( closed ) player plot: the stars go waltzing

[eviscerates]

WHO: Adelaide, Araceli, Avery, Bellamy, Bruce, Ciri, Cosima, Daenerys, Jamie, Korrin, Lexa, Martel, Merrill, Ruby, Sabine, Teren.
WHAT: catch all log; the capture of shardbearers, their rescue, and related shenanigans.
WHEN: Gently timey wimey for flexibility, Team Rescue arrives at the outpost on the 10th.
WHERE: Orlais/Nevarra borders (roughly halfway between the Fields of Ghislain and Trevis), and then a Creepy Place.
NOTES: Log for the missing shardbearers player plot; ooc here & here. Only the travel threads for teams one and two are going up for now, the rest will go up on Friday :]b And to clarify - when I say party style, what I mean is subthread to your hearts content!
WARNINGS: HORROR THEMES. Abduction, experimentation/torture, forced ingestion of lyrium, implied past deaths/murder, violence.

SPEEDY LINKS

• TEAM ONE: travel to Craintellier
• TEAM ONE: rift two attempt & Venatori attack
• TEAM ONE: dungeons
• TEAM ONE: escape attempt — Cosima, Jamie & Lexa only
• TEAM TWO: travel to Craintellier
• TEAM TWO: post rift investigation — Adelaide, Bellamy & Sabine, Bruce, Korrin & Teren, Ciri & Merrill
• TEAM TWO: take the outpost — Attack & Distract & Stealthy & Stealy
• TEAM TWO: regroup & into the dungeons — plus a Lexa-shaped guest star
• ALL: finding your shardbearers
• ALL: boss fight
• ALL: epilogue & return to Skyhold — tba

click for bigger version. full map of Thedas here.

East of Perendale and south of Trevis, next to a river's winding course, there lies the bones of a fortress. It is an old and almost forgotten place, a dramatic, clawed seeming thing reaching up into the sky, harsh against the the rolling hills.

It is an ancient place, dating back to 660TE, a testament to an Empire suffering after civil war and grasping to restore its wealth and influence after it had been so shaken. It stands as a memory of grandeur, rather than an icon of it, and bears the marks of devastation and scarring that so much of the land suffered during the First Blight. It was all but abandoned thereafter, host only to the desperate and the greedy, and never for long. Once ornate mosaics now only hold flecks of gold, flakes that stubbornly resisted the hands of looters trying to pry them away. Other colours, reds, whites, greys and blacks, they all remain.

The site was chosen for its riches, sitting atop a mine that once held immense wealth, seams of gold that would bring wealth back into the Empire and help restore stability. Opulence, the central Tevinter staple (aside from slavery and blood magic, some might say).

But they dug too deep, and when the First Blight came so too did the darkspawn.

It has a new master, now, and he serves the Elder One. Parts of this stronghold may be in ruins now, but remember: it is not what lies on the surface that counts, but what lurks beneath it.


AD VICTORIAM, AD GLORIA.

Comments

[youwonscience]

Cosima grins at that particular observation. "Well, if you want to take the time to teach me, I'm happy to return the favor another day. Most of the games I know with cards are drinking games, though, fair warning."

Or had been modified into drinking games. Tomato, tomahto.

[foxsays]

"Is there any other sort of card game really? Every game is in a tavern or on the deck of a ship." Lifting her glass of rum to better demonstrate the point, she gestures to the hand she's got before her right now. "It's a bit of a bastard version of poker I'm trying to show them, since I don't really have the right cards for it - didn't want to risk losing mine on the road so they're back at Skyhold."

[youwonscience]

"Oh poker - I didn't recognize it, but I know at least one variant of poker. How many suits does this deck have, though?"

It might make mental score-keeping interesting, but she likes challenging strategy games. Just think of them like... variant rules. Sure. That'll work.

[foxsays]

"I have Wicked Grace cards so they have Serpents, Songs, Angels, Knights and Daggers, instead of Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks." Araceli's hand is Serpents and Daggers so far, one long Song (whatever that looks like, Bioware why are you like this: the thrilling saga continues) hidden in the middle. "But instead of numbers they have...virtues? Values? So Serpents have deceit and avarice, Songs have mercy or temerity. There's a lot more negotiating."

It's actually more fun in a way, trying to figure out who thinks what thing is better or worse, and where it gets to be accorded.

[youwonscience]

"Huh, interesting. You could playtest it, you know - try a few different variant rules with different groups of people, see what works well and what doesn't." With travel, she does have at least partially a semi-captive audience.

[foxsays]

"It could make it more fun to figure out who has what tell that way, it gets boring after a while." Or not so much boring as predictable, when you have to just play along so no one else at the table gets suspicious if you win every single hand without looking like you're trying. "Do you have any ideas? We're still keeping to the rule that the angel of death being drawn ends the game, I don't think we're too far off for this one."

[youwonscience]

"That seems pretty intuitive," Cosima agrees. "There's this game at home where the rules are constantly changing during the game, but you need a special deck and very patient friends. Do you have community cards or not? I learned to play hold 'em in college, but I've seen people play stud too."

Cosima... might miss board game night a little too much.

[foxsays]

"You mean cards just on the table, where you can reach in?" Or that sounds kind of about right for a few games she knows. "We don't for this but I know a few that you only start with a couple of cards so you need to take from what's left on the table. I really wish I'd brought my dice now, but dice have a way of getting lost."

Her dice are super old but seriously. A real game night at the tavern. But without Wicked Grace because everyone and their mother in Thedas must be bored of it (pun intended) by now. Let the rifters show them how game night is done.

[youwonscience]

"You don't reach in, usually, though that'd be an interesting variant. Eachc person only gets dealt a partial hand, and everyone can see and use what's in the middle. It makes betting interesting, because everyone's got the same two or three cards to build their hand out of." She grins. "Dice, though, dice are great. You can build all kinds of games once you have dice too. Maybe we can set something up when we get back?"

[foxsays]

"If you need someone to help organise it, I would definitely be up for it. I'm there nearly every night." Technically? She's there for work, because she listens to the gossip, gets a bit more out of everyone she gambles with and whatever else she picks up then writes a quick report of anything interesting every third day to send back to the Nightingale or one of three agents she reports to. "And I'm sure we'll have earned it, going off and sealing some rifts, fighting demons."

Ha-ha-ha but you know, there's always hanging out in the healing tents or dungeons with Ruby and cards and comfort food because their lives are about to be terrible.

[youwonscience]

"Awesome. Maybe if we get people hooked, I can start reverse-engineering some of the more complicated games from home."

Plans, now she has some.

"How do they usually handle this kind of thing? Big party, or a tasteful little medal ceremony for services rendered?"

This part of the trip is so nice!

[foxsays]

Cosima she is a humble - okay she isn't humble at all, that's a lie - pirate parkour expert, what is this reverse engineering you speak of? But it lets her slide a card out her sleeve quick as she likes while everyone else is similarly confused and distracted so it's a win. Mostly.

"Honestly? I have no idea. The assignments I have been on have all been handed out when we've gone somewhere new and there's been work to do, or it's been more...in and out, quick as we can. I mean I helped get our Tal-Vashoth chefs to join? Usually thanks is enough for me, knowing that I've helped." Church calls her Spanish Parkour Robin Hood and he's really not wrong there.

[youwonscience]

"I mean, that's fair." Cosima smiles. "I know it's just a little training wheels mission, for me. I'm not even technically part of the Inquisition yet." Though leaning more in that direction. "But I do want to help, if I can. Definitely pro 'stop demons from attacking people,' if nothing else."