The basic structure of the plot will be: Riftwatch learns that artifacts useful for the Gates are in pieces hidden throughout the Crossroads and acquires a helpful map. They venture into the Crossroads to retrieve the pieces, in fairly large teams due to dangers and the need to be able to fan out to search large areas or work around hazards that need a lot of hands to pass. Whenever they get near enough to one of the artifacts, a sort of protection mechanism will trigger. In some cases–specifically, on teams without rifters present–this mechanism causes spirits to come out of the woodwork to defend the artifact, in numbers so great and with such hostility that retreating is the only viable option. (So leaving rifters behind to go after the artifacts without playing AU is not helpful.) With rifters present, the mechanism instead has the bizarre effect of causing a "tear" in "reality" and plunging everyone into their world through what appears to be a rift.The artifacts are present somewhere in the rifters' worlds, and retrieving them is the only way to get out.

The log for the plot will be (we predict) 90% exploration and personal threads set over the course of searching for the artifacts and 10% missions to physically retrieve the artifacts. Extraction missions will be under your control and can be open or closed, but the world in general will be part of an open log, so you have to be comfortable with everyone being able to go off and play in the corner of your character's canon, within the boundaries of the guidelines your provide up front, while possibly getting the details wrong. (We have a mechanism to explain inconsistencies IC, if it helps.)


Everyone who's signed up so far is free to choose not to participate after all! But if you're in, we need the following information from you by November 18. You can add it to this spreadsheet; we thought that would be the easiest way to let everyone see what everyone else was doing and avoid identical retrieval missions in nearly-identical settings and so on. You can change your mind or make edits up until the deadline.

World: A description of the alternate world (AW for short), under 500 words. Significantly under 500 words is fine too; you can just reuse the world description from your app if it covers everything you want covered. Assume people have zero familiarity, even for the MCU, and feel free to link (not embed) images or a pinboard for aesthetic/vibe elements if you want! (Links are finicky in Sheets; just paste in the full URL in parenthesis and we will handle it when we post things.) If people are allowed to have superpowers or magic in this world, this is also where you'll want to explain that.

Arrival Context: Any guidelines about how/when/where in your canon world you want the rift(s) to be and how characters will be dealt with in the immediate aftermath of their arrival–whether there are witnesses, whether your character will set them loose or take them to the mall for normal person clothes or forbid them from leaving the house, etc. (It will be easily apparent that these are "fake" versions of the world and characters can't cause any real harm to real people or alter the course of any real history by showing their faces, but they can be hurt themselves.) You can also write any aspect of this as an actual starter in the log, but here keep it brief and just give enough context for people to be able to plot and write their own threads without needing to wait to RP through an arrival scene.

Mission: A basic plan for where you'd like the artifact to be, what shape retrieving it will take, and whether it will be an open or closed log. We'll be posting these as bullet points in the OOC plot post (with links to sign-up comments where required), so this section doesn't need to be long or detailed. "The artifact will be in a high-security vault in Switzerland and there will be a closed log for breaking in," "the artifact will be in the attic and there will be an open log for digging through my character's stuff to find it," etc. Beyond the basic premise it is fine to just make it up as you go along.

The artifacts will be softball sized and engraved with lyrium runes that mark them as clearly Thedosian. However, they'll be AU'd into the setting. The "native" character(s) might suddenly have a memory of seeing a matching mysterious knickknack in a neighbor's home, or they might need to Google for a while to learn an object matching the description was recently found at an archaeological dig and has scientists bewildered. It can be easy or difficult to retrieve. Complicated heists are fine, but so is only needing to visit your character's family to swipe it off the mantlepiece. However, once a PC has hands on the artifact, the world will dissolve and every involved PC will be back in the Crossroads, so don't make it too easy unless you want it to only be a 15 minute field trip.

The only requirement for artifact retrieval is that other PCs be able to participate in some meaningful way. We don't think any of you want to write your character going off to retrieve it alone while all of the other PCs sit on the couch and learn what Jersey Shore is, but for the record, don't do that. (They can help and learn what Jersey Shore is.) However, it doesn't have to be an open log; you can post sign-ups or take handpicked characters if that's your preference. As with any mission, you also don't have to write the actual mission if you don't want to–before/after/etc. are fine.

First?: Yes or No. Yes will opt you in to RNG for having your character's world be the first world anyone visits, meaning no one will yet be aware of how things work. They won't know that what feels like weeks stuck there isn't actually weeks elsewhere, they won't know it isn't permanent or exactly how to get back, it might take some time to realize the people around them are spirits and the world is "off" and not quite real, etc. For every world after that, characters will have more of a handle on what is going on and what they need to do. We'll really be RPing all worlds simultaneously; this is just for everyone's IC context.

And some additional notes for plotting and planning:

World Natives: The character(s) who "own" the AW will be recognized and treated as natives by anyone who would recognize them, and they won't run into duplicates of themselves or anything like that.

Time: Due to Fade Time Logic, characters can spend what seems like weeks or a couple months in an AW without losing more than 15 or 30 minutes of time in the real world. After the very first AW, they'll be aware of this and won't need to panic about being gone for ages while searching for artifacts in the remaining worlds. However, you can also make it a matter of a few hours or a couple days if you'd prefer. However long each one seems to take, retrieving all of the artifacts will in fact take place over a couple of days in early Wintermarch (January).

NPCs: Any NPCs in the world will actually be spirits who are part of the artifact's protection squad. They'll generally behave as expected when encountered–so if your character wants to introduce people to their spirit mom, they can! But if they're asked or informed about the artifact they'll get weird and potentially aggressive, and if they're enlisted in the retrieval effort they'll refuse and/or try to hinder it.

Special Abilities: If your character's AW has magic/superpowers, then:

• Your character will have full access to their own magic/superpowers, without any of their usual Thedas nerfs.


• You can choose whether it makes more sense (and is more fun) for all visiting characters to have the option of also having magic/superpowers, for only characters who already have magic/superpowers to have a world-translated version, or for everyone to be depowered. Whatever you decide will apply to all PCs entering your character's world.


• You're welcome to field questions about complex magic systems from people on your own if you want, but if magic/powers are permitted you'll need to be willing to be chill about people extrapolating from your basic write-up without checking in with you and maybe getting it a little wrong in the process.

If your character's homeworld doesn't have magic/superpowers, then no one will have magic/superpowers (including your character, if they have somehow acquired powers elsewhere).

Technology: Guns, computers, cars, etc., will all work (in the Fade) as normal and be detailed and generally accurate in how they're put together. Nothing except the artifact can be "brought back" or preserved.

Accuracy: While we want to be mostly accurate for the sake of letting your characters show off their worlds as they actually were, since these are Fade-based versions of your characters' worlds, they may not always be 100% correct. Which is to say: if someone is off writing about watching a herd of giraffes, but there are no giraffes in your character's world, you can chalk it up to the Fade rather than worry about or correct it. It doesn't mean that there are now really giraffes in your canon and your character also has to recall there being giraffes around during their childhood. If someone mentions the giraffes to them later they can say that the Fade added the giraffes. It also means you can bend reality to introduce elements from different times, have NPCs who should be dead show up alive if you want, etc.

Injury/Death: Since characters are physically present in the Fade/Crossroads and interacting with spirits there, rather than simply mentally dreaming, being injured in one of these alternate worlds will carry over after the dream ends. However, only the purely physical, non-magical/superpowered aspects of the wound will carry. So if they're bitten by a vampire in your character's world, they might change into one within the world, but once the artifact is retrieved, they will only have a bite wound and will not be a vampire.

To that end, dying in the AW means dying in real life, and people should generally try to avoid that. (Near misses where someone is dying as the artifact is recovered and can then be healed once everyone's normal powers are restored are fine.) Healing magic or technology used within the world will really heal, even if wielded by a character who doesn't have healing abilities outside the AW, but any half-finished healing or ongoing health benefits from non-native magic or nanobots or whatever will also stop as soon as the AW deconstructs.