WHO: Open to all Scouting members

WHEN: Sign up by January 10. Reports/logs due by February 28

WHAT: With an eluvian hidden in Minrathous, Scouting has been able to build up a baseline presence in Minrathous over time, sufficient to have identified some key targets that are, in one way or another, both potentially useful and seemingly susceptible to influence. It's on Riftwatch agents to apply that influence. This plot is intended to focus less on the mechanics of how that works (there's no expectation that anyone RP out interactions with an NPC source) and more on the consequences of being asked to get one's hands dirty for the cause.

Anyone who signs up will be asked to OOCly choose one or more morally-dubious actions they'd like their character to have to take (more info below). OOCly, I'll create a short paragraph write-up of what they need to do and to whom, based on your preferences. ICly, they'll be assigned by Yseult a specific target and task. The aim here is not to find a way around doing something questionable, and ICly it will be clear that what they've been asked to do is the best path to achieving the result Scouting needs. The idea is for your character to have to grapple with it—to struggle with having to do something they find difficult or repugnant, or to discover it's easier than they'd expected and wonder what that says about them, or to refuse and deal with the consequences, or to attempt it but fail or balk when the moment comes.

HOW: To say your character participated in this intelligence-gathering effort, you will be required to submit (i) a report detailing their mission, and (ii) one related thread with at least 5* comments from your character by the end of February.

* Maybe there will be some sort of bonus for more tags? Or maybe the bonus is the tags your wrote along the way. Only one way to find out.

Who you RP about this with and in what form will be up to you. This plot won't involve assigned teams or required logs. You're free to RP out some aspect of the mission if you choose, but since it'd mostly involve interacting with NPCs that I'm not going to play for you, you are encouraged to handwave it entirely (you can use the report to detail your character's off-screen spy hijinks) and instead focus on the personal or CR impact to your character. Any log in which your character talks about or reacts to or deals with their mission, either before or after it takes place (or conspicuously refuses to talk about/react to/deal with it, knowing some of these assholes) will count.

Will these be one-off missions or continuing?
Could go either way! If you have a strong preference for one or the other, let me know. We can also discuss that once you get your write-up, if you want.

What if I'd like my character to have to get involved with something I don't think they realistically could do?
Mention it in your sign-up and we can discuss! There may be options, like trying and failing, or getting involved in someone else's mission so they're complicit but less active.

Two of us have an idea we'd like to do together, can we sign up as a pair?
Yes, as long as at least one of your characters is in Scouting and if one is not Scouting that Yseult sending them on this type of mission is reasonably plausible and they wouldn't ICly resist going. You can fill out one form or two, whatever works, just make sure you indicate your plan.

What would happen if they fail? Or if they ICly refuse?
RP opportunities, hopefully! Failure and refusal can both create RP, and neither is going to lead to your character being blackballed from all Scouting missions or becoming the laughingstock of Riftwatch or single-handedly allowing the enemy to kill 1000 people, or whatever. But it will have some degree of negative consequence, whether that's missing out on some intelligence and the benefit it might've offered, losing a source, making Yseult sigh more heavily than usual, etc. Personally I think these things could be fun, but make sure you think so too if you want to go this direction.

What if I/my character come up with an alternative?
Baked into this concept is the understanding that there is no plausible alternative. ICly, the situation has already been thoroughly examined and all other options have been eliminated for various reasons (your character can have been a part of this process, if it make a difference). The only options remaining are to do something shady or to not get the intel. If you'd like to play your character refusing and telling themselves there must've been a better way or there'll be another opportunity in the future, that's fine! And PCs are all free to draw their own lines about what's worth it and what isn't, and to decide how much they trust Yseult or the information she's giving them. That's part of the fun. As long as we're all on the same page OOC that this stuff isn't being ICly assigned cavalierly while ignoring better options.

DEADLINES: Sign ups by end of day JAN 10, report and log by FEB 28.

WHAT: With bad dreams continuing to plague Kirkwall, and with reports revealing an unpredictable area of effect, Riftwatch is ordering an extensive survey in an effort to understand the range and locate the source of the nightmares.

HOW: A mingle log and associated rookery post (for anyone who prefers to text spam their way through adventures rather than logging them) will be posted on Sunday, 10/2. Similar to the A Thousand Wrongs and the The Drifting Roads events, this log will serve of a catch-all space for nightmare research-related exploration that may occur at any time throughout the month. It will include some general set dressing and optional prompts. Get ready for sailing excursions, camping trips, dream diaries, and interviewing npcs!

At the end of this, Riftwatch may not be able to successfully pinpoint the source of the nightmares but then will have a better understanding of the effected area and, just maybe, one another. Maybe the real source of the nightmares is the friends we made along the way! That said, consider that this is mostly an excuse to ICly share bad dreams, get up to some hijinks, and write some self-indulgent side quests under the guise of ICly doing work.

WHO: Anyone and everyone. No sign ups necessary, though there will be an optional side quest/discovery request generator for anyone looking for more specifics.

WHEN: Log and rookery chatter goes up on Sunday, 10/2. A report will be filed on 10/31 (but will be general enough that threads don't have to be finished—or even started—by then).

Riftwatch has received word from an agent in enemy-occupied Hasmal, codenamed Ferdinand, that he's arranged a meeting with a Tevinter defector who has some valuable information. The defector is jumpy and has a narrow window of opportunity, so Riftwatch needs to move fast to meet him. A team will be sent to sneak into Hasmal and meet Ferdinand, who will introduce them to the would-be defector and help him escape and pass along his information. Things will not go quite as planned: on arrival, the team will discover that Ferdinand is no more.

ICly, this mission is aimed at subterfuge and gathering intelligence. OOCly, it's more intended as an opportunity for comedy hijinks, though given the trip to an occupied city there will also be room for some drama if desired. There may be a version of the spreadsheet Ammmy and Abby recently piloted used to suggest and reward said hijinks with useful information/loot. I haven't quite decided about that yet. (If anyone feels strongly one way or the other about the mechanic, feel free to add a note to your sign-up.)

This plot is for roughly 4 PCs, with dibs given to characters who are members of the Scouting Division. Sign-ups will close Tuesday evening, 8/9, with an aim of getting info out by Thursday.

Sign-Up Form

Player:
Character:
Division:
Notes:

WHAT: Knowing that Brother Gideon came to Riftwatch by way of the Chantry in Redcliffe, the decision has been made to chase down further details on his associations and determine whether the threat has been neutralized or if there is lingering danger that will need to be addressed. Teams will be dispatched to search the Redcliffe Chantry for any signs of cult activity.

HOW: A group will be dispatched to present themselves at the Redcliffe Chantry seeking to renew and/or establish a diplomatic relationship with the leaders there. They will be offering assistance with any issues in the area that might be troubling the Redcliffe Chantry or the town itself, as well as attending Chantry services and any other functions being held during their time there. Basically, the goal is to ingratiate and be useful, while using the opportunity to search for any evidence of a cult operating in Redcliffe.

WHOMST: Priority given to members of Project Jeshavis and Project Haven, and to members of Diplomacy Division and Scouting Division. If you would like to participate but aren't a member of either project, you can join at any time by adding your character's name to the relevant project roster. Or you can indicate interest in your sign-up form and MJ and I will do it for you.

HOW: Players will be provided a log with several different scenarios characters will be participating in + information that can be discovered. Everyone will have access to the information that can be found, and it's up to y'all to decide how they go about uncovering the items without creating diplomatic incident and upsetting the Redcliffe Chantry leaders. We'll lay out the places to be searched, and it's up to the characters to decide their approach.

Characters can also make positive Chantry contacts in Redcliffe. If you want your character to make a fun new Chantry friend, make sure you include it in the report for future mischief.

In addition to the log, we'll also be tossing up a rookery post for characters to compare notes long distance or aide each other in creating distractions and facilitating sneakiness. Characters can also report to Bastien and Derrica any findings.

WHEN: Sign-ups close 8/1, a log will go up 8/5.

If requesting NPC services, I'll make myself available to provide them up until 8/27. After that, you're on your own. A report for this assignment must be filed no later than 8/31.

WHAT: The prominent Orlesian writer, Pierre LeMarc, has been recruited by the Diplomacy division to write about the members of Riftwatch. Great! This will do a lot to win hearts/minds/curiosity/etc. However, to adequately write about Riftwatch members, he has to actually know what's going on with them, what their stories are, so on and so forth.

That's where you all come in! You will be assigned the task of interviewing members of Riftwatch to uncover their life stories to send off to LeMarc.

HOW: Members of the Diplomacy division can sign up to be interviewers, while anyone can sign up to be interviewees (but first dibs will give to Diplomacy division members).

For interviewers: You'll be assigned no more than 2 interviewees. You'll thread out an interview with each of them; you'll theoretically be following a pretty standard script, but you can feel free to go off-topic if the thread would warrant it. Interviewers can also sign up to be interviewees.

For interviewees: You'll be paired with an interviewer. If your character wouldn't normally participate, you can say that they were pressured by the division heads (read: Byerly) to do so. Interviewees will be capped at no more than 2x the number of interviewers; if we have more than that, RNG will decide who gets in and who doesn't (with preference given to diplomacy).

WHO: Everyone (but especially diplomacy).

WHEN: Get your sign-ups in by end of day EST, Sunday, July 31. Log will go up the following day.

For the uninitiated, Riftwatch has the jump on when rifts emerge across the Free Marches by way of a network of towers called vanes, which detect Veil fluctuations and send back a ping for agents to go out, collect any rifters that may have fallen out, and close the rift. It's been pretty operational so far.

However, one tower out in the Planasene Forest has been on the blink, sending back signals which die out before someone can go out there to turn it off. There are a number of reasons why this might be the case, and before you suggest it's a trap, don't worry, we sent out some scouts to make sure it's not.

Your mission: find out why the vane is on the fritz, fix it, stay alive.

What we need are:

some nerds who are familiar with rift-detecting

some muscle to protect said nerds

rifters or shard-havers who can close rifts

Not to give the whole game away, but signing up for this plot will involve:

optional miserable swamp camp mingle

killing something

finding some intel that will open up into some implications later down the line.

Sign up below! The log will go up early next week at the latest (because I don't want anyone to miss out on truth soup).

WHAT:
Recently, Fenris and Abby discovered a Venatori research detachment surveying a region northwest of Starkhaven. These Venatori seem to have been in search of a temple to the old god Zazikel where it's suspected another Gate may be located.

Rather than focus on beating them to the Gate, members of Forces and Project Sashamiri will instead seek out the survey group with the intent to capture Venatori researchers who may pressed for valuable information regarding the nature of the Gates and what Corypheus aims to accomplish with them. Depending on the results of the mission, characters may have a significant decision to make at its close.

HOW:
Players will be provided with a log which will include all the vital IC details. They'll also be provided with a rubric of goals they can accomplish (which you can preview and play around with HERE - this may be tweaked before it actually 'goes live').

This mission is purposefully designed as a catch-all space. Threading the aftermath, or the pre-planning, doing tenuously related interpersonal threads, and the camp raid action are all valid ways of tackling this.

We have a few ideas for IC setup depending on who and how many people sign up, so don't worry about things like your character being a nerd in a dangerous situation, getting stuck in an unwieldy sized group thread, or figuring out how to face down a whole camp of Venatori with a tiny group of characters.

WHO:
Forces Division and Project Sashamiri. If you want to get involved but aren't part of either, you can join Project Sashamiri at any time by adding your character's name to the project roster, or by indicating in your sign-up form and Ammy or I will do it for you.

WHEN:
OOCly, sign-ups for this close at midnight on Tuesday, 6/28. The log will go up on 7/1.

The timeframe to collect bonus points will end on 8/9. The report for this assignment must be filed no later than 8/16, a week after the point pool closes so you can decide as a group which goals you want to have accomplished.

This war table concerns an expedition through the Crossroads to access the second Gate that was spotted at a distance from the one that was discovered mid-Guardian—or rather, the black speck in the 'sky' that very much implies itself to be one. Since it was spotted, members of Riftwatch have been hard at work plotting a course to get themselves nearer, and have gotten about as close as they can.

'As close as they can' still, unfortunately, involves a treacherous journey.

The first part of this mission calls for the following:
- adventurous individuals skilled at traversing difficult terrain, with a preference towards Scouting
- mages who qualify for the above and can help manipulate or control the terrain as they get nearer to the Gate
- griffon riders.

This point team will finish figuring out the last of the obstacles in getting to the Gate, willing to put themselves in peril to accomplish this task. This part of the mission will involve some dice rolls in terms of what could potentially go wrong, but you can specify your comfort levels!

The second part of this mission calls for:
- members of Research who are willing to make a probably still dangerous journey and are interested in studying rifts and Gates
- Wardens who can interact safely with the Blighted aspects of the tainted Gate
- accompanying bodyguards.

Sign up below! This will close March 31.