MOD PLOT: NOT ALONE DO WE STAND, PART 1

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone who wants to attend
WHAT: THE GRAND TOURNEY
WHEN: Bloomingtide 20-27
WHERE: Wycome
NOTES: We'll be rolling one or two events per day, in the order listed, and posting the results here! That's also where you can find your diplomacy or espionage assignments and their results. There will be a second log post in about five days regarding the end of the tournament, to give people a place to RP about the competitions' results once they know them and to react to some other surprise developments, so leave some room for dessert.

The Grand Tourney is one of Thedas's greatest spectacles--all the nations of the world and plenty of others besides turned out to compete in this edition of the famous test of arms. The Duke of Wycome has granted the use of a broad plain outside the city, a vast open span of grass bounded on both sides by minor forks of the Minanter making their way to the sea, and split down the center by another. Scores of the duke's men have been hard at work since the announcement, constructing stands and arenas, the rough wooden rails and benches of the commons and luxurious boxes for the more exalted spectators, lifted above the masses and shaded by awnings, draped with bunting in Wycome's brilliant purple and gold.

Between and among the competition grounds are stalls and roving vendors selling anything and everything, most popular the vast open-sided tents filled with trestle tables and benches and neverending barrels of ale and wine as tall as a qunari. Stages of various sizes dot the grounds, hosting musicians, dancers, tumblers, performers of all kinds. Others wander through the crowds, putting on impromptu shows wherever it looks like there are enough people with free coin about.

A half-dozen new wooden bridges span the central river--more like a large stream, really--and connect the competition grounds to the camping grounds. Tents in all colors and styles are arrayed in rough groups, marked out with the banners of knights, houses, mercenary companies, kingdoms. The Inquisition has sprung for new tents for its delegation to make sure they look the part, dramatic black as a backdrop to the Inquisition banners that fly atop each of them, housing two to four people each. Nearest are some Orlesians with an array of brightly-colored silk structures, and on the opposite side, a mercenary company called the the Grizzly Legion, a particularly rowdy outfit, with banners market by a giant red bear, and bonfires and revelry late into the night every night.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The general atmosphere of the tourney is raucous and celebratory, but the rivalries inherent in the occasion seem less good-natured than they might have in past years. Nevarra seems divided into two camps rather than one, with a (not-yet-literal) line down the middle of their encampment and their crowds that's bridged only by the brave and slightly awkward few who still haven't chosen between the Pentaghasts and Van Markhams. And the Orlesians, despite rumors that the Empire is still struggling in the wake of its own civil war, seem particularly delighted to see their rivals teetering on the brink—some are even taking odds on how soon they'll be able to get Perendale back. But, of course, no one can rival Tevinter for smugness. If there was a fancy sword awarded for that, they would win it every year, and there's no sitting near their delegation without "overhearing" an unnecessarily loud conversation about the sorry state of the rest of Thedas.

Of course, not everyone is caught up in the affairs of surfacer empires: there are delegations from both Orzammar and Kal-Sharok, each apparently pretending the other does not exist, and the odd Avvar and Chasind who seems to think everyone else is being a bit ridiculous about everything. The most isolated attendees are those from the Anderfels, who stick close together and rarely speak to anyone else—not that anyone else seems much inclined even if they did want to. At the other end of the spectrum are the Free Marchers; this is the one occasion every-few-years when they look to one another as brothers, rather than distinct and often competitive nations.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

The Grand Tourney's official competitions are scheduled to take place over five days, culminating with the prestigious Grand Melee and awarding of the Celebrant. Before then, the tournament progresses day by day through unarmed combat, archery, armed combat, and jousting competitions, each heavily attended by delighted spectators cheering for their countrymen and any foreigner who strikes them as particularly charming, plus the odd equal-opportunity heckler. A few extra fights break out here and there when tempers flare, between both competitors and observers, and when the alcohol flows more liberally at night the chance of trouble rises. But for the most part, the competitions are fair and the mood around them is celebratory.

Away from the main grounds, a few additional staging areas have been provided for events focused on magic—these are more sparsely attended, due to their unofficial nature and the fears of much of the populace that they might catch a fireball to the face if they wander too close, but enough people's curiosity trumps fear to form a thinner, quieter crowd. The two events open to mages, combat against fade-touched creatures and a version of the melee with teams that allow mages, take place in the early mornings, when they won't be competing with the official events for attention, and are most heavily attended by Tevinter mages who are very, very certain that they can't be beat.

Comments

alexandra karahalios

[periastron]

Diplomacy Failure.
( She’s not totally caught up on who Van Markhams and Pentaghasts and the other fancy dickheads around these parts actually are. She just was asked to help figure an issue out, and she thought yeah, sure, I can do that. I can be helpful as.

That was before the brawl broke out, and before she got knocked down by one of them stepping backwards. Pettily, furiously, she retaliates with a kick to the back of his knee from her place still on the ground, and then the brawl just seems to get more earnest.

She is… going to stand up, dust herself off, and consider new tactics. Clearing her throat, she half-heartedly makes a fresh attempt. ) Mates, you gotta— make love, not war. Be the change you want to see in the world.

( A rotten apple flies past her head, and possibly hits whoever is approaching. The brawlers may not be listening. ) Hakuna matata?


Post-Jousting.
( She definitely didn’t actually mean to participate in the jousting. She’d been looking after the horses, and despite jokes she made to Sarah about participating in this bullshit, was steered towards the jousting by mistake. She wheezes gently; she should have backed out before it started at all, but adrenaline and the excitement of doing something kinda ridiculous kicked in, along with a side serve of general fuck you vibes at everyone.

That said, dropping the lance, just barely keeping on the horse and then eating dirt was pretty rough. She will be bruised to shit tomorrow.

Please feel free to help scrape her off the dusty ground, or to find her later, chugging a beer and looking a little worse for wear, and possibly still in some poorly fitting, beating up armour. )


Gondola.
( Later on in the tourney, after many hours have been spent playing carnival games, Alexandra can be seen daringly, though perhaps not yet skilfully, poling around on a levitating gondola. The wood is polished wood, stained a beautiful red and marked with glowing symbols to keep it floating through the air. She, herself, is wearing cut off leather pants now rendered into short-shorts, a cotton shirt tied up to bare her midriff (and expose a few tattoos and scars in the process), and a wineskin hat.

On the gondola there purchases a koala, or possibly a dropbear, chewing on some celery and carrot sticks. His fur is grey, though occasionally it seems to shimmer the colour of the gondola - but you’re probably just seeing things. )

Who needs a drink?

( Alex yells, holding out two bottles of something dangerously alcoholic, and starting to pour as she glides past.

Or something else could be happening. )


Wildcard?

gondola

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah, still with her chirping bow slung over her shoulder, and now carrying a small terrarium under one arm and a few other prizes in the other, heads toward the familiar and horrible accent. Mostly because the floating gondola looks like a nice storage container, and partly because despite herself she wants to see it up close, and a tiny bit because of all the people in this universe Alex is somehow one of the people she dislikes the least. And she is offering free drinks. ]

Can I use this to carry all the shit I'm winning? [ Yeah, yeah, hello to you, etc. ]

[periastron]

Sarah!

( She's delighted to see her, and brings her gondola to a gentle(ish) stop. )

Yeah, course. ( She nods to the little... shack... hut... thing on the other end of the gondola, and grins. ) You gonna hop on, or what?

( But, ooh, chirping? ) What's making that sound?

[coppelganger]

Uh, just my bow. [ Said a little awkwardly because... she knows how weird that sounds... and she's still not exactly sure why the bow chirps, so she hopes Alex doesn't ask her.

But anyway, she begins to dump her winnings into the gondola. A glowstone, some heated rocks, a few candy necklaces, some kind of violin in a case, the chainmail bikini, and finally she places the terrarium gently on top of the pile. Then she lifts herself easily over the side and hops in. ]

Thanks. I also got one of those giant stuffed bears, but they're holding it for me til I leave.

[periastron]

Huh.

( If she had sunglasses, she'd be pushing them up. As it is she just looks bemused for a second, and then shrugs. Hell, they fell into another world, right? Right now she's in a levitating gondola. ) This place is fuckin' weird.

( She gently, surprisingly gently maybe, ushers Beauregard over a little bit to make more room for Sarah, before the terrarium catches her eye. )

You must've hit the bloody jackpot. We could try fit the bear in, if you wanted.

[coppelganger]

Absolutely not. [ Like she wants to be seen with that thing. Come on. ] And I'm not the person who won a bloody flying gondola.

[ Settling in, she reaches out for Beauregard to sniff her hand, sort of like a person might do for a dog. She's never seen a live koala in her life except for ones at the zoo, and does that even count? ]

[periastron]

There's a bag of treats next to him. It's got some celery and stuff.

( Which remains mysterious and freaky, as does the fact that sometimes his colour changes, but like—

she's trying not to focus on her non-eucalyptus consuming koala and his weird camouflaging. Bearegard, for his part, observes Sarah with sleepy curiousity, and reaching to grab Sarah's finger with his clawed grip (his two-thumbed claw grip, just btw.)

Alex, looking at Sarah, grins. There's a tattoo, mostly in blues, greens, purples and greys of a strange creature, perhaps phoenix-like, with swirls of smoke and water around it that wraps around her thigh and seems to extend up her side, other tattoos wrapping around her here and there, and a few scars across her abdomen. )

Ashamed of your bear, are you? So cold-hearted.

[coppelganger]

Nah, I got it for my sister. She'll get it later.

[ Sarah reaches over with her free hand and grabs some celery for Beauregard to munch on. She's looking at Alex as she does, though, and raises an eyebrow. ]

Nice tats. Didn't take you for the type.

[periastron]

( Celery! Beauregard sniffs it for a moment, and proceeds to munch, slowly but contently, shuffling a bit closer to Sarah. He is generally a little reserved with strangers, and granted he isn't being super outgoing now, but he has met Sarah a few times, so there is some familiarity building. )

The type? ( She grins, amused, and replies with a well meaning, ) Fuck off. There isn't a bloody type.

( And, utterly conspiratorial, ) I won't let you find out about the piercings, if the tattoos surprise you.

post-jousting

[earthbones]

You stink.

[Coming from someone who spends equal parts of her life in the smithy and out in the wilds hunting game, it's saying something. Maybe. Game run if they smell you. The horses don't bother much when Brónach pushes past some, in fact completely comfortable with them.]

Lucky you're not picking bits of that out, c'mon give it to me, let me see what the damage is.

[For an elf who favours the bow, she's surprisingly strong to haul up a human, but more importantly she's got quick clever fingers for armour catches.]

[periastron]

( Wheeeeeeeeeeeeze. From her place in the dirt, dust rising around her, Alex definitely feels winded. )

Do you mean that I'm shitty at jousting, or that I actually smell?

( Because both are terrible, really. She reaches up to let Bronach haul her up, and exhales. )

On the plus side, this isn't mine. It might be now, actually. Dunno if anyone'll be wantin' this back.

[earthbones]

You smell? [A moment of pause, must be an expression Alexandra knows as Brónach wrinkles her nose. Why wouldn't Alexandra smell, can't she smell it herself?] Horses get in a lather, you sweat, the leather and whatever else your armour was made of, what they cleaned and polished it with, all that and the dirt, I can smell it. It's not bad. Just. Things you avoid outside hunting.

[There's a definite dent in the armour, a long set of scrapes too. Damage that could be repaired she thinks as she examines it.]

Do you want armour? It'd need to wait but I can fix this, I've fixed worse. [Said with a knowing grimace of someone whose own gear suffered much much worse.] Didn't know you rode or rode hitting people with lances.

[periastron]

Smells like home, honestly. The leather and sweat and animal smells, not the metallic bit.

( She rolls her shoulders, trying to loosen up a bit. ) The lances are new. Sort of got into it by accident. I did a lot of riding back home, helping with the sheep and all that.

( Looking down at the armour, she pokes at the dent. ) Thanks. That'd be sweet as, helping my hide keeping from getting mangled. I mean, all this might be a bit heavy, but could we keep bits and make it lighter or something?

[earthbones]

Leather and metal are work smells, I want to get them off at the end of the day when I know it's the end of the day. [Unsurprisingly, the concept of time eludes Brónach sometimes when she can watch the minutes drag by then suddenly it's dark in moments, everyone else gone from the smithy, her stinking, sweating, aching. Life gets that way.] My horse is-- [half a glance, one of those rare crooked smiles] maybe a thing more out of a rift. Not a flesh and blood horse. From the waters of Oblivion. He's never smelt like these ones.

[As one strolls over from loose reins to try nibbling on the frayed end of her braid, have at it buddy one of yours helped feed that braid at one point.]

Why would you be herding sheep? Doesn't pay much to do that. You do healer-work. [Look she knows most about where the coin comes and goes, and farmers try to pay her in food she can't fucking eat, the shits.] Someone try talking you into it then? I've...seen that. [Done that. Had that happen with Brynjolf and now she has a Thieves Guild so that worked out but no one hit her with a lance.

Without thinking, Brónach bats at her hand with a scowl.] Stop that, don't know how damaged it is, d'you want us to be picking it out of you? Still, if it wasn't made for you, you weren't going into this with a decent chance. I can measure it up, hammer it out, probably work out something that'll suit you. Unless this is the look you're going for? Trampled and dusted?

[periastron]

I do. But remember I told you about my yiayia and baba having a farm? When I was younger I'd help out. Mending fences, looking to seein' the sheep are alright. I don't do it anymore, unless I go back to visit my family.

( And she doesn't ever do that, these days. It would be much the same even if she hadn't toppled through a rift.

Compliantly - mostly - she drops her hand away from the armour, although she's frowning it. ) If anyone could make "trampled and dusted" could look good, it'd be me. But uh, no, okay, we can go with your idea.

( After a moment of pause— ) When you say Oblivion, is that... poetic?

[earthbones]

Right, right. How big is their farm that you need to go riding around? [HOW SECRETLY RICH ARE YOUR FAMILY ALEXANDRA? You know. To someone from her fake fantasy history time period where the farms are small and chicken murder has every guard right up your ass in 0.2 seconds.]

You're wearing it better than most of them. Did you see one of the boys earlier? His helmet took it because he had the visor tipped up like some sort of icebrained prick, so the lance got him in the head, then when he went off the horse he landed on his head from the back. I think they'll be cutting him out of it. [You know how some people can just veer from 0 to 60 in an alarmingly short space of time? It's like that with a sincere compliment and the quickest up and down onceover to 'I might be into scoping out a horror movie later' if she had the concept of horror movies at all but that sounds like a good fucking time to her.]

They're a plane of existence where the Daedra come from. Think...demons and spirits. Or more like the demons you've seen here but smarter, chattier, different intentions. Just means 'not our ancestors'. That's where he was summoned from. Fearless. He's fought dragons. [Listen to how fond she sounds, it's embarrassing to sound like that about a horse but oh he's a beauty. And a terror.]

[periastron]

Pretty big. ( She doesn't feel like getting into specifics. Big enough that sometimes you gotta drive a long while to go check on the fences, check the troughs, do everything needing doing. )

Long stretches. Not all of it's good for grazin', mind. Some of it's more scrub and bushland, better left for the roos and that. Stuff that is good, we try to rotate the pasteur. Rest fields so they can grow back.

( As for the injury, she makes a sympathetic hissing sound. ) Shit. ( She really needs to teach them about concussions here, which is granted a problem because she hasn't done anything people related with medicine for a very long time. )

You have a horse that's fought dragons? Like— one on one?

( She makes a boxing gesture, even though she knows better than to think of it like a dragon and horse boxing match - but imagine, though. )

failplomacy

[tactical_alert]

[It's hard to avoid the two camps, or the two families when--if they are not so clearly divided, then they are definitely arguing, but a fight breaking out certainly causes a scene. Malcolm's pretty sure there's no real way to calm it down from the outside, and in his experience, talking sense when objects and fists are flying doesn't work. The key to diplomacy is to keep a fight from happening.

Honestly, he was just going to walk on by when an apple clocks him in the head. Soft and mushy enough to be more eugh than ow, but still.

Of course, he doesn't know this woman's on a mission. Or was on a mission. She just looks like a hapless casualty, and moves to place a hand on her arm to draw her back. Before she gets clocked with apples, too.]

Let's let them work it out...

[periastron]

That's pretty much, I mean, that's the opposite of what I'm supposed to—

( More food is flying. Where the fuck are these cabbages even coming from?

She opens her mouth to reply, as a tomato socks her in the side of the head, bursting messily against her jaw, and running down her neck. The "let's be chill" vibe that was was rolling off her - albeit ineffectively - diminishes rabidly. )

Filthy mongrels.

[tactical_alert]

[Sounds like someone got a mission that went sideways. Ah. Malcolm tugs at her arm a little more insistently.]

Don't get into the fray, or I'll have to carry you to a healer. Maybe once they've settled in a bit, you can give them all a good talking-to about playing nice with their rivals.

[periastron]

Oi, mate,

( mate is bitten out with a bit of force, ) Who are you to start tuggin' me about?

( He is trying to be helpful, part of her realises. The other part of her, the small, fighty, furious part, is less cooperative, and considerably less reasonable. )

[tactical_alert]

[Ah. She is someone with a temper. Rude of him, perhaps, to presume to lay a hand on her, this he knows, but for the sake of ushering to safety? His hand stays around her arm, though he stops pulling. He does duck, though.]

Now that they're at it, I think the only thing that will get them to stop before they've gotten it out of their systems is if a dragon suddenly descended upon the tourney.

[periastron]

( A long pause. )

How likely is the dragon thing? Can we make that happen?

( She's mostly joking

or is she )

[tactical_alert]

[Healthier in the long run to assume that she's not.]

I believe there's a special horn for a particular dragon somewhere, but certainly not here, and if the smell of all the cooking food doesn't urge one here to hunt, I don't know what will.

How quickly do you think you could make a fake one to dangle above them?

[periastron]

( Her expression swings from incredulous and surprised to a conspiratorial smile. )

That depends how drunk they get and how convincing it needs to be.

( But she's already looking for something to work with, because this stupid project sounds amazing. ) I need a barrel and some paint. And maybe, I dunno, like a broom.