MOD POST ↠ September Event

[faderifting]

PLOT: THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR

For our next event, we'll be looking northeast—all the way off the continent, when reports of suspicious activity on a small island far off the coast of Rivain will coincide with Solas' prediction that the next group of rifters will appear nearby. Hoping to kill both birds with one stone, Inquisition members will sail out on two Inquisition ships to investigate.

PART ONE: RIFTERS & RED SERPENTS

In the first open log, participating characters will sail from Kirkwall into the Amaranthine Ocean and locate a small tropical island west of Llomerryn. The journey will be largely uneventful, other than some choppy seas, but after arriving they'll find a contingent of Qunari from Par Vollen already present to investigate the same rumors. The Qunari won't be hostile, but they will be wary, and the couple who speak Common will be disinterested in small talk.

The Inquisition team will have only a few hours to orient themselves before the predicted rift splits open and drops our new arrivals—right into the middle of the island's bay. Rowing out to retrieve them will initially look straightforward—other than the fact that being wet seems to make the demons a little angrier than usual—but the situation will be complicated when the fighting and thrashing attracts something entirely new. If you've ever wondered what might happen if you crossed a Red Lyrium Behemoth with sea serpents and octopi, then it will be your lucky day! It will not be your character's lucky day, however, as the presence of corrupted monsters in the bay will leave the Inquisition temporarily stranded on the island.

In this log, potential activities include:

Sailing for adventure on the big blue wet thing.

Sailing for adventure in a scary storm.

Beach camping.

Trying not to give the Qunari the impression that the South needs an intervention.

Rescuing our new rifters from demons and red lyrium sea monsters.

Recuperating, healing, and assessing the situation afterwards.

Hunting for the source of the red lyrium sea monsters

PART TWO: RUINS & RUM

The second open log will focus on exploring the island, escaping it, and then making port in Llomerryn for repairs and supplies before heading home.

Due to the continued presence of monsters lurking hungrily in the bay, leaving the island won't immediately be feasible. Some characters will be put to task finding a way around this obstacle, while others will need to take advantage of the time they have to search the island, all while preferably while avoiding too much attention from Qunari, who might want to stake a claim to anything that's found if they get there first. Scouting parties will be able to discover ancient ruins—some will be oddly elven, but also the site of a more recent human settlement.

After a week stranded on the island, the Qunari, whose own ship is conveniently anchored on the other side of the island, will offer to assist the Inquisition in making it past the monsters in exchange for a full report on their findings there. Making it out of the bay will result in some damage to the ships, however, and between that and depleted supplies, the Inquisition team will need to detour to Llomerryn to recuperate.

In this log, potential activities will include:

Hacking through jungle, maybe finding monkeys.

Exploring ancient elven ruins as well as the site of a more recent settlement, both mysterious.

Seeing gatlok in action.

Exploring Llomerryn, including its black markets, and possibly starting tavern fights with pirates. Or making friends. Or both at the same time.

RECOMMENDED PLAYER PLOTS

Over the course of the event there will be several unanswered questions or more in-depth plot threads that are available for players to take on and lead as miniature player plots or closed logs with their CR. We'll provide about a paragraph's worth of information about the parameters and what characters will be able to find or accomplish, but the rest will be up to you. Your options include:

Discovering the source of the red lyrium infecting the sea creatures.

Making the bargain with the Qunari for their assistance (and deciding how much to actually tell them).

Finding the artifact that drew attention to the island in the first place.

Making an alliance with a pirate armada in Llomerryn.

If you're interested in taking on one of these things, comment here to let us know before midnight on SEPTEMBER 15. If more than one person wants something, we'll RNG. And if you have an idea for your own plot-within-the-event, you're more than welcome to drop it onto the plot request page.

SCHEDULING & NOTES

IC, this event will be forward dated to begin on Kingsway 20, and characters who go along can expect to return to Kirkwall by mid-Harvestmere. OOC, the first part will be posted as soon as rifter apps are all processed—so most likely tomorrow or Saturday—and the second part will be posted on September 22.

You're welcome and encouraged to use this post to post plotting comments and make plans.

And a final note: we strongly encourage people who want to participate but don't have a good reason for their characters to go along to just make one up. Maybe they're needed for manual labor. Maybe their boss thought they looked like sea air would be good for them. Maybe they were helping load supplies and a hammock looked really comfortable and they woke up at sea. Maybe their boss just wanted them out of the way for a while. Don't stress about it. It's cool.

Comments

[faderifting]

As the Inquisition explores the elven ruins at the top of the peak, your character--and whoever you'd like to bring along—will be the one to discover an overgrown, half-collapsed passage to an underground chamber beneath the surface of the ruins. The walls of the chamber will have been carved out in the same style as the elven ruins above, made largely of obsidian and threaded through with very thin strands of what appears to be lyrium. It's not enough to be dangerous, but enough to make the whole area glow faintly blue.

Other than that, the most immediately noticeable thing will be the fact that this chamber is already occupied by a demon/spirit. The spirit will have a humanoid form that seems to shift, slowly, to take on different faces and forms over time, and it will be able to speak in full sentences—a strong indicator of how thin the Veil is here. It will introduce itself as Reminiscence. It will not be violent or attack unprovoked; if allowed to ask questions it will ask the characters where they are from and what it's like there, and if asked about the ruins or the people who previously lived there it will say that they were a long way from home and could never return. The spirit/demon does not have to be killed to explore the remainder of the chamber, as it will stand aside and allow characters to pass, but destroying it will break the hold the ruins may have on characters bewitched by the ruins above and make them safer to explore.

The second notable feature in the chamber is the floor, a massive mosaic. Examining the segments that are intact will show coastlines and mountains and, ultimately, a massive map of Thedas. Large sections will have been destroyed; most of the southern half crumbled, Nevarra and Tevinter patchy and missing tiles, and missing spots elsewhere. But the map will be crisscrossed by dozens of deliberately designed lines in green tiling, thin at their ends and thicker in their middles, some curving gently and others straight. They cross one another in many places, including two that cross at their thickest points directly over the spot on the map that corresponds to the island.

The third notable feature is the shattered remains of an Eluvian. Not all of the pieces can be found, but those that are found can be taken back to Kirkwall.

You can play this in an open log for anyone who wants to tag into, you can do it with just your CR, you can ask for volunteers on the OOC comm, or whatever else you'd like to do, as long as it is RPed in some form. You can add elements as you see fit—extra obstacles, wildlife that needs to be fought off, etc.—but anything that may have wider plot implications must be cleared with us in advance. IC, it should occur on Harvestmere 5 and can OOCly be forward-dated or backdated as needed. You should file a report to the appropriate project leader (Elven Artifacts, with maybe a word to the Rifts and the Veil project as well) as soon as possible but no later than October 31.