faderift | MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

WHO: Anyone & Everyone
WHAT: Winter adventures as Riftwatch heads up into the Vinmark Mountains to do some work for (Provisional) Viscount Bran of Kirkwall
WHEN: Throughout Wintermarch and early Guardian
WHERE: Vinmark Mountains
NOTES: OOC post

Still-Provisional Viscount Bran has received a number of requests for aid from communities in the Vinmark mountains outside Kirkwall. He wants to keep them happy so that they continue to pay taxes to Kirkwall and don't become problematically independent or allied with some other state. But he also doesn't want to deal with this shit, and the City Guard isn't really equipped to go tromp around the mountains in the winter. So he has asked Riftwatch to deal with this, casting it as a shared danger (if any communities were to break away, they'd be more vulnerable to enemy collaboration, or hampering travel through the passes, and things like that) but if necessary will imply that Riftwatch's refusal would weigh unfavorably against the decision to allow them to remain in the Gallows for free.

This work isn't done at the exclusion of all else--other normal (and especially high-priority) work continues. Any work that isn't especially time-sensitive may be postponed, and otherwise agents will simply have to forfeit their free time and fit this work in on top of their other responsibilities. Something for people to complain about while they're tromping through the snow.

It's not a long trip back and forth to the Gallows, so people can come and go if they want, but Bran has also agreed to allow Riftwatch the use of the Viscount's hunting lodge, a rustic mountain retreat traditionally used for hunting parties, which happens to be in a roughly central location. As Viscount Bran is both Provisional and profoundly not the sort of man who holds hunting parties, the lodge has gone unused for some years now, and Riftwatch is bringing in its own supplies and a skeleton support staff to man the place for the duration. Those traveling up in the first group will have to help escort supply wagons through snowy, muddy mountain roads, unloading casks and crates into the cellar, and pitch in cleaning, making minor repairs, and generally getting the building set up after a decade of neglect.

The lodge is organized around a central hall with a massive fireplace, and a small library and study that will be used as offices shared between those visiting. Up the grand wood stair is a mezzanine level that looks down on the hall and leads to three corridors, each with a couple rooms. Rooms will be shared by groups of 2-4 people, the exception being the two suites generally reserved for the viscount and his wife, which will now be assigned to whichever of the Division Heads are in residence (and if there are more than two at a time, then to whichever Division Heads win a coin toss or something). Each room has basic furnishings, heavy and rustic, and its own fireplace. Bathing facilities are communal, provided by natural hot springs pools. While these are outdoors, there is a roof, and there is also a small springhouse alongside for changing, as well as a separate sauna.

The stables contain a number of sleighs in varying states of repair, which can be signed out for use. They're often the best way to get around this area in winter, and can be pulled by a team of Vinmark Goats, a big-horned shaggy breed of unusually massive mountain goats that are often used in place of ponies in this part of the world. The Viscount had a herd of them, which has since run more or less wild on his land and will need to be rounded back up for use.

There are a few communities with different problems, spread out some ways apart through the mountains:

ICE RIFT: The village of Erith has been plagued by shades and despair demons, which can be traced to a rift that has opened under the thick mid-winter ice of the frozen lake just outside town. Trying to get at it from above would mean cutting into the ice and fighting off demons while underwater and very likely freezing to death in minutes. So instead they'll need to traverse the ice caves beneath the lake to reach it, which will be complicated by the nature of shades, which leech off the energy of the livings' psyche, causing confusion, fatigue, and fear.
SNOWMONSTERS: Cragfield has been cut off by an infestation of what's only been described as "snowmonsters," that have been harrying travelers around the village or anyone who strays too far from the edge of town. They will prove to be some unknown variation of giant, even more aggressive, though a bit smaller and nearly covered in white hair. They have some resistance to magic, especially ice magic, and one seems capable of using ice magic, if crudely. They can be tracked through the forest and picked off a few at a time, or traced back to one of their lairs, usually in a cave or tucked into a rock formation.
THE GRIPPE: Galssop has sent an urgent request for healers to help combat a particularly virulent strain of the illness many in Kirkwall are suffering. Most of the town has fallen victim to it, including their only healer, leaving the rest without care. Complicating matters, reaching the town in winter (especially while transporting supplies) requires traveling up the frozen Wye river, using skates and iceboats. The villagers there will be wary of magical healing, and Bran as urged trying to use non-magical means of healing first if possible, though he and the sick will ultimately come round to the necessity of using some magic rather than see dozens die.
THE GRINCH: Lerwick's trouble is a young man who recently inherited Touraigle, the fortress above the village, and who firmly believes that Lerwick is also his inheritance. When the Mayor of Lerwick refused to enforce Lord Bertrand's taxes, the lord's guards ransacked the town, helping themselves to most of its winter stores, among other things. Riftwatch diplomats have been asked to help entreat the lord to be reasonable and return what he took. But the road up to the castle has been blocked by a combination of overzealous defenses and weather, forcing all visitors to climb a treacherous hill of downed trees covered in ice and the occasional, possibly-frozen (if they're lucky), booby trap.

In addition to these specific issues, Rift Watchers can expect to encounter the usual Vinmark winter hazards: unpredictable weather, hungry animals, bad roads, scarcities, and so forth. Once news of their presence in the mountains gets around, they may be asked to take on similar small problems for others, like dealing with wildlife issues, helping search for a missing child, rescuing a hunting party trapped by a minor avalanche, etc. There are also basic chores to keep the lodge running that will always need extra hands, like chopping firewood, hunting down dinner, safeguarding supplies on their way to and from Kirkwall, and so on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( he doesn't startle, and even props the axe on the stump before he turns. )

Come closer to the fire, ( he says, and goes there himself. )

I cannot ask the trees for permission, here, so I do as I must.

Might go up if I do, traps need oil y'know?

[Which is to say: he literally cannot get into all his pockets right now and who even knows what his coat has been marinaded in.]

It's a tree. People piss on them. I've punched them. Why d'you ask trees permission, s'not like people even ask other people permission. [Or maybe it's just like Thranduil doing work that's not being official and important and swanning about. So he skirts about the fire because, no, seriously, he possibly is flammable if he sniffs himself, and tries to weigh it against say, Einar lifting a finger to pay Yngvi a kindness which is the way the scales would balance themselves out.]

We'll roll you in the snow, ( thranduil offers. at least yngvi is bundled up enough that he might not need it, and thranduil feels as though he has at least tried to do his duty by the very small man. )

We ask, ( he says, and because that won't be enough for yngvi. ) It is easier to be amicable to those whom you will know for many years. Disagreements stretched over centuries can be ( his nose wrinkles. ) distasteful.

( mournfully, after he brings the axe down again: ) But I cannot hear them. Not here.

I'm not due my bath for the year yet. [No he's not glancing about to see if that alone has summoned Guilfoyle, that would be admitting weakness after last time.

Then Thranduil says something that almost has Yngvi laughing because they're just trees and I punched one for m'lady but Yngvi doesn't have so very many friends he can afford to go offending them (as Thranduil witnessed) and--

Well they're in the mountains and Yngvi doesn't examine it, chewing his lip where the skin is chapped from the cold.] Do they say much? Trees? I know in alienages they have trees and care about them more than other people do, maybe more than the Dalish, I mean Dalish see lots of trees, city elves might just see that one tree depending where they are.

D'you [his breath is a cloud, puffed out close enough to the fire he imagines other things but those all float away as he rubs his hands together then tucks them up under his armpits.] D'you miss it?

Are you a lump of sugar, to melt when you meet water?

( guilfoyle is probably in the trees, but thranduil has an axe and didn't die last time. also looking behind himself would be weakness.

he sinks the axe into the chopping stump, and begins to toss the wood on the waxed canvas. he'll cord it properly under the eaves once he drags the pile over there. but first he has to stop and respond. )

I miss ( what, the power? no, what it gave him. ) the security I could offer others.

Why else would my horse love me if not for that reason specifically?

[As if most animals don't become fond of Yngvi's treatment when he decides yes, you too.

Pacing circles in the interests of making sure his feet don't go numb on him, Yngvi isn't sure if Thranduil catches the face he pulls at that. It's not, exactly, how Einar would put it but it has the whiff of it for a moment, makes him want to pull back reflexively and he about-turns in the current circle to spiral it back inwards.] Don't you do that here though? I mean you've got a position lots of elves or rifters don't have and you're both. Plus the Chantry said yes to your wedding. You've a long arm.

I will remember to tell my wife, ( he says, and finishes with the wood, bundling the corners together to make it easier to drag.

he waits. he has to pull together his words, and then refine them, to make them yngvi-suited and clear. )

And then they said no. I am not accustomed to my life being subject to the whims of mortals- and they are whims, careless and unfixed. I am a leaf underfoot to them.

( he took up the bundle, and began pulling it back towards the eaves of the cabin. )

As is everyone I would keep safe. Novelty is novelty. It is humored. It is not strength.

I know what elf-married means to you. [Up goes his chin because Yngvi reads. Took him a bit with the wording but yes he figured that one out and his lady didn't need to phrase it that way did she?

Anyway-- maybe someone, somewhere, had foresight deep in their dwarven bones and waters to not send Yngvi on the bard path so he wouldn't have a little dwarven fiddle to pluck from his coat just now.]

You're far from the leaf unless... [Even for Yngvi it takes a great deal of eyebrow work to convey what he does about Thranduil, leaves, and trees, and probably all of his lineage and his marriage. But such is Yngvi's great burden.] Sorry, sorry, what I meant to say was: hi, welcome to what literally all of us have been living with always and forever how long have you been here that I'm only hearing this now? Didn't you ever hear me when I drank?

And how is it not? [He sits, an axe out and a stone to sharpen it; one'll wear down to nothing before this trip is over.] You don't know your born here mate.

MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

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