AUGUST RIFTER ARRIVAL

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters, rescuers, and anyone else
WHAT: New arrivals are collected and transported to Kirkwall
WHEN: Mid-August
WHERE: Southern Tevinter, then the Gallows
NOTES: This log contains prompts for the ARRIVAL and RECOVERY of new rifters, which are closed to new rifters and to the characters involved in the catacombs escape/rescue team in the Tevinter plot. It also contains a new QUARANTINE prompt that is open to everyone.

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Oh! Yeah, that's no problem, we can totally find someone to teach you that shit. I'd offer, just...I guess I wouldn't know where to start teaching something like that. Like how do you really teach a whole alphabet and all that? That's why teachers need paid more."

That's a tangent for another time. He holds out a hand to shake. "Church. You can call me Church. Any fellow Rifter is a friend of mine."

[lil_lion]

Anduin shakes his hand. "I am pleased to meet you, friend." His tone is warm, though formal. It's an odd mix; usually formality goes hand in hand with insincerity but the young man could be a walking illustration of the concept.

"And your name is 'Church?' Are you a priest, then? Oh... I hear there is no church in Thedas, only this Chantry."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Ah, no, it's just my last name. I just...don't really get called Leonard?" Mostly because he only ever introduces himself as Church, and when he does introduce his first name, insists on being called Church. Even Christine still calls him Church.

"Chantry's basically the Andrastian church, and...there's not like a whole lot of religious diversity it feels like? You got a couple big ones and then like...tiny little sects that get treated like cults and that feels like it's about it. Not the best person to ask about the nitty gritty details of all of 'em. But you're probably gonna get the basic lowdown on the Maker and Andraste if you haven't yet."

[lil_lion]

"I see," says Anduin somberly. "I had wondered-- It is strange to see the..." he pauses, mulling over his words. "--passion with which most people engage with the Chantry, and this despite the detachment of this 'Maker,' who... if I understand rightly, doesn't actually manifest in the world. Or at least, he doesn't anymore."

It's peculiar. Anduin had known many people who were skeptical of religion, his father being one. Steel and a strong arm were what he relied upon. Yet even he, and others, would readily admit that they had seen and felt the Light. It had knitted flesh, soothed their hearts, brought back the dead in some cases. They were skeptical because they had never truly, truly *felt* it. Here, the Maker was absolutely absentee yet the devotion of his followers alarmed Anduin.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Right. It's--wait." And that's peculiar. The wording of Anduin's understanding. "Are you from somewhere where your gods just are, like, physically, traipsing around the world and all?" There are those whose worlds are like that. Not his, but, maybe that's the sitch here.

[lil_lion]

"Wall, you said there isn't much diversity here. My people don't worship anyone, not the way the humans here revere this Maker. We don't have prophets or saints. But we do have priests. We rely on the power of the Light, which is everywhere. It's hard to deny its reality if you see it close up a wound." He shrugs and leans forward. He glosses over the philosophy of it all; that's where things can get thorny. No one can even say for sure where the dead go- there are so many afterlives, and each manifestly as real as the others.

"But other peoples worship various beings... which are real and indeed 'traipse' around," he smiles. "Loa, elemental spirits, Nauru, Wild Gods that are powerful nature spirits... I have spoken with, studied with some of these beings."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Light closing up a wound just sounds like magic." But he's not gonna deny anyone's religion. His own sure doesn't sound the wildest by far, just maybe more open than something like the natives have.

"I guess it's all just a matter of perspective when it comes to worship, or revering, or praying and priests and sainthood and shit. Especially when you have actual real tangible gods around. Definitely don't have that in my world. Maybe that's why we've got so many religions and offshoots of them, cuz we don't have anything concrete to base anything on."

[lil_lion]

"It is," he says eagerly. "It is very like the powers a shaman or druid relies upon to heal the wounded, cure the sick--" No, he really shouldn't get into the philosophy of it all. Once he starts, he's not at all sure that he could stop himself before he's thoroughly bored his companion. "Trolls wield the Light through their Loa- like Rezan. Night Elves call upon their goddess Elune. The Draenei rely on the Nauru. Humans... the Light came to us, in our hearts. But it is all the Light, whatever its source."

Anduin had visited Netherlight Temple what seemed like a lifetime ago. Priests of every race gathered there, putting aside their differences of philosophy, and more importantly the terrible wounds of generational war, to stand as one against the darkness threatening to consume the world. It so affected him, Anduin had felt he could move mountains. Someday... there would be peace. If this could happen, nothing was impossible.

"Now the Chantry... Parts of it... trouble me. We once had a zealous, break-away faction of paladins and priests. They called themselves the Scarlet Crusade. You can... probably guess why I am wary of such zeal."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"So you have gods, but they're all conduits for this one universal...thing, constant, that exists." Kinda like a god to a metaphorical god, but only it's not a metaphor and just...a power? Just magic? Hm.

"I mean..." Church makes a face. "I mean, there's a lot of debate about the major religion here. Because one of the basic tenants is like...everyone's gotta convert for the Maker to come back, and let's face it, that shit's not happening. The elves have their pantheon that they're desperately trying to hold on to after being persecuted for Ages, the dwarves have their own thing and they predominantly live underground, the qunari-with-a-little-q I'm not sure, I guess they're free to do whatever, but the Qunari-with-a-big-Q have the Qun which...I think isn't so much a religion as a strict way of life? I think? And then you've got Avvar with their spirits, and you've obviously got different sects of the religions, and that's all the super super super simplified version. Back home's no better. Spanish Inquisition." So. Inquisition in and of itself is kind of a loaded word. "The Crusades. Loooots of wars and horrible discriminational acts cuz of religion. 's not that religion is bad as a concept, just...y'know, zealots, like you said. The righteous believers. The proselytizers and shit."

[lil_lion]

Anduin makes a face as well- it's not unlike Church' expression. He especially doesn't like the sound of the Chantry holding the view that this 'Maker' being they revere as the creator deity will return to them if they succeed in obliterating the diversity of faiths. A cold horror rises in him as he ponders it. "You know, whenever such zealotry rose on my world- wherever it may be- even the most bitter enemies would recognize its danger, that we all shared in the harm that could come of it. It... is discomfiting to know that such forces are so prevalent here."

It hasn't yet dawned fully on Anduin that the threat he is repulsed by is not only a general danger but specifically for people like him- for those who are capable of wielding magic. It manifests only as a small, heavy feeling in his stomach.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"I mean there's...there are people who feel a little safer questioning beliefs they've held, here. I think there might be more atheists and agnostics than anyone might necessarily think, which, isn't that always the case? But," he continues, trying to return to the point, "I wouldn't pick a fight about it, if that's what you're thinking of doing. There's already a lot going on that a bunch of people up and trying to overthrow the dominant religion of the place isn't gonna end well.

"We--the Inquisition, I mean--we're also trying to get into the good graces of, I guess, the ruling body of it? They lost their leader, uh, their pope, lady pope, and the bishops and mothers and whoever, they haven't picked a new leader, and generally speaking don't like us very much? But they have enough power and more importantly influence that we would really really like to be okay by their book."