OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

[faderifting]

WHO: Many People
WHAT: Cleaning up Kirkwall
WHEN: Cloudreach 1-21
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: This log post is for characters who go early to Kirkwall to assist in preparing it for the rest of those assigned there. We strongly encourage IC discussion of things left to character discretion—someone should definitely do a crystal post to discuss what to do with the personal belongings left behind in the Gallows or what new form the statues should take!

Kirkwall once lived on the edge of the Tevinter Imperium and was home to nearly a million slaves. Stolen from elven lands or shipped from across the sea, all slaves fed the Imperium's unquenchable thirst for expansion. They worked in massive quarries and sweltering foundries that produced stone and steel for the Empire.

The city's complicated past is not easy to forget, history having earmarked many corners of the stone city. A ship approaching the harbor spots the city's namesake: an imposing black wall. It is visible for miles, and carved into the cliff side are a pantheon of vile guardians representing the Old Gods. Over the years, the Chantry has effaced many of these profane sentinels, but it will take many more years to erase them all.

Also carved into the cliff is a channel that permits ships into the city's interior. Flanking the channel are two massive bronze statues—the Twins of Kirkwall. The statues have a practical use. Kirkwall sits next to the narrowest point of the Waking Sea, and a massive chain net can be erected between the statues and the lighthouse, closing off the only narrow navigable lane. This stranglehold on sea traffic is jealously guarded by the ever-changing rulers of the city as the net trolls taxes, tolls, and extortions in from the sea.

—From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi

---

Establishing a presence in Kirkwall is a delicate matter. First, there's Provisional Viscount Bran Cavin—a man so used to batting back friendly offers of entirely harmless occupation of the battered city-state that his first three responses to the Inquisition's leadership appeared to be slightly personalized form letters. Proving that the Inquisition is here to work and not to conquer will be a process. The first step in that process is the second reason the move is delicate: the only building the Provisional Viscount is willing to part with is the Gallows, left quarantined and unoccupied since Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard's famous crystallization into red lyrium in the courtyard. The Gallows have since overgrown with red lyrium. If anyone is going to live and work there, there's a lot of work to do.

↠ Cloudreach 1-3: The Journey There
↠ Cloudreach 3-4: Arrival
↠ Cloudreach 4-14: Haunted
↠ Cloudreach 14-21: Spring Cleaning

Comments

[tallasaking]

"Yes ... it is quite unnerving. I mean, I come from a place where magic is so rare that we only have fragments of it left in the world. I think the return of magic would be cherished, not locked away in a tower." He muses, before he snorts, "Or ... they all might panic as badly as those here. Who knows?"

A faint smirk. "Let us hope our luck holds then."

[kartereo]

Waver paused, then tilted his head slightly. "I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume your world has nobility. I think the actual response is best determined by pondering this hypothetical: would they be inclined to want to destroy the return of magic in infancy before those with powers can threaten their own holds, or would they recruit powers to themselves to cement their position?"

It was a fun thought exercise, in a way. Of course, that was providing that Tyrion was game for it.

"In this place? I'm inclined to doubt it will."

[tallasaking]

"Oh yes, my world thrives on nobility, and all that it entitles." Is Tyrion's rather dry response, "And I can answer that easily - they would recruit them. Every noble house is looking for the proverbial edge against another. Beyond that, we are at war with one another. No one would turn down magic if it would turn the tide."

That much he was certain of.

"Yes, I rather have to agree."

[kartereo]

"Lovely. Because every poor mage would be a quick mark for assassination from rival houses." The idea of it causes Waver to wrinkle his nose. Something like that could all to easily have transpired back home if magi didn't decide to hide themselves. "Do I want to prod at the cause of this war, or is ignorance bliss?"

Good to know that a dim view of fortune seemed to be near universal.

"I presume you've been here longer than I have to make that kind of assessment?"

[tallasaking]

"I could see that more easily than anything else." He paused, then sighed, "Why does anyone really fight a war in earnest? To get a crown, of course. So you can wear it for a few years and feel like you are somehow blessed on high -- but I have seen enough kings without heads or lives these days. They seem a paltry sort of reward."

No kingdom for him, thank you.

[kartereo]

Waver cringed. Nothing like a succession crisis to make life interesting, and by interesting he meant absolutely miserable.

"It almost seems like it'd be time to find a different form of government besides monarchy."