Truth or Dare: The Imperial Court

[madame_de_fer]

WHO: Select Orlesian and Fereldan Nobility and the Inquisition
WHAT: Josephine and Vivienne have orchestrated a good-will soiree in response to this dastardly rumor.
WHEN: Drakonis 15, Evening
WHERE: Skyhold Great Hall
NOTES:
- A list of nobles in attendance can be found here. The list was provided by the mods but there will be no npc support for them. Play away.
- A secondary outside party is being held in the valley in the tent town for anyone who couldn't/wouldn't attend and/or behave in the fancy pansty party.
- The goal of the evening is to clear up a spurious rumor about Cassandra and Leliana, with secondary goals of establishing the Inquisition as a respectable presence in Thedas (and fish for more money). Any major disruptions that would Game Over the court approval should probably be brought to the advisors and/or mods.



To say that Josphine has far outdone herself with this little soiree would be the understatement of the year. The Lady Ambassador has pulled out all the stops in providing a festive and yet elegant stage for this political intervention. Because sometimes gossip can be more deadly than a sword.

The Great Hall of Skyhold has been converted into a grand receiving hall, glittering with hundreds of lights around the room, in addition to the repairs accomplished to the original chandeliers. Of course, there has been artful placement arranged so there are a few shadowy corners for rendezvous of the more suggestive nature. Just in case. The majority of the floor has been cleared for dancing, and a fine troupe of musicians have been installed for the bulk of the evening's entertainments. Some members of the Inquisition have plans to entice attendees with their own artistic performances in addition to the group of mages performing illusory tricks to oohs and aahs.

For those who feel their energy flagging, there are chairs set against the walls, with a few tables interspersed between. Servers hired for the evening circulate the crowds with wine, fine Orlesian and Nevarran reds as well as crisp whites from Antiva. Refreshments are set out on buffet tables, tasteful and extravagant nibbles, including imported cheeses, spicy saucisson, dried fruits and nuts, and the highly sought after deep mushroom and anise petits fours that are all the rage in Orlais.

Comments

[arcaneadvisor]

"I have no time for Vivienne's sycophants or their grasping sweaty hands. Rather I came to watch, to see how much proceedings would resemble shows where bears are made to dance."

Leliana has already rescued one hapless idiot before Morrigan could turn him into a smear on the dancefloor and start new rumours. The only spiders welcome at Orlesian parties are black widows such as The Dowager and her cronies, Morrigan is a rather more vicious thing even without a single husband to her name. And truly, the Inquisition is far more cumbersome than a bear. A bear at least has only one head.

"Do they cower in the wake of the dreaded Tevinter? You might give the more elderly or weak a nasty shock, for all the rumours that I have clouded Celene's mind with blood magic."

Of course she finds that idea very amusing since she does offer him a smile.

[liberalum]

"It's a delightful privilege, actually, to force an Orlesian noble to express something genuine beneath all that gilt and lace. Even if that so happens to be a sense of fashionable disgust."

His own smile back is a subtle thing, and crooked where it's evident, just at the corner of his mouth and the sparkle of his eyes. "And am I to infer, then, that you did not cloud Her Imperial Majesty's mind with blood magic? And here I thought we'd have something in common," and his sarcasm is just knifish enough to get away with it.

[arcaneadvisor]

"Fashionable is more charitable than I might have expected from a man of your standing, tis a pity they don't choke on it and do us all a favour. Comtesse Simone in particular and that Lord Afton." Although the latter did lead to a 'rescue' by Leliana, for no doubt she would have called it such when she was younger and the woman Morrigan first met. At least her laugh is coming more easily now, low and quiet, but something eases in her posture, shoulders settling rather than being forced back.

"I know that there are sordid tales told of Witches of the Wild - though why they would wish to speak of a wrinkled old crone like my mother in such a way says rather more about them than here for once - but no, though doubtless my life would have been far simpler. Twas tempting enough a notion, I confess, she is a different woman behind the closed doors." That's a secret, or they can pretend that it is, a confidence between those who set tongues wagging wherever they go simply by daring to walk there without apology. And for all the rumours about what dark arts she wove about Celene's mind, there are plenty who know of how vicious and heated their arguments could become.

[liberalum]

Dorian smiles through his half-mask as she laughs, his hands folding behind his back in gentlemanly posture, head at a listening cant.

"Simple, she says," he says, teasing easily. "As if stealing the mind of the Empress of Orlais would make anything simple. But no, truly, if an Empress were in fact the blood magic play-thing of a Witch of the Wild," and he slants that term in an emphasis he tends to give to these quaint southern turns of phrase and quaint southern superstitions, "I dare say the Imperial Court, and the Empire itself, would be a trifle more interesting than it currently is."

Although he only knows the broadstrokes of Celene's politics and generally finds them worthy, the sort of outlandish slander attributed to her is almost as familiar. "Not a disagreeable woman behind closed doors, I hope, although what she might get up to behind them seems the subject of some gossip."

[arcaneadvisor]

Almost a pity her mother isn't here; what might Flemeth say, to hear her title said in such a way by a man of Tevinter when she could make near anyone wilt as she pleased with little more than a look. Tis but a fleeting thought though, the rare wisp-like moments where she can take a strange satisfaction in some part of her mother, though never the mothering parts. Were Flemeth ever here even for a fraction of a moment, Morrigan would be gone without a trace, lying low until she deemed it safe again.

"There might be a little less time for going about in masks and having Teagan and Gaspard duel with feathers," she mutters with distaste. "And perhaps their civil war might matter less than what might threaten to decide it all for them should they continue to throw themselves at one another until a rift opens right above all of them and their Grand Cathedral." May it take the lot, her tone says, she has no time nor care for any of it, the world is better off without it, better with the wildness creeping back, with the magic and the wonder, not with the rules used to beat it and lead it and subjugate the masses.

She thought she had seen the worst of what might happen to an alienage in Denerim. The burning of Halamshiral was something much worse, something she doesn't quite know how to speak of with Leliana and so it sits there, biding its time.

"She believes she is Orlais, tis tiresome, as one can imagine." Orlais being Orlais. "And what gossip might that be? Her interest in divining the future? What the baroness and her ilk peddle like a bunch of old wives about a dung fire, though it says far more about them and their politics than it does about Celene and her own."