If your character gets up to something in Orzammar that you'd like to have noteworthy consequences, submit it here for fast-tracked player plot approval stamps (or follow-up questions or "sorry no you cannot collapse Orzammar into the lava pit" responses, as appropriate).

CHARACTER(S):
WHAT THEY'RE DOING: Are they schmoozing someone with connections? Discovering a cache of enchanted objects that might have something useful? Getting into a bar fight with a noble?
DESIRED OUTCOME: What do you want the benefit or consequence to be? For example, schmoozing could get Riftwatch an offer from a supplier of cheaper runes, while getting into a bar fight with a noble could land them in trouble but also impress that noble's sworn enemy. We may not be able to OK the precise outcome you ask for, if it's too big, but we'll offer an alternative if that's the case.

<b>CHARACTER(S):</b> <b>WHAT THEY'RE DOING:</b> <b>DESIRED OUTCOME:</b>

PLOT TEAMS

• An Offer They Can Refuse: Wysteria, Gideon, Yevdokiya, Gabranth, and Sawbones
  
• Better Dead Than Red: Vanya, Valentine, Ellie, Adrasteia, and Thranduil
  
• Precious Cargo: Miriam, Dick, Nikolai, Erik, and Edgard
  
• The Fall of the House of Dace: Cassius, Benedict, Matthias, Ellis, and Bastien

ROOMMATE ASSIGNMENTS

• The Paragon's Rest, Room 1: Ellie, Thais, Yevdokiya
  
• The Paragon's Rest, Room 2: Miriam, Cosima, Diana, Alexandrie
  
• The Paragon's Rest, Room 3: Benedict, Isaac, Val
  
• The Buttered Nug, Room 1: Adrasteia, Sawbones, Tiffany
  
• The Buttered Nug, Room 2: Erik, Edgard, Thranduil
  
• The Buttered Nug, Room 3: Cassius, Vanya, Matthias
  
• The Buttered Nug, Room 4: Gabranth, Dick, Kostos

Characters with rooms in the Buttered Nug will be clustered together but also sharing rooms with NPC travelers, who you're free to make as terrible as you want.

Team: Vanya, Valentine, Ellie, Adrasteia, and Thranduil

Notes: You can RP whatever aspect of this is most interesting to you—action sequences, group debates about what to do, talking about what happened in the aftermath, etc. Whatever you decide, make sure someone on the team posts a report to the Rookery comm by June 30, 2021 at the latest. These reports can count toward the new improvements plot rewards, so you're also free to decide as a group which one of the rewards you want it to count toward, but the person who actually writes and posts the report is the only one who can submit it for reward credit and so has final say.

Plot Info: The team will head into the Deep Roads with a team of dwarven scholars and scientists to survey the extent of red lyrium spread in the mines and install cleansing runes. They're led by:

• Shaper Renca Ghoskan: very positive about the thaig's efforts to combat the spread of red lyrium and obviously very proud of her home in general, and will act as tour guide and expound on all the glories of Orzammar.
  
• Assistant Chief Miner Artem Ress: tries to match Renca's energy but seems unable to disguise that he's more concerned about the red lyrium and Orzammar's prospects if it spreads.

While in one of the further reaches of the mine, the floor will abruptly give out. The team, minus all the dwarves except Renca and Artem, will be dropped about ten feet and slide a ways further into another mining tunnel. Artem will be surprised because there isn't meant to be another tunnel down here, and investigation will suggest that this tunnel is far older than those above, the architecture making Renca and Artem both proclaim it ancient. Going back up the way they came is not an option, so Artem will attempt to navigate them back out through the network of ancient tunnels using stone sense and his knowledge of the mines above. Assistance from anyone with any sort of tracking ability will be appreciated, though there isn't a lot to go on. They'll see signs of travel and darkspawn inhabitation, but nothing recent enough to suggest imminent danger.

At some point, a turn into a new passage will find the walls around them growing smoother. Delicate carvings begin to appear, so fine they're almost imperceptible at first, flowers and vines and, as they go deeper, creatures appearing amongst the plants, some difficult to recognize. This passage ends at a set of massive stone doors at least twenty feet high and several feet thick, which stand open. They could of course turn back here, but we're assuming that, being intrepid adventurers, the team will choose to go inside and explore. Shaper Renca will certainly march on in.

Inside they'll find a vast room. It will be difficult to make out the true scale given the darkness, but all of their senses will tell them it's massive and empty. Walls curve gently out to either side of the doors and fluted columns stretch up into the gloom, floors beneath their feet still perfect, smooth and shining enough to reflect their faces along with their torchlight. They'll find that every inch of stone they can see is covered in carvings, with a delicacy and style that marks them as entirely and unmistakably elven. (Their hosts will agree, though they'll be offended by any implication that dwarves couldn't do work of equal quality if they wanted to.)

On the walls are what appear to be painted bas-relief carvings but prove on closer inspection to be mosaics made up of millions of tiny gemstones placed with exquisite, impossible precision. They run in three parallel bands along the walls, with the top band depicting elven kings and queens holding court, their subjects kneeling before them. The middle band shows scenes of elven mages with the ill and dying. Finally, on the bottom band, a fleet of massive aravels packed with elves, each being pulled toward a mountain. One of which, they may notice, looks very much like the mountain under which Orzammar sits.

The entire space is magnificent, but the longer they spend looking the more overwhelming it all becomes. At first, it's just a sort of sensory overload--too much to take in, carvings leaping out from every surface, seeming to form strange patterns that shift and repeat before their eyes and create a sensation of movement, of the surface of the stone pulsing and crawling like something living. It's deeply unsettling, and that feeling persists and taints their impression of everything they see. Are the subjects in the top band of the mosaic kneeling in reverence before benevolent rulers or cowering in terror at the feet of disdainful tyrants? Are those mages healing patients or causing the illness they suffer? And the elves crowding the windows of the aravels, who at first had seemed joyful travelers, now seem more like prisoners peering out between the bars as they're transported to some unknown fate.

(If you've read Tevinter Nights: yup.)

Still, we're assuming they'll keep looking around. And if they'd be tempted to turn back, they'll spot a path through the debris on the floor. Maybe, if necessary, they even feel a vague compulsion to head deeper, something drawing them in, softening the edge of their fears just enough to keep them moving. Following the path leads to a side door set into the wall, simple, normal-sized. Down a ramp, they'll see dwarven runes in an unreadably ancient style chiseled over the elven carvings on the walls, and they'll find themselves in another cavern. It's probably just as large as the last, but the ceiling is much lower, making it feel cramped and confining in comparison. It's filled with what look like pens or cages, carved out of stone with the same impressive precision as everything above. In the center is what looks like an empty pool, and above it hangs a massive lyrium crystal. It's clear it was once red, but is now the dull color of dried blood, opaque, without the light and energy lyrium normally exudes, or the sick power red lyrium exerts on those around it.

They won't be able to get close enough to investigate further. Though the cavern appears empty, once they get past the first rank of cells figures emerge from those up ahead: dwarves in suits of unfamiliar armor that appears to be studded and woven with red lyrium, these crystals giving off their usual glow. They are heavily armed, weapons similarly adorned with red lyrium, and they advance aggressively, a half-dozen of them at least and two angry brontos encrusted with red lyriums growths. They don't speak, except for a shouted command or two in what Shaper Renca will later suggest is an ancient dwarven dialect. From behind them come the unmistakable sounds of darkspawn, and the team can spot several in one of the cages further back.

The Sha-Brytol (not a name they'd know IC, but that's what they are) will chase the team back out of the cavern, but won't go further than the original carved tunnel that led them here. Their dwarven guides will be particularly shaken by what they've seen, which clearly they cannot explain. Luckily, they'll find the right combination of tunnels on the second try and manage to hike back up into more recent mining tunnels and from there catch a ride back into the city, having been gone for no more than two days at most.

Team: Cassius, Benedict, Matthias, Ellis, and Bastien

Notes: You can RP whatever aspect of this is most interesting to you—action sequences, group debates about what to do, talking about what happened in the aftermath, etc. Whatever you decide, make sure someone on the team posts a report to the Rookery comm by June 30, 2021 at the latest. These reports can count toward the new improvements plot rewards, so you're also free to decide as a group which one of the rewards you want it to count toward, but the person who actually writes and posts the report is the only one who can submit it for reward credit and so has final say.

Plot Info: House Dace was once one of the more influential houses in Orzammar, but has declined in standing over the last 15 years. The heir to the house died in a Proving in 9:31 when Warden Jonas Cousland was visiting, and a nephew that might have taken his place departed for the Surface after a disastrous expedition into the Deep Roads. Lord Ronus Dace, head of the house, retreated more and more from public life before dying a few years ago. In the absence of surviving close relatives, the house passed to a distant cousin, Lorman Dace, who has brought trailing in his wake a pack of more cousins of various degrees who have depleted its finances and diluted its prestige.

To begin, the team will need to surveille members of House Dace to identify any particularly likely candidates for involvement with the Venatori. However they go about that—bribing servants to talk, breaking and entering, listening to gossip—they'll be able to narrow it down to three plausible culprits.

• Fidol Dace: A younger fellow who failed out of the Shaperate. He's worth suspicion because of his recent gambling debts and massive tailor's bills, which have lately been paid off in their entirety. No one is sure where he got the money for that. Following him will lead to a number of gaming parlors ranging from the high-class to shady Dust Town dives, a mistress set up in style in a flat in the nicer part of the Commons, and a couple slightly tense meetings with a surfacer woman in a cheap and busy tavern that's not at all his speed.
  
  
• Olida Dace: Formerly a mining engineer. She's worth suspicion because she's known to be a scheming social climber who's opposed to Bhelen, and more than one person will report that she'd do anything to push House Dace to the top of the pile again. Some of her correspondence, which can be obtained through sneakery, includes oblique boasts about how others have no idea the resources she has. Following her will lead mostly to noble gatherings, more of the intellectual salon style, several Guild meetings, and a secret warehouse space that appears—in the little glimpses they can get—to be a laboratory of some sort, though they won't be able to get inside to see more.
  
  
• Boral Dace: A researcher/archivist hobbyist type with a strong interest in the history of his family. Hermit-y in his old age and known for being grouchy, he's worth suspicion mostly because he has a close sibling in the Ambassadoria in Minrathous. He'll be difficult to follow because he rarely seems to leave the Dace estate at all, but when he does he can be tracked to the Shaperate library, where he can be spotted at least once stepping discreetly into a restricted section, and to a Tevinter restaurant in the Commons where he often stops for lunch.

After surveilling these three (which you're welcome to use as fodder to RP amongst yourselves in pairs or small groups), the team will have a choice to make. They can:

1. Choose who they think is the most likely candidate and do a deeper dig into their business for Venatori ties. (OOC, whichever one you choose won't stop the characters from being able to find the correct answer in the end, but it will make the process significantly more difficult for them IC if they choose wrong for their first try.)

2. Choose to take more time for hands-off observation to try to narrow down the options. (OOC, this will make us cross out one of the three choices for you, so you're only choosing between two. But it will make things a little more difficult in the long run.)

Let us know which option the team goes with and, if it's 1, which of the suspects they dig into first! You don't have to do this immediately—if you want to RP a discussion about what to do first, for example, feel free to do that and get back to us afterwards. But it's also fine if you handwave that part and decide OOC. Once you let us know, we'll give you the rest of your info.

Team: Wysteria, Gideon, Yevdokiya, Gabranth, and Sawbones
Notes: You can RP whatever aspect of this is most interesting to you—action sequences, group debates about what to do, talking about what happened in the aftermath, etc. Whatever you decide, make sure someone on the team posts a report to the Rookery comm by June 30, 2021 at the latest. These reports can count toward the new improvements plot rewards, so you're also free to decide as a group which one of the rewards you want it to count toward, but the person who actually writes and posts the report is the only one who can submit it for reward credit and so has final say.

Plot Info: The team will be meeting with a Carta leader named Tarash, who seems to be high enough up the ranks to negotiate directly for the organization. He'll meet the team--or whichever representatives they'd like to send--at a Dust Town tavern called The Paragon's Rear, which is a lot like the Buttered Nug except much smaller and doesn't appear to be able to afford butter. But down a winding back tunnel is a luxurious lounge full of what appear to be black market goodies, and a private room decorated almost entirely in jewel-toned silk and velvet where Tarash holds court. Like the lounge, he's flashy by dwarven (and especially Dust Town) standards, but the ugly jewelry, garish waistcoats, and overuse of proverbs nobody else has ever heard before conceal a canny nose for a deal.

Accompanying Tarash is his younger brother Steran, who kind of looks like someone resized an image of Tarash by dragging slightly vertical and then way more horizontal and then saved it at a lower resolution. He does everything his brother does but not half as well, and seems to be constantly simmering in frustration as a result. Also occasionally present is Lyudmila, Tarash's wife, who will be played by a CGI'd Marisa Tomei in the movie. None of these people are important, we're just setting the scene.

Tarash will first demand that the team prove they're really there to work with the Carta and aren't just trying to set them up for Bhelen, or the Chantry, or the Inquisition, or the Viscount, or whoever. To allay their concerns, they first need to personally undertake some minor but unquestionably shady errands. But since they've dealt with Riftwatch before (and Wysteria specifically, who he'll greet by name and tell Olina sends her regards, with a wink) and the team has Sawbones with them, these tasks are not actually very hard at all: providing a false alibi to the guard to get a Carta enforcer out of lock-up and discreetly delivering a bribe to a member of the Merchants Guild in the form of both a very heavy and unwieldy golden nug statue and a pair of very rare Spotted Screaming Nugs, which are exactly what they sound like.

Once these have been taken care of, Tarash will meet them each evening at the Paragon's Rear for a few days to a week, depending how long it takes, and talk over how the Carta and Riftwatch could help each other if they felt so inclined. Over time, the team will get a clear sense of what's on the table, what sort of things the Carta would be interested in receiving in return, and how much it's all worth to them. They'll need to negotiate the best tentative deal they can get and bring it to the DHs for final approval.

OOC, we're trying a new version of the infamous Negotiation Game that most of you weren't actually here to remember. Basically, we've made a list of what the Carta are offering and some things they'd be interested in receiving from Riftwatch in return. We've assigned each of these things a point value, representing how much they're worth to the Carta. You'll have to decide which of the things on the Carta menu you want to obtain and what you're willing to give up to get it. But what a concession is worth to the Carta is not necessarily the same as what it's worth to Riftwatch, especially if it comes with potential reputational costs. So they'll also need to make sure the cost to Riftwatch doesn't go over 100. This is something you'll submit to us in writing afterwards and will obviously take some OOC wrangling, but we hope it will also prompt some IC debates. (It's the first time we've tried this this way so if you run into questions or issues, let us know.)