WHAT: Deliver a Message to Provisional Grand Chancellor Pascal

WHO: Coupe, Araceli

HOW: This is fairly straightforward! Your characters will need to travel to Val Royeaux to politely deliver Seeker Pentaghast and Sister Leliana's joint message declining to be considered for Divine, which will include some additional niceties about being prepared to be of service to whomever is selected in everyone's mutual goal to end the threat posed by Corypheus. The Provisional Grand Chancellor will be disappointed—indicating their refusal will extend the process, as they were the most unifying candidates—but polite and make accommodations for your characters to join him and a few resident clergy for dinner. Your characters can also take advantage of an opportunity to eavesdrop in the halls or collect gossip. Altogether, they can acquire the following information about five significant contenders for the Sunburst Throne, with the plain text told to them openly over dinner, and the bold requiring deliberate eavesdropping and/or more direct snooping through documents.

Grand Cleric Gertruda of Tantervale: Think Mother Teresa: very strict conservative views, but best known for extensive philanthropic efforts among the poor that soften her image. She was one of the earliest and most vocal voices claiming rifters to be demons and the Inquisition to be a dangerous, rogue heretical organization defaming the memory of the original. The only statement she is presently willing to make publicly about rifters is that this is a decision for a Divine, and she will defer to her wisdom. She also seems to be moving more into the mainstream on the subject of the Inquisition--judging them as potential allies, if ones to remain wary of--but how much of this is political maneuvering (now that word of Cassandra and Leliana being approached has come out) and how much is her personally coming around is currently unknown.

Revered Mother Benedetta of Rialto: A reasonable person of genuine faith who doesn't hate anyone and wants to help them, but thinks the Chant is clear and should be followed to the letter so the Maker will return someday—meaning elves, dwarves, and Qunari need Andraste for their own sake and everyone else's, the traditional Circle system is ideal with perhaps some mild reform, etc. She is energetic and personally very charismatic, and she would likely be the clear frontrunner if she had been given another five or ten years' experience and wasn't so young, untested, and less well connected compared to the rest.

Grand Cleric Clorentine of Montsimmard: The only one of the Mothers present in Val Royeaux, so your characters can make their own observations as well. In summary, she is the blandest person alive and not particularly clever in her own right, but insulated from the Chantry's sometimes-violent politicking by wealthy supporters and an assortment of younger and much more calculating Mothers and Sisters who have hitched their own ambitions to her and are determined to see her rise. She is considered moderate mostly because her views frequently shift and equivocate, and she doesn't really seem committed to anything in particular, likely because she is so easily swayed by those around her.

Grand Cleric Agathe of Cumberland: Medium progressive and notoriously cautious—like Justinia before her, she is unlikely to implement extreme reform regardless of her personal feelings on anything, but may take more widely palatable baby steps toward raising elves above their current station or reforming the Circle system. Extremely effective and intelligent as long as she does not have to charm anyone, but in interpersonal dealings she can be harsh and nakedly ambitious, which has not earned her many friends.

Grand Cleric Elise of Ayesleigh: An older, famously progressive Mother who has been a voice for reform for several decades now and proven herself a reliable ally of nonhumans, mages, and the poor. However, this has made her unpopular with many of the more staid Chantry clergy and officials, and there are unconfirmed but very plausible rumors that Elise has begun to exhibit forgetfulness, moments of confusion, and slips into heresy or fantastic thinking that go beyond the acceptable lapses of a very old woman and into the early stages of dementia.

None of these individuals will seem to be a clear front runner, though opinions in Val Royeaux will seem to tilt toward the more conservative end of the spectrum. Additionally, while the present Mothers will all be varying degrees of self-assured and regal, the general atmosphere among the administrative staff in the Grand Cathedral will be scattered, disorganized, and fretful, with a lot of circles under a lot of eyes and frequent uncertainty in response to any detailed questions about the Divine Election process, in particular from Provisional Grand Chancellor Pascal, who is possibly too young and inexperienced for the role he's been asked to play.

OOC NOTES: Your characters are welcome to bring up to two additional people, as long as those people are reasonable choices to take. We're relying on the recovery of these candidates' names so we can publicize them to the rest of the game and open the door to player plots that would influence each candidate's chances of election, so please try to have a report in by the end of the month. Keep in mind that: (1) you don't have to directly RP the assignment itself if you would prefer to just RP some discussion about it or something, and (2) your report does not have to include all of this information if you would prefer for your characters to not learn all of it and/or choose not to officially record it, for whatever reason. If there are other details they would make a particular effort to uncover, you can drop us an info request and we'll let you know what, if anything, they'd learn!