faderiftooc | JESHAVIS ASSIGNMENT: Don't Go Breaking My South

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JESHAVIS ASSIGNMENT: Don't Go Breaking My South

JESHAVIS ASSIGNMENT: DON'T GO BREAKING MY SOUTH

WHAT: A jaunt to Ferelden and Orlais to investigate the spate of coordinated attacks that occurred there during the invasion of the Free Marches. Assignments will be tailored to the folks who go, but they might involve wilderness tracking, talking to witnesses, reverse engineering attack plans, doing some magical scrying, etc. There's also an optional incident with GMed NPCs.

WHY: The recent invasion of the Free Marches was accompanied by small, coordinated attacks in Ferelden and Orlais: several small villages and their fields were recently set aflame, an important bridge over the Drakon River destroyed in Ferelden, a noble family and their entire staff found hanging evenly spaced from rafters in their estate not far from Halamshiral, etc. At the time no one was sure it wasn't the beginning of an outright invasion of the South, but it's now looking likely that it was a diversionary tactic. Riftwatch still needs to go check it out, though, especially since the Venatori have access to their own eluvians and there's a chance they still have hidden back doors into the South.

WHO: Up to four people, any division. The only universal requirement is being able to travel unsupervised in the South without causing a diplomatic incident.

HOW: There are two parts.

PART A: Everyone who goes (up to four people) will be given some information about the places their characters are visiting and what they find. They'll be doing this alone, but I'll set up a rookery post for them to talk to each other (and to Bastien, their guy in the chair), for both "I'm bored in this carriage" and actually reporting on what they find out.

PART B: Up to two characters will also have a GMed NPC encounter. It will probably involve some fighting, but the characters don't have to be combatants. All that matters is whether you OOC would enjoy making them fight, and I promise they won't die.

WHEN: For PART A, I'll give out the information by Wednesday (8/11) and stick up a post for talking about it, which everyone can do at their own paces forever.

For PART B, I'll put up a log by Friday (8/13). Part B will be GMed between 8/13 and 8/20, hopefully at a pretty quick clip. Anything we haven't finished as of 8/21 will be handwaved. So if you're planning to be gone that week, don't sign up for Part B.

SIGN-UPS close at the end of the day on 8/9.

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Hit me.

If you would like your character to go please sign up by the end of the day on 8/9 (U.S. time).

CHARACTER: Edgard
DIVISION: Forces
COUNTRY PREFERENCE: Not picky, but I think Orlais probably makes more sense
REQUESTS: idk not really a request but trying to send Edgard on a path to gain some more useful skills?
PLOT PREFERENCES: Pick one, erase the others.
- I only am available to do Part A.

ANYTHING ELSE: single tear for unavailability re: part b

Edgard is doing Part A!

The entire party will be sailing the short distance to Jader on a friendly merchant’s vessel, then splitting in half—Matthias and Ellis to Ferelden, Edgard and Adrasteia to Orlais—where they’ll further divide up again to investigate villages independently.

Edgard will visit two villages south of the Waking Sea:

Sarvers, near Halamshiral, where a noble household (including the servants) were discovered hanging evenly-spaced from the rafters of their summer lodge the morning after the invasion. The local village was also lit on fire. This will be a great mystery to the locals, including the distant heir to the family’s property, Girard Pierrat, who is afraid to set foot inside. But he’ll allow Edgard to do so while he walks around the exterior and talks to him through open windows and doors. Edgard will have to leave his sight, temporarily, to enter the dusty library, where he’ll find a giant mirror half-covered with a sheet. It’s an eluvian! (Whether Edgard destroys it or tries to find a way to bring it back to Jader with him or something else is up to you, or something that can be discussed and strategized about in the rookery post. It will also require him to deal diplomatically with Girard, who is not used to being kind to people without any money.

Cafort, not far from the Emerald Graves, is a wealthy village on the edge of the woods that lost all of its sheep and rams the night before the invasion. Several carcasses were found on the outskirts of town afterwards. The locals are convinced that this was either the Tevinters or the Dalish preparing some horrible magic ritual to destroy them and have been making a fuss about it. Edgard can buddy up with a gruff local huntsman to establish that the animals were killed by a dragon (not a high dragon, mind) residing in the woods—which isn’t good news for the village, exactly, but will at least calm some paranoia about elves and people with different accents.

After this, they’ll all meet back in Jader on a predetermined day to catch a ride back to Kirkwall. (This is where and when the NPC’d log for Ellis and Adrasteia will occur! There may be an opportunity for Edgard to arrive on the scene later in the log or do something with the aftermath, depending on how things go—I’ll check in with you if/when that’s possible.)

Most of this is occurring solo, so here is a catch-all rookery post for chatter/banter, reporting in with findings, talking about what to do about things, etc.

CHARACTER: Ellis
DIVISION: Forces
COUNTRY PREFERENCE: Ferelden
REQUESTS: No requests, just happy to be here.
PLOT PREFERENCES:
- I want to do Part B, but I'm still interested if I can only do Part A.

Ellis is doing both parts!

The entire party will be sailing the short distance to Jader on a friendly merchant’s vessel, then splitting in half—Matthias and Ellis to Ferelden, Edgard and Adrasteia to Orlais—where they’ll further divide up again to investigate villages independently.

Ellis will visit two villages near Lake Calenhad:

Furness, near Sulcher’s Pass, will be a false report. There was a fire on the night of the invasion, apparently starting at the local tavern before hopping to a few adjacent houses, but Ellis will barely have to ask a question before the inn’s owner (an enormous burly man, for the record) breaks down into tears, admits he accidentally set the fire while drunk, and begs Ellis not to tell his neighbors.

Holmfirth, between Honnleath and the Fallow Mire, where an organized contingent of darkspawn invaded in the middle of the night. The sole survivors are three young children whose parents tossed them (literally) into a rowboat and pushed them into the river’s current while holding off the advance. They’re now staying with their aunt in the next village over. The eldest is ten and will report that the darkspawn had pieces of glowing red and were accompanied by a darkspawn who could talk and were fought off by a Grey Warden who was somehow in the area. Pressing her for details will open up the possibility that the Grey Warden was actually cooperating with the darkspawn, but on the other hand, it was dark and chaotic and traumatizing and she’s ten. Holmfirth itself will be empty, with little damage other than the blight crawling over the shadowed areas of walls and rocks and the bodies of some villagers and darkspawn, left alone for now but slated to be torched along with the village later. The dead darkspawn are adorned with red lyrium, some of which seems to be taking root, so to speak, in the ground where they fell.

After this, they’ll all meet back in Jader on a predetermined day to catch a ride back to Kirkwall. This is where and when the NPC’d log for Ellis and Adrasteia will occur! I’ll put it up on Friday. In the meantime, most of this is occurring solo, so here is a catch-all rookery post for chatter/banter, reporting in with findings, talking about what to do about things, etc.

Edited 2021-08-12 04:12 (UTC)

CHARACTER: Adrasteia
DIVISION: Forces
COUNTRY PREFERENCE: Either. She speaks Orlesian.
REQUESTS: Nah
PLOT PREFERENCES:
- I want to do Part B, but I'm still interested if I can only do Part A.
ANYTHING ELSE: YA girl is from Amaranthine and spent several years in Northern Orlais

Edited (Pretend I'm not doing this on my phone ) 2021-08-05 19:30 (UTC)

Adrasteia's doing both parts!

The entire party will be sailing the short distance to Jader on a friendly merchant’s vessel, then splitting in half—Matthias and Ellis to Ferelden, Edgard and Adrasteia to Orlais—where they’ll further divide up again to investigate villages independently.

Adrasteia will visit two villages west of the Waking Sea:

Vitroluçon, west of Val Firmin south of Lake Celestine, is one of the several villages in Orlais and Ferelden that were lit on fire the evening of the invasion. The damage was extensive, but not total, and the local serfs are working on rebuilding and already making progress. Adrasteia will initially have no luck when asking whether anything or anyone unusual was seen prior to the fires. But after a day or so, she’ll be approached privately by an elven servant of the village’s wealthiest freeman. Cylaros will tell her that a pair of elven hunters did approach him for directions while he was out the evening prior to the fires, and their accents were neither Orlesian nor Dalish. He’ll be afraid of this spreading in case the local humans make a vendetta out of it, but if she agrees to keep it quiet, he’ll point her toward their camp in the hills. It will be clear from the remains that there were three people there, not two. If she gets detective-y about it, she might be able to tell from footprints that the third was human. She’ll also be able to find a letter, written in Tevene, hidden beneath a rock except for one little corner poking out. (The letter will need translation; if she would reach out to someone on her own to have it translated before she comes back, let me know and I’ll tell you what it says! Otherwise Bastien will ask her to give it to Alexandrie and/or loop Alexandrie into the rookery conversation to do it live.)

Courciennes, in the Nahashin Marshes, was another that suffered a darkspawn attack. The local marsh people only speak Orlesian and are very wary of outsiders, elves, and Wardens, in that order, but they’ll let her have a look around on the condition that she handle and burn their tainted dead for them, since they’re afraid to touch them. The village was caught so unawares that none of the darkspawn were killed, but she’ll be able to trace them back to the hole in the ground they emerged from, mark its location so it can be compared to maps of the Deep Roads, and advise the locals on how to block and reinforce it for the future. If she has a map of the Deep Roads and/or has them memorized, she’ll know that there’s an old underground thoroughfare—impassable in places, unless you find a way around, but finding that way isn’t impossible—that leads from the Marshes north toward the Silent Plains.

CHARACTER: Matthias
DIVISION: Forces
COUNTRY PREFERENCE: Ferelden
REQUESTS: no requests all vibes
PLOT PREFERENCES: I only am available to do Part A. (EVEN IF MY HEART WANTS IT ALL)
ANYTHING ELSE: slides in at end of day

Matthias is doing Part A!

The entire party will be sailing the short distance to Jader on a friendly merchant’s vessel, then splitting in half—Matthias and Ellis to Ferelden, Edgard and Adrasteia to Orlais—where they’ll further divide up again to investigate villages independently.

Matthias will visit three villages in eastern Ferelden:

Alnwick, not far from the northern coast, experienced a significant rockslide from the cliffy mountains surrounding it on the night of the invasion, which leveled half the homes and killed several residents. The local mayor will be very defensive about this rock slide—apparently someone from Denerim came by and determined it was a natural occurrence. But she saw someone on the cliffs that night! She’s very sure! She’ll march Matthias up to show him where, and there will indeed be signs of a hastily-vacated camp near where the rock slide originated. Some empty bottles near the camp, which were written off by previous officials as liquor bottles, will smell very much like lyrium to a nose that knows better.

Hurtlepool, in the Bannorn, is closest to a bridge connecting South Reach to the West Road that was destroyed. The local townspeople will be quick to point their collective finger at a woman who stayed in the inn the night of the incident, whose Fereldan accent was not very convincing. She arrived with a traveling companion who continued on without her, then vanished during the chaos after the bridge’s noisy collapse. She didn’t leave anything behind in her room, but as he travels further south to Wanborne, he’ll be able to find people reporting someone of her and her companion’s same description traveling along the same road he’s taking, passing through the same places.

Wanborne, in the Southron Hills, was torched, fields and all. A herd of druffalo stampeded through the (only) street, which the locals think was intentional rather than them being spooked by the fires. They’ll report the same woman and mysterious company seen in Hurtlepool stayed there a few days prior, with a second companion who remained after she left. The companion—named Gerald, they say, Gerry for short—stuck around to help them clean up and was very nice and very helpful and certainly not mixed up in any of it, but they’ll point Matthias in the direction he came from. In that direction, there’s a crumbling ruin before any village, and within it an intact eluvian. (Whether Matthias destroys it or finds a way to bring it back is up to him and something that can be hashed out in the rookery post if you want!)

After this, they’ll all meet back in Jader on a predetermined day to catch a ride back to Kirkwall. (This is where and when the NPC’d log for Ellis and Adrasteia will occur! There may be an opportunity for Matthias to arrive on the scene later in the log or do something with the aftermath, depending on how things go—I’ll check in with you if/when that’s possible.)

Most of this is occurring solo, so here is a catch-all rookery post for chatter/banter, reporting in with findings, talking about what to do about things, etc.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

JESHAVIS ASSIGNMENT: Don't Go Breaking My South

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