MOD POST ↠ Arlathan Forest Sign-Ups & Information

[faderifting]

SIGN UPS & INFO: ARLATHAN FOREST

For our mod plot this month, Riftwatch will be going to Arlathan Forest! They'll specifically be going to prevent the Venatori from seizing control of another Gate, but there will be opportunity and cause for individuals from every division to participate, regardless of how competent they are with traversing the wilderness or investigating Gates.

This adventure will involve a few parts:

↠ An OPEN LOG with choose-your-own-forest adventures, including camping miserably, combating Venatori and forest monsters, and delving into ruins to search for clues. This will be enough of an emergency that even people who aren't great with the outdoors will be needed. Riftwatch will be maintaining an underground base camp in a sunken part of the ruins of Arlathan, accessible by eluvian, so anyone who can't justify being away from the Gallows for weeks of camping at a time can still visit to check in on things or help out for a shorter period of time and wind up pulled into adventures.

↠ Two closed, capped ELF PLOTS to deal with two different kinds of elves: Dalish and Ancient. Each of these plots will be limited to four characters each.

• Dealing with the DALISH CLAN will require doing them a favor. Specifically, they'll need to stop some nearby humans from hunting halla, by a method of the group's choosing, without implicating the elves in whatever they do. This will have a minimum tag count for success, so please don't sign up if you won't be around in the first few weeks of September.


• Dealing with the ANCIENT ELVES will be a more traditional diplomatic endeavor, to talk to them and try to get information out of them. This will be NPC'd to a limited extent; we'll have a non-linear thread where each participant can ask one question (or make a statement, if they'd prefer) and one follow-up to their own or another person's question/statement. (We may allow more if it seems necessary to get the relevant information, but two is all we can promise in advance.) Participants can also mingle or talk to non-mod-controlled NPCs. Preference will be given to Diplomacy Division characters for two of the four slots.

↠ One closed but uncapped PUZZLES PLOT where characters will be divided into groups that must make their way through some obstacles and trials to reach their goal. (The puzzles will be IC only, not things players have to OOCly solve.) Participating in this plot will result in some degree of permanent alteration to your character, on the scale of losing a particular subset of memories or a skill or a few fingers. You'll have OOC control over what those alterations are, within given parameters. But if the general prospect bothers you, you can opt out by not signing up.

HOW TO SIGN UP

Sign ups for the two elf plots and puzzles plot are in the comments below.

The puzzle plot will be done in teams of up to six characters. When you sign up, you can do so individually or with preselected groups of two to six characters. We'll combine any individual sign-ups and groups with fewer than six characters into larger groups.

Sign up by the end of the day US Eastern time on August 30, 2022 so we can get the posts up on August 31 and still call this an August plot. :)

MORE PUZZLE INFO

Some additional info on the puzzle plot to aid brainstorming, team decisions, hopefully motivate sign-ups, and so forth. Without spoiling precisely what's going to happen in the plot, we can tell you that:

• IC, the final stage of their journey will involve characters being required to collectively offer up a sacrifice. How each group approaches this collective sacrifice will be up to them, and their decision will impact the individual sacrifices demanded of them.
  
  
• We hope it will be fun regardless, given the continuing close quarters ties between all of Riftwatch, but we chose not to totally randomize sign-ups because we think people may benefit from having characters with prior relationships (of any kind) present during the plot when they have to discuss the sacrifice aspects. Not that you couldn't use it to get entirely new CR! You just may get more mileage out of it with pre-existing relationships.
  
  
• ICly, characters will be given very narrow options to choose between when determining a sacrifice, or may have one forced on them with no choice at all, so when thinking up options don't worry too much about whether your character would ever personally choose to give up X Y or Z. Players will decide the specific sacrifice(s) offered to or taken from their characters, so you can rig it to ensure the sacrifice you want them to make is the most palatable option they're given. Example: if it would be most appealing for you OOC for your character to lose the ability to speak Tevinter, but they'd never volunteer to do that, you could make their second choice be losing an eye so suddenly having to relearn their native tongue doesn't sound so bad after all.
  
  
• Like we said above, even at their most severe we're not going to require everyone to have their character sacrifice a limb or have total amnesia or anything like that, and not all sacrifices will necessarily be permanent. The severity of the sacrifices required will also scale a bit depending on how characters handle the collective sacrifice. But in general, and to expand on the vague examples we provided above, some potential sacrifices include:
  
  • Loss of a sense (or partial loss, for sight/hearing)
    
  • Loss of a skill (e.g. picking locks, playing an instrument, a type of magic)
    
  • Loss of some category of knowledge (e.g., a language, the history of Orlais)
    
  • Loss of the ability to enjoy a favorite food or song or hobby
    
  • Loss of the ability to lie about or to talk about certain topics at all
    
  • Loss of a specific memory or category of memories (e.g., all memories of their mother, the memory of their wedding day, the memory on which their trust in a particular person is based)
    
  • The loss of a secret via the sharing of a specific memory with everyone else in the group (e.g., the memory of a terrible crime they secretly committed)
    
  • Loss of fingers, toes, ears, the ability to grow hair or facial hair, etc.
• This is not meant to be an exhaustive list! Other types of sacrifices may be accepted if they're on roughly the same level of impact. These are just examples of the style and degree of sacrifice we're going to be looking for and some ideas to start from.
  
  
• The OOC goal is to give people a way to shake up their characters/CR or provide longer-term challenges to RP about, so sacrifices will be required to be things that your character would actually consider a personal sacrifice. For instance, they will not be able to game the system by giving up a memory that they consider trivial or that they hate and would love to have wiped from their head. And while some of the sacrifices may be recoverable (for instance, skills or knowledge could be re-learned), they should be things that it would take significant time and effort to regain and that it would be a hassle for your character to no longer be able to do in the meantime. (We may make it possible to recover things like lost memories in the future, but we make no guarantees. Any lost body parts will be permanent.)
  
  
• Unlike the Dalish plot, the Puzzle plot will not be a time-sensitive one. The sacrifices will be the conditions for plot success and if we tack on any "10 tags per team by X date" type goals they'll be purely of the "Riftwatch gets some bonus loot" stretch goal variety.
  
  
  
  PUZZLE ROLLS & REWARDS
  
  As an optional flavor-adding mechanic, we've rolled dice for each team member for each puzzle. This idea is to give people a general sense of how things went as they progressed through the temple trying to solve the various puzzles, so that you can have a sense of what the mood and dynamics might be by the time they arrive at the end without having to RP out everything that came before. This isn't to suggest that you can't RP out anything that comes first! But the key bit is at the end and we thought it might be easier to leap ahead to that if we gave you a way to handwave what came earlier with a bit more detail.
  
  The numbers aren't intended to indicate a character's skill at solving any particular type of puzzle, that's why we haven't asked you for any sort of stats or modifiers. They're just meant to suggest a level of helpful contribution, which may be intentional or accidental or, most likely, a combination of the two. A high score could mean a brilliant deduction or literally stumbling over a clue, and a low one could be caused by getting distracted by a wild animal attack, or misinterpreting a mosaic, or anywhere in between.
  
  A score of 3 or less, we'd suggest, indicates that your character has been injured in some way or has caused someone else on the team to be injured. Again, how this happens and how much of it is your character's own fault is up to you, as is the kind or severity of their injury. (We haven't used these as modifiers on later rolls, but if you want to say an injury is why they were no help at all on a puzzle they'd normally be good at, you're welcome to. You could also just as easily say that sitting down nursing a broken arm they were at an angle to spot some key clue later on.)
  
  The idea is to provide a framework to either montage through some earlier stuff or OOCly hash out what the team dynamics were through the rest of the trials in order to inform the RP about the sacrifices, since if somebody has had a day of terrible luck or great success it might influence how they approach those issues. If this isn't fun or helpful in that way, you can feel free to ignore any or all of it.
  
  
  
  If, in addition to RPing about the sacrifices, any characters on your team also have a log of 10+ tags about one of the preceding puzzles, then everyone involved in that thread will get to pick a magical artifact to have found along their way through the temple. Options include:
  
  
  • Magic boots that allow the wearer to jump 20 feet high in a single bound.
    
  • Enchanted ring that will turn any weapon they use into a fire or ice or lightning weapon
    
  • A pendant that causes wild animals of a particular family (canines, felines, etc.) to decide not to attack them. (But not necessarily be friends with them, definitely not understand or listen to them. Just not attack.)
  
  ... or propose your own artifact with a similar (or lesser) power level and single-purpose utility. It's a free Enchanted Item with no AC reward point requirement. You can claim yours here.

Comments

Questions

[faderifting]

[charmoffensive]

re getting hurt/maimed during puzzles—

where it isn't obviously apparent as to HOW harm happens, what should we/can we assume about the dangers involved? bear falls out of skylight, etc

[faderifting]

You can go as wild as you want—bears from skylights (or surprise caves, they live here, etc.) works for us! The temple is also very old and might have parts that collapse or crumble at inopportune times, parts that are unexpectedly jagged and sharp, etc. Or people can trip over each other and twist their ankles.

ancient elf plot thread

[ipseite]

hello mods, we just wanted to check in re: what the goal is for this thread? is there anything they've been particularly tasked with finding out from these elves or a specific angle that riftwatch is coming at or is it more of an opportunistic well there are elves there, ask them about gates? we're going to go back over what they know about solas/fen'harel from previous plots for That Guy, but just wanted to check what the party line is re: abelas and co.

[faderifting]

Hi! Sorry for not spelling it out better in the write-up.

Going in, the primary goal would be soft diplomacy—these are elves Riftwatch/the Inquisition has dealt with and helped before, before they vanished, so trying to strengthen that in the direction of a relationship where they could ask for cooperation in the future would be the primary goal, more important than pressing them to disclose anything in particular. The elves are the ones seeking Riftwatch out and extending the invitation so going in there's also an element of, like, maybe they want something?

But the Ambassador would also relay that given the opportunity, politely finding out what they know about Gates (if anything) and the enemy presence in the area would be good, as would finding out if they know anything about the orb Corypheus uses and whether there are more of them, whether they know anything more about the nature of Corypheus himself now that they've been out of their secluded temple for a little while, and what they have generally been up to—as a basis for figuring out whether they might be potential allies or are truly committed to Elf Shit Only—would all be little bonus priorities.

[grindset]

quickie: is there/can there be some kind of reset mechanism for the June-Sylaise puzzle knot?

[faderifting]

Sure! Throw it hard enough at the wall in frustration and it will automatically reset itself.




That is a joke. Setting it back in its original location and leaving it alone for a few seconds can do it, or if you want to come up with something else for the thread feel free.

[grindset]

time for the little guy to HULK OUT

thank you kindly!!

[delphian]

If Tsenka dreamwalks in the fade here in Arlathan (because she's definitely doing that), is there anything elf-y and relevant she could acquire via those means of seeing spirits echoing the olden times in particular or should I just stick with vague "yeah she saw some sick old timey elf stuff, none of it made a lot of sense tho, probably missing a lot of cultural context"?

(I'm good either way!)

Elf Plots Sign-Ups

[faderifting]

If you want to potentially sign up with more than one character for more than one possible plot, please put your sign-ups in a single comment in order of your preference. We'll RNG by player and give everyone their first available choice.

<b>Player:</b> <b>Character:</b> <b>Plot:</b> (Dalish or Ancient) <b>Division:</b>

[rowancrowned]

Player: Katherine
Character: Thranduil
Plot: Dalish
Division: Research

[muckspout]

Player: Lana
Character: Edgard
Plot: Dalish
Division: Forces but maybe tbd

[deuselfmachina]

Player: Brooklyn
Character: Florent Vascarelle
Plot: Ancient
Division: Diplomacy

Re: Elf Plots Sign-Ups

[ipseite]

Player: Libbitha
Character: Mme de Cedoux
Plot: Ancient
Division: Diplomacy

[lumelume]

Player: Cami
Character: Mado
Plot: Dalish
Division: Scouting

[hornswoggle]

Player: eppy
Character: John Silver
Plot: Ancient
Division: Diplomacy

Puzzle Plot Sign-Ups

[faderifting]

You can sign up a single character if you want fate to take the wheel, or you can sign up groups of 2-6 characters to participate as a team.

<b>Player(s):</b> <b>Character(s):</b>

[indissection]

Player(s): Rachel
Character(s): Sidony Venaras

[muckspout]

Player: Lana
Character: Edgard

[fairforce]

Player(s): cee!
Character(s): Tiffany Hart

[dastardly]

Player(s): Koke
Character(s): Josias di Jaconissa

[favoriteanalyst]

Player(s): Shawna
Character(s): Mobius

Puzzle Reward Claim

[faderifting]

If you have a puzzle log that's reached 10 tags total, you can claim your reward here. If you request something of your own invention and it's too powerful for what we have in mind, we'll give you some proposed nerfs or alternatives.

<b>Player:</b> <b>Character:</b> <b>Log Link:</b> <b>Requested Item:</b>

[elegiaque]

Player: Libby
Character: Gwenaëlle
Log Link: here
Requested Item: A monocle that zooms in for up to sixty seconds at a time, up to five hundred feet away. Can't see through anything or around any corners, just focuses in on what the viewer is trying to get a look at directly across great distances.

[charmoffensive]

Player: Brooklyn
Character: Loxley
Log Link: shablam
Requested Item: A belt of returning. Carries two sheaths. When daggers of any kind are placed in these sheathes and then taken out and thrown with intent to attack, the daggers will return back to their sheaths afterwards.

[luaithre]

Player: Brooklyn
Character: Marcus
Log Link: shablam
Requested Item: Enchanted ring that turns any weapon he uses into an ice weapon.

[favoriteanalyst]

Player: Shawna
Character: Mobius
Log Link: thanks marcus
Requested Item: A bracelet that dampens all sounds the wearer makes, including speech, worn armor, and sounds made by items they are holding.

[youwonscience]

Player: Ammmy
Character: Cosima
Log Link: yonder
Requested Item: The thread above is also the explanation for why she'd like the pendant of animals not attacking you keyed to bears please.

[grindset]

Player: a ghost
Character: Viktor
Log Link: worst puzzle
Requested Item: One tarnished brass bell on a string, enchanted by an elvhen apprentice of yore to provide a little boost to its bearer's stamina and regeneration thereof. (She made it to study for elf finals.)