war table scouting/research misson: operation WARSHIP.

[propulsion]

Operation WARSHIP is a joint effort by the Research and Scouting divisions to identify scholars who are assisting the Venatori in their pursuit of the Seven Gates, so that Riftwatch can watch them, figure out what they're doing, and ultimately get ahead of them.

Stage One of this mission involves building out the list of scholars whose work might be relevant.

We'll be doing this by searching information about personnel from sources like Circles, the dwarven Ambassadoria, or university archives—particularly those in the Tevinter Imperium. These will be infiltration missions conducted by small teams with maximum secrecy to make sure that the enemy doesn't become aware that Riftwatch is doing this. Because these missions require both spy skills to get into these places and nerd skills to find the right information without tearing the place apart, we'll be pairing up members of Scouting with members of Research. (Members of other Divisions with relevant skills are welcome to sign up, but we will be prioritizing Research and Scouting. Characters who have not actually joined Riftwatch and are not members of any division will not be permitted on these missions.)

OOCly, our plan is to tailor these assignments somewhat to fit the skill-sets and interests of those of you who sign up. We'll provide each team with a location and its unique risks and challenges; it will then be up to you two to tell us how you want to approach it and we'll let you know the likely outcomes (and, depending on how things shake out, possibly offer a little GMing/NPCing). You can then go forth and RP whatever parts of it are fun for you.

Sign-ups will close end of day Thursday, 9/9. We'll be getting the initial write-ups out by the weekend, with the goal that you can be ready to start RPing by mid-month. Reports will be due no later than the end of October (but the earlier the better!).

These assignments are designed to lead into a Stage Two, which will have separate sign-ups but build on the work your characters do here. The overall aim is for Riftwatch to eventually get a grip on a major part of the mod plot by acquiring new sources of information about the Gates and what the Venatori are up to so that they can start working directly to stop them. Because this is key to on-going plot and meant to be built on, we're going to be pretty strict with report deadlines and keeping things moving, and will do what we can on our side as well to support you!

Sign ups can be found in the comments below. And you'll have to ask Tony personally what WARSHIP stands for.

Comments

[propulsion]

Congratulations, you've been selected for an impossible mission! Your partner is Bastien.

The Orentius University of Minrathous is hosting a triennial conference, the Society for Premier Thinkers in Natural Philosophies and the Arcane Sciences, that invites a wide range of Tevene and international academics. It had been thought that it would be cancelled due to the wars and invasions and coups and so on, but the representatives of Orentius, it being a point of pride in having won the claim to host the conference, insisted that it should go ahead anyway, and so there's been a bit of a desperate scrabble to secure attendees, panelists, and lecturers.

Riftwatch has managed to procure two invitations through some diplomatic leveraging, and Richard and Bastien will be using these invitations to go undercover and attend the conference. You may confer and invent your undercover identities, and some tips include that it is not necessary to be able to speak Tevene to fit in, as Common is the wider dialect, but it wouldn't hurt to brush up on some basics. That said, the Society is also open to anyone from anywhere, mage or no, but there will be pros and cons to how obscure and foreign you make yourselves.

The objective will be to use the conference as cover to gain access to a couple of locations and people of interest.

One location is the secure archives of Orentius, which will require you to spend some time to see what you can find on the subject of the Gates, if there is anything to be found. You can leverage this via your identities or through simply breaking and entering.

A person of interest, which they will discover for themselves in review of the program for the Society, is a professor of Orentius, Nastasia Sellic, a Laetan mage who will be speaking at the conference on the subject of revisiting pre-Chantry Blight narratives in the context of recent developments in rift research. The lecture itself will be quite dry and boring, but some later surveillance and eavesdropping during a mingling event will hint to Richard and Bastien at her frustration that the convening Society council had heavily censored her presentation.

Making direct contact at this stage is not advisable but also no one is here to stop you. They will also be supplied with a sending crystal that can be planted in a location and set to receive audio in a constant live stream to a second crystal, requiring extensive listening in and surveillance.

Please respond to this comment after conferring among yourselves about how Richard and Bastien will approach these two tasks, as well as with details around their undercover identities, or with further questions you may have to inform your decisions. We will respond with further information (or answers), at which point we can decide what parts of this you wish to RP.