faderiftooc | ACTIVITY CHECK: July

ACTIVITY CHECK

This activity check is for JULY–SEPTEMBER 2024. The deadline to reply is OCTOBER 15. You can review prior AC posts here if needed.

To pass AC you should provide a brief recap of what your character has been up to with at least three RP links per character for the relevant time period. These links can be to posts you created, log threads, rookery/crystal threads, inbox threads, or open top-levels within plot posts. You must also link to reports for any war table assignment your character completed during this period. You can do this in the body of your AC comment by sticking "(report)" after your mention of the mission. If you haven't put up a report yet, now is the time to do it.

You can use multiple threads from within the same post, such as three different logs branching from the same open prompt. You can use threads that started prior to the beginning of AC period as long as a substantial portion of tags occurred during this AC period and you didn't already use that thread as proof for a previous AC period. There is no minimum tag count per thread. (But if you're consistently providing only threads you dropped after a couple of tags, last-minute open posts you don't tag after making AC, etc., we may contact you about that.)

RECAPS

Along with your links, you're providing a quick recap of what your character has been up to. The goal for this is to help everyone keep track of what's been happening, both with their own characters and with everyone else's. Riftwatch is a small enough organization that people are probably going to be aware of what everyone else is working on and any obvious interpersonal drama, so this is our OOC cheat sheet!

Recaps can be very brief. E.g., "Over the last three months, Paul went to Tevinter to assassinate a magister (report), had a fight with his best friend Joe, and learned how to use a crossbow." But you're also welcome to include more detail if you want, as long as you keep it to a couple of paragraphs max.

You can—as always—handwave interpersonal interactions with other characters and note those in your recap if you want a record of them. "Paul has continued to avoid Joe since their fight" with no thread showcasing the avoidance, for example. You could also handwave the whole fight! We don't care.

For work- and plot-related recap claims, however, you can only handwave your character's daily performance of their routine work. In between the more significant things you thread, we assume all characters are doing the Typical Work listed on their division wiki page. So you could say "Paul has been diligent about his work for the Diplomacy Division and met with a few minor nobles visiting Kirkwall to talk up Riftwatch," or "Paul has been distracted and struggling with his work for the Forces Division and stumbled through his routine patrols," etc., without proving that in a thread. No one has to RP paperwork or its equivalent.

What you can't purely handwave is anything significant or cool enough that other people would need to remember that it actually happened for future plot purposes—we'd define this as anything for which we normally require a plot request or a report, which we've previously provided some guidance on where those lines are here—or anything that's a significant achievement for your character rather than just daily grind stuff. Basically: if you want your character to do anything cooler than competently attending to their routine work, you've gotta RP about it somehow. That can mean RPing the actual event, or it can mean RPing discussion or planning or fallout around the event–but you have to RP something about it!

SPECIFIC CHARACTER SITUATIONS

NEW CHARACTERS: Characters who were apped during this AC period need to provide one link for each full month they were in the game. For example, for the AC period of January through March, a character apped in January would need two proofs because they were in the game for the full months of February and March (but it doesn't matter which month the two links were started in), a character apped in February would need one, and a character apped in March wouldn't need any links. Obviously you're welcome to include as many links as you have/want.

IC LEADERS: You're required to provide proof of your character using their job in some way. This can be a war table assignment or player plot, if you chose to run one. But it can also just mean making sure that one of your AC proof links includes your character performing their job duties. E.g., the Head Archivist could link to a crystal announcement asking people to please stop dog-earing the books, a log in which they're reorganizing the library, or an inbox thread where they hound a specific person to stop hoarding library books in their bedroom. This requirement doesn't apply to characters who are new to their jobs as of the current quarter.

BACKGROUND CHARACTERS: Everyone has to provide the required three links for at least one character every AC period. But if you play multiple characters, then each period you can choose up to two to mark as background characters. You can rotate which characters you designate as background each AC period if you want, though characters with leadership roles of any kind cannot be backgrounded. You still need to provide a brief, vague-as-you'd-like recap of what they're doing in the background, so everyone else knows whether they're in the Gallows doing their work or on an assignment abroad or whatever else, but you don't have to provide any links.

VOICE TEST CHARACTERS: You are not required to do AC for voice test characters until the deadline for them becoming real characters has passed, but you can fill out the form for them anyway if you want to have a record of what they've done for future reference.

STRIKES

Failing to respond to AC at all will result in the character being swept.

If you fail to post any links at all for a character who isn't backgrounded, you'll have to drop them. If you post more than zero but fewer than three, you'll get a strike but can try again next quarter. If you fail to meet the three-link-per-character requirement for two quarters in a row you'll be required to drop as many characters as you failed with. This does technically mean that you could drag your feet for up to six months before dropping a character you've only written a single tag for in that time. We ask that you be kind to your CR and not do that. Again, if you seem to be abusing the system, we'll contact you to talk about it.

FORMS

Please post AC for all of your characters in a single comment! You only need to include the Player field once if you have multiple characters.

MOST CHARACTERS

NEW CHARACTERS

LEADER CHARACTERS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Player: Ammmy

Character: Cosima Niehaus
Leadership Proof: She would not have guessed that being a Div head involves so much curing Riftwatch agents of alarming, potentially dangerous curses/ailments/etc.
Recap & Links:
Cosima tried to help the new Div head settle in as the org rebuilds. She also got called in to help with a breakthrough that had some collateral damage in Kirkwall proper and stepped in to reassure a new rifter who rubbed some the wrong way. The hits kept coming as she and Stephen teamed up to help cure Tav (see leadership proof), winning his gratitude. She was delighted that new arrivals just keep taking initiative, what a delight. Cosima's also practicing accepting help when she can, and doing her best to keep morale up.

Oh yeah, and she's still dealing with her ex-fiancée's return and it's going pretty good, all things considered.

Character: Julius
Leadership Proof: making the rounds
Recap & Links:
Kicking off the quarter with the news that the pirates had, in fact, stolen their shit was not the most cheerful note; nor was having to put his hand up as opposing war crimes. Herian's return was more of a mixed bag re his reaction, though not letting her get conned by Lazar seemed the least he could do. He also got an unexpected call from a Templar that led him to help a new arrival with a magical problem. He genuinely likes Ness, which made it complicated when she admitted to being able to do telepathy, even if it's not actually blood magic in the sense of using blood. (It's fine, he'll cope.) Meanwhile, he, Marcus and Petrana are contemplating getting a place in town and he's trying to reestablish routines with his direct reports (see leadership proof).

Character: Siegfried Farnon
Background: N
Recap & Links:
Siegfried established a connection with the new Griffon Keeper, got yet another exotic animal query, and attempted renovations at the Blasted Hills hunting lodge.

Character: Vanya Orlov
Background: N
Recap & Links:
Vanya congratulated Gwenaëlle on her new position and agreed to teach her Nevarran. He also, with gentle prodding, decided discretion was the better part of valor and abandoned his assigned room to move in with Cedric (and Mobius). During the mod plot, he provided escort services to Nevarra for both Strange and Ness which honestly, given how his year has been going, went totally fine. All the demons happened off-screen this time. At any rate, it went well enough for Ness to become his second language student.

ACTIVITY CHECK: July–September 2024

Ammmy