↠ FADE RIFT OOC

plotting: jealousy and torment consumed them all

2025-10-12T19:09:40Z

Posted by: aberratic

jealousy and torment consumed them all

Riftwatchers was never going to be good for the organization's reputation, no matter how hard Diplomacy tried to defang its assertions about the nature of its agents and their work. While the Chantry can't make any official demands on them due to their independent nature, that doesn't stop them from registering their concerns in other ways: a few "guests" have been sent to the Gallows to observe Riftwatch and reassure Divine Beatrix and the rest of the faithful that the play was an outlandish, fantastical exaggeration of the truth and nothing more. As long as that's the case, Riftwatch has no reason to be concerned about their presence!

Hi all! This is a workshopping post for a plot that I think will be fun to run long-term: Due to the concerning assertions of the Orlesian play, Diplomacy has been backed into a corner and made to agree to 1-3 Chantry "guests" coming to observe Riftwatch until Divine Beatrix is reassured, Corypheus is dead, or some secret third option. Essentially, with Ser Keen gone and Riftwatch made up of mostly like-minded liberals, these NPCs would serve to add some friction back to the Gallows and encourage a little more circumspection.

There would be lead-up to the plot in order to let Diplomacy play out the process of agreeing to the observation, with the guests themselves arriving in a month or two. These guests would be as much or as little of a day-to-day problem as would be fun to play with—they'd have no authority to issue threats or make any demands of Riftwatch leadership, nor would they have sending crystal or eluvian access, but they'd be in close contact with the main body of the Chantry and would be sending back reports on any concerning activity. Common areas and division offices would be fair game for their observations, and if they were to come across an unattended sending crystal, well, of course they would return it eventually! Each guest would swear up and down they were only in the Gallows to observe and that they had every confidence that their post here was going to be very boring for both them and anyone in Val Royeaux reading their reports.

Below are comments for questions, suggestions, NPC building, and plotting for how their presence might change the Gallows. © tessisamess

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+1 star-spangled man with a plan

2025-10-11T04:35:14Z

Posted by: uniform

PLAYER
Name: nina
Contact + Notes: supersoldier / compels @ discord
Anything We Should Know: i've wanted to app steve literally the entire time i've been here
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: steve rogers
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are: the star-spangled man with a plan, captain america, a 100 lb asthmatic in the body of a tank
Where They've Been: fighting bullies in brooklyn, fighting nazis in europe, fighting aliens in new york... he's been doing a lot of fighting. most recently, he fought tony stark and the other aveengers over the sokovia accords and his best friend's freedom. it didn't go great, so he gave up his shield and superhero mantle to be a secret avenger.
What They Want: to stop losing everyone who's ever meant anything to him every couple years, for a start! more concretely, he's a man who doesn't know what to do with himself when he's not fighting something, so being dropped straight in the middle of a war he can help win is actually great for him!
Plot & CR Desires:

steve is really easy to be friendly with and very difficult to befriend—he's looking for shared life experience, which is usually difficult for him to come by. not so in riftwatch! please befriend the dinosaur.
steve has a very strong sense of justice and is a terrible liar! take him to tevinter and watch disaster unfold before your very eyes!
i struggle with writing action scenes but if steve doesn't get to fight things he gets sad, please take him as muscle on field assignments and bear with me
i'm just so excited to have him here i'll do literally anything

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plotting: killypheus

2025-10-04T16:35:20Z

Posted by: cozen

Hiya. This is an experimental plotting discussion/brainstorming post for killing! Corypheus! eventually! with some build-up!!!! There are comments below for:

1. Questions. If you want a lore check or something. I am not the only person who can answer these, so feel free to jump in (or correct me if I do answer and it's wrong).

2. General Proposals. This is for discussing ideas for how this could happen — either the thing itself or the build-up — in a general way.

3. Character Dreams. This is for registering desires for characters to participate (and how, if you know). Everyone be brave about indicating a desire for your character to do something important! We're all there is! And we're all good at sharing, so if we have (for example) multiple people for whom getting to actually murder the guy would be an important character moment, we can team them up and work it out so they're all cool.

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MOD UPDATES: September 2025

2025-09-21T20:26:12Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD ANNOUNCEMENTS: SEPTEMBER

Ten years ago this week, we announced that we'd be opening a new game called Fade Rift. ('We' being Cass pretending to be a fully-staffed mod team while she tried to lure MJ into coming on board. Thank god it worked.) It's been a ride since then, with its highs and lows, missteps and triumphs, sex amoebas and blood sharks and many ruined Satinalias. More than once we thought the game's end might be near only for it to be kicked back to life by some new burst of enthusiasm, yours or ours, the one feeding the other until the whole engine turned over and started running again for a few years more.

For all of the time and interest and creativity that our players past and present have contributed over this literal decade; for your patience with our total inability to meet a self-imposed deadline and our endless capacity for reinventing the wheel; for your willingness to embrace a different style of game and make the most of its opportunities; for your ideas and your encouragement and your April Fools jokes; for reading at least some of the surely hundreds of thousands of words we've written and for writing so many of your own, thanks.

This sounds like a goodbye, so important note: we're not closing the game. It is, however, time for yet another of our great restructuring experiments. It's probably no shock to hear that our tanks are running low, and after some reflection on what we can realistically handle it's time for us to admit that this isn't a busy patch we'll get past in another month or two, we just no longer have the bandwidth to continue modding the way we used to.

The good news is, you don't really need us to do that anyway. It's always been the case that much of the game's plot is player-generated, including many of its most successful and impactful events. And Fade Rift's strength has always been in the combination of a collaborative atmosphere, an open world, and everyone's "yes, and/no, but" mindset. So we're going to lean into this and try officially stepping back from plot/content production and into being administrators and facilitators for a more collaborative game.

Basically: we don't want to quit, but we also can't write mod plots anymore. And we think that turning the main, overarching plot into a community effort is a viable alternative that will let everyone have more agency and make things happen more quickly, since lately we've been doing more to hold things up than to drive them forward.

So from now on, the kinds of major developments that would traditionally have been mod plots will instead be done via player plots and community consensus. If you think it's high time for Ferelden to get consumed by the Blight, you can propose it to the game for brainstorming or requests like "could you have it not affect my character's hometown though, I need it for reasons"; then you can make it happen, no plot request/mod approval required. The same goes for killing Corypheus, tearing down the Veil, destroying the Gallows so Riftwatch has to move, etc. With a common-sense "give everyone who might be interested or affected time to weigh in before you do anything huge" rule, we think we're small enough and communicative enough for this to work, with minimal conflict and maximum people having a good time. And we'll still be on hand to facilitate and help find compromises when there are impasses.

In addition, this is what we will continue to do:

Support RP and plotting by answering questions about the rules, lore, or game history, like about whether entering the raw Fade is generally deadly in FR or not (it is).
Handle applications for new players (more below).
Maintain lists, stamp rewards approved, and other admin duties.
Post activity check-ins and game updates, which will now double as plotting posts/bulletins where you can let everyone know that you're blighting Ferelden in case they missed it elsewhere.
Handle conflicts and help maintain plot consistency as needed, such as stepping in to untangle the timeline if someone's about to destroy the same city someone else is planning a long-term arc for, or organizing votes/discussion if there's not a clear community consensus on something.

We'll also still be in the game, plotting and posting things! Like, for real, we have a thousand ideas still. Just not the ability to turn them into large-scale plots for the full game on a regular schedule anymore. So we'll be around brainstorming and doing plot things in the same capacity any of you now can.

Survey Results

We've put the results of our gamewide survey in a doc — the raw charts and summarized takeaways from the open-ended responses. The overall result is that despite some of us being here for ten (TEN!) years as of this October, most people in the game have some game left in them! People have things left they want to do and are open to shaking things up and taking big swings and have thoughts on what sorts of swings might be fun. That's neat, and we look forward to seeing where things go next!

IC Leadership

Since we're now asking everyone to do what we'd previously asked Division Heads to do, which is proactively create plots for everyone else, we're also going to expand the Division Head system into a larger leadership council. Every player can pick one of their characters to be on the council and have an IC vote in gamewide decisions. Within that council characters can have areas of expertise or oversight — it isn't a big deal if there's overlap in people's spheres, so don't stress about that — and collectively lead the divisions they respectively belong to.

While we think it's overall the best way to proceed with making things more collaborative in the future, it is kind of a bummer for our existing Division Heads, who have been doing a great job. So we're going to start off with those two characters (Cosima and Gela) being co-chairs of the new council, in charge of driving this change ICly, shepherding everyone through and directing those meetings for the foreseeable future.

This system isn't being implemented immediately IC. There will be an IC announcement when it does, and we'll have a spreadsheet similar to the housing spreadsheet where everyone can indicate which of their characters (if any) join the council at that time.

Likewise, we're going to keep the other leadership positions (head archivist, mediation officer, etc.) as-is, but we're not going to take new applications for them. They'll be grandfathered out as people vacate them in the future, replaced by an "anyone can sign a character up for this responsibility at any time" structure that allows those jobs to have teams of multiple people at a time rather than just one.

Survey Results

Since we won't be posting mod plots, we'll also be unhitching our rewards system from them. We'll go back to a static list of rewards, and you'll be able to buy them each quarter during the activity check with links to three on-the-comm log threads.

Applications

We're going to continue to screen and respond to applications from brand new players as we always have, to make sure we don't run into major issues from folks who don't yet know the vibe and history of the game. For existing players apping new characters, you already know what you're doing by now, including how to nerf your character's abilities to meet our "no more powerful on the whole than a native mage and that includes taking into account non-magic skills and resources" standards, so we won't be processing apps for you anymore unless you all go mad with power and force us to revoke your privileges (please don't). There will still be a place to post your apps so everyone knows who's here and what their deal is, but you'll no longer have to wait for us to respond to begin RP.

Timeline

Everyone has permission to start plotting collaboratively and posting big plots starting right now. ICly transitioning to the council leadership will happen over the course of the next month or so to give Ammmy and Cadence a chance to RP about making it happen.

Implementing these changes will require updating our info pages, so we've put a moratorium on new applications from new players until October 1, 2025, so we can update the information pages and make sure any newcomers know what they're signing up for (and do it in the right spot). Existing players can continue to app new characters as described above.

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Long promised, finally real

2025-07-21T01:44:57Z

Posted by: wontknowwhen

PLAYER
Name: Ammmy
Contact + Notes: prettiestwhistles on plurk and discord
Anything We Should Know: Y'all know me
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: Antoine
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are: Everyone's second-favorite Warden (after Evka) finally arrives! Some small changes to make his timeline FR-compliant, but mostly the elf you know and love from Veilguard.
Where They've Been: On the road with some other Wardens, not getting trapped by the Venatori-controlled Warden leadership and fighting demons and darkspawn along the way.
What They Want: Eluvians can get Blighted??? Gotta figure that out. (Also, they heard you had griffons.)
Plot & CR Desires: Antoine will be both my first elf and my first Warden. Warden stuff probably an easier hook to get started, but OOCly interested in both of those things. Also throwing him at Research because I heard we were short on people who could build things that might blow up the workshop.
Anything Else: Probably dragging my feet lightly for a co-introduction but very happy to OOCly plot in the meantime, hit me up with all your desires.

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PLAYER PLOT: TEMPLE OF LEAVES

2025-06-24T06:24:48Z

Posted by: sumptus

WHO: Anyone! Everyone!
WHERE: Temple of Zazikel, in the Grand Necropolis, Nevarra
WHEN: June 28 or July 5 depending how this week goes
WHAT: A group of Riftwatch agents take a field trip back into the Temple of Zazikel, to do a more thorough examination of the Gate now that they're not distracted by half the team disappearing.

Little do they know their presence and the thinness of the Veil in that location have drawn the attention of a warped Spirit of Freedom, who will build upon the temple's chaotic, labyrinthine nature to create a series of personalized physical and emotional obstacles the team has to overcome to escape, to teach them the value of freedom achieved through struggle.

This plot is open to as many characters as you feel like and sign-ups are not required! The team will know ahead of time that the Necropolis, Temple, and Gate are unpredictable, so while the main purpose is research, it makes sense to send scouts, fighters, and even diplomats to liaise with Mourn Watch.

( DEETS WITHIN )

Questions? Come at me.

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+ 1 vint dreamer....again hello

2025-05-30T03:41:32Z

Posted by: sumptus

PLAYER
Name: Jenni
Contact + Notes: jennibeans
Anything We Should Know: I'm in the walls
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: Caius Porthmeus
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are:
Where They've Been: Lately, on a goat farm in the middle of nowhere, doing corrupted lyrium experiments in isolation and monitoring a dead drop for Riftwatch's Starkhaven contacts. Before that, in a variety of Tevene Circles and in the employ of the Venatori, though he grew up in a rural area outside Nessum.
What They Want: To become archon, but will settle for literally anyone else becoming archon in the meantime.
Plot & CR Desires: Still keeping his dream stuff on the down-low for now, but I'm down for nerd stuff, mage stuff, Vint stuff, class stuff, u kno.
Anything Else: I've been in the walls this whole time

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MOD PLOT: A Night Without Moon and Stars

2025-05-19T00:28:45Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD PLOT: A NIGHT WITHOUT MOON AND STARS

Howdy! It's finally mod plot time. Head on over to investigate an odd occurrence in a village on the edge of the Tirashan Forest. Highlights include demons aplenty, rocks where rocks ought not be, a guy in a tree, and the introduction (see rewards, below) of magic for people who have no business doing magic.

REWARDS

Rewards are earned by writing tags in the mod plot. For each thread you complete that has at least five tags from you, up to three total, you unlock a tier and earn a reward. In its most basic form this will look like choosing one Tier 1, one Tier 2, and one Tier 3 reward if you complete three threads. But you can also choose from lower tiers if the higher tiers don't appeal to you – three Tier 1 rewards, for example, or two Tier 1 and one Tier 3.

As you may have noticed, we're currently struggling with some burn-out, so we're not currently creating a bunch of unique rewards for every plot. (We're not saying there will never be any ever again, just that we're going to stop promising them and then not delivering so hopefully you can be pleasantly surprised if they do appear instead of disappointed when they don't.) Instead we've added a "plot-related item" reward at each tier that you can use to create your own if you're so inclined. These items must be themed on the current mod plot in some way (e.g., Nevarran/necromancy related artifacts from a plot set the Necropolis, elven artifacts or odd spontaneously-enchanted items here). If you have an idea and aren't sure which category or tier it would fall under, ask us! For special items unrelated to the plot, use the Enchanted Items reward.

We've also added a new reward: Fade-touched person. This is only available for characters who don't already have magic (or special rifter abilities, which in Thedas are all functionally magic). It may come with potential in-world consequences, such as potential for future plot developments and for being politically lumped in with mages and included in whatever may happen with them in the future, so purchase with caution.

To claim a reward, reply here.

Since we didn't get a rewards post up for the Nevarra plot, you can submit reward requests for that one in this post as well. We have a separate top-level comment here to help us keep track of what's being claimed for what.

Tier 1

Runes. You can acquire any one canonical runestone to add to your character's weapon or armor so their sword has fire or their armor is imbued with some magical protection.
Rift items, gag/simple variety. Your character can find an item that came through a rift from another world, their own or not. Snack foods, posters of pop idols, underpants with elastic, etc. Things that are fun or sentimental but don't have much in the way of moving parts and won't generally be useful on missions.
Weird pets. Bring home a monkey or a wolf. The pet must be something that can semi-realistically be either permanently contained (sharks in tanks, small rodents, etc.) or trained/tamed out of being dangerous to the general populace. No dragons, nothing rideable (see mounts under Tier 2).
First anchor ability. If your character currently has a vanilla anchor, the anchor can develop either an offensive (shooting small rift-energy projectiles) or defensive (generating a small rift-energy protective barrier, similar in size to a personal shield) capability.
Plot-related item. An item of your choosing, enchanted or not, that your character finds on-site over the course of the plot. For Tier 1, these items can be enchanted for minor quality of life improvements — things like a magically powered fan, enchanted game boards for playing in a bumpy wagon, or other things that are primarily about entertainment, etc. — but cannot not be weapons or otherwise have significant work/plot-related utility.

Tier 2

Fade-touched materials. Your character can acquire materials that have been touched by the Fade and have them made into a weapon, armor, or other item that has special abilities. There's a list here.
Half of a specialization. To reflect the time and effort it requires to actually learn a new specialization, acquiring a new one requires two rewards spread across two mod plots. You can use one of the canon specializations or create your own. If you create your own, put it in mod contact for us to review and approve.
Mabari. A mabari can imprint on your character. How your character acquires the mabari—getting unwillingly adopted by an old one without a master, intentionally buying a puppy, etc.—is up to you.
Weird mounts. A hart (or equivalent), dracolisk, or nuggalope.
Second anchor ability. If your character has a first anchor ability (see Tier 1), they can now have the second one, too.
Fade-touched person. Available only to characters without powers (i.e. not to native mages or rifters with any special abilities). Your character's prolonged exposure to the energies of the Fade has, you know, touched them. They will permanently acquire one magical ability — for inspiration you can look at this list of Fade-touched materials and their effects, but you're not restricted to what's on the list and welcome to propose your own effect based on Thedosian spells or enchantments. For the foreseeable future, a character's access to this ability will be unpredictable; they may not always (or ever!) be able to do it on command, and when they do it will typically be weak, with unpredictable power spikes, especially under emotional duress.
Plot-related item. An item of your choosing, enchanted or not, that your character finds on-site over the course of the plot. For Tier 2, these items can be weapons with minor effects or other items with minor work/plot-related utility, such as lockpicks that hum at different frequencies to help guide you or griffon-riding goggles that never fog up, or be QOL items with bigger and more useful effects, like a box enchanted to be a deep freezer.

Tier 3

Enchanted or legendary items. You can use named items from canon, invent your own named item from made-up Thedasosian history, or have an enchanted item of your own invention or discovery that doesn't have a name and/or former owner. These can be items that are useful in combat, like weapons and armor, but they don't have to be. E.g., a self-filling tea pot.
Rift items (magical/useful/complex). Your character can come across an item from another world. This tier is for things more serious and useful than snacks and underwear. As a rule, advanced technology (if it is allowed at all) will be converted into something enchanted.
Griffon tamer. Now that the griffons are breeding freely in the mountains around Kirkwall (and the original griffons are reaching middle age), your character can befriend, tame, and ride a wild griffon that you invent and name yourself.
Anchor upgrade. This reward is only available to characters who have had their anchors for more than nine months. With this upgrade anchor can grow to the size of the Herald’s anchor, allowing them to close rifts alone. They'll also exhibit more powerful versions of the anchor abilities (if they have them).
Plot-related item. An item of your choosing, enchanted or not, that your character finds on-site over the course of the plot. For Tier 3, these items can have significant utility for combat or for other types of work, within the bounds of what is possible with Thedosian magic; the only upper power limit being whether we'd allow it in the game at all.

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+1 shadow dragon

2025-05-11T21:05:44Z

Posted by: interroga

PLAYER
Name: Julie
Contact + Notes: quadrille on both plurk & discord
Anything We Should Know: Finally pulling the trigger after threatening to do this for like the entire past year :")
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: Cassian Andor (Star Wars native AU)
Info Page/App: info + app
Who They Are: An elfblooded rebel spy, reserved and cautious and devoted to the cause to an extent which borders on zealotry. He's been sent to Riftwatch as an ally and liaison.
Where They've Been: All across Tevinter doing terrible things to help keep the fight going one more day, working for the past decade with the Lucerni and, more recently, the Shadow Dragons.
What They Want: To bring down Corypheus and install better leadership in the Magisterium, particularly politicians who will advocate for better conditions for the Soporati.
Plot & CR Desires: Fellow Scouting colleagues; people from Tevinter or with opinions about Tevinter; elves and elfblooded, since he was adopted into a human family from a Dalish clan and has quiet feelings about that history he's been cut off from; mages for him to be mildly freaked out by.
Anything Else: I'm mostly sidestepping Andor season 2 details since they don't need to be a prominent part of the AU, so no need to worry about spoilers if you tag him!

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+1 queen of hell

2025-04-30T02:45:46Z

Posted by: magike

PLAYER
Name: kerry
Contact + Notes: pm / skitties
Anything We Should Know: i'm from england, i love learning languages and sewing!
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: rowena macleod
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are: rowena's a 17th century scottish witch who, because magic is wonderful, has lived a long (but less-than-wonderful) life. she pretends she's more complicated than she is, loves power, and recently died and became the queen of hell.
Where They've Been: hell, recently. kansas prior, but she's been all over the world in her long life.
What They Want: honestly, staying alive (again) is her main goal. she'd also love to unshackle her magic again, limits suck, but oocly we know it'll never happen. good long research project for her though!
Plot & CR Desires: she's going to be very curious about how thedosian magic works and be trying to study up on that, but she'd equally be interested in hearing about magic from other worlds! or just other worlds!! i am open to trying and figuring out anything!!
Anything Else: soooo her dream before arriving was of her death so she's spending her first couple of weeks injured and getting healed, and then a few more being a grumpy witch. but it'll kickstart her into motivation for getting involved and poking at the library. or getting a drink!! i'm happy to keep tdm intros or to make new ones, i'll probably put something up soon!!

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ACTIVITY CHECK: January–March 2025

2025-04-20T03:11:44Z

Posted by: faderifting

ACTIVITY CHECK

This activity check is for JANUARY–MARCH 2025. The deadline to reply is APRIL 30. You can review prior AC posts here if needed. Due to our inconsistency in checking this lately and not wanting to catch anyone too off guard, we're allowing people with zero links to take a strike rather than be required to drop. However, a comment with a recap summarizing what your character has been up to, however handwaved, is required to stay in the game. We're leaving the usual write-up intact below for review as needed because these requirements will be in effect for April–June.

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. See the note up top regarding link requirements if you have skipped straight down to the forms.

MOST CHARACTERS

NEW CHARACTERS

LEADER CHARACTERS

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MOD POST ↠ APRIL UPDATES

2025-04-05T03:30:15Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD ANNOUNCEMENTS: APRIL

OOC & ADMIN UPDATES

Notable Dates

Applications: Open indefinitely
Leadership Applications: Due at the end of the month
Test Drive Meme: Here! As usual we plan to keep this one up long-term, so we highly encourage tracking the post for new top-level comments!
Activity Check for January–March: Soon

IC Leader Updates

Effective immediately, Gela Baynrac will take over the role of Head of the Diplomacy Division! You can assume this has been announced IC and offer congratulations/condolences as appropriate.

Also this month, Ness will be swapping from Quartermaster to Head Archivist!

Quartermaster, Trademaster, and other leadership applications remain open. As always, a list of all available roles is on the wiki and we review any applications we've received at the end of each month. If you have questions, feel free to toss them at the Mod Contact. Applications should be submitted here.

Gallows Survey

Please take a look at this post and help us out by providing some info about your characters' hopes and dreams for their home. First round responses are due by 4/10.

IC & PLOT UPDATES

Mod Plot

We'll be running a mod plot event before the end of April, something smaller in scope that will then lead into some War Table missions run by our DH players and other plot opportunities for all before a larger mod event around the end of June. So keep an eye out for that in the next couple weeks!

Veil Effects

As a reminder, the growing instability of the Veil caused by the opening of Gates is causing various strange effects across Thedas (as described in several mod plots), and with the recent opening of the Gate beneath the Grand Necropolis it continues to get worse. In its work across Thedas, Riftwatch will encounter more and more pockets where the boundaries between the Fade, the Crossroads, and the real world bleed together or swap places, disruptions in the normal flow of time or operation of natural forces like gravity, and so on. Feel free to write these types of complications into your threads—unless you want to do something large scale, you don't need mod permission.

This will also continue to affect Riftwatch's sending crystals. The primary side effect is messages being lost or significantly delayed. The further people are from each other, the more likely it is that messages will not transmit or will only do so after a long delay. Messages will also occasionally be misdelivered, but this will only happen when a message is first sent or a connection is first formed, rather than in the middle of an ongoing conversation on an open channel.

You're not obligated to include delayed/lost messages in any thread at any given time, but you can employ it whenever it would make something more interesting—if you want to draw out suspense, cause misunderstandings between characters who don't realize what they said didn't go through, or have characters in the field have to make hard calls without consulting their bosses or resident experts for orders/help.

War Table

We're working on a refresh of war table assignments and a new and improved version of the jobs board, to come after the next mod plot, but in the meantime, the existing war table assignments remain available to claim at any time! You can review available assignments on the wiki and claim them on this post.

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MOD POST ↠ GALLOWS SURVEY

2025-04-05T02:58:47Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD POST: GALLOWS SURVEY

Hi everyone, we've got some questions for you! These are outlined in the form below, and should be answered IC for each of your characters—we're looking for characters' hopes and dreams rather than players' OOC wishes. You can respond for any and all of them that you'd like. Participation is totally optional, but obviously we encourage you to opt-in!

If you'd like to be considered for the first round, please respond by end of the day on 4/10. There will be additional rounds after the first one, so if you don't hear from us this month don't fret, and feel free to submit new responses after that date.

Comments are screened.

Player:
Character:

Gallows Wishes: List 1 or 2 things your character would change about the Gallows complex. Think things along the same general lines as the Gallows Rewards (or actual things from that list!).

Living Space Wishes: List 2 or 3 things your character would like to change about their living space. This could range from something small and plausibly achievable by themselves (a different color rug, a mural of the stars on the ceiling) to unrealistic structural changes (another window, a balcony, a tree in the middle of the room).

Personal Possession Wishes: List 2 or 3 objects of personal significance your character does not have with them at the Gallows. These could be possessions that were lost or destroyed long ago, things that were just left elsewhere, that didn't come through a rift with them, etc. These should be relatively simple items that wouldn't require an AC rewards purchase (i.e., nothing of huge material value or significant magical/technological capability).

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+ one Problem...I mean. Grey Warden.

2025-03-29T03:59:22Z

Posted by: argentine

PLAYER
Name: Dylan!
Contact + Notes: on plurk at SELACHIAN; ludicrous discord available on request.
Anything We Should Know: I am extremely nocturnal and the world's slowest tagger....but I love you? :D?

I haven't been in this game in like....nine years; back then I played Lex Luthor for five seconds so we're going to see if this one sticks. "This" being the elven Grey Warden mage whatever is left of the upper ranks just gifted unto Riftwatch on the grounds that she is the mouthiest person alive.

CHARACTER
Name: Argent Tavarys
Info Page/App: info!

Argent managed to survive the whole uh, Wardens being mulched by Corypheus thing because he wasn't bothering to recruit in places in the Anderfels with more tumbleweeds than people, so it's nice that's done her some good in life. Currently unbeknownst to her, she's about to be reunited with her fraternal twin Athenais, which sure will be a trip!

THAT ASIDE, she's been on her own a lot for most of the time she's been a Warden; getting used to being around all these people again is bound to be a magical journey. She is approximately the height of a normal person chopped off at the knees, has never met a deadpan she didn't like, and used to live in Kirkwall, actually, at unarguably the world's best time to be there (while it was on fire).

I'm excited to be back! Come see me on plurk so I can sucker you into my evil schemes.

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player plot: catharsis makes me free

2025-03-21T02:23:59Z

Posted by: aberratic

Who: Everyone who wants in
Open/Closed: Open
Where: The dwarven outpost
When: Mid-April

( mem'ry, all alone in the moonlight )

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+1 taint joke

2025-02-17T22:32:31Z

Posted by: anthracite

PLAYER

Name: k2
Contact + Notes: shambolism @ discord / plurk
Anything We Should Know: I also play Lazar, Cedric, Isaac, and Sennara.
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER

Name: Lamentation Strand
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are:

A "senior" Grey Warden. Don't look that up.
Also, a conscripted criminal who volunteered for blood magic experiments.
He’s here to check on the Sarrux Pass info that Siorus passed back.

Where They've Been:

Born in the Anderfels, nearly died in Antiva.
Has traveled. If you want past CR, we can make up an excuse to have crossed paths.

What They Want:

Power, change, his ex-girlfriend to either apologize or explode.

Plot & CR Desires:

Any! I'm still figuring things out.
He won't be on the Nevarra trip, if anyone wants to come back to a surprise new roommate.

Anything Else:

I’ll content warn for blood stuff where appropriate, but I have an opt-out here if there’s anything you’d like to blanket swerve.

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MOD PLOT: The Earth Trembled in Holy Terror

2025-02-08T05:28:39Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD PLOT: the earth trembled in holy terror

Our "January" mod plot is now up over here! Riftwatch is delving into the Necropolis, then deeper. The log post includes one major split where you will have to choose between Part III and Part IV for each character, but we hope it is otherwise fairly straightforward. If you have any questions about any aspect of the plot, you can ask on this post.

We'll be updating this post with claimable rewards ASAP. You can look at a previous mod plot post for an idea of what will be available in the meantime — anything unstarred will be available this time as well, plus a new selection of one-time rewards themed to fit the plot. When they're ready we'll announce that this post has been updated!

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+1 spooky man and +1 spooky son

2025-01-20T22:22:19Z

Posted by: corpsestuff

PLAYER
Name: Kel
Contact + Notes: Nadat on Plurk or thekelas on Discord
Anything We Should Know: I was here before under a name that is now my dead name, so please don't use it.
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: Emmrich Volkarin (and Manfred)

Info Page/App: Click

Who They Are: A necromancer from the Necropolis in Nevarra, a mage driven by compassion, kindness, and fear, and his little skeletal companion Curiosity.

Where They've Been: Emmrich's been in Nevarra cleaning up the undead mess, and he's spent most of his life in Nevarra City and the Necropolis. He's traveled a little, but mostly he's been down there teaching and working with the dead, undead, and spirits.

What They Want: He wants to help, teach, encourage, and watch, while not dying.

Plot & CR Desires: Everything. I've apped him because I need more of Emmrich and Bioware won't be giving that to me, so necromancy things, magic things, adventure things, friends, conflict, people who want a skeleson to run tea parties, students, research buddies, all of it.

Anything Else: I'm gonna be introducing Emmrich during the Nevarra plot that's coming up since that makes more sense than him showing up from Nevarra and then whee, right back to Nevarra. Hit me up if you'd like to pre-establish some CR from the recent trip Riftwatch made to the Necropolis or something else! We can also be flexible with keeping TDM threads/shifting them up a bit based on whatever the upcoming plot entails.

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+1 Human Man

2025-01-20T06:02:14Z

Posted by: verminius

PLAYER
Name: Rockefeller
Contact + Notes: hackfraud @ plurk
Anything We Should Know: I edit my tags, sometimes I edit them more than once. I am sorry and I will not stop.
Favorite GIF:

CHARACTER
Name: Vandren Verminius
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are: A Tevene War Mage with dazzling blue eyes and a heart of gold. Also: a burnout, provocateur, liar, and all-around hot mess.
Where They've Been: Various war fronts, primarily fighting against the Qunari near the coast but shifting south with Tevinter's attention in recent years. Characters may have crossed paths with him in battles past.
What They Want: An end to the Venatori, but mainly to feel like he's contributed meaningfully to that end before he dies.
Plot & CR Desires: I love mess. This man has noble intentions but is used + abused and will cause problems on purpose. TDM threads can be canon and I'm game to discuss other pre-existing CR.
Anything Else: Rode in to surrender on a white dracolisk like a real Disney princess.

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faderiftooc @ 2025-01-19T15:34:00

2025-01-19T02:43:41Z

Posted by: mournwitch

PLAYER
Name: libbitha
Contact + Notes: i’m not new y’all know where to find me
Anything We Should Know: in k2’s walls. that’s where you’ll find me.

CHARACTER
Name: Athénaïs Tavarys
Info Page/App: Click
Who They Are: A thirty-five year old Nevarran necromancer, certainly the fault of the Mourn Watch if not necessarily a present member of it.
Where They’ve Been: For the better part of the past ten years: in the south, doing crimes varying degrees of self-interested or philanthropic, often attached to smugglers. She may still be in Nevarra presently, I’m toying with holding off on an intro until the mod plot so she can just be bundled up and sent to Kirkwall with Riftwatch when they go home.
What They Want: Maybe democracy! Better conditions for city elves! Mage freedom!
Plot & CR Desires: I’m interested in doing more with both Nevarra, elf bullshit, and a character who is actually pretty friendly and interested in other people. Playing it by ear otherwise at this point! She’ll be a member of Research, one of those nerds that can be their own security detail when necessary.
Anything Else: when you play mostly OCs, you have to make your own memes and content:

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MOD UPDATES: January 2025

2025-01-12T02:35:56Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD ANNOUNCEMENTS: JANUARY

OOC & ADMIN UPDATES

Notable Dates

Applications: Open indefinitely
Leadership Applications: Due at the end of the month
Test Drive Meme: Here! A new TDM for a new year. As usual we plan to keep this one up long-term, so we highly encourage tracking the post for new top-level comments!
Activity Check for January–March: Early April

Veilguard Notes

Applications, including for characters from or inspired by Veilguard, re-open tomorrow. We'll also now be accepting plot requests that incorporate Veilguard info, and there's also a lot of new world info that can be used in game without the need for a request. We've written up a detailed overview on how all of this is going to work HERE.

We of course also plan to incorporate aspects of Veilguard's plot and lore info into Fade Rift's overarching mod plot, but we're not going to tell you exactly what or when, because where would be the fun in that?? Play and find out.

IC & PLOT UPDATES

Mod Plot

We'll be kicking off 2025 with our first mod plot event of the year toward the end of this month. It'll involve a trip to Nevarra to follow up on some plot threads raised in our August mod plot, plus some new developments. In the meantime, in case the holidays and various other events of the last few months wiped your brains smooth like it did to ours, here are some reminders about background things going on in Riftwatch these days:

Crystal Interference

The instability of the Veil that's causing the various strange effects across Thedas (as described most recently in the current mod plot) has been getting stronger, and Riftwatch will find that this also seems to be affecting their sending crystals. The primary side effect is messages being lost or significantly delayed. The further people are from each other, the more likely it is that messages will not transmit or will only do so after a long delay. Messages will also occasionally be misdelivered, but this will only happen when a message is first sent or a connection is first formed, rather than in the middle of an ongoing conversation on an open channel.

You're not obligated to include delayed/lost messages in any thread at any given time, but you can employ it whenever it would make something more interesting—if you want to draw out suspense, cause misunderstandings between characters who don't realize what they said didn't go through, or have characters in the field have to make hard calls without consulting their bosses or resident experts for orders/help.

Housing Changes

The Gallows' remaining residential tower reopened a few months ago now. Housing is more limited than it used to be, so characters residing in the Gallows may find themselves with more roommates than they're accustomed to. Roommates were randomly assigned but are not set in stone. If your character switches rooms, make sure you update the spreadsheet to say so!

We've also added a new block to this page for people who, thanks to the eluvians, decide to room permanently in either the underground Gwaren outpost or the Hunterhorn Mountains lodge and "commute" to the Gallows via eluvian. (It's faster than the ferry ride.) If your character is an official member of Riftwatch and has completed their month-long quarantine period if a Rifter, they can choose to live in one of those two places instead of in the Gallows if they want! No one will be ordered to live in those places, though, given their even-more-limited amenities.

War Table

We're working on a refresh of war table assignments and a new and improved version of the jobs board, but until that's done, the existing war table assignments are available to claim at any time! You can review available assignments on the wiki and claim them on this post.

IC Leader Updates

Leadership applications re-open tomorrow, 1/12 as well. As always, a list of all available roles is on the wiki and we review any applications we've received at the end of each month. If you have questions, feel free to toss them at the Mod Contact. Applications should be submitted here.

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MOD POST: Veilguard Notes

2025-01-12T02:18:04Z

Posted by: faderifting

VEILGUARD NOTES

This post has information for current players of how we plan to incorporate new canon from Veilguard into Fade Rift, as well as for new players interested in apping characters who would be affected by Fade Rift's AU timeline. We learned how to collapse sections of text in these posts, and we are very excited about that, so click on sections to expand them!
( Read more... )

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player plot: merry & bright

2024-12-15T01:18:11Z

Posted by: cozen

Hello! This is advanced notice that on December 20 I'm going to put up a player plot in which our heroes are once again trapped in prolonged shared and overlapping dreams they have to struggle their way out of with the power of friendship. This time they'll be dreams of a happy and comfortable future. Whether this imaginary future is actually satisfying to your character in the innermost layer of their soul onion is up to you—and it's not only fine but encouraged for wrongness to seep in at the edges and turn it into something more sinister as it goes on—but the spirit behind it will be doing its best to design a world where no external threats or obstacles are standing between them and a happily ever after. Within those parameters you can do anything you want!

It'll be open to everyone who wants to participate, no sign-ups or commitments required! Just giving everyone a head's up so you can think and plot out what scenario(s) you want to use instead of feeling pressured to come up with them on the spot. And I realize that five days before Christmas may not be the ideal timing for everyone, but by design the plot will be disjointed and not something anyone can actually be late to ✌️ so hop in whenever.

If you have questions while planning you can ask them here!

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MOD UPDATES ↠ DECEMBER

2024-12-09T05:34:54Z

Posted by: faderifting

MOD ANNOUNCEMENTS: DECEMBER

OOC & ADMIN UPDATES

Notable Dates

Applications: Closing 12/14 through 1/10
Leadership Applications: Due 12/12
Test Drive Meme: Here! We post new TDMs infrequently, so tracking the post for new top-level comments is strongly encouraged.

Mod Hiatus

A belated reminder that we take a holiday hiatus every year around this time, usually a Thanksgiving to early January period in which we do not accept applications, requests, or questions of any kind whether through the mod contact, FAQ, discord, etc. We're very late in announcing it this year due to Veilguard distractions and we don't want to slam the doors without warning, so we'll accept any last requests until end of day Thursday, December 12.

For those not already in the game and familiar we want to give a bit more warning, so we'll accept applications from new players through the end of Saturday, December 14.

After that, all apps will be closed and no requests or messages will be accepted until January 10.

Please don't submit anything during that window unless it's some kind of emergency that forces all plot in the game to grind to a halt without our intervention. (Also, please don't drop us stuff even if you're not expecting us to read it until January. If it's in our inbox we will read it, we can't help ourselves, and we're already going to be spending this hiatus doing a lot of Veilguard-related work. We need to focus!)

Thanks and preemptive happy holidays to everybody!

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PLAYER PLOT INFO | Contact not found

2024-12-01T22:17:09Z

Posted by: wythersake

As of December 1st, the following characters don’t exist:

Ennaris Tavane (aberratic)
Julius (overharrowed)
Bastien (cozen)
Clarisse la Rue (laruetheday)
Viktor (grindset)
Isaac (wythersake)

They were never here. You’ve never met. Your characters don’t remember anything about them.

( huh? )

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