antivan Merchant Prince. Argue about paint colors! Sew some drapes!

FLAVOR: What it says on the tin; extreme home makeover, boat edition. Characters will be responsible for cosmetically updating the Odalys, but the group can thread this however you see fit. Goss about the latest fashions over the crystal, have a mingle log with a sewing circle, both of those things, something else.

WHO: 2-4 slots, with preference for members of Forces and Diplomacy.

A report which summarizes the final redecorating notes is due by September 19th.

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Edited 2021-07-10 17:00 (UTC)

WHAT: With pressure having eased on one of Orlais' major trade routes since the occupation was pushed back into the Blasted Hills, a noble with holdings at the edge of the Tirashan forest is eager (read: nigh on frantic) to resume full scale lumber processing operations now that there are options other than floating goods along small backwater rivers or navigating the marshes in central Orlais.

Unfortunately, the region with the oldest growth (and the most value) is currently overrun by red-lyrium infected darkspawn.

Riftwatch's goal will be to help clear the forest of darkspawn in exchange for acquiring some resources (which will be used in "Dread Not Labor"). They'll also have the opportunity to solve some red-lyrium related mysteries.

SPECIAL NOTE: Because the resources acquired during this lead directly into "Dread Not Labor", this will ICly need to take place before then. Don't sweat the details too much (OOCly, time is fake), just be aware that ICly one informs the other.

FLAVOR: Players will be provided a scenario overview and be expected to set up their own log/post. Lends well to action/adventure and camping interludes, although you're of course welcome to focus on whatever aspect you like.

Does contain darkspawn, red lyrium, and the general gross factor inherent in both those subjects, so if you want to get your hands dirty with those themes then you're in luck!

WHO: 2-4 slots, open to anyone but primarily geared toward jocks or jock/researcher multiclassers.

A report which summarizes the findings is due by September 19th.

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Edited 2021-07-10 17:05 (UTC)

WHAT: Utilizing the resources acquired during "Into the Woods", Research and Forces will be working together to repair the Qunari dreadnought which has been in a hidden makeshift dry dock for [puts hand over calendar], but is now at heightened risk of being discovered given the increased enemy presence in the Free Marches.

Accomplishing the repairs will take significant backward engineering on the part of Research and a lot of heavy lifting on the part of Forces. Everyone may also find themselves facing off with an enemy eager to waylay the ship's repairs.

SPECIAL NOTE: Because the resources utilized for the repairs come directly from "Into the Woods", this will ICly need to take place after that. Don't sweat the details too much (OOCly, time is fake), just be aware that ICly one informs the other.

FLAVOR: Players will be given a scenario overview and expected to set up their own log/posts. Lends well to mingle log vibes, with leads for light action/adventure and general hijinks.

WHO: 3-4 slots, with preference for members of Forces and Research.

A report which summarizes the success or complications of the repairs is due by September 19th.

SIGN UP: Fill out the form and reply to this comment.

Want to be involved but don't have a preference for a particular mission? Toss your name in the ring here and we'll use you to back fill an empty slot if any are available after the initial rng.

Got questions? Ask 'em here! Unless your question is "Abby, why is the timing on this so bad?" in which case sorry I can't read suddenly.

PLAYER: abby
CHARACTER: Cassius
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Diplomacy
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

PLAYER: abby
CHARACTER: Miriam
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Side

PLAYER: z
CHARACTER: holden
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: research
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: main

PLAYER: MJ
CHARACTER: Bastien
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Diplomacy
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

PLAYER: MJ
CHARACTER: Kostos
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Scouting
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Side (and I'm struggling to get back in the habit of playing him consistently + don't want anyone else to miss out on something while I do that, so if it comes down to RNG just skip him!)

PLAYER: eppy
CHARACTER: ellis
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: main

PLAYER: eppy
CHARACTER: derrica
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: main

PLAYER: eppy
CHARACTER: john silver
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: diplomacy
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: main

PLAYER: Lana
CHARACTER: Edgard
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

This is extremely funny

PLAYER: Lana
CHARACTER: Edgard
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

PLAYER: Ammmy
CHARACTER: Cosima
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Research
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

Note: I'm going to be hiatused for August (though in practice, actually gone the 7th to the 21st). If we get a full/overfull signup, feel free to de-prioritize Cos.

PLAYER: Cami
CHARACTER: Barrow
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

PLAYER: Cami
CHARACTER: Mado
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Scouting
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: side

Agents in the field have reported suspicious activity from a lighthouse near Cumberland which seems to have coincided with an increase in allegedly Tevinter-aligned shipping interests in the Waking Sea. Every third Tuesday, the lamp of this lighthouse is made to blink at regular, recordable intervals for a number of hours. It's feared that someone is passing information to an enemy lurking off the coast.

Upon investigation, Kostos (and his +1, if you decide to thread something where he needs a sidekick) will discover that the lighthouse keeper is not in fact a spy for Tevinter. She's just in a long distance relationship with a guard who has a night patrol on the Cumberland city walls every third Tuesday, and she has been encoding a series of saccharine and occasionally somewhat racy love letters to let her beau know she's thinking of him.

As Kostos is being sent to investigate the signal, he is welcome to pursue the investigation and/or """solve"""" the """"problem"""" or make new ones as he sees fit. Feel free to get creative with it/go off the rails. Just be prepared to include a summary of his findings and decisions in a group report which will be due by September 19th

A raven from out of the occupied city of Val Chevin has been tracked to a most unusual roost: the boat of a coastal fisherman who plies his trade between Jader and the promontory directly south of the city. Derrica (and her +1, if you choose to write something where she needs a sidekick) will need to apprehend this fisherman, preferably while he is in possession of one of Val Chevins ravens so that the bird can be used to send false information to whoever is waiting for it to return to the city.

Regardless of how Derrica approaches the situation, she will discover that sending messages back into the city will be a complicated undertaking: it appears all the messages going to and from the city are written in elaborate code. On the plus side, the fisherman is in possession of a Venatori signal encryption book.

The fisherman will need to be creatively disappeared (either willingly or unwillingly - exactly how stubborn this fisherman, if he has any partners in fishing and crime, etc, is totally up to you) in order to conceal from the Venatori that one of their signal books has fallen into enemy hands.

Be prepared to include a summary of her findings and decisions in a group report which will be due by September 19th.

A rare piece of correspondence from an intelligence broker known only by the & they sign their documents with has been intercepted. From the contents of the note, & plans to meet with Someone of Great Importance To The War Effort in the secret-ish back room of a relatively popular public house in Kirkwall's Lowtown district..

Mado (and his +1, should you wish to devise an adventure which requires one), will discover that the person & plans to meet is...Mado (and company).

&, who is a wiry unassuming fellow in his late 40s, seems to have run afoul of the Coterie and now would very much like to be disappeared by Riftwatch before they get to him. In exchange for helping him escape into obscurity unmolested, & will provide information that implicates a particular trading house in Caimen Brea as a major intermediary hub for stolen property (and people) which were trafficked out of Orlais during the occupation.

Be prepared to include a summary of Mado's progress in a group report which will be due by September 19th.

Also: Should &'s escape go smoothly, a fortnight later Mado will randomly come into possession of a seemingly innocuous small penny whistle. Think finding it in his coat pocket after a night out or being sold it by a cute orphan (though you're welcome to make up the specifics). Inside the tin whistle, he will find a rolled up piece of parchment with a brief note containing the directions on how to contact a 'Reliable Pair of eyes' in Caimen Brea who goes by the name of Fiddler.

Edited 2021-07-21 04:34 (UTC)

Tasked with crewing a merchant ship, Bastien and John will travel to Cumberland where they will have their pick from recruiting among the Cumberland refugees (cheap, but largely unskilled labor), poaching able hands from other merchant sailing crews in Cumberland (skilled, but expensive - Riftwatch will see less immediate return on their investment), some combination of the two, or a mystery fourth option if they feel like getting sneaky or especially creative.

The exact makeup of the crew and how they go about recruiting/what promises they make/etc is up to you (hey Eppy, I heard you enjoy making up NPCs). This is purposefully designed to be a little loose to allow you to run with whatever flavor of hijinks you prefer. I'm more than happy to take what you two come up with from the Cumberland Sandbox and run with it for future plot hooks. That said if you would rather I make up some personalities and get a little more specific with scenarios, I'm more than happy to oblige you.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you need/want any additional information from me. Otherwise, have fun and let me know what you come up with in your report which is due on September 19th.

Congratulations, you've been tasked with overseeing the aesthetic refit of the merchant ship, Odalys. This is more or less what is says on the tin - Cassius, Edgard, and Barrow will be making over the ship (with the help of some npc randos because I don't expect three people to repaint a whole boat) in an effort to gently appeal to its new owner's sensibilities.

What are those sensibilities, you ask? Well that depends entirely on who you ask. The house colors suggest jewel tones. Agents out of Antiva report that Ramires' taste trends toward the bombastic, but every description of him in common gossip suggests a much more staid taste. Does he have a true passion for dueling, or does he just have a temper and a chip on his shoulder? All Antivas like, uh, horses. Right?

This is really just an excuse for interpersonal hijinks; assume you don't have Quite Enough of a Budget or Nearly As Much Information As Your Characters Might Prefer. Summarize the redecorating efforts in your report which is due September 19th

Pack your gear, you're headed to Orlais! Unfortunately, their intermediary to the Comte Pronovost will not be happy to see them.

It seems that Comte Pronovost's extremely savvy new business partner is Roger Deschamps, a man whose own livelihood previously literally melted away once a particular Tevinter pyramid-shaped artifact was recovered from the Emprise du Lion. Deschamps has cleverly cut a deal with the Orlesian army so they will clear out the darkspawn in exchange for a cut rate on lumber supplies for shipyards in the south still under water (metaphorically speaking) from the loss of Val Chevin. Unfortunately for Deschamps, Orlais can only spare a small contingent of soldiers and so has outsourced oversight of the work to Riftwatch in exchange for cutting them in on their agreed upon contract rate. Deschamps will be...unenthusiastic about this development.

Riftwatch's goal will be to a) help clear the forest of darkspawn ideally without somehow ruining Deschamps' prospects YET AGAIN, and b) recover clues regarding the red-lyrium in play. They will have the assistance of a small contingent of npc Orlesian soldiers to help them clear the forest, and over the course of the mission Holden, Ellis and Edgard will be able to discover that the red-lyrium blighted darkspawn all seem to have been purposefully implanted with red lyrium.

While the growth patterns of the lyrium are unique, each darkspawn's lyrium growths seems to radiate from the chest cavity and is not wholly dissimilar from the implant technique used on Berenike's mummy.

Try not to burn down the forest; we need that lumber for future plot hooks. Otherwise, you're free to get creative with the above. Please include a summary of your adventures in your report which is due September 19th.

PLAYER: Cass
CHARACTER: Kate
CHARACTER'S DIVISION: Forces
MAIN OR SIDE CHARACTER?: Main

Derrica and Cosima, along with a work crew of NPCs (largely consisting of hands from a certain pirate crew but feel free to throw in some Kirkwall carpenters or whatever if you feel compelled to flesh out your sidekicks), have been are tasked with transporting timber and various repair supplies to where the Dreadnought has been secreted in a hidden inlet along the coast and affecting repairs. Don't worry, you can take a boat to get there instead of lugging everything overland through the Planasene Forest.

Once they arrive, Derrica has been ordered to oversee coordinating the work crews and establishing a perimeter of the nearby locale to be certain that no one stumbles upon their work. With increased Venatori presence in the Marches and the Waking Sea, it wouldn't be unreasonable to find themselves facing off with enemy forces. If that's so, secrecy is more important than mercy. Please make sure no one escapes.

Cosima (with a ship's carpenter for a consultant) has been tasked with figuring out the best way to make the repairs on the battered old ship. The good news: She doesn't need to see the ship repaired enough to last forever. This is explicitly a short term patch job. In fact, if she can figure out a way to rig the dreadnought to quickly sink in case of an emergency, then more power to her. The bad news: an entire flock of seagulls has taken up residence in the battered Qunari vessel and will not take kindly to being dislodged.

The repair work itself will take a number of weeks, but once they get the working crew going they may be [recalled by other things you two want to do with your characters this month]. Feel free to make this adventure perilous (Venatori agents! Terribly weather threatens the repairs!) or as mundane (Chasing seagulls! Telling stories during extremely boring watch rotations!) as you like; just make sure to file the report by October 9th (although I wouldn't cry if you filed it earlier; thank you again for being willing to jump on this despite me falling down on getting y'all the details. :')).

Hey there! This is your casual reminder to get with Cami and Eppy to hash out a group report summarizing the findings for this; this is due September 19th.

PS. After posting this, I realized you and Eppy are scattered all over this so consider this your reminder for the other assignments under this umbrella too (and thank you jumping on all of this!)

Edited 2021-09-10 00:24 (UTC)

Hey there! This is your casual reminder to get with Cami and MJ to hash out a group report summarizing the findings for this; this is due September 19th.

PS. After posting this, I realized you and MJ are scattered all over this so consider this your reminder for the other assignments under this umbrella too (and thank you jumping on all of this!)

Edited 2021-09-10 00:25 (UTC)

Hey there! This is your casual reminder to get with Eppy and MJ to hash out a group report summarizing the findings for this; this is due September 19th.

A goat herder who was eager to be paid for the information but not eager enough to risk his neck in finding out the more specific details reports that over the last several weeks, a small ship has made a handful of landings along the coast just East of Kirkwall. This goatherd has observed a small crew (think 5-8 people, but the numbers are flexible for the sake of your adventure) offloading cargo in the dead of night which is then disappeared into a series of nearby caverns in the Vinmark mountains. Given the increased presence of attacks on the Waking Sea, it's suspected that this ship could be sneakily landing supplies ahead of any assault force which might eventually turn its attentions to Kirkwall (and, subsequently, control of the Waking Sea channel).

Kate (and however many assistants you feel like wrangling) has been tasked with staking out this strip of beach to catch the ship in the act and to track down where they've been stowing these supplies. If she can find out who they are and what they want, all the better; how she finds up this information is flexible, but if they're Tevinter or Tevinter-aligned then she's been ordered to burn the stores and, ideally, capture one or two people for questioning.

Luckily (...?), Tevinter has nothing to do with it. Kate will discover that this is actually a crew of smugglers out of Bastion who are trying to avoid Kirkwall's tariffs. Ordinarily they would ship their goods West via the Minanter where they have a number of legitimate trade contracts. Their leader is just devout enough to be outraged by the idea of getting a fair price by selling to Tevinter, and isn't devout enough to feel bad about breaking the law to make more than a fair price elsewhere. Their cargo is largely spices, coffee, and sugar from Rivain.

Kate will need to decide how to handle the smugglers and their trade, though how much of this you thread and what elements you explore are totally up to you. A report is due by October 9th (though I wouldn't cry if you got it in earlier).

Hey there! This is your casual reminder to get with Eppy to hash out a group report summarizing the results of your dark spawn backwoods adventure; this is due September 19th.

WAR TABLE ASSIGNMENTS: COASTING AROUND

KNOW THY ENEMY (Forces + Scouting)

PERSONNEL ISSUES (Forces + Diplomacy)

HANDS TO LACES (Forces + Diplomacy)

INTO THE WOODS (Forces + Project Sashamiri)

DREAD NOT LABOR (Forces + Research)

PINCH HITTER SIGN-UPS

QUESTIONS?

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Re: INTO THE WOODS (Forces + Project Sashamiri)

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replies to myself

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#rememberwhen

#rememberwhen

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