faderift | OPEN: this will be a better year

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: First Day
WHEN: Wintermarch 1 (forward-dated)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Scouts from both the Western Approach and Emprise du Lion are welcome (but not required) to have returned to Skyhold in time for this event.

There have been better First Day feasts, and less crowded ones, and cheerier ones. It isn't a good year for many to look back on, and this one isn't starting any better. Reports from both Eastern and Western Orlais are grim. Many in the Inquisition can't afford to take more than a few hours away from their work, if that.

But for those who can, the ambassador does her best. At lunchtime some tables, hot food, and finery are reserved for visiting nobility and wealthy pilgrims--cause for grumbling in some quarters, perhaps, but they're the people filling the Inquisition's coffers, and allowances must be made--but there's plenty of stew, bread, and ale for everyone, even with the soldiers and refugees who stay outside the fortress invited inside for the holiday. The recently repaired garden and its carefully tended plants aren't off limits, but anyone noisy and holding a drink will be stopped at the door; the battlements, with their potential for deadly falls, are blocked by Inquisition guards. But the courtyards brim with people, most of them happy despite the possibility that the world might end before another First Day arrives.

If the courtyards are too full of tipsy visitors for comfort, there's also the valley beyond the fortress, expansive, barren, and covered in snow. By the river the soldiers help the refugees make a bonfire larger than would ever be allowed inside Skyhold's walls, and some lend their shields to use as sleds down the embankments. A group of scouts start the most intense game of hide and seek Thedas has ever seen, with snowballs to the face for whoever is found first. In the camp, a refugee girl with her hand wrapped in a green scarf chases other children around the tents, shouting raaar, I'm from the rifts!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I heard about the whole 'might get taken over by demons' thing, but like, if the whole thing that people believe is that magic's supposed to serve man, thennnn doesn't it follow that you'd want to power up your mages as much as possible? Like, dude, why go stand up and walk over to get a glass of water when you could keep sitting there and magic that shit over to you."

Is it more complicated than that? Obviously. But the point for the moment stands, according to what he knows.

As for the elves... "Shit, man, why are people so racist against elves? Guess it's no wonder sometimes they're kinda...skittish if I talk to them. Some of them. Definitely not all of them." Like that Spanish bard dude. What a horndog.

"Last time mages 'powered up'," and what an odd turn of phrase that is, "then we ended up with a world where those with magic must live in the shadow of the Tevinter magisters, as if they too share the blame for the horrors of the past. Though that would explain why the Chantry says mages must serve man in much the same way a prisoner serves a sentence when in the Circles. I do wonder what Andraste would think of them were she alive to see it."

At least out here in the world, the mages can actually do something a hell of a lot better than anyone save Grey Wardens; magic is best for fighting demons, something more able to match them and there are certainly plenty of them out there now.

"What happened to the elves is that after losing one home to Tevinter, they gained another and then Orlais felt threatened. There were skirmishes, battles, the elves prayed to their ancestors and not the Maker so they were regarded as heathens and then the Chantry called down an Exalted March of the faithful to crush them. Ever since the elves have remained in their alienages, impoverished and in service to humans, or roaming constantly as the Dalish do. Though here they may make something new for themselves, only time will tell." Try camping with Zevran as he waxes poetically about and old woman's bosom, it's a wonder they all survived the Blight.

Ooookay really starting to get outside his frame of reference here. "There's a big difference between saying magic should serve man and mages should serve man. You guys, or those guys, need to sort out their translation issues." He's not one to make any comments on religion, but that always seems to be a thing. Translation errors taken way out of proportion.

Exalted March from a church (or a Church) sounds a lot like a Crusade, which, huh, maybe that's what Templars are all about...this is getting weird... "So elves are either indentured servants or less than that, or they're roaming around trying to find another place. Wow. That's fucking racist as hell. Sounds like the Chantry needs to bring it down a bit and stop being such aggressive dickbags before they make elves to fucking extinct."

“Alas, we have had such strife since the very beginning, so unless the Inquisition presents an option not yet seen, then we will resume all of this once the war has ended. And if we can keep factions from fighting within themselves, that was always another problem with Circles and their fraternities.” Because by all means, give people the right to an opinion but don’t just sit on your hands fighting with each other instead of actually arguing with the ones in a position to change things.

“The Chantry says they have turned further from the Maker and He will not look upon us until the Chant rings out throughout the whole world.” So passive-aggressive bag of dicks and you’re right on the money there Church. “I suspect some would love nothing more though they would have to pay human servants far better to do the jobs elves do, and abusing them wouldn’t go unnoticed as such things do now.”

"And that's what we call zealotry, ladies and gentlemen. Textbook definition right there. I'd say the solution sounds like taking down the Chantry a couple notches if not take it out completely, but given that it seems like a lot of people are kinda into the whole Chantry thing, that...would be hard." No fucking fake. "And would start a war that anyone opposite the Chantry would probably lose."

...Do not start thinking of what would happen if various rifters started spreading their religions...

OPEN: this will be a better year

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