FAQ

[faderifting]

↞NAVIGATION—

FAQ

↠ General
↠ Applications
↠ Rifters
↠ Anchors
↠ Abilities, Magic, and Skill Balance
↠ Specializations
↠ Plotting

GENERAL GAMEPLAY

What is this?

Fade Rift is a panfandom, open-world roleplaying game set in the world of the Dragon Age series. We focus on a mix of fantasy action adventure, intrigue, social politics, and slice of life interpersonal drama. A motley crew of characters take on various missions and adventures in an effort to bring peace and stability to Thedas (or to fulfill their own agendas while paying lipservice to peace and stability, depending who you ask). There are demons to fight, myth and mystery to investigate, magic to study, allies to recruit, enemies to stop, cut-throat politics to navigate, artifacts to recover, beasts to hunt, and tough decisions to bicker about.

When and where is the game set?

The short answer is that the game is based in the era of Dragon Age: Inquisition but with a timeline that has diverged significantly beginning in the early events of that game, with the Herald of Andraste dying while closing the Breach and strange new people arriving via open rifts. FR has progressed from that point without adhering to the canon timeline. The war against Corypheus is ongoing and the game centers on a new independent organization in Kirkwall, dubbed Riftwatch, that seeks to stop Corypheus without directly allying itself with or reporting to the Chantry and Inquisition, which are undertaking a new Exalted March on Tevinter.

A requirement for all appable characters is that they be willing and able to align themselves with Riftwatch to a sufficient degree to be allowed to live in its facilities and participate in its efforts. Characters are otherwise welcome to travel the entirety of Thedas, but to keep RP centralized enough for us all to play together, your character will need a reason to stick with the group rather than moving to Seheron and never coming back. If you have a character who isn't a joiner, we recommend looking into anchors as a way to keep them around!

How much canon familiarity is required?

That varies. If you're apping a rifter—someone who arrives through a rift, similar to in a traditional jamjar, with their canon history and so on—you can get by with little to no initial familiarity, beyond what's on our info pages, and learn about Thedas alongside your character.

If you're apping a native OC or AU'd canon character, you'll need to know more. The canon is vast, and no one can know everything, but we do ask that people playing native characters make sure they know their way around the niches relevant to those characters. If you're apping a mage, you need to know how magic works; if you're apping an Orlesian, be familiar with Orlais.

If your character holds a position of power or otherwise can easily affect the game as a whole, please be cognizant of that and make sure you know what you're doing. If you want to play a Warden Commander who gives orders and speaks authoritatively on Warden history, you'll need to know more canon info about the Wardens than someone playing a brand new recruit might get away with.

If you don't know where to start, information about the world is available in brief overview form on the Setting page and its offshoots, a good primer to the series is here, and exhaustive detail about everything that's been discovered so far can be found on the Dragon Age wiki.

Is there a network?

Yes. Characters working with Riftwatch will have access to "sending crystals," which are magical devices that allow audio communication over long distances. In-game efforts have also resulted in magical books that connect to the crystals and allow written communication.

Otherwise, non-magical written communication is the norm in the setting and the way Riftwatch will communicate with the majority of non-PCs. Notes and letters can also be carried around the Gallows by runners and across Thedas by messengers and ravens. There's also a message board in the Gallows where notes and announcements can be left for a mass audience.

All network-style RP, whether via sending crystal or writing, will take place on the correspondence comm.

What are the activity requirements?

See the Rules for specific activity requirements. Generally, the level of activity required to pass should be regarded as a minimum, particularly for characters in IC positions of power. We reserve the right to ask for improved activity for characters who are inaccessible or uninvolved in the plot to the extent of being OOC or roadblocks to others, even if our activity requirements are technically being met.

How is game information communicated outside the comms/are players required to have any particular type of contacts?

We don't require players to provide any particular means of OOC contact other than DW messages through their character journal. We use both Plurk and a game Discord server for game announcements and linking posts, so having at least one of the two is highly recommended to avoid missing info. Plurk is the primary location for game-related links, plotting, and discussion among players, but Discord also works.

Is fourth-walling allowed for rifter characters who would be familiar with Dragon Age or the canons of other rifters?

No. Rifter characters are welcome to be familiar with generic fantasy worlds and tropes, but specific recognition of other rifters or Dragon Age characters, or the worlds from which they come, is not allowed. If your character is canonically a nerd who likes Star Wars/Batman/etc., you can give them the Space Battles/Foxman/etc. treatment.

Applications & Appable Characters

What sort of characters can I app?

We allow most characters from the Dragon Age canons, characters from other canons who are fully AU'd into the setting, and original characters native to Thedas, as well as characters from other settings who enter Thedas via a rift. Where this FAQ and the Rules page refer to "AU characters" we are referring to characters who have been fully AU'd to be natives of Thedas, not fanmade AUs entering as rifters.

For more detailed application guidelines, please see the Rules page.

Can I app in using the world state from my own playthrough of Dragon Age?

No. The Thedas in which our game occurs has its own set world state for game decisions, which is detailed here. This is the version of events experienced by all native characters.

Can I app my Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor?

Yes and no. The malleable protagonists from the video games are all dead. But you may adapt your protagonist into a native OC as long as they pass the standard rules for appable characters. In the spirit of fairness to other players who are also adapting their protagonists, these character should not still be named Hawke, or Trevelyan, or Lavellan, or Cousland, or Amell—you get the idea—and should have some variations in their backgrounds to distinguish from the canon backgrounds of those protagonists. I.e., your elf cannot be called Tabris, and she can't have killed a noble and his entire staff on her wedding day and then been recruited by the Wardens, but it's fine to adapt Tabris and app an elf called Tannis who killed the noble who murdered her father and has joined Riftwatch to hide from the law, etc.

Will multiple versions of canon characters be allowed? What about characters that exist in multiple media, like comics vs MCU?

Multiples of characters from Dragon Age are not allowed. For characters from other canons, we allow one OU/rifter version and one native AU version in game at a time. Please see the Rules page for more detailed guidelines. Please also keep in mind that ICly the OU and AU characters are not doubles or facetwins even if they both use the same PB. Characters are welcome to notice the similiarities in their appearances/personalities/histories, but they are merely two similar people rather than doubles.

What does it mean that OCs cannot have any major ties to canon characters?

This means that your original character cannot be apped with anything in their background that would force a canon character, Dragon Age or otherwise, to be personally familiar with them or to become personally familiar with them in-game. No long-lost siblings, no secret children, no childhood neighbors. If you're not sure whether something you have in mind passes that test, please ask and/or spell it out in your app to be reviewed.

Past connections with canon characters may be established later. For example, if you would like to say your OC once hired the Chargers, you could approach Iron Bull's player about that on the CR meme and see what that player thinks. But nothing in your app can make it so there is no way for other players to reasonably refuse past or future CR if they aren't interested.

What about canon characters who don't have a lot of information available, like characters' siblings who are mentioned by name only or minor NPCs?

Our litmus test for appable Dragon Age characters is essentially that there must be an example of their voice—they cannot be someone who is only mentioned by other characters rather than seen or heard in person—as well as enough background to allow for reasonable extrapolation. We'll be generous about allowing minor Dragon Age characters who have very limited background information, such as the Chargers, with the caveat that we expect you to exercise restraint in filling in the holes in their histories and characterization rather than adding secret noble blood, gratuitous rape backstories, etc.

Do I have to play a loyal member of Riftwatch? Could I play an adversary instead? What if my character is a villain or not a team player?

In order to keep RP consolidated it will be necessary for everyone to play a character who is affiliated with Riftwatch at least enough to be allowed at its bases and involved in its activities. But this doesn't mean that your character has to be a full member or 100% on board. Characters with their own agendas, secrets, doubts, etc. are more than welcome as long as you can figure out a plausible way to keep them around and involved.

Furthermore, when the Breach at Haven was sealed, rifts across Thedas spat out tiny slivers of the Herald's anchor—basically a piece of raw and extremely powerful (and very bright green) magic, and scattered rifts have continued to occasionally do so at random ever since. Characters arriving through rifts will automatically be implanted with an anchor. Native characters may also be inadvertently struck with and implanted with these smaller anchors while near rifts. Figuring out what these are and stopping them from causing severe pain will require character to come to and stay with Riftwatch indefinitely.

We're happy to discuss other potential hooks or ways to keep a difficult character in play if you're struggling, but the responsibility will be on each player to come up with ways to keep their characters within RPable range of the rest of the game. Please keep this in mind when choosing which characters to app. If there's no way a given character would ever join, if they would cut off their own hand rather than put up with Riftwatch, if they're going to murder everyone and you can't yourself think of a way to stop them, etc., then it's likely they just aren't a good choice for this game.

Do I have to play someone who is already a member of the Riftwatch, or could a character be recruited in-game through RP?

Most characters should be new arrivals as of the time of their acceptance, and you can begin by RPing their arrival in Kirkwall—or, if arrivals bore you, you can handwave that and jump right into things assuming they've already been shown around and gotten down to business. If you'd like your character to be recruited through a played-out plot, that's something you must generally be willing to create and run yourself.

Can my character have or bring or adopt a child?

PCs can't be the primary caregivers for children under our minimum age for appable characters, which is 16. Characters may be the parents or parental figures of younger children, but they must have an NPC caregiver as well (the child's other parent, for example, or some other relative or hired caretaker) and must reside outside of the Gallows.

Rifters

What are rifters?

When we refer to rifters, we mean characters who are not natives of Thedas but who arrive in-game through a rift.

As for what they are, for your OOC reference, they're consciousnesses—arguably spirits, arguably not—brought through the Veil at rifts and given physical forms whose permanence is linked to lyrium. They're similar to the original canon Fade Rifter, Trickster Whim, Cole, or the “Wait, Didn't I Kill You?" version of Leliana, but also a completely new phenomena that's not exactly like any of those things. None of these examples are broad common knowledge, though, and rifters' nature is something that's still the subject of spirited debate and speculation ICly.

Rifters have bargained for the right to be officially considered people—by the Inquisition, at least, and those it can influence—and given the same rights as any other person, to the extent any person in Thedas has rights. The Chantry has also agreed to acknowledge that rifters are not demons; this may still be an opinion that individuals hold, but it is no longer being promoted.

Can they go home again?

In a word, no.

In several more words, there are two main theories (existing both IC and OOC) based on what's currently known about rifters:

The first possibility is that other worlds exist on alternate planes, and consciousnesses from those worlds somehow cross into the Fade while asleep, confuse the heck out of Thedas’ natural order by being dreamers with no physical form, and are thus spit out via rifts. In that case, characters' lives and physical forms continue without their Fade Rift selves in their home worlds.

The second is that rifters' home worlds do not exist, and they're spirits originating from or influenced by the collaborative imagination and dreams of native Thedosians, then given physical form. In that case, there's nothing for them to go back to.

We don't intend to ever confirm either option as correct. They're just the two primary plausible theories as to where rifters come from, based on what's known about them IC, and the practical effect of them both is that there's no way for characters to return home.

It's fine for characters to reject the evidence for both of those ideas and to continue to seek a way to return home, but they won’t succeed. If your character is the type to relentlessly pursue a path home to the exclusion of all else, or who will never be able to come to accept Thedas as a permanent new home, we recommend that you think carefully about whether that character is a good fit for Fade Rift. There are many other games where searching for a way to escape and return home is a plausible plotline and often a primary focus of RP, but this is not one of them.

How do rifter characters arrive?

Rifters will be pulled through rifts in the Fade while dreaming in their own worlds and will wake when they tumble out into Thedas. They arrive with what appears to be a splinter of bright green light lodged in the palm of their left hand. It isn't a wound in the normal sense, but it does ache. (Whether or not they even notice the ache over the whole wtf where am I thing is up to you.) For more information about the arrival process, see the Arrival FAQ.

What does it mean that my character arrives while dreaming?

It means your character arrives from the dream itself, rather than from the real (canon) world place they were sleeping. Maybe in canon your character was sleeping in their home, snug and healthy in their bed. But in their dream, they were in the middle of fighting a battle. When they arrive in Thedas, your character would therefore arrive in their dirty bloody armor, not their pajamas.

If my character was injured in their dream, do they arrive with that injury? What if they were injured for real but dreamed about being healthy?

Your character will arrive as they were in the dream. If they dreamed about being stabbed, they arrive with a stab wound. If they'd been stabbed in their real life and passed out and dreamed of frolicking happily through a field, then they arrive in Thedas ready to frolic some more.

What can my character bring with them when they arrive?

They can bring whatever they had on them in the dream, and that can be just about whatever you want. Their inventory from the dream will accompany them as well, and you will be asked to list it in full in your application. So for instance, in the example above, where the character was dreaming about a battle, they'd arrive with their armor and weapons and maybe even their horse if they had one. If your character was dreaming about being at a pool party they might arrive in a swimsuit with an inflatable swan and a fruity umbrella drink.

You can be creative! Riftwatch will provide characters with basic clothes and weapons as needed, so don't be afraid to have your character show up from weird, incongruous dreams with weird, incongruous inventories, rather than trying to pack what they would need to survive.

Modern (or beyond) technology, advanced weapons, and magical objects are especially likely to be altered or to go missing altogether on the journey through the Fade.

You mentioned a horse. Can my character bring pets or other people/animals with them?

Yes and no. Living things that are with the character in the dream may come through the rift with them. This includes specific pets, but can also include other random things like the giant snake he was fighting at the time, or the cow she was walking past, or the wave of squirrels that was carrying them away to be dinner. It doesn't have to be things that actually exist or are actually alive: an angry tiger made out of green gummy candy is perfectly acceptable if that's something your character might dream up.

We can't allow other people to accompany your character, or anything larger than a grizzly bear. We will consider technology-based creatures (androids, robot spiders, cylons, animate toasters, etc.) on a case-by-case basis, but they will probably need to be aggressive enemies that PCs can destroy in the arrival scene; we won't be allowing the continuing presence of a robot pet or the like.

But my character doesn't dream because she's a robot.

That is sad for her, but thankfully not a barrier to entry here. Characters who for whatever reason are incapable of true sleep/dreams will be pulled through the Fade during whatever their closest equivalent is, for instance powering down, or simply pretending to sleep. If you are unable to come up with a plausible scenario, please post a question below and mods will consider.

My character needs X object to live. Can it come with them?

This sort of situation will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Some characters may come through with the object they need to survive intact, others may find it now works differently, still others may find themselves kept alive by some new mechanism unique to Thedas. For example, Tony Stark may not keep his arc reactor, but instead have something that appears to be made of lyrium in its place. If your character is in a situation like this, please detail it in your application so that mods can figure out the best solution. If you have an idea for how to adapt it to fit the setting, let us know!

Will my character retain their canon powers when they arrive?

Generally, yes, but they may be subject to limitations. Characters will be nerfed both to make powers comply with the rules of the Fade Rift universe, and with an OOC goal of making sure that we balance rifters' abilities to keep them on an approximately level playing field with one another and with native characters. Our goal is to allow rifters to keep aspects of the abilities that make them unique, but not to have them be significantly more powerful than natives, so everyone can contribute equally to plots. For that reason, we don't always nerf the same abilities the same way; a character whose only ability is creating and controlling fire may have relatively few limitations placed on that ability, while a character who controls fire but also does a dozen other things and has a magic sword may have the fire ability nerfed or removed entirely. Characters who are infinitely powerful in their home worlds will not necessarily be more powerful than anyone else here.

Some powers in particular may also function differently or less reliably in Thedas. These changes will be handled on a case-by-case basis. We will do our best to avoid totally nerfing a character, and will always try to take into account what makes a character fun to play and what the player's preferences are during the process. As we've received applications and questions, there are a few general principles and rules of thumb that have developed that will probably apply to all rifters' powers:

• Characters will be subject to energy limitations and will get exhausted eventually. This applies both to use of their powers and in general; characters need to eat and sleep here even if they didn't at home.
  
• Characters will be subject to the same line-of-sight limitations as native mages, meaning their abilities can only work on things they can see while they can see them. This applies to all supernatural abilities unless we specifically tell you otherwise.
  
• Abilities that are analogous to things native mages can do will typically be nerfed less and require less energy than abilities that are outside the realm of what's possible for native magic.
  
• Rifters cannot learn native magic, but can study the methods and tools native mages use to draw on the energy of the Fade and may find that this assists them.
  
• Characters who draw power from, call upon, are inhabited by, or are connected to some type of spirit, power source, or other entity in their homeworld will be without it in Thedas.
  
• Technology that is more advanced than what is found in Thedas will usually either be bricked or lost unless it is something essential to keeping the character alive, like Tony Stark's arc reactor. (Then it may still be bricked, lost, or changed, but we can talk about options.)
  
• Teleportation or superspeed is usually limited to short distance bursts similar to the Dragon Age Fade Step ability.
  
• Mind control, mind reading, and similar abilities are often nerfed and will require permissions posts to allow other players to opt out.
  
• In general and where possible, we will be more willing to make allowances for specific powers if they are a character's only power. If all your character can do is teleport, we may be more flexible about allowing them to do so over a wider range. We generally nerf mind-reading powers pretty strictly, but may handle them differently for Charles Xavier than for a character for whom they are one in a list of a dozen abilities.

We're happy to answer specific, limited questions about whether our rules allow particular situations, but we cannot review all of a character's powers and tell you how exactly they would be nerfed before you have actually applied. (E.g. 'Do you allow characters to fly?' is okay, 'Here is an itemized list of all the ways my character's flight power works, which of them will change?' is not.) We encourage you to take a look at our notes on past applications for more guidance on how we've handled various powers in the past.

How should I handle tabletop character abilities?

D&D and similar tabletop characters need to be "de-gamed" the same way we ask of video game characters. NPCs and other PCs in FR generally don't have stats, so you need to translate the parameters of your character's abilities into more practical narrative terms. For example, rather than telling us your character has an ability that will knock someone down unless they pass some kind of check, tell us what sorts of people your character is going to be knocking down with that ability on an average attempt. Babies? Giants? Etc.

On a similar note, because some D&D magic or otherwise supernatural abilities in specific are so similar to Dragon Age native magic, just often cooler or bigger, D&D characters will generally be capped in ways that leave them on similar footing to natives with similar skills. To make up forthat, they'll also generally be subject to the same restrictions on frequency of ability use that natives are, which is to say, basically none. Native characters can repeatedly cast spells or perform Cool Fighting Move #4 as many times per day as they want, subject to their realistically available magical or physical stamina. Your D&D characters will be able to do so as well, unless we specify otherwise for certain abilities when you apply.

We generally don't roll for things in FR, and when we do, it's for contained plots with their own requirements or stat sheets that won't be correspond to your character's tabletop stat sheet. Characters also don't level up mechanically. Your characters can learn new skills when and how it makes narrative sense in this setting for them to do so, which may not be at the same rate you'd be used to in an actual tabletop game. You don't have to check in with us for your character to learn new mundane skills like crafting or wrestling. We just ask that everyone have characters grow and advance at a pace that's realistic for someone of their age, experience, and pre-existing strengths and weaknesses.

Can my rifter gain new abilities later?

Rifters can't learn native magic, but they can learn new non-magical skills and develop their own type of magic further. If your magical or supernaturally powered character hasn't reached what you would consider their full in-game magical/supernatural potential as of their canon point, please explain in your app what that full potential would be and how long it will take them to reach it if they continue to study and practice on their own in Fade Rift. That way we can take your plans into account when deciding if their other abilities and skills, magic gear, etc., will cause them to be cumulatively overpowered now or in the foreseeable future, and we can warn you in advance if they won't be able to both have all those things now and also acquire the new abilities you want later. There's no need to tell us what the character's potential will be in twenty years, just what you foresee them reaching in their time in FR (which will probably not last twenty years). This will allow us to nerf as needed in one go, and let you make informed choices at the beginning if, for example, keeping a potential ability on the table for the future would require giving up a different ability now.

To gain any new special abilities—that is, things non-mage Thedosian can't also learn to do—that go beyond those described and approved in your original apps, characters will generally be required to purchase specializations through the AC rewards system. You can use that mechanism to create custom specializations based on tabletop canon abilities if you want, but each specialization will purchased will typically be limited to 3-4 thematically related "active" abilities of power levels comparable to those of DA abilities, such as new spells, plus a few passive improvements. Most characters will have three of these specialization slots available.

Characters who app in with particularly extensive abilities may be told during the app process that their character won't be eligible for any additional special ability gains, regardless of the method by which they're acquired, or that they'll have fewer than three specialization slots available via IC rewards. This is the same way we handle native characters, who can't buy three more specializations if they've already included some in their original app.

We generally won't allow powers that reach substantively beyond what's described in original apps to be acquired, even through canon updates, without a specialization purchase—our initial nerfs to an application are already the upper ceilings of what we're comfortable allowing for each character, so indefinitely raising those ceilings via canon updates won't be allowed. (Canon updates themselves are still allowed--you're always free to add to a character's life story that way--it's just the acquisition of new powers via canon updates that we're limiting.)

Canon rifters from ongoing sources who undergo significant unforeseen changes to their abilities at newly-released canon points and want to canon update will be handled on a case by case basis.

Will my character be humanized by coming through the rift?

Yes, in a Dragon Agey manner of speaking. All characters will become a human, elf, dwarf, or qunari when they arrive through the rift. Robot/android characters who also have the option to adapt their character into Golem form if they prefer. All rifters will be physically changed by the Fade as much as is necessary to fit them within the bounds of normal native Thedosians. The only exceptions to this that will be allowed are for height and weight, which must still be reasonable within the overall bounds of Thedosian people, but can vary between races. E.g., if your rifter elf is nine feet tall in his canon, he can't remain nine feet tall because no one in Thedas is that tall, but he can be six feet tall and thus very tall for a native elf but not unnaturally tall for Thedas people overall. Similarly, you can play a particularly skinny qunari, or a less-hairy dwarf, and so forth. All other traits and characteristics, including but not limited to extra or differently-shaped limbs, non-humanoid appendages, horns, scales, fangs, fur, ears that aren't shaped like human or elf ears, or any unique organs or musculature, no matter how discreet, will be changed to fit the body-type of the chosen native race. Skin, hair, and eye coloring must also match what's naturally possible in Thedas, which is a slightly wider range than what's possible in real life, but not by much, so please make sure to specify in your app if your character's coloring isn't something you'd see in real life every day so we can assess.

The OOC purpose of this is to prevent characters from being unduly limited in their ability to survive a walk through a Thedosian village without being mistaken for a demon, abomination, darkspawn, etc., which would both limit your ability to play the character fully and would make protecting them or permitting them to participate in quests a greater burden than Riftwatch could logically bear.

What happens to my character when they first arrive?

When your character arrives through the rift, unless otherwise noted because of some special plot mechanic, they'll be met by members of Riftwatch who will assist them in defeating demons that emerged alongside your character and closing the Rift. The basics of their situation will be explained: that they've arrived in a world called Thedas, that they're not the first strange people to arrive this way, that Riftwatch is an organization that's trying to save the world and also helps and protects people like them, and that nobody here opened the rift or knows how to send them home. You should assume your character gets at least that much info from someone, in addition to whatever you thread out with PCs.

The rifters will then be escorted back to Kirkwall, where Riftwatch will take down their names and provide them with more info about the organization and the world.

All rifters will be quarantined in the Gallows for their first few weeks in Thedas. It will be explained that this is because a previous group of rifters brought a deadly magical plague with them, and so precautions are being taken to make sure that doesn't happen again. It's also to ensure that rifters don't have uncontrollable abilities or homicidal urges before they're unleashed on Thedas, and that they understand some fundamental things about the world before Thedas is unleashed on them.

We OOC allow some fudging of this period so that new players aren't too limited for their first month, but please make sure to remember that your character will have been quarantined for at least a few weeks. During that time, they'll receive some basic 'Intro to Thedas' lessons designed to help rifters learn about their new world and what's going on in it, so you can assume that by the end of their quarantine your character has had the opportunity to learn the basic setting information available in the game's OOC info pages.

Are rifters forced to join Riftwatch?

No. Rifters are not forced to formally join Riftwatch or to participate in its work. After the initial quarantine ends, they're theoretically allowed to leave and go do whatever they like, but in reality their anchors limit their ability to wander off and never come back (as described below). Plus, if they did that, you wouldn't get to RP.

Because rifters are sort of trapped, the organization generously provides even those who do not join with basic room and board, including a bed in the group quarters in the Gallows (on floors two and three only here) and three basic meals a day. They'll also be issued some very basic sets of clothing if they need it, a sending crystal, and, when they first arrive, a one-time small amount of coin to help them get on their feet. They will be allowed access to basic Gallows facilities, like the baths, the dining areas, and the main library, but they will not be entitled the use of weapons, armor, mounts, potions, offices, or laboratories, and they will not have access to any secure areas, such as the armory, division/project offices, secure archives, treasury, etc. Other than the Intro to Thedas lessons during the quarantine period, Riftwatch will not provide rifters who decline to join the organization with any additional training.

Not joining up long-term will also mean that your character is limited in the missions/assignments they can participate in. The majority of mod plots and many player plots begin with a team being officially assigned a task elsewhere in Thedas. If your character is not a Riftwatch member and thus not taking orders, they won't be assigned to those tasks and will almost never be permitted to tag along just for fun. There will still be other things that you can do with a character who doesn't want to join, like player plots that center on characters' personal business rather than anything official, but they'll be fewer and farther between, and less likely to engage with or impact the game's main plot.

For more information on the onboarding process if you character does want to join, please see here.

What language(s) can my rifter speak/understand/read/write in Thedas?

All rifters arrive in Thedas able to speak and understand the default common language of Thedas, which is interchangably called Trade, Common, and the King's Tongue. This will be all rifters' new default 'native' language as well. Whatever they say will just come out in Trade unless they are consciously trying to speak another language.

Whether they can also read and write Common upon arrival, we leave up to players. Rifts don't affect everyone the same way, so if you'd like your character to arrive able to read and write the native script you're welcome to, and if you'd prefer that they have to learn from natives as a way to build CR, that's fine too. Note that the native script looks more like some kind of runes than the Latin alphabet.

Some Dragon Age languages have obvious real-world analogs, like how French is used to represent Orlesian. While players are certainly allowed to use French to stand in for Orlesian in tags, ICly, a rifter who speaks French (or any other fantasy language that also uses French as a stand-in) will not understand or be understood by someone speaking Orlesian. There may be some accent similarities when they both speak Trade and grammatical similarities that make picking up the Thedosian language more intuitive, but Orlesian and French will not actually be the same language. This goes for pure fantasy languages like elven or dwarven languages as well. A rifter who speaks an elven language from their own canon will find that it does not have any apparent relation to Thedas Elvhen (which is not a language anyone in Thedas actually really speaks anyway; a few phrases remain in use, but they're more like sayings than enough for a conversation, let alone fluency).

Anchors

So what are these?

All rifters arrive with slivers of bright green magic embedded in one of their hands. Some natives also get implanted with the same when a rift reacts while they're nearby and creates it. Native characters can app in with an anchor or use activity rewards points to buy the right to have their character get one.

What does it look and feel like?

The way that a native acquires an anchor from a rift is a lot like getting hit with magical shrapnel, but despite the name the shard itself has more in common with a rash than a splinter. It's a slash a couple inches long across the palm of the hand and less than 1/4 inch wide. If someone touches the anchor it feels the same as any other skin on the bearer's hand, though the bearer will find that the flesh occupied by the sliver is now number and they can't feel someone poking at it. There's nothing to be pried out, and you can't stick a finger through it: it's still your hand, it's just now suffused with magic. It is bright green in color, and sometimes glows with a brilliant green light. This usually happens only when near an active rift or when using anchor abilities.

Does it hurt?

No, not usually. The anchor shouldn't interfere with a character's day to day life, and other than the color they won't typically have any reason to be reminded it's there. It doesn't do anything, and only hurts under specific circumstances, including:

• when the character first emerges from the rift
  
• when a rift is open or opening nearby
  
• when in a place with significant veil weakness/instability
  
• when overexerting in the effort to close a rift or overusing anchor abilities
  
• if someone magically interferes with the anchor
  
• if the anchor-bearer ingests a large amount of lyrium
  
• if the character spends too much time too far from other anchors (see below section on the catch for more information)

In all instances, the pain will begin as a dull ache and ramp up based on the severity/duration of the situation, and will ease off again once the situation causing the pain ends.

In DA:I, the Inquisitor's anchor grows over time and causes problems. Is that happening to PCs?

Yes, but don't panic! Because each PC has only a small sliver of an anchor, it's growing much more slowly. If there comes a time when characters who've had anchors for several years should start noticing changes or experiencing significant pain/drawbacks, we'll make an announcement.

You mentioned anchor abilities?

Yes, it's possible for the anchor shard to be used to create a protective shield or to shoot projectiles of energy. These abilities need to be purchased with AC reward points before they're used IC.

What about closing rifts like in DAI?

Yes, characters with anchors can close rifts! It's not necessary to spend points to buy this ability; it's automatic in having an anchor shard, characters will just need to study how to do it or get someone to teach them IC. However, because these are smaller versions of what the Herald had, it's not possible for one person to close a rift alone. How many people it requires depends on the rift and on how much rift-closing experience the anchor-bearer has, similar to how they vary in level in the video game. Some rifts only need two people, some need a dozen. In addition, characters who have had anchors for several years now and have closed many rifts may be stronger and more skilled and require less assistance with normal rifts. OOCly, how many a rift requires is usually determined by what seems most fun for the thread.

That's great, but what's the catch?

There are some drawbacks, in addition to the frequent suspicion from native NPCs, many of whom believe those with anchor shards are dangerous. The shards are also an occasional--but not frequent!--source of pain. Usually it's a dull ache at worst, and it flares up if a character is in an area where the veil is thin for an extended period of time or hanging around an active rift without closing it. See the question above for more detail about this.

If someone with an anchor shard attempts to leave the herd of other anchor-bearing characters, after a week or so away from them the shard in their hand will begin to hurt more severely. The pain increases the longer they are away and the further afield they go, from a recurring ache to a constant excruciating pain like their entire arm is burning from the inside out. Returning will immediately cause the pain to ease, and as they remain the pain will taper back off more quickly than it arrived.

Traveling with a group of other anchor-bearers will cause the pain to develop more slowly, but eventually the result would be the same, with the speed depending on the number of other rifters.

There has also been a single incident IC of a PC with a shard accidentally opening a rift while under night terror-like distress. If you want your character to accidentally open a rift with their anchor, please contact the mods for approval first. This should be a rare occurrence that only happens under significant stress.

My character wants this thing out of their body. Can it be removed?

Yes and no. In character, magical study and experimentation are ongoing and it's not known yet whether there's a way to remove or neutralize the anchors. But OOCly we can tell you that the only way to permanently remove an anchor is to cut it out, along with a decent portion of the surrounding flesh. For characters whose anchors are in their hands (which is 99% of them) it would probably be necessary to remove the arm up to the elbow to permanently eliminate it. For characters with anchors in the torso or otherwise near vital organs, the attempt would almost certainly be fatal.

The OOC goal of this, in case it wasn't clear already, is to use the anchors as a mechanism to force characters to continue their affiliation and interaction with Riftwatch even if they would otherwise refuse and run far away. We want characters to be able to travel for plots, but not be able to just fuck off on a pirate ship forever, since inflicting a character with an anchor is a mechanism that many people rely on to justify their characters' presence when they would otherwise refuse to cooperate.

So while we're open to experiments and hearing ideas about the anchors and different ways they could work or different ways to try to use, control, or eliminate them, we're not going to approve anything that would allow them to be removed without substantial danger and extreme cost, because that would eliminate the OOC benefits of having them be permanent.

What are we allowed to make up about the anchor shards?

If you want to try something with an anchor that isn't already covered in the FAQ or your character will be conducting IC experiments with them, please submit an info request or player plot request.

Abilities, Magic, and Skill Balance

Should I approach my Thedosian character’s abilities and action sequences as if they’re in a video game, where characters choose classes, have skill points, activate a specific ability to allow them to spin their sword in a circle, and if lit on fire just run around screaming for a few seconds and then get over it? Or should I imagine that the Dragon Age games are a simplified, game-ified representation of a world that actually operates in a more realistic way (as far as fantasy worlds with magic and dragons go) and write my character accordingly?

Super glad you asked. Do the second thing.

Is my rogue allowed to use a two-handed battle hammer?

Yes. Because this isn't a video game, characters aren't confined by “classes,” with the exception that only mages can do magic. Otherwise, characters don’t decide whether they want to be Warriors or Rogues and get stuck in a strictly-defined role forever. A strong swordfighter you might classify as a warrior in the video games is welcome to know how to use daggers as well; an assassin who uses knives can drink some dragon blood and acquire reaver abilities; and a mage who's grown up in the woods can know how to hunt with a bow rather than with magic. Weapons that don’t correspond to the class you would choose for your character (if you had to choose a class, which you don’t) won’t make their hands fall off, unless something is really wrong with the weapons. (And, IC, characters likely shouldn’t go around identifying themselves or other people as "rogues,” unless they’re being insulting. “Warrior” might be a little braggy, too.)

The obvious caveat to this is that characters need to remain balanced and reasonably realistic. So characters can do anything, but they can't do everything.

How powerful can my character be? Are there ability point limits?

We don't use the video games' ability points and skill trees in FR or want to see them in your app, but if it's fun or helpful for you to use them to plan and balance your character's capabilities, go for it!

However, we do ask that players be reasonable with their character's overall power/strength/ability level. No character should know every single thing that someone in their hypothetical class could know, let alone multiple classes. Even the super-cool heroic protagonists in the games don’t get to know many of the skills available to their class—they have to be better at some things and worse or completely unskilled at others. The training and experience required to excel in one discipline is time that was not spent training to excel in another, so significant expertise in one area should come at the cost of knowing little or nothing about other things.

When we evaluate applications for OCs and AU characters, we also take characters' backgrounds into account while determining whether their skill or power level is reasonable—their age, origin, resources, training, experience and so on. This isn't to say that you can never have a character whose abilities exceed the expectations of their upbringing—your 18 year old farmhand who's had no training with a sword except play-fighting against hay bales could be a fencing virtuoso! Or he could have devoted all of his free time to learning to speak other languages and be trilingual. That's totally allowed, you just need to treat it as the special thing that it is in your app, and not pile on more special things than would be reasonable.

Additionally, characters who are relatively young or new to a skill/profession will need to leave room at the top, meaning there should be room for a character who is older, better trained, or more experienced to meaningfully exceed them. To put it in the simplest terms, if your 20-year-old is so good at so many things it makes it impossible for anyone to reasonably play a 40-year-old in the same field who benefits from having at least double their life and/or professional experience (without making them god-tier, which we don't allow) it won't fly.

Our review of a character's abilities is holistic, and when assessing an app we take into account the sum total of the character's strengths in all areas that are potentially useful in-game, including "soft" strengths like wealth, connections, languages, diplomatic abilities, etc.

Nearly every PC in FR is going to be exceptional in some way and more skilled than the average Thedosian, and that's fine! But we need to maintain balance within the PC population to make sure everyone is having fun. In other words: we grade on a curve. It's fine for all of our characters to be good enough to get into the Fantasy Warfare equivalent of Yale, but within Fantasy Yale, PhD candidates should be better than undergrads, and no one should be the best in every class they take or successfully pulling off a quadruple major. So in order to maintain balance, we may require revisions based on the principles described above.

Please note that all of this applies to all characters, regardless of whether they're original, AU, or canon, native or rifter. We understand that canon characters are different in that they come with a set of abilities that aren't entirely within the player's control, but since all canon characters are subject to some manner of adaptation (either through the AU process or via rift nerfing) we ask players of canon characters to still do their best to use those processes to help us try to balance things out. If you're AUing a canon character who speaks fifteen languages, is a math genius, has superpowers, and is also royalty with an endless fount of money, etc., you will probably need to trim several of those things in your adaptation.

What should we consider a video game mechanic versus an actual ability? Can my rogue-ish character go invisible?

A lot of video game mechanic vs. actual ability questions might need to be handled on a case by case basis, so feel free to ask us if you aren't sure of something. But generally speaking, anything in the games that appears to be physically impossible and isn't canonically caused by magic or an enchantment is probably just a video game mechanic and shouldn't be portrayed in FR the same way it's portrayed on screen.

So:

• The ability called "Stealth" in the games seems to make character disappear in midair, but in FR a rogue-ish character who is good at stealth won't be able to go invisible. They'll instead be really good at sneaking around in physically plausible ways, or good at fighting in a way that makes their movements difficult to follow and predict, or both.
  
• The warrior ability "Line in the Sand" that makes additional ghostly shields appear on either side of a warrior to form an impassable barrier, in the games, is just a visual representation of the idea that the character isn't going to let anyone past them.
  
• Rangers don’t magically summon animal companions out of thin air. Rather, they’re good at outdoorsy stuff, like tracking and navigating, and at using nature to their advantage in combat. They can also tame wild animals with more skill than most people, so it would be fine for one of them to have a wolf that fights with them, but they have to have actually brought the wolf along with them—it won’t just appear out of nowhere when they whistle.
  
• Bards don’t sing songs in the midst of a fight—or, like, they can if you want, but the song won’t have any magical effect on allies or enemies, and they might get funny looks.
  
• Artificers are more likely to visit a location in advance to plan where to lay traps, or to be able to rig up inventive traps and plans, than to carry 200 traps in their pockets and throw them around the field while fighting.

You get the idea. But we do want folks to have fun! So if you want your character to have some cool but physically impossible tricks up their sleeves, you can potentially app in with a piece of enchanted gear or purchase magical artifacts via the AC rewards system. Your character can have an enchanted shield that temporarily knocks down people who try to slip past her or enchanted boots that let him easily do standing backflips from a resting position or an enchanted lute that puts people to sleep. There just needs to be a lore-compliant (so, magic) explanation.

How does healing magic work?

When using healing spells, mages channel vague beneficial energies (either their own or those of a spirit, in the case of spirit healers) into other people, whose bodies then use that energy to heal whatever is wrong with them. This happens without the healers themselves directing that energy to specific wounds, being able to choose what heals first, being able to detect or identify all their patient's ills, or necessarily understanding the underlying cause of an illness or injury.

Especially in the canon lore and descriptions outside of video-game combat, such as the ambient dialogue, magical healing is depicted as taxing and difficult. Even people traveling with spirit healers may have some lingering wounds or injuries that are only partially healed, demonstrating that healing is something that can't be done too frequently, too completely, or too lightly. So if multiple characters are significantly injured in RP, the healer(s) with them shouldn’t be able to snap their fingers and make it all go away. They may be able to stabilize one person’s life-threatening or potentially permanently disabling wounds (depending on the severity), or close a lot of shallow open wounds so they stop bleeding but are still scabby, but likely they’ll then lack the energy to do much else.

Spirit healers are obviously capable of more, including near-miracles, but those should occur rarely and take a significant toll on the caster’s energy. Even for spirit healers, this is a zero-sum game, and any energy expended on channeling their spirit assistant's healing for one patient is energy they won't have to immediately heal someone else.

Maintaining these limitations is important to (1) keep characters who use healing magic on the same page, rather than working from different sets of limitations that wind up making some healers way more powerful than others, (2) allow room for people like non-mage herbal healers or surgeons at the forefront of Thedas' fledgling medical science to be useful as well, rather than superfluous whenever a mage healer is present, which in FR is almost all the time, and (3) let people who want to RP about their characters being injured, sick, or permanently disabled be able to do so without having it all magically and instantly erased (or having to make their character look stupid for not just asking a healer for help).

Is friendly fire enabled?

Yes. A mage who uses the Tempest spell to cause a lightning storm in a given area is going to electrocute allies within that area as well. It's fine for them to throw a single bolt of lightning and only hit an enemy, but if they aim poorly and hit a friend, the lightning bolt won't suddenly be harmless. Conversely, beneficial magic can help enemies as well as allies. Since healing magic just sends out healing energy, healing spells that heal everyone in an area or everyone in the healer's vicinity via waves of that energy will also heal enemies, but healing spells that target specific people will heal just those specific people.

And this obviously goes for non-magic abilities as well. If your character lays spike traps over the floor, allies who step on them will be hurt, too. Swinging around in circles with a sword will hurt any innocent people who wander into your path as well as the person you're targeting. Arrows won't pass through friends like ghosts to hit enemies behind them, and so forth.

What am I allowed to extrapolate about magic? Is my character barred from lighting candles with magic just because there's not a specific spell for it? Can I make up new types of non-combat magic we don't see in canon?

As a general rule, extrapolating a smaller/less powerful but otherwise direct version of something that exists in canon is fine. So lighting a candle with magic is cool, since people can throw fireballs and that’s just a smaller and less useful version of the exact same thing. A mage who knows spells for throwing people across a room can probably also make a (reasonably flimsy) door burst open. But “my mage can create fire so they can create heat so they can boil water so they can boil the moisture in your body right now” or "my mage can fling boulders with their mind, therefore they can pick locks with their mind"-style tangential extrapolations, which make their abilities significantly more powerful or have useful effects that aren’t just identical-but-smaller versions of things we already see in canon, can only happen if you submit that sort of extension as a custom specialization and have it approved.

Extrapolations that go a step beyond that to invent magic that might be theoretically feasible but doesn't have pretty firm roots in canon will generally not be allowed, even in custom specializations, especially if it could open the door to a whole new sphere of magical abilities. For example, there’s currently no spell that allows mages to read minds or instantly learn a new language, so we wouldn’t allow anyone to invent spells that introduced telepathy or knowledge absorption. Even a low-powered version of mind reading, like a spell that requires a complex ritual and fails half the time and only gives brief glimpses into the mind of a single willing person within eyesight, will not be allowed because although the spell itself isn't very powerful, it still newly establishes that mages are capable of telepathy and opens the door to that type of magic existing in the world, which just isn't something we're willing to do.

We may also say no to proposed expansions not because they seem impossible based on what we know of canon magic, but because they're too overpowered for Fade Rift. We understand that canon leaves many things unclear about how magic works in Thedas, and that there are lots of interesting and creative ways that it could be used, with or without direct canon support. But Fade Rift is a collaborative game and to keep it that way we have to balance the needs and fun of a lot of different people and ensure that every character can contribute meaningfully to scenes and problem-solving, even those without any magic at all, rather than being upstaged by mages in every area. So things that would be fine in the video game, where only one person needs to be having fun at a time, might not be fine here. This is an area where the Rule of Cool doesn't apply. We reserve the right to disallow any proposed magic if we feel it would be detrimental to FR's game balance, regardless of whether there's canon support for it or not.

We are fairly strict about this, so if you want to say that something can be done with magic that doesn't come directly from canon and you're not sure if it falls into the candle-lighting exception above, you should err on the side of asking us first, or else it may become necessary to retcon.

Can my character use a spell I saw in the comics or tabletop game?

Not without approval of a custom specialization. Our source for "canon" spells and magic is the video games. Your freedom to have your mage character know any canon non-specialization magic without prior approval doesn't extend to spells that are only seen in the novels, tabletop RPG, Heroes of Thedas mobile game, comics, movies, etc. While those sources may be useful as supplementary materials, especially for history and culture, they frequently contradict the primary canon. They also frequently show instances of magic that aren’t fully described, just a burst of some color or another, and aren’t accompanied by any time/range limits the way the spells in the video game are.

If there's magic from a supplementary source that you're interested in having your character use, you can incorporate the idea into a custom specialization and submit it for us to review. Whether or not it’s approved will depend on the same criteria we apply when reviewing all other custom specializations.

What should I do about spells or other abilities that belong to a specialization in one game but are part of the general skill pool in another? What about abilities or spells that have explanations/lore that changes between the games?

As a general rule, we don’t care, as long as you use some common sense.

For example, in Dragon Age: Origins, “Animate Dead” is a general spirit school spell, while in Dragon Age: Inquisition, necromancy is a specialization. (But not one that actually includes the “Animate Dead” spell. Weird!) So a mage who hasn’t trained as a Necromancer and doesn’t have the specialization can still animate a corpse using the spirit spell. That’s fine. But if you’re making your character essentially a full Necromancer by hacking together a group of basic spells from previous games to mimic the specialization, and/or if you want to put your character forward as just as good at necromancy as Necromancers, you should purchase the specialization, so as not to be a system-gaming jerk.

In situations where the explanation/lore regarding abilities changes between games, again, it probably doesn’t matter. It’s totally fine for there to be two different ways of achieving the same effect. For example, the spell “Horror” in DAI employs fear spirits, while “Horror” in DAO and DAII uses entropy. It’s fine and makes plenty of sense for there to be two different approaches/spells with the same basic result, so you don’t need to worry about it.

If there is a situation where two explanations are fundamentally incompatible—or, in general, where the lore in one game irreconcilably contradicts the lore in another game and it’s causing you problems—then let us know and we'll decide which explanation/fact will be the correct one in FR. Unless something seems to be an error or, for example, is a single line in a DAI codex entry that contradicts entire scenes in DAII, we’re generally going to give explanations and lore in Dragon Age: Inquisition greater weight, since it’s the most recent installment (and the one that FR is based on) and contradictions with prior games may very well be intentional retcons of things Bioware decided no longer make sense. But it’s best to ask.

In canon, most people are afraid of magic. Is that still the case in Fade Rift? How secretive does my mage need to be about having magic? If there's a huge fight in a tavern, can they just freeze everyone to make them stop?

Our assortment of player characters tend to be more accepting than the average Thedosian, so sometimes it might feel like nobody cares about magic. But most of Thedas, outside of Tevinter, remains somewhere between terrified and wary of mages.

So while a mage letting loose on a battlefield is obviously fine, in situations outside of battle—especially one with witnesses—realistically it might be better to let someone else handle things, if possible, or to help without using magic. Doing casual spells in public won’t win anyone friends and may result in a mage being forcefully encouraged to leave taverns or entire towns. Offering to heal a stranger’s wounds will be met with fear rather than gratitude three times out of five. People might be less frightened if your character is uniformed and appears to officially answer to someone, particularly in places that are friendly toward Riftwatch, but in other places, the uniform might not help at all. Misuse of magic, including needlessly frightening the locals by showing off without actually hurting anyone, will harm Riftwatch's reputation and may get your character into trouble with their bosses.

In deciding how NPCs will react in a thread, it may help to remember that this fear of magic isn’t actually illogical. Magic is terrifying and modern Thedas exists in the ruins of the Tevinter Imperium, where magic was used to horrifically oppress everyone else, blood-sacrifice-and-torture nightmare style. More recently, some areas of Orlais and Ferelden were overrun by mages doing terrible damage to the land in their fight against rogue Templars, and now Corypheus is waging war on the rest of Thedas in a bid to put mages back in charge. Mages wield massive power with varying degrees of control and are susceptible to getting turned into demonic monsters that are capable of easily decimating an entire village single-handedly unless they're stopped by a large group of convenient Templars. While your character’s individual attitude and degree of flippancy about the power mages wield is obviously a matter of characterization, the objective facts are that Thedosians aren’t just being stupid over-reactive bigots about mages; their fear of magic has a strong basis. So portraying NPCs who react poorly to magic exclusively as fools who just need to be taught better or a villains who hate mages for the sake of it isn't really true to the world.

When I apped, I said my character had never held a sword, but that’s turning out to be less fun to play than I expected and I’d like to say he was a hobbyist dragon hunter instead. Is that cool?

Maybe. We understand that OCs (and, to a lesser extent, AUs) might need to develop a bit in play. Our app form is also fairly short—though please note there’s no word limit on the abilities and weaknesses section for a reason—so it’s possible you left something out, or, as this question posits, have now decided you'd like to make a change.

However, we do save and continue to reference those applications when we need to know what abilities or inventory items a character has, whether it’s reasonable for them to have acquired new skills at a given pace or be purchasing a certain specialization, etc. We also approved those applications based on the abilities pitched at that time, and retroactive additions might be making the character unbalanced in a way we wouldn’t have approved. So if you want to retcon in skills, background elements (particularly anything dramatic, criminal, or potentially plot-useful), significant resources, etc., that were not present in your app, you should drop us a note to ask about it first.

Here are some examples of what we mean and the kind of things we probably would and wouldn’t be okay with. This isn’t a substitute for actually asking!

Say you app Farmer Bob and either don’t mention combat skills/experience anywhere in his application, or say he doesn't really have any. This is making it tricky to take him on missions you'd like to participate in, so now you'd like to add that he has some level of combat ability. There are a couple ways you might go about this:

1. Changing his pre-game background:
   
   • You want to say he has some basic experience in using axes from cutting down trees on his land, using knives to kill and butcher livestock, or using a sling or bow to frighten off predators. This isn’t even really a retcon—it’s something that’s implied by the fact that he’s a farmer. You can do this without talking to us about it.
     
   • In your app, rather than not mentioning combat at all, you specifically stated that Bob had no combat skill or experience at all and didn't know the sharp end of a sword from the handle. You need to ask us before you change that, because it may be that we were only okay with his other strengths—like the fact that he's a multilingual farmer who learned to pick complex locks in his spare time and is the fastest runner in the Free Marches—because his total combat inexperience was a sufficient weakness to balance them.
     
   • You'd like to change Bob's background to say that he spent some years serving in the army before becoming a farmer and as a result is an above average but rusty fighter. We might say that's fine, but because this wasn't in your app, you need to ask us first.
     
   • You want to say that his farming experience actually turned him into a skilled fighter who can keep up with trained soldiers without needing time for any in-game training or growth, or knowing how to butcher an animal means he's a natural assassin. You should ask us first, and we might not approve this because it seems to be giving Bob more skill than his training and experience can reasonably explain.
     
   • Bob isn't just your average farmer, he's a wealthy noble gentleman farmer whose vast land holdings have made him obscenely rich and vitally important to the Orlesian war effort. Unbeknownst to all, Bob is using his wealth to finance a fleet of pirates to harass his competitors, and also to hide the fact that he is secretly a mage. Now you want to say that because he's familiar with pirates, Bob has learned to sword-fight from them. You should ask us first, because we may find that Bob has too many other strengths already to add another sphere.
   
   
2. Changing his in-game background
   
   • Rather than changing his pre-game background, you'd like to retcon to say that Bob has been working on learning sword-fighting since he joined six months ago and now has a basic level of skill sufficient to let him not make a fool of himself or be a liability to others on missions. This is fine, and you don't need to ask us first unless this directly contradicts something you've RPed recently, particularly something you've RPed in a mission or plot log that impacted other characters. If the retcon might cause confusion for others, you should ask us first.
     
   • You'd like to retcon to say that Bob has been working on learning to fight since he joined Riftwatch six months ago and is now a serious warrior capable of taking on anyone with a variety of weapons. This is an unreasonable level of skill to gain in six months. If you want to change your character's ability level this drastically, you should talk to us.
   
   
3. Changing his abilities going forward
   
   • You ask to make the change above about adding some years as a soldier to Bob's background and we agree. Afterwards, you apply to purchase the Champion specialization. We will almost certainly approve this, because you've now established that Bob has some training and experience, plus additional time in-game honing his skills.
     
   • You haven't asked us to retcon Bob's background, and instead apply to purchase the Champion specialization, which would essentially take Bob directly from being a farmer with no specific combat training/experience to being a highly-skilled fighter almost overnight. We are likely to deny this request because even if you have the points to purchase the specialization AC Reward, it's not reasonable that Bob would develop a specialization-level skill out of nothing like that.

Specializations

What?

In the Dragon Age games, each class of character has a set of talents or skills that can be learned by any member of that class, as well as "specializations." Specializations are more--you guessed it--specialized, and generally entail acquiring a rare special ability/quality or honing a narrow skillset. We don't have talent trees or attribute points in Fade Rift, but your character can still acquire specializations in the sense of becoming an expert in a given fighting style or learning a new field of magic.

How do I get one for my character?

Characters may be apped in with specializations that are appropriate and accounted for in their backgrounds and training. Out of respect for players whose characters may have devoted years or decades to their areas of expertise, we may ask applicants to remove specializations if a character's age and/or background does not allow time for the training that specialization should require.

Additional specializations may be learned in-game using written resources or PC or NPC trainers. Specializations that are learned in-game must be purchased with rewards points. No character may have more than three specializations total, including those that are part of the original application and those purchased in-game.

If a specialization has a clear trigger or acquisition point, only characters who have acquired that specialization may use it. For example, only characters with the spirit healer specialization can have the ability to use spirits to heal people. Only characters with the Templar specialization may use a Templar's specific, lyrium-based abilities. For abilities without those trigger points, acquiring the specialization means that your character has reached the point of being better at that skill than a character without the specialization. Characters without the specialization can still make attempts; for example, nothing will physically prevent a character without the Shadow specialization from trying to sneak around unseen. But as a rule, they won't be as good at it as a character who is a Shadow.

For all specializations, we only track and control acquisition of the specialization as a whole, not your character's training or progression within it. You are not required to receive additional approval for use of any of the abilities within that specialization. Once you acquire a specialization, it's up to you to pace your character's progress and have your character master it at a realistic rate and with a realistic degree of training and effort. Please remember that this is neither a video game nor a PVP game and OOC cooperation is more important than competition. Avoid powergaming or being otherwise unrealistic about your character's skills.

But my character isn't a mage or a rogue or a warrior! She's a rogue-warrior! Or a cook!

Since this isn't a video game, specializations aren't limited to single classes, with the obvious caveat that only mages can perform magic. Other characters are welcome to combine rogue and warrior specializations or invent character-specific specializations that combine elements of multiple classes' abilities.

You said I could create my own specialization?

Players may create their own unique specializations for their characters, similar to those used for companion characters in Dragon Age 2. These specializations can combine abilities from canon specializations or DAI Multiplayer characters, including combining abilities from different classes. They may also include new player-created abilities. However, they must remain balanced and roughly equivalent in power to existing specializations--you can't combine all of the major abilities from two or three specializations into a single spec or create new abilities that are overpowered/imbalanced compared to those in canon.

Specializations are not required to be combat-focused. As an example, you could create a Cat Burglar specialization that uses some existing stealth-based abilities and creates others like Super Hardcore Lockpicking. However, you can't use a unique specialization to monopolize whole occupations or common skillsets or to exclude other characters from things they should logically be able to do just as well as yours. Cat Burglar works because it's a specific, specialized skillset that a character could reasonably claim to be better at than most people. On the other hand, it would not be permissible to create a general Thief specialization that encompasses a variety of mundane, generic skills like pickpocketing and purse-snatching and implies that no one who doesn't have the specialization can be good at those basic things—it wouldn't be specialized enough. If you have an idea but aren't sure it's workable, talk to us, and we'll help you.

Unique specializations must be submitted to the Mod Contact page for review and approval before they can be purchased. They cost the same number of points as a canon spec (40 or 80, depending on how many specializations the character already has).

By default, unique specializations will remain unique to the character/player who created them, and you may not purchase a specialization created by another player. If your character chooses to teach their unique specialization to another character, contact us before the other player purchases it so we know you approved it.

What else do I need to know?

Knight Enchanters must be Circle-trained.

Only Dalish characters can be apped as Keepers.

Shapeshifters may have a total of four forms. This is one more than the number of forms permitted in Origins, and the limit is not negotiable. Characters must study the animals they wish to transform into at length in order to acquire those forms, so they will not be able to transform into animals they cannot study. Dragons, wyverns, and animals larger than Great Bears are not available. Once an animal form has been learned, it cannot be "unlearned" to make room for a new one instead, so choose carefully! If you want more than four forms, you can use multiple specialization slots for multiple instances of the shapeshifter specialization, which will allow up to twelve total if it's the only thing your character specializes in.

You guys didn't tell me all of this in advance and now I regret my specialization purchase! Fix it.

We will allow you to change/remove a character's specialization once--for example, if you were unaware of the three-specialization limit and purchased one you now regret, if a specialization you weren't aware existed comes to your attention, if we change other rules in a way that makes you want to adjust your plans, etc.--as long as the change doesn't require significant retconning that affects other players. This must be discussed with us and approved.

Plotting & Worldbuilding

What do I need permission from the mods to do, and what can I do on my own?

Player plots that would require official Riftwatch backing or would have more than a purely personal impact on the involved characters should be submitted to us in advance. This includes any plots that deal with mod plot or project business, and any plot that, whether intended to be personal or not, could have wider implications for the rest of the game or notably affect the reputation of Riftwatch or of another major group (rifters, elves, Templars, etc.).

For smaller reputation-influencing events (think bar brawls, personal acts of charity), a plot request is likely not required, but we ask you to post to the Reputation page where we now track these sorts of actions. Reputation-influencing events can potentially have IC consequences, so if you'd like to check on what will the likely results of an action will be, please ask us via the Mod Contact before you take the action IC.

If your character is investigating or researching something and you'd like to know what happens without running a whole plot about it, you can submit an info request.

There are also a lot of things you are welcome to RP without submitting a plot request! Basic missions pursuing the kinds of day-to-day tasks described in the Division pages are all fair game, and unless you want them to blow up into something huge, you don't need a plot request to RP this sort of stuff. To give some examples:

• Characters ride to Ansburg to escort a shipment of supplies: No plot request required
  
• Characters ride to Ansburg to escort a shipment of supplies and kill some bandits or some wildlife: No plot request required
  
• Characters ride to Ansburg to escort a shipment of supplies and kill some "bandits" that turn out to be working for a local lord, who will now be angry with Riftwatch: Plot request required
  
• Characters ride to Ansburg to escort a shipment of supplies and happen upon a secret red lyrium smuggling operation along the coast: Plot request required
  
• Characters go on a stakeout to surveil a suspected Venatori agent and don't see anything interesting: No plot request required
  
• Characters go on a stakeout to surveil a suspected Venatori agent and acquire evidence that he's planning an attack on the Gallows: Plot request required
  
• Characters visit Val Royeaux just to see it: No plot request required
  
• Characters visit Val Royeaux and get into a brawl in the market over a noble's mistreatment of his elven servant: No plot request required, but please post to the Reputation page.
  
• Characters visit Val Royeaux and make friends with a formerly-hostile Revered Mother: Plot request required

When and how do I submit a plot request?

To submit a plot request, fill out and submit the form HERE.

Player plots should typically be submitted to us for approval before you announce it to other players or have any kind of sign-up post. It's totally fine to do an informal interest check, to talk about ideas on plurk, or to plan plots with a small group of other players before you submit a request to us! Just make sure everyone is aware that the plot hasn't been approved yet and so is still subject to change. What we want to try to avoid is a bunch of people getting very excited about an idea and making other plans based on the assumption that it's going to happen and going to go a certain way, only to be disappointed and have to shift a lot of plans around when we for some reason have to ask for changes or (on rare occasions) say no altogether.

The same goes for IC discussion of potential future missions or work. It’s perfectly acceptable for characters to discuss a desire to pursue a course of action or make plans and preparations before you submit a plot request for it, but make sure you’re aware OOC that it might not work out they say they want.

How do I decide when to set a plot?

You're welcome to set a player plot whenever you like once it's been approved. To avoid piling up too many things at once, please take a look at the Calendar, which reflects planned plots, including mod plots and other player plots, along with regular events like rifter arrivals and IC holidays. Once you've chosen a date for your plot, please make sure to add it to the Calendar!

What canon quests have already been completed? Which are available for me to use for my character?

Unfortunately, we don't have a single comprehensive list of all the canon quests and war table operations that have already been played out or adapted in Fade Rift. The Timeline covers the major game events, but is still a work-in-progress to fill out and bring up to date. Your best bet is just to grab a link to the quest you're interested in and ask us in the Mod Contact whether it's already been done. Please do this before you start planning for it. We will usually remember if it's been done in some form already or not, and if it has, we can save you wasting your time developing something that doesn't work and help you point yourself in a different direction.

Major storyline quests set in regions the game as a whole has not yet visited are generally not available for player use since we may need to adapt them for mod plot opportunities, but sidequests and war table operations are generally fair game. For example, you couldn’t run the series of missions to uncover Fairel’s Tomb in the Hissing Wastes as a player plot, as that’s the primary storyline quest in that region of the canon game and thus reserved for modplot use, but you could propose closing a rift in that region.

Plots or quests that "belong" to canon characters—including their main companion quests and personal "go kill this man or get this book" quests—generally cannot be used/claimed by other characters, but the canon characters' players are welcome to expand or adapt them to include other people. To the extent that some of these quests are tied into larger plots, including mod plot, we reserve the right to potentially allow them to go forward in some form even if the canon character is not currently being played. For example, we won’t pause any progress toward an alliance with the Qun if we don’t have Iron Bull in play. But we also won’t allow someone else to take the precise scenario from his companion quest for their own plot.

We nearly always require any player who uses a canon quest or war table operation—thereby "taking" it and making it unavailable to other players—to provide open/RNG sign-ups on the OOC comm. Players who run original plots that are not based on existing canon quests or operations can limit participation to whomever they like. We will give encouraging high fives to anyone who wants to create new adventures from scratch.

We don't know much about some parts of Thedas—what can I invent?

As a general rule of thumb, you can make up details for the setting as long as those details aren't so large and significant that other characters would be stupid not to know them. We advise thinking locally, for instance in terms of your character's hometown or the specific region it's in, rather than on the level of an entire nation or organization. For example: you can invent local Rivaini cuisine or add slang words to the Tevinter language, but you can't make up a national holiday celebrated by 90% of Antiva, or decide that a certain style of tattooing is an important cultural practice across the Anderfels and most Anders would have such tattoos, or invent an NPC who is the real power behind the throne in Nevarra. Creating a new major religion, inventing new nations, or redefining the political processes of a country or major organization are also right out.

If there is a significant hole in the canon that you need to fill to be able to RP, please contact us to talk about it before making things up. For smaller things, you can comment on our Setting page to share them with other people.

—NAVIGATION↠