WHAT: New technologies aren’t just about creating new weapons or getting an edge in battle. They’re also about improving people’s lives. Riftwatch has created dozens of new innovations — so isn’t it time to share those with the world?

Welcome to the Riftwatch Cultural Exposition, held on the campus of the University of Orlais. The Exposition is going to be a three-day fair in which members of Riftwatch demonstrate friendly levels of technological advancement and partake in Rifter-oriented cross-cultural sharing, designed to intrigue and entertain. These demonstrations can be foods, dances, simple inventions, fashion, and so on.

The purpose of this event is twofold.

One: we love money, sympathy, and a positive image. An event such as this is designed to build up Riftwatch's rapport in a different setting than just pure heroics, and garner some goodwill and curiosity that will have the effect of investing in our little operation over here.

Two: we wish to shake loose some potential academically inclined alliances that can, in the future, be used to leverage more advanced world-improving technology and theory into Thedas.

HOW: This plot will be run on a points system, in which you’ll be able to earn points to buy quality-of-life improvements based on meeting certain criteria, as well as earn interested parties who may assist Riftwatch in introducing more advanced technologies and scientific theory to the world. These criteria will involve threading and hitting specific goals.

There will be two ways to approach threading in this plot:

Method one: Write your character sharing a new technology. The best tech to share will be things that bring uncomplicated quality-of-life improvements. Things that will scare the hell out of the locals will be barred from being shown to others, as will sensitive or confidential technologies. This will require a specific sign-up in which you identify which tech your character be taking to the Exposition (with the asterisk that Tony will have the right to refuse).

Method two: Write an NPC reacting to this technology. This will be the fastest way to earn points to buy rewards. You’ll create an NPC who might come and be impressed by these new inventions, or skeptical of them, or horrified, or whatever you’d like. You’ll earn points by threading your NPC against the Riftwatch members repping their technology.

You can either ask us for an NPC suggestion or come up with an NPC to play yourself. If you're inventing your own NPC, we'd encourage you to focus on creating the sort of Thedosian who Riftwatch would want to impress. Obviously academics are the primary target here, but we'd also be going after artists, nobles, rich people with deep pockets, mages with social capital, and the like. (Just don't do anything wild - don't NPC the Empress dropping by or something like that.)

WHO: All can participate (with Diplo/Research characters extra encouraged to do so). Sign-ups are mandatory if you want to present culture/technology and/or play an NPC for points; however, characters are welcome to attend the Exposition with no sign-up necessary.

WHEN: Sign-ups will close Saturday, 7/8, and the plot log will go up the next day.

It's been some months since Riftwatch's adventure into Arlathan Forest, the densely overgrown wilderness that half-swallowed the ancient elven city by which it is named. Through thorough scouting and investigation, Riftwatch eventually came to locate the ancient elven temple that both imparted to them critical information while also taking its pound of flesh in return. However, in the process, they'd also developed leads for potential investigation, and over the interim months, some light scouting has continued to ensure a minimal amount of rocks were left unturned.

And it seems, unfortunately, that Arlathan has yet more to give.

Riftwatch will be deploying a group to investigate an ancient sunken temple that some preliminary investigation suggests to have once honoured Dirthamen, elven god of secrets and knowledge. The group, for those who have yet to experience such places, will be warned of the potentiality for spirits of trickery, for puzzles and traps, and for the presence of Venatori, although there doesn't appear to be evidence of anyone having come across this territory any time recently. The mission is to search for artifacts that may contribute to future Gate-closing rituals, and try to make it out with all your eyeballs intact.

However, as the group embarks on its mission through the labyrinthine halls of Dirthamen's seat of honour, they will slowly start to wonder why they are here, and what their mission is, and also who they are with, and also who are they?

Yes, this is an amnesia plot.

This plot will be designed for hijinks and CR building, with some memory-share elements as the temple toys with the secrets it's collected and the people lost in its grasp. How it is organised will be dependent on how many people sign up, whether it be a small group or a couple of teams thrown together, with various prompts to riff off of. Make friends with your enemies or become enemies with your friends while trying to escape or work your way through a puzzle-laden temple. We'll laugh about it later.

Sign up in the comments below if you'd like to spend a few days with a group of total strangers, including yourself! Note that there is an option with sign ups that involves a memory-sharing mechanic, wherein you'll be expected to write somewhere between one through three memories to be distributed randomly. All memories will contain trigger warnings if necessary but will be advised to steer clear of sensitive topics anyway, besides violence. I am making this element optional for anyone who wants to play with memory loss with less paperwork.

Sign ups close April 4.

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).

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).

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.

As per this network post, Tony is looking for volunteers to field test some items he's been working on after a lot of back and forth with dwarven crafters: some enchanted, some not, some in between. How this works is you will be given the item, and you may incorporate this into whatever RP you like (or leave it collecting dust in your room, if you really want), and around mid-October, Tony will come to collect it.

By signing up, you're agreeing to take ownership of but ultimately give back an item! Some of these will be buyable with AC points, some of these will just be limited use and owned by Riftwatch, but they're free for use within the confines of the plot.

Tony will report on this himself, so all you have to do is read the blurb I give you and then expect to have an answer when you're asked how it was. The sign up form below also has an option for something going wrong, in which event I will be rolling a d10 to see how bad. (If everyone picks this option, I'll probably RNG to limit the rate of failure.)

No one will actually die. Unless you really want to.

Go to comments for sign ups!

Operation WARSHIP is a joint effort by the Research and Scouting divisions to identify scholars who are assisting the Venatori in their pursuit of the Seven Gates, so that Riftwatch can watch them, figure out what they're doing, and ultimately get ahead of them.

Stage One of this mission involves building out the list of scholars whose work might be relevant.

We'll be doing this by searching information about personnel from sources like Circles, the dwarven Ambassadoria, or university archives—particularly those in the Tevinter Imperium. These will be infiltration missions conducted by small teams with maximum secrecy to make sure that the enemy doesn't become aware that Riftwatch is doing this. Because these missions require both spy skills to get into these places and nerd skills to find the right information without tearing the place apart, we'll be pairing up members of Scouting with members of Research. (Members of other Divisions with relevant skills are welcome to sign up, but we will be prioritizing Research and Scouting. Characters who have not actually joined Riftwatch and are not members of any division will not be permitted on these missions.)

OOCly, our plan is to tailor these assignments somewhat to fit the skill-sets and interests of those of you who sign up. We'll provide each team with a location and its unique risks and challenges; it will then be up to you two to tell us how you want to approach it and we'll let you know the likely outcomes (and, depending on how things shake out, possibly offer a little GMing/NPCing). You can then go forth and RP whatever parts of it are fun for you.

Sign-ups will close end of day Thursday, 9/9. We'll be getting the initial write-ups out by the weekend, with the goal that you can be ready to start RPing by mid-month. Reports will be due no later than the end of October (but the earlier the better!).

These assignments are designed to lead into a Stage Two, which will have separate sign-ups but build on the work your characters do here. The overall aim is for Riftwatch to eventually get a grip on a major part of the mod plot by acquiring new sources of information about the Gates and what the Venatori are up to so that they can start working directly to stop them. Because this is key to on-going plot and meant to be built on, we're going to be pretty strict with report deadlines and keeping things moving, and will do what we can on our side as well to support you!

Sign ups can be found in the comments below. And you'll have to ask Tony personally what WARSHIP stands for.

WHAT: A series of mixed-division (and mixed-project) assignments focused on sea-faring faction building, resource acquisition, and strengthening Riftwatch's intelligence network along the Waking Sea. See comments for specific mission details and sign-ups.

These are 'odd-job' style assignments that are either meant to be done by a small (2-3) number of characters or styled as mingle logs for ease of play.

HOW: You'll be provided with a brief overview of the goals/stakes/potential complications of each mission, but will otherwise be expected to set up their logs/conduct the missions as you see fit. Everything is fairly open ended and/or low stakes, so if presented with a choice of A path or B path, the selection won't affect that mission itself but it will affect future endeavors/the world state.

WHO: Forces Division + Everyone Else

WHEN: OOCly, sign-ups for this close at midnight on July 18th. Assignments will be rngd and additional details distributed in the next 48-ish hours. This sign-up window is purposefully long so you can have a chance to plan given the density of mod plot related activities this month.

ICly, you're welcome to date these however is convenient given the ongoing Free Marches invasion. If you want to backdate it and say your characters were sent to do this before Tevinter's invasion into the Marches, feel free. If you want to say this is part of the work they're doing during the invasion (although some assignments will lend better to this than others), then you're welcome to assume that Tony (for anything +Research or Especially Forces-y), Byerly (for anything +Diplomacy or +Scouting), or Julius (for "Into The Woods") are giving the orders. And if you want to hold ICly off until after Flint has time to come back from being missing, that's okay too.

The only important part is that reports for each assignment be filed no later than September 19th as the outcome of these will affect future war table assignments to come.

WHAT: On the revelation that Solas is the antagonist, or at least one of them, in popular video game Dragon Age: Inquisition, Riftwatch is in the process of forming up its own ability to locate rifters swiftly, and bring them to safety and not left to capture by the Venatori or being eaten by bears.

After many months of monitoring, research, data collection, and development, the nerds have fabricated a device called the Veil attenuation network echo (or, a VANE, or just a vane, don't shout) that can monitor wide geographic areas and measure the levels of Veil-thinness in that area. Once Fadeiation levels have reached a certain critical point, the vane will send a signal back to a sending crystal switchboard housed in the Gallows that will prompt a rescue team to travel out and intercept the coming rift, narrowing it down using thaumoscoping devices.

This plot will pick up when the instalment of the Automatic Rift/Rifter Indicator Via Early Detection (ARRIVED) system is in the process of deployment, a network of vanes across, initially, the Free Marches, branching out further. Now that they can confirm that rifters seem to emerge where large deposits of lyrium exist, they can begin to build up the network itself.

HOW: This is kind of a sprawling project that can't be represented in a single log, and so there isn't going to be one. Instead, if you volunteer to assist in this project, you will be given a task IC to carry out. It is up to you to complete this task sometime in the next two months, however you see fit. You are encouraged to integrate it into your normal day to day role play, maybe use it as an excuse for a CR-building road trip, or just chat about it in inboxes, really any way you like. By the end of the quarter, I'll ask the task-leads to come together to form up a report that represents how their individual tasks progressed the instalment of the ARRIVED system.

Tasks will be tailored by me to the people involved, and can involve anything from convincing a local landowner access to their territories so Riftwatch can build there through to scouring an area for evidence of rumoured lyrium deposits. I will provide details, hooks, prompts that you can do what you will with. You are welcome to RP with each other, but I would anticipate you to RP about it with whoever you like. Only task-leads will collect AC rewards for their involvement, but if you partner up with someone else and they're heavily involved, let me know and I can check about it.

WHO: You! Hopefully. This is a very Research heavy operation so preference will be given to Research division members. Fill in the form below in the comments. I'll be in contact with tasks in the next week.

WHAT: A Mining Caste researcher in Orzammar named Alvorn Gedic has reached out to Riftwatch for copies of their research on Red Lyrium, while being somewhat cadgey about exactly why he needs that research. Given the state of the everything at the moment, Riftwatch via Provost Baudin has decided to deliver that information in person, taking with him some of the Riftwatch experts to maybe see if they can suss out exactly what’s going on down in Orzammar. He will publicly be calling for those with expertise to come on the mission if you would prefer to play your character as being drafted.

After arriving and speaking with Gedic, they will find out that members of the Legion of the Dead have wandered back to Orzammar, though without some of their comrades. Those that have returned are jumpy, talking a lot of paranoid-delusional gibberish, and generally displaying textbook symptoms of red lyrium exposure. Deciding it’s better to look into than leave well enough alone, everyone will pile into the Deep Roads for a two-three day trek to see if they can either discover the missing Legion of the Dead members or possibly where the red lyrium is.

WHO: Thranduil and max four other participants, with preference given to characters familiar with red lyrium, any division. Squishy scholar types welcome.

WHEN: Immediately after this month’s trip to Orlais, characters will split off and head for Orzammar instead, rather than their cozy beds in the Gallows. While the trip is originally expected only to take, say, an extra week, due to having to handle the matter in the Deep Roads, characters will be delayed an extra few days.

Signups will be open from today until September 6th at 11:59pm EST, and the log will go up September 9th, consisting of two or three threads focusing on the exploration of the Deep Roads and the aftermath.

<b>PLAYER:</b> <b>CHARACTER:</b> <b> EXPERIENCE WITH RED LYRIUM:</b> Yes/No