Simple Gifts [Closed]

[laurenande]

WHO: Galadriel, Thranduil, Solas, Myrobalan, Merrill, Kitty, Lakshmi, Teren, Marcoulf, Jang, Obi-Wan, and Anders
WHAT: A trip to a perfectly normal Chantry in the middle of nowhere.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: The Island of Alamar, Ferelden.
NOTES: Current warnings, to be updated: Graphic Descriptions of Gore

The Abbey on the White Cliff

Travel to the Abbey on the White Cliff is no easy matter. While it stands not far from Amaranthine, the waters between the mainland and the island shores are a wicked confluence of eddies and razor sharp rock. The rain is ever-present here and the wind moves unpredictably at the best of times. Ships of size cannot travel easily to the island of Alamar and small boats are rarely steady through the choppy water. Fortunately, as the Inquisition approaches, the world takes some pity on them and the waters seem to still and calm. The clouds linger but, at the very least, they don't open above them until they have reached the land.

The island is a grey affair, all rocks and scrub and damp. The village, an austere looking outcropping of buildings, is entirely made from the local stone and, were it not for the red clay roofing, would blend into the landscape seamlessly. Very few people have strayed into the rain to greet the Inquisition and, without the voices to echo off the stone, most sound is drowned in the lapping of waves and the heavy fall of rain. As a result of the weather and the lack of citizens, the town has the general quality of a graveyard.

The merchants who work the docks are affable enough and, after unloading their haul and securing it somewhere a bit drier, offer to take the Inquisition up to the Abbey proper. The rain slows before long and the merchants lead the Inquisition to the main roads and, let them on their way. Fortunately, the Island is not terribly large and, even walking, it will take only a few hours to arrive at the far side of it.

As the party leaves the village and the shore, the island landscape opens before them. Sloping moors give way to periodic outcroppings of rock and, against the horizon and the far end of the island, there rests a dark forest of pines. The Abbey on the White Cliff stands at the far side, at the top of the hill and overlooking the waves. The road they travel is an easy one, well worn, and the buildings come into view long before they reach them--they stand several stories tall, made of the same stone as the village. They are moss-covered and have the look of an old building that has been questionably kept--at least, from a distance.

The closer one gets to the buildings, the more obvious the additions and repairs become. Windows that have no business holding glass have had colorful windows inset to them. The doors are heavy, wooden, and new. The ironwork on the walls is polished and unworn by the rain. There are no torches lit but, once the Inquisition members have reached the doors, they open promptly.

They are greeted by a Chantry Sister with a bright smile and rosy cheeks and, without hesitation, the lot of them are welcomed into the Abbey.


OOC:

Hey guys! So I plan on aggressively GMing this one. Basically I want to run this like D&D, or as near as I can manage.

The location threads below are available for single player/two player exploration, I will be tagging you with information based on where you go or what you do, but if you want to do a bigger thread please just use the team threads at the bottom. That way if you all decide you want to check out the [INSERT LOCATION HERE] and it leads you to [DIFFERENT LOCATION] I can move you along without changing threads.

Because of your proficiencies, different characters will have advantages in different areas/while talking to different people, so groups are best. I will also be PMing your character journal periodically with any information that your character may have picked up on that nobody else would.

The NPCs are available for talking to or questioning by any number of people. Their general locations are in their thread headers so you can travel there as a crew or ask me to send them at you, if you so desire.

Feel free to do new top-levels if you guys really want, I am just here to try and make this fun.

Comments

The Docks

[laurenande]

The boats arrive at the docks with little fanfare. The way the rocks curve around the shore here provides cover from the high, rolling waves beyond, but the water still laps noisily against the stones. Both the boatman and the dockworkers are quick to get the boats secured. The rock along the shore would provide little purchase but the docks have been built and, it appears, maintained quite expertly.

The first impression of Alamar is that the island is one color across the whole of it: grey. The sky is grey with great blotches of black, the ground is grey broken up only into shades where it moves from packed dirt to stone, and the buildings are grey to a one. Their rooftops are a bland shade of red but overgrown in many places by moss. Each house has grey shutters drawn tight and grey smoke rises from many of their chimneys.

It is not precisely a welcoming place, but it is peaceful--until the rain begins to fall. It comes down in sheets, sudden and loud against the stone and wood. The dockworkers pay it little heed, but motion helpfully to the awnings of the storehouse nearby.

Galadriel

[laurenande]

Galadriel lingers on the boat once it has docked. She stares, first at the town and then her gaze drifts, slowly and inevitably, toward the road and the rise of the land as it moves from the shore. She stares for some time, as the sky opens and rain begins to pour.

Eventually she moves, though as she does she begins to whisper. It is largely to herself, but she can be overheard, if one has the will to try or to strain themselves over the sounds of the rain.

Her grey cloak keeps the water off well enough, but in this place it blends into the shades of the landscape far too well. It is easy to lose sight of her, even as she stands on the docks, and her stillness does not encourage otherwise.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

[hello_there]

The moment Obi-Wan steps onto the docks, he feels it; that faint, niggling sense of something wrong. He looks up at the clean, well-kept lines of the abbey, the clear signs of institutional health, of wealth enough to spare for charity, and frowns very slightly. It's lovely, and the invitation is surely a welcome courtesy, even if it takes them all to so remote and forbidding a place.

But a Jedi learns to trust his feelings: he can trust little else so completely.

"I have a bad feeling about this," He sighs, and makes way for the next person to come down the gangway. The rain comes down as if it had an appointment to keep, and he draws his hood up against it and raises his voice, "Come along. Let's see what our hosts make of us."

Kitty

[rathercommon]

Kitty, as it turns out, gets seasick. She had thought she'd be fine, given her past experiences, but, well - as it turns out, taking a sedate sightseeing cruise in a Thames barge is rather different from jerking across storm-tossed seas in a fragile little boat. So as soon as they hit land, Kitty is up and out of that boat, getting onto firm soil as soon as she can.

She sits down with a grateful sigh the moment the earth feels steady under her feet. She's shaky and pale, but looking better by the moment as she recovers from the water.

The Denizens of the Abbey

[laurenande]

Scattered throughout the Abbey there are a great number of the faithful, come to praise Andraste and the Maker. Their numbers are far greater than anything this Abbey was meant to maintain, but still they come. There are many who have traveled quite a distance to be here, and many who live in the village by the shore; they are varied in shape and size but each and every one of them is in good spirits.

The Sisters and the pilgrims go about their business, surrounded by the damp and grey of the island, engulfed in the cold of the Abbey, and not one of them seems to care one whit about any of it. The dreary garden and dim archways might as well be lit with streaming golden light for all that the people of the Abbey beam and smile.

(OOC: For questions to any specific NPCs, drop them here in their threads. If you want to converse with them in a different location, just put the preferred location in the header. Multiple PCs in a thread is fine.)

Sister Brigette - Found In The Main Hall

[laurenande]

Sister Brigette is a young woman with a round, rosy face and bright, happy eyes. It was her who invited the Inquisition into the building and she has made herself ever available to anyone who might need help. She can be found in the Main Hall at nearly all hours, helping the pilgrims, reading from the Chant, or standing by the locked doors at the very back of the building.

She is not an intimidating person, nor exceptionally stern. Her voice is warm and pleasant and made for singing simple songs.

Brother Morely - Found In The Main Hall and Various Other Buildings

[laurenande]

There is a Brother who wanders the Main Hall at odd hours. His comings and goings are only remarkable in that he carries with him a lit lamp and a long stick. He travels through the Main Hall and, in fact, most rooms in the Abbey and lights each of the candles. They are often extinguished long before he has finished but, for a brief period, there is a glow of candlelight through the Chantry.

Though he wears the robes of a lay brother, he is not precisely a friendly fellow. His dark hair rests long, nearly to his shoulders, and his expression is rarely welcoming. It is, perhaps, the frustration of his task...or perhaps it is his personality, but he will help when he can and it is possible he will answer questions if asked politely.

Found on the fringes of the hall with the serfs lighting candles, also outside the meditation basement.

Brother Estmond - Found In The Infirmary Hall or the Kitchens

[laurenande]

The Infirmary Hall is a terrible place, dreadful and unwelcoming, but the man who works there is neither of these things. He has a kind face and ashen blonde hair that he keeps very short. He dresses neatly and wears his vestments, but is often covered in fluids that are best not spoken of in polite company.

He can be found easily, assuming one is willing to travel to the Infirmary Hall to do it. If one is very lucky, they can stumble upon him in the garden or crossing into the kitchens, but such instances are rare.

The Carpenters, Merkle and Herkle of Alamar - Found Everywhere

[laurenande]

There are two very large men who travel the halls of the Abbey--to say they wander would be incorrect as neither of them has ever wandered in all their lives. They are older men, with impressive facial hair, and are often carrying wood, tools, or large buckets filled with fastenings. They are carpenters by trade, but they can be seen fitting glass to the windows or repairing the ironwork around the Chantry.

Clearly every addition or repair done to the Abbey was orchestrated by them and, frankly, it is a challenge to avoid them.

The elder of the two is Herkle of Alamar, and he is nearly seventy years of age. His snow white hair and near toothless glower precedes him. His son, a middle-aged man with a matching glower and considerably stronger countenance, is Merkle of Alamar. One would not be out of order if they guessed either of them were of Avvar descent.

Sister Luca - Found Passing Through

[laurenande]

Sister Luca is a young woman with a long braid of blonde hair that she wears over her shoulder. She has a sharp face and an unforgiving air about her. Her voice is strict, but not unkind, and she moves with purpose. She is often carrying books or papers, or carrying trays of food to and from the building to the north of the Main Hall.

The other Sisters treat her with deference as she passes and, if asked, any one of them will state that Sister Luca is going to be the Reverend Mother soon.

Reverend Mother Alvar - Found in the Cloister, Infirmary Hall, or Garden

[laurenande]

Reverend Mother Alvar is a woman who appears to be well on the other side of a century old. She is bent and wizened, her limbs thin and her skin loose and creased. Her hair is a stark white and she is bald in patches--she keeps it braided, insofar as it can be, and it rests on her shoulder. Her gowns are not the vestments of the Reverend Mother, they are far too heavy for her frail shoulders, but the cold does not bother her despite her wearing only a light dress and a knit shawl.

She shuffles more than she walks, bent as she is, and is almost constantly attended by a younger sister with a thick braid of long blonde hair. During the times when Luca is not at her side, occasionally she seeks out Brigette, but she usually meanders on her own or sits a while. She has a kind air about her. Her face is creased deeply and the whole of it seems to shift as she looks about a room. Her eyes disappear entirely when she smiles.

Despite her great apparent age, she carries herself with dignity and poise, moving without fear of injury or pain. She goes slowly, but she does not seem to concern herself with the effort of it.

Lay Sister Elonwy - Found In The Cloister and Laundry

[laurenande]

A young woman who looks to be around sixteen. She has a round, bright face, expressive brown eyes, and wears her hair covered by a span of white fabric. Her arms are near-constantly pinkened and chapped to her elbows, but she doesn't seem to mind it at all as she comes and goes at all hours with a quick smile for any who pass and her arms full of sheets, vestments, and other cloth goods.

She moves with the energy of youth and the purpose of the genuinely faithful.

Sometimes accompanied by her younger brother Gwydion, an exuberant and good-natured boy of about six who has a child's predilection for being underfoot.

The Abbey on the White Cliff

[laurenande]

The Abbey is not terribly large, it is not a sprawling place and it does not rise above the trees, but it is not a small facility. At the height of its use, the Abbey held two dozen Sisters and lay Sisters, all learning and singing the Chant. Now, it is packed full to bursting with the faithful, housing nearly a hundred souls within its walls.

The rooms can be difficult to navigate, for all the people in them, but the crowd is filled with friendly sorts and they will move aside with a smile if approached. The rain keeps everyone penned inside for the most part, but the glass on the windows keeps out the damp, even if it does not insulate the interior from the sharp cold and the drafts that put out every flame within moments of it being lit.

The Abbey is a beautiful place, if old and only recently undergoing any sort of renovation, but at its core it is a reflection of the island around it. It is grey, damp, and with the smell and taste of chalk and the sea all about it.

(OOC: Please use these threads if you want your characters to explore somewhere alone or without their team. Or if you want to go somewhere with someone from another team. Really, this is a catch all for threads that aren't team-based dungeon progression.)

The Main Hall

[laurenande]

The Main hall is a long building, it is the mirror of nearly every Chantry in the whole of Thedas. It stretches from the front doors of the Abbey like the hall at Skyhold, if not quite so soaring and tall. The nave is lined with twin rows of columns and, beyond them rests a single row of benches on either side. Small alcoves open up every handful of feet, each furnished with a small table and lit by a set of glass windows that reach near to the arching of the ceiling. Hundreds of unlit candles sit on the tables before the windows and a watery grey light filters down on them, lighting the hall in an a sleepy, quiet way.

Most of the pilgrims who have come to this place sit here, on benches new and old, or in a mix of rough and finely hewn chairs, none of which match the building itself. The high stretching ceiling absorbs some of the conversations, but the room is still loud in the way that all crowded rooms are wont to be. Whispers mount atop one another until there is a quiet din of hushed conversation.

Any Sister or Brother of this Abbey can be found in this hall and they wander through it with some frequency. They travel through to the buildings on either side, to the garden or the cloister, and occasionally through the doors at the very end. Through these doors, even with the din of conversation, there is a persistent sound of construction and, of all the doors in the Abbey, these are the only ones that have a Sister standing outside of them, preventing entry.

The Cloister

[laurenande]

To the east of the main hall there is a wide plaza surrounded on all sides by a covered walkway made of stone arches and paved in concrete. In the center of the plaza, there are a few shrubs, but they are wilting a bit as their access to the sky has been cut off. The plaza has been covered over with a wooden awning. The smell of newly cut pine is in the air and fights against the brine of the ocean and the smell of the flowers that line the ground beside the shrubs.

A statue of Andraste stands at the center of the plaza, beneath the awning, but it is a new addition and flanked on all sides with sawhorses and heavy tables erected of new wood. The people who wander through this place are hauling and towing, carrying loads and tools, working hard and in constant motion. It is a different atmosphere entirely from the Main Hall.

Below the awnings there are always men working, lifting lumber and chopping wood, forming planks, or carving small details into decorative pieces. The rain patters on throughout all their work, but they are dry here. They have not been spared the cold that permeates this place, but their candles are generally lit and sit in a ring around the statue they have erected.

The Dormatories

[laurenande]

The Inquisition is welcomed with open arms to the Abbey, but not all welcomes are quite equal. Those who bare a rift mark are given a bit more kindness than those who do not. Rooms are cleared and opened to the marked, and while the beds are three to a space, they are still beds and they are made up with both sheets and blankets, adorned with a down pillow each. Those without marks are given cots, just as the rest of the pilgrims are, and their blankets are no less thick but their pillows are markedly thinner, if they are present at all.

The dormatories are east of the main hall, above the kitchens and the storehouses, overlooking trees and the cloister. The windows here have no glass but their shutters pull tight and the windows are covered by heavy curtains. There are a few niceties, mirrors and bookshelves that have not been moved in a century, but everything else has been moved or shuffled away to make room for those who come to the Abbey every day.

The Inquisition members are lucky, they are not sleeping in the Main Hall or the hallways that line the Abbey, but the space they share is cramped. The kitchens below are loud, but there is fortunately no smoke rising from them to choke the windows or spoil the air.

The Garden

[laurenande]

To the west of the main hall, stretching back toward the dense wall of tall, dark pines that rise around and grow against the Abbey, there is a garden. It slopes with the gentle curves of the hill and is cut into uneven, amateur portions. The sections are divided by rows of stones and scattered low fences of spare wood and interwoven sticks. There is a path of packed dirt, but it meanders nearly as much as the garden itself, and stops before the edge of the trees where they rise against the wall of the main building. There are paths that stretch off into the trees but they are less well defined and their destinations unknown.

It seems that one of nearly everything is planted in the garden of the Abbey. There are vegetables and fruits, vines and gourds and, despite the weather and the chill, the chalk in the soil and the time of year, not one plant seems to be suffering. They are pristine things, each growing and flowering and heavy with perfect fruits. It is a curious sight made even curiouser by the lack of a gardener or tools.

The Infirmary Hall - CW: GORE

[laurenande]

To the west of the Main Hall, beyond the garden, there is a small building that sits near the edge of the cliff, just where the trees begin to pull away. The Infirmary has heavy windows and a bright red wooden door. It is less than half the size of the Main Hall, but it is nearly as crowded.

The interior of the Infirmary is packed with a solid quarter of the population of the Abbey. Men, women, and children linger here and their injuries and illnesses are a tapestry of pain and suffering. More than a few of them are missing limbs, show the signs of gangrene or sepsis, and those who are ill are beyond what hope medicine or magic can truly grant them. These are pilgrims who have come to the house of the Maker to find what aid religion can provide.

They rest comfortably, tended to by Brother Estmond, but the building stinks of blood, effluvia, and the bitter tang of potions.

In all the Abbey this is the only room that is truly warm and, of all the buildings, it is the only one that has a lit hearth. The flames are not hardy, unfortunately, but with perpetual tending they maintain well enough to keep from extinguishing themselves.

The Offices and Library

[laurenande]

Beyond the northern transept the walkway is worn but unkempt. It leads to a small building that is cramped with all the shuffled furnishings that once resided in the dormatories. The rooms of this building were once for study and, assuming one can wedge the doors open, each room still holds the books and desks and writing implements that the Sisters used before they had to turn their full attention to the faithful.

The shelves are packed with journals and religious texts, books on medicine and gardening and earthly things rest in trunks and atop old tables, gathering dust. Littered across every floor in every room are stacks upon stacks of personal belongings. Small trinkets, notes and letters, toys or gifts rest in every corner, dust covering them in thick sheets. One room is filled with cloth, spare shirts and pants, robes and vestments, enough to clothe everyone in the Abbey now. It is an oddly grim sight.

At the end of the hall, past all of the obstacles and miscellany, there is an office with a single lit candle. This flame does not guttter or twist as the others do. It burns, unhindered, on a large desk, surrounded by clean books and a quill. The shelves in this room are clear and open, unimpeded by the stacks that block every other room and corner of this building. This is the Abbey's library and, for all that everything has shifted in this place, this room has remained unchanged for decades.

The Kitchens

[laurenande]

The kitchens are a large space, two wide tables that parallel the long walls of the building. There are stoves on each wall, troughs and basins for washing, and a myriad of hanging pans that dangle heavy from the mounts in the ceiling. The rooms were designed to feed a full Abbey of people but they are clearly insufficient for the hundred strong that reside here now.

What space the room once had is taken up, absorbed completely by baskets and open casks filled with fresh vegetables, fruits, flour sacks full of bread, buckets of butter and huge containers of milk. There are no grains, nor beans, nor anything that require a flame to heat and cook. It is curious but the chill in the room is enough that the quality of the ingredients, however perishable they are, is not so unbelievable.

There are three doors to the kitchen. One door leads out into the cloister and back toward the main hall, one leads to the side yard where the water pump is, and the last leads down, presumably into the larder or a cellar below the kitchens. This door is shut with a sliding wooden lock to hold the doors closed.

The Southern Transept

[laurenande]

In the southern transept, near the end of the Main Hall, few people linger. It is not an unpleasant place, but it leads nowhere and is chillier than the rest of the building. There are two doors there. The door against the forward wall leads down and to the apartments of the Reverend Mother. The door to the exterior of the building has been blocked off and boarded up. The light that filters through the windows, there, is muted and blotted out by the great inky shadows of the trees that loom around the Abbey. They are close to the building here and the shadows they cast are long and cold.

To the right side of the door, opposite the forward wall, there are a series of steps that lead downward into what should be a storm cellar. They are easily missed, hidden in that dark and disused corner of the building, but there are no doors to block them. If one strays closely enough one can hear the dripping and sloshing of water below, as though there is a great cistern full of it beneath the floor.

If one listens very hard, they can hear soft and distant whispering, but it is an evasive thing and lost as easily as it is found.

The Laundry

[laurenande]

Perhaps most remarkable is that it is warm here. The fires set to boil the water that cleanses the Abbey's cloth goods never flicker, dampen, or die. Opening the door regardless of hour will send a cloud of lye scented steam billowing into the hallway, and the interior is filled with more of the same.

The large room is hot, humid, and filled with vats of both wood and metal containing heated water for soaping, soaking, and rinsing, and linens of all kinds hang in somewhat orderly fashion throughout, making it impossible to see the whole of the room at one time.

Team 1 - Merrill, Solas, Myr, Galadriel

[laurenande]

(OOC: Feel free to start threads as you like. This is a catch all for your adventures.)

Dormatories, Night 1

[laurenande]

The room is small with barely a space between the cots and the bed, but Galadriel has found the route through it that will permit her to pace. She is on edge, stressed to the very ends of her tolerance, and her eyes dart toward the window once every few minutes. Her expression is grim but she does not speak as she moves.

She only ceases her pacing once the others have joined her. She does not take the bed that has been offered and, instead, stands by the open window for some time.

"This is a dreadful, intolerable place."

Team 2 - Kitty, Lakshmi, Teren, Thranduil

[laurenande]

(OOC: Feel free to start threads as you like. This is a catch all for your adventures.)

Breakfast Chat

[doneisdone]

One look at the Rifters' rooms was all Teren needed to put her on her guard (to be fair, it never takes much), and she hardly slept a wink the previous night. She's sitting at a table in the main hall with a wooden mug of black coffee, her bread and cheese already eaten, her spindly fingers wrapped around the cup as though it's the only source of warmth in the whole world: she lost some weight in Nevarra and looks more than ever like the sort of thing that walks out of the swamp in the Fallow Mire. Telling her that is inadvisable, but not unheard of.

"You'll want to keep your sparkly hands to yourselves," she grunts to her tablemates, noting that all three of them look considerably better-rested and bear the telltale marks. "I've seen this sort of thing before. They'll be wanting those."

Team 3 - Marcoulf, Jang, Obi-Wan, Anders

[laurenande]

(OOC: Feel free to start threads as you like. This is a catch all for your adventures.)

Setting up for the first night

[justice_is_blond]

"Well this place isn't creepy at all." It's said with a glance in the direction of Marcoulf, not to indicate the man but because he may be the only one who likely knows the concepts of 'Anders' and 'Chantry' together probably mean one is creeped out by default.

"If this was one of Varric's stories, there'd be a reason it's so grey and rainy and cold, and I'm not going to rule out that being connected."