As promised, this cycle's mod plot has Riftwatch headed back to Nevarra City, where they have reason to suspect an attack may be about to happen. Despite their efforts, they will be unable to stop that attack before it begins and will instead get caught up in helping the city confront it.

There will be two IC posts for this event: one log which will have multiple parts, and, trying out something new, one open crystal post.


The log is set before, during, and after the attack, which will begin at dusk and last all night. During the daylight hours before and after the attack, the mod prompts (and whatever top-levels you create for them) are open to everyone who goes along to Nevarra. During the attack, the prompts focus on different divisions, and you'll be limited to threading with other characters within your division.

Before the Attack

When Riftwatch first arrives in Nevarra City, there will be several hours before the attack begins. During those hours, PCs will ICly be assigned jobs to do but OOCly can be paired with whoever you choose. They can run into others, swap assignments as the day goes on, team up to do something new, pause to run a personal errand—basically do whatever, as long as you stay within the general bounds of what we describe. Keep in mind that the atmosphere should be more "aware there is likely a (non-literal) bomb somewhere in the city that could go off at any moment" than "casual sightseeing and shopping tour."

During the Attack

Once the attack begins, PCs will have tasks specific to their division that will last for the rest of the event. They'll be able to communicate with characters in other divisions via crystal, but will otherwise only be interacting with other characters in their division during the attack. The OOC intention here is to do some team-building and promote CR among IC coworkers. IC, if your character would refuse orders, go rogue, etc., let us know, but be aware that there will likely be IC consequences for that, and that OOCly they aren't allowed to crash another division's work/threads, even if they would try, so you would need to have them be waylaid and either returned to their own division or taken out of action (and out of RP). We understand there are a lot of strong personalities who don't like taking orders, but remember that you've chosen to play them in a paramilitary organization and this is a legit crisis, so maybe not the best time for significant insubordination.

In addition to tasks for the four divisions, there will be a fifth option focused on griffon riding. Any character who is a griffon rider may opt to be part of the griffon team instead of working with their division. (But you can't do both.) Characters who aren't griffon riders can also be on the griffon team as passengers if (1) they could reasonably be useful during ranged combat and (2) you find a griffon rider PC on the team to designate them as their passenger, so we keep it to one passenger per rider in the thread. (You can then swap rider/passenger pairs around a bit to do some separate threads during the event instead of being stuck together forever, if you want—we just need to maintain the 1:1 ratio.)

There's one top-level starter for each of these five groups. These starters will each be a single thread focused on a key moment in that team's mission. Any character on the team can tag in at any point. There won't be GMing or a strict tag order, but we ask you to please be considerate of each other: keep the pace reasonable so that players who aren't super fast can still participate, and don't have your character do all the cool stuff to the exclusion of others, even if you think they might be capable of it.

If you have two characters in the same division, you can RP them both in the event, but please choose just one to tag into the division top-level thread. If your character is not a member of any division—so not actually a member of Riftwatch, in other words—you can have them join and choose a Division by submitting an updated form on the Taken page, or they can stay behind in Kirkwall. If your character is listed in the wrong division on the taken page or if you meant to purchase the griffon rider reward but haven't done so yet, make sure you take care of those things now before you tag in, because having to police them will totally bum us out.

Below is an overview of what each division will be tasked with during the attack. More information will be provided in the IC post and the top-levels.

• Diplomacy will initially be setting up in a relatively secure location on the edge of the city to attempt to coordinate the efforts of the other divisions with those of the city guard and the Pentaghast military. Their specific thread will focus on convincing the guard to open the gates and allow people out of the city, despite orders not to do so—by convincing the guard to do it, by encouraging the people to overwhelm them, by getting fed up and doing it themselves, or any combination of the three.
  
• Forces will be tracking and combating the leaders of the attack who are raising and commanding the army of the dead. They will prove to be two other ancient magisters, Corypheus' fellow priests-turned-darkspawn, specifically the High Priest of Zazikel, known as the Madman of Chaos, and the High Priest of Lusacan, aka the Watchman of Night. The division's specific starter is focused on the final confrontation with these adversaries, but before and after that scene, division members will be fighting the undead, providing healing services if that's their strength, and generally helping the Nevarran army protect the citizens.
  
• Research will be finding, figuring out, and shutting down an artifact that's worsening the situation. The division's specific starter is focused on shutting it down, but before and after that scene, division members will be finding their way to the underground chamber, doing a lot of high-pressure research and puzzle-solving, and then finding their way back out through the undead.
  
• Scouting will be sneaking into the palace to attempt to identify and stop the source of some peculiarly terrible orders being given in the King's name. The specific starter will be focused on extracting said King from the palace, but before and after, division members will be able to split up a bit to sneak around, keep watch for other people doing the sneaking, quietly take out some enemies, etc.
  
• Griffon Riders will be handling aerial surveillance and support, which will quickly turn into dealing with an undead dragon instead. The team's specific starter is focused on driving the dragon away from the city and destroying it, but before and after that scene, the griffon riders will be watching and providing everyone else with updates on the situation on the ground, assisting civilians/soldiers from the air when they can, and doing some limited air rescues.

We've provided OOC plotting posts below, so you can discuss and coordinate with your teammates as needed. Please use these threads rather than discord or plurk to discuss the division/griffon teams, so that all members of the division can see and participate in the conversation.

DIPLOMACY ↠ FORCES ↠ RESEARCH ↠ SCOUTING ↠ GRIFFONS

After the Attack

Some aspects of the outcome of this attack will be pre-decided, in order to allow RP to continue into the aftermath without confusion. The gate will be opened somehow, the dragon will be destroyed, the puzzle will be solved, and the Watchman of Night will be killed. But despite these successes, the city will ultimately have to be abandoned, and Riftwatch will retreat down the Imperial Highway toward Cumberland, helping Pentaghast (and a smaller contingent of Van Markham) soldiers escort the many evacuees from the city. Riftwatch members will be expected to assist the refugees, help with healing, keep watch, and generally make themselves useful on the journey to Cumberland (during which everyone will be generally underequipped, having generally fled the city without tents or supplies) but there will be some downtime around campfires and such. You're free to RP with whoever you like during this phase.

Recap

To summarize as neatly as we can, player top-levels written for the event could include:

• Prompts set in the hours before the attack begins that are OTA or closed to specific characters of your choice.
  
• Prompts set during the attack open only to members of your character's division (OTD, heh heh) or closed to specific members of your character's division. (Or the griffon team rather than a division, if you go that route.)
  
• Prompts set during the aftermath, once Riftwatch has regrouped outside the city, that are OTA or closed to specific characters of your choice.

And you can and hopefully will also tag into the specific scenes set up for each division/team in the comments.


In addition to the log, we're trying something new: a consolidated crystal post! The post is divvied up into sections to keep things roughly chronological. You can respond within those sections to have your character give updates on their progress or whereabouts, ask for assistance or information, or whatever else. These don't have to correspond to things you're actually RPing out in logs—part of the point is to help convey that characters are keeping busy and doing additional work that we may not all have time to log.

For instance, someone in Diplomacy may be asked to go reason with an NPC neighborhood leader who has been encouraging his neighbors to refuse to evacuate and try to wait it out. Rather than RP arguing with the NPC, you might want to do a crystal thread talking about how your characters handled it and how ridiculous the NPC was. Someone on a griffon might want to report in on a problem they've observed on the ground but couldn't get to and keep in touch with someone from Forces as they navigate over to help.

In keeping with our general crystal policy, while we encourage a realistic level of IC seriousness about the gravity of the events taking place, don't get too worried about things like 'monopolizing the airwaves', 'keeping frequencies clear' or 'operational security' when participating in the crystal post. Like we said, the point is to help add atmosphere and ways to fill in the gaps and RP about everything that's going on without having to fit it all into log tags. There aren't enough hours in the day for everything to be log tags.