WHEN: You can set it IC whenever you want! OOC, try to have a report done by the end of November.
HOW: As stated, the team will travel to Val Dorma, under cover. Precisely what that cover is will be up to you—in addition to the obvious "wealthy Tevinter and accompanying slaves" cover, individuals in other countries practice slavery more quietly even though it's been outlawed and could be visiting to purchase slaves or do other business, or could not have slaves at all but servants who would wind up mingling with slaves in a Tevinter household, etc. They have a specific inroad with an Inquisition-friendly, wealthy Soporati merchant in Val Dorma who will not be very helpful on the spy front, having no talent for subterfuge and no knowledge of her own, but will allow them to stay in her fancy second house, providing a relatively secure place where they can discuss plans and let their covers slip without being constantly on guard.
The following information can be acquired in the following stages:
Engaging slaves in casual conversation will be enough to show that there's absolutely no unity of opinion: some say the name of Calpernia (known to be one of Corypheus' lieutenants) with a sort of respect bordering on reverence and believe she intends to free them all, others don't care whether there's real potential for freedom or not because they think freeing them all would be chaos and get them all killed, others are convinced she'll do no such thing and it's all a ploy to keep them working until it's too late, and others will have every shade of opinion in between those three major categories.
With regard to the Inquisition, opinions will be similarly varied, but overall trending toward either the negative or neutral-for-lack-of-knowledge: information about the Inquisition inside Tevinter, especially among a population of people who can't read, has been scattered at best, and the organization's tendency to be wherever the trouble is has translated into a reputation for being the cause of it. The most common fear that might be casually alluded to in conversation is one that the Inquisition's involvement would stir Tevinter into war and get everyone killed. .
Eavesdropping on (or insinuating oneself via friendship over a few days) into easily noticed but private meetings and discussions will allow identifying a few people who seem to be ringleaders and intentionally trying to sway people toward two major courses of action: an elven woman named Vasilia is advocating supporting Calpernia and using their access to everyone's homes and businesses to inform on masters and anyone else who isn't supporting the new regime, while the human Tessaria and elven Solvarin are attempting to hatch a plot for a group of slaves to trade information to the Inquisition in exchange for being extracted from the country.
Dedicated tailing/spying or direct contact with Vasilia will show nothing else suspicious about her—she sincerely believes Calpernia will elevate the slave population, and is also a patriot despite her status and a contentious relationship with her master, uninterested in being rescued by the outside world rather than made an equal in her own country.
Dedicated tailing/spying or direct contact with Tessaria and Solvarin will reveal a bit of a split: Solvarin is older, more measured, and the one interested in trading information for an escape for himself and his loved ones, while Tessaria is deferring to his pessimism but is also younger, more ready to start fires, and in possession of a small stockpile of shitty weapons she's rescued from being discarded and partially repaired using skills picked up from her master, a blacksmith—who is also, according to her, a very nice man who's done her every kindness short of freeing her and is among a number of free Soporati citizens who are not here for what either Corypheus or Calpernia are selling and might be relied on to help oppose them and to shake up Tevinter's class system, though their interest might not uniformly extend to freeing slaves.
As the goal is just to gather information, the team won't have the authority to make any promises or offer any deals, at this juncture, on the Inquisition's behalf.
OOC NOTES: The team can bring up to four other people with them—so one person apiece—as long as those people are reasonable selections for the mission and won't make anyone look stupid for allowing them to go. As long as the cover story is reasonable and everyone keeps their heads down outside of that house, they'll be able to pull it off—but if you do want things to go wrong, that's also fine! Just check in with us about it before you decide to end in an escape scene or something. And if you want to pursue anything on the side, make sure you drop an info request or a plot request so the mods (hi) can give additional information. And, lastly, as a reminder, if you do anything at all to make the master/slave relationship seem sexy, we'll murder you!
ASSIGNMENT DETAILS
WHO: Hanzo, Kitty, Max, Connor
WHEN: You can set it IC whenever you want! OOC, try to have a report done by the end of November.
HOW: As stated, the team will travel to Val Dorma, under cover. Precisely what that cover is will be up to you—in addition to the obvious "wealthy Tevinter and accompanying slaves" cover, individuals in other countries practice slavery more quietly even though it's been outlawed and could be visiting to purchase slaves or do other business, or could not have slaves at all but servants who would wind up mingling with slaves in a Tevinter household, etc. They have a specific inroad with an Inquisition-friendly, wealthy Soporati merchant in Val Dorma who will not be very helpful on the spy front, having no talent for subterfuge and no knowledge of her own, but will allow them to stay in her fancy second house, providing a relatively secure place where they can discuss plans and let their covers slip without being constantly on guard.
The following information can be acquired in the following stages:
With regard to the Inquisition, opinions will be similarly varied, but overall trending toward either the negative or neutral-for-lack-of-knowledge: information about the Inquisition inside Tevinter, especially among a population of people who can't read, has been scattered at best, and the organization's tendency to be wherever the trouble is has translated into a reputation for being the cause of it. The most common fear that might be casually alluded to in conversation is one that the Inquisition's involvement would stir Tevinter into war and get everyone killed.
.
As the goal is just to gather information, the team won't have the authority to make any promises or offer any deals, at this juncture, on the Inquisition's behalf.
OOC NOTES: The team can bring up to four other people with them—so one person apiece—as long as those people are reasonable selections for the mission and won't make anyone look stupid for allowing them to go. As long as the cover story is reasonable and everyone keeps their heads down outside of that house, they'll be able to pull it off—but if you do want things to go wrong, that's also fine! Just check in with us about it before you decide to end in an escape scene or something. And if you want to pursue anything on the side, make sure you drop an info request or a plot request so the mods (hi) can give additional information. And, lastly, as a reminder, if you do anything at all to make the master/slave relationship seem sexy, we'll murder you!