MOD POST ↠ JANUARY UPDATES

[faderifting]

UPDATES: JANUARY

ORGANIZATIONAL/OOC UPDATES

OOC Calendar

We have a new calendar for 2017/9:43! Please refer to it for IC and OOC dates.

Application Caps

Since the demand for canon slots has slowed, we're adjusting our companion/advisor character cap. Players may now have two companion/advisor characters, as long as those characters aren't from the same game.

Our other application limits remain in place.

New AC Reward: Griffon Rider

We're not sure how fast griffons mature, but we're going to say it's fast enough that they're now large enough to carry riders. Beginning in February, becoming a griffon rider will be an AC reward.

The griffons themselves will not be AC rewards. They bond with riders, but for FR purposes we're going to say they don't bond with just one rider. This is because there are only twelve of them available to ride—thirteen in total, but Buttons is missing a wing—and we don't want to limit this to only twelve characters or take griffons out of commission if someone claims a griffon and then drops the game.

So what we'll be doing instead is allowing up to three characters to earn the trust of any one griffon, allowing them to take turns or ride as a team. Your AC reward purchase will get your character trained to ride the griffon of your choice and make them one of that griffon's three favorite people in the world. They just won't individually "own" a griffon. Technically the Wardens own them.

We'll be considering Griffon Rider to be a Specialization under the rewards system, so it will require 40 points from characters without any specialization and 80 from those who already have one.

PLOT UPDATES

Guardian Plot: The Darkest Timeline

Our plot for the month of February will be a DARK FUTURE, in the style of In Hushed Whispers, because that quest was rad and it's a shame we had to skip it in FR.

A team of up to ten characters will be thrown forward five years into the future, when the Inquisition has been reduced to a ragtag (but badass) resistance group and nearly all of Thedas has fallen to Corypheus. Assuming they all survive and make it back to the present, they'll bring back vital intel to help stop Corypheus' rise. The time mishap will happen during a quest to investigate weird magic shit, so researchers and nerds are encouraged to apply along with the more battle-oriented sorts.

Characters who are not on the time-displaced team can participate as future versions of themselves. The remnants of the Inquisition will be getting by with guerrilla warfare, infiltration and sabotage, etc. Or maybe they're in jail. Or maybe they switched sides to survive. You'll be able to make your own dystopian adventure and/or assist in clearing a path and returning the time travelers to their correct time. The effort to return them home will be assisted by Future Dorian Pavus, whose player originally proposed all of this as a player plot and then let us steal it.

Currently we're providing this limited amount of information about the plot to help you decide whether or not you want to sign up for the time traveler team. You can't do both time travel and future AUs with the same character! As in the video game, the time travelers will have disappeared—from the perspective of the future AU characters—five years prior.

We'll announce the time travel team and post an OOC plotting post on January 25. The plotting post will include a timeline for the skipped five years and State Of The Future World, some specifics on the plot to get the time travelers home, and space to ask questions and have any major ideas mod-approved in advance. Thinking broadly about whether you want to kill characters off or how you want your CR to have developed in those five years is cool, but please don't plan anything in too much detail prior to January 25. We don't want to dash your dreams with our timeline.

The event itself will kick off on February 1. It will be forward-dated: the team will actually be disappearing and returning on Guardian 30. During the month you can also continue to play in the present-day timeline, and we'll have our usual rifter arrival log and a couple of war table operations available as well.

Winter Palace Reminder

January 25 is also the cut-off for tags in the Winter Palace post to count toward the outcome of the Orlesian Civil War! We'll include the outcome of that event in the January 25 post.

Miscellaneous

As always, we close with some reminders for players new and old:

Please remember to submit a report after your player plot is completed! They help everyone keep track of what's been going on without having to read every log, and help us make sure player plots have impact on the bigger picture. These are now required in order to claim AC reward points for running the plot.

We also have a page for IC news and gossip, a Wanted page, which is currently taking the place of ATP and also allows players to offer up NPCs they've created from their character's background or from around Skyhold for others to app.

We've created a spreadsheet for Character Residences, so you can see where everyone is living and let people know where to find your characters.

And, lastly, you're all awesome, and thank you for making this fun.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[faderifting]

Put 'em here.

TIME TRAVELER SIGN UPS

[faderifting]

Fill out the form and reply to this comment to sign up for the time traveler team. The characters chosen will be sent out to investigate weird magic-related events in a dangerous area, so both researcher types and muscle types are needed. Sign-ups will close at 11:59 PM EST on January 24, and we'll name participants in the plotting post on January 25.

We'll only allow one character on the team per player, but if you have multiple characters you'd be happy to send, you can sign them all up and we'll choose the one that is best for diversifying the group. We won't be choosing this team via pure RNG; we want to make sure there's a diversity of skills and CR, and if all other things are equal we'll prioritize people who haven't been able to participate in plots in the past.

<b>CHARACTER NAME:</b> <b>CLASS & SPECIALIZATION:</b> <b>OTHER SKILLS:</b> <b>NOTES:</b>

[ombranera]

CHARACTER NAME: Zevran Arainai
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rogue, Assassin
OTHER SKILLS: Picker of Locks, slayer of men, Master of Stealth, singer of songs, dabbles in artistry, etc.
NOTES: Angry dad gonna angry dad

[aceso]

CHARACTER NAME: Christine Delacroix
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Mage, Spirit Healer and Knight-Enchanter
OTHER SKILLS: Red lyrium researcher
NOTES: Christine refuses to be assigned to missions if Anders is a part of the team. If by chance both Anders and Christine are picked, you can drop her out. I'm sorry she's so difficult. ;_;

[sulena]

CHARACTER NAME: Saoirse Ceallach
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Mage, Bard
OTHER SKILLS: Good at sneaking around, gathering information and befriending everyone that makes eye contact with her.
NOTES: Sings a bunch of sad songs about the sad future.

[limier]

CHARACTER NAME: Luwenna Coupe
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Templar
OTHER SKILLS: Convenient meatshield, living red lyrium geiger counter, knows how to make salami.
NOTES: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks for the chance!

[doneisdone]

CHARACTER NAME: Teren von Skraedder
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: assholeWarden, dual-wield rogue
OTHER SKILLS: sewing, being bossy, subterfuge
NOTES: shes mean

[wontforgetyou]

CHARACTER NAME: Jamie McCrimmon
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Fighter, Rifter
OTHER SKILLS: Shooty pain-lasers, yelling really loudly when attacking, sneaking down corridors when not, piper, looks good in a kilt...and oh yeah, experienced time traveller.
NOTES: Okay, so the time traveller part isn't going to come along with a convenient TARDIS or anything, but at least he won't be all that surprised when it happens. It's a start!

[in_death_sacrifice]

CHARACTER NAME: Kain Ventfort
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Warden, Warrior/Reaver
OTHER SKILLS: He has that whole warrior mentality going for him. He's knowledgeable about dragons and all things related. Also given his affinity and specialization, drinking blood apparently??
NOTES: Time travel, YAY!!

[el_tybs]

CHARACTER NAME: Samouel Gareth
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Mage, Spirit Healer/Shapeshifter
OTHER SKILLS: Blacksmith, can lift, nice smile, can reach the top shelf
NOTES:

[gatheringstorm]

CHARACTER NAME: Korrin Ataash
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Mage/Knight-Enchanter/Rift Mage
OTHER SKILLS: Nuggalope rider, pretty good with grenades, keen sense of direction and some basic first aid/survival knowledge
NOTES: I took Inessa out of the running, so do what you will.

[bookish_lioness]

CHARACTER NAME: Hermione Granger
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rifter mage-type person
OTHER SKILLS: Nerdiest of the nerds
NOTES: Traveling through time without being the one to steer the Time-Turner/TARDIS/DeLorean is going to give her anxiety issues, jsyk

[extramural]

CHARACTER NAME: The Outsider
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: OP Shithead Magey thing with a sword. Rifter.
OTHER SKILLS: Good at swording, magically unlocking locks, scouting, and being all-around creepy.
NOTES: Also has some experience with time magicy things similar to "oops we broke the Fade" -- in his case, "oops we broke the Void".

[justice_is_blond]

CHARACTER NAME: Anders
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Actual Spirit Healer Again Woo
OTHER SKILLS: Good with staff, improvising, able to explode his way into a fortress should the group need
NOTES: Wheeeee

[not_the_question]

CHARACTER NAME: The Doctor
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rifter (Whatever the hell he wants, he's 'The Doctor')/Time Traveller
OTHER SKILLS: Fighting, brains, research, academics, inventor, occasional idiot (What? it's a skill, you never specified they had to be helpful)
NOTES: Not sure anyone else can say they have billions of years of experience in time travel, so you know, if you want to leave the expert behind, that's just fine. He won't be angry and bitter or anything (except he totally will be those things!)

[youwonscience]

CHARACTER NAME: Cosima Niehaus
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rifter scientist/nerd
OTHER SKILLS: Observant, methodical, cute (?)
NOTES: She literally just volunteered to help the Inquisition with research projects, and she pinky swears not to lose her glasses and/or get abducted on her second field mission.

Re: QUESTIONS

[mythalenaste]

If deliberate plotting and possibly most serendipitious coincidence were to happen and my character were to have died in this dark future, would it be okay to play instead her four-year-old child who survived and was raised by another PC (namely one Cyril Ashara)? Or would Pel have had to survive for me to play the tot as an NPC attached to her?

Re: QUESTIONS

[faderifting]

You can play NPC characters in plots, as a general rule, with the equally general caveat that we as mods have the authority to do things like swoop in and kill them off without your permission, as opposed to PCs. We probably won't! But we could.

[thehiddenking]

CHARACTER NAME: Thingol
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rifter King/Warrior Type?
OTHER SKILLS: Stealth, heightened energy/longevity (when compared to a normal human), a fine leader (with a commanding voice) and he is well-acquainted with herbs and the like in the forest, at least, if minor healing is needed. (I assume he will be able to find plants and the like that look like those on Arda. If not then ignore that last bit!)
NOTES: He wants to do things. All the things.

[conqueredhearts]

CHARACTER NAME: Iskandar
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rifter/Warrior/Spirit
OTHER SKILLS: Horsemanship, vast combat knowledge, illusion army, ability to go invisible (good for sneaky), able to deliver a force like that of two bulls charging (great for hitting hard), slight teleportation ability, easily able to adapt, magic resistance, rapid healing, very charming/easy to like or love, etc.
NOTES: Naaaaaah. He can fit in where you need him and he's totally flexible.

[qunari]

CHARACTER NAME: The Iron Bull
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Warrior/Reaver
OTHER SKILLS: Qunari spy. Shhh. Don't tell anyone.
NOTES: n/a

[watchesandlistens]

CHARACTER NAME: Corvo Attano
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Rogue
OTHER SKILLS: Can do Void Magic stuff, can sword fight, pretty good at disabling people without killing them, sneaky sneaky, particularly talented at standing around in a brooding and dramatic fashion while not actually doing anything
NOTES: (cups hands over mouth and makes time travel noises)

[obi_wanmanshow]

CHARACTER NAME: Obi-Wan Kenobi
CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Warrior/Jedi, Rifter
OTHER SKILLS: plot-convenient psychic powers, able to survive long falls, mildly precognitive, has a laser sword that cuts through almost anything
NOTES: i understand that the team will be chosen with regards to combat/skills balance, but what about facial hair? asking for a friend