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

[inagutterson]

"There's a tavern we stopped at once, if you could chug the house garum - who even has a house garum outside fishpeople places? - your stay was free. Course it being a load of us we got Nasir to do it since he's from Rivain, he's fine with fish, wasn't so fine the next morning but that was on them to clean up. We all slept in two rooms instead of tents for a change." When you live on the road, even crammed in same as sardines is a luxury when the nights are humid and damp, the biting insects plentiful. "That's what they do all day in Orlais at the university. Fondle the statues. Don't touch things if you go there, it's just rich ponces touching up marble. Even their bits."

Accusations Yngvi has fired, in some fashion, at living breathing graduates within the Inquisition because that's all he can imagine them doing. It's probably what dwarves do with the paragons. Touch them up. Maybe a smooch. Better to do the elf thing and piss on a tree, that's honest at the very least.

If Nasir were around instead of either canoodling with Amalia (which is what he's probably doing because whenever they're not working, with an honest break, there's a lot of canoodling) he could ask more questions. Or nudge. Nasir'd volunteer things. But Ygnvi closes his own eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them to really soak it all in properly the way you do when you're part of something big, loud, bright, and colourful. The kind of thing he wouldn't have been doing a few months back. Would've been too busy drinking. Or lurking about for.

"Is he one of the surly ones?" Innocent enough to ask but to a dwarf who hasn't had many interactions with mages go well, as a group, most tend to sound surly. Have it rolling off them in waves. Boohoo life was so hard hello welcome to the real world it's shit for us and it's been shit for bloody years, you're not special. (He's not bitter.) "You pull shapes on the dance floor so I can see it working out the same, sort of, not that your sort of robes really let you all cut loose. The way they're moving - it's...fluid? Flowing? I don't want to interrupt but it's like when you watch water moving for a long time, a really long time, and the light hits, and I can hear that too with the rustling and the tinkling if you're by rivers and they're not running fast after hard rains but still moving--"

He's trying hard, cutting himself off, hesitant but forging onward with the description because Myr can't see so he has to figure out what else it's like. What it's like to what he, an Yngvi, has seen. And he thinks this is about right.

For a little while he keeps watching, then leans up on his toes with a creak of leather boots to ask, "You don't have to do that in fights, do you?" Because that'd be 1) hilarious but 2) inconvenient. Unless it distracted the enemy.