therookery | Sending Crystal

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Skadi Iceblade
RECIPIENT: Anyone/everyone
WHAT: Arrival and offering to teach Spirit Warrior stuff
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: n/a

[A cheerful voice booms over the crystal, one with a rather thick accent. It wouldn't be difficult for some to mistake it for Starkhaven, but those who know better can easily tell her origin even before she announces it.]

Take up with the Inquisition, get a fancy magic crystal? I should've joined sooner, when you lot were in my backyard and not across the damn sea! [She laughs.] Lady, I have terrible timing. I guess you only have to see my glowing hand to know that much.

Right, introductions. I'm Skadi Iceblade, of White Wolf Hold and I'm here to serve as long as this shard's a part of me. If you need someone to swing a giant sword at your foes, I'm the woman to do it. I'm also offering to teach my fighting style to any who are suited to it. If you're not a mage, but want a connection with the Land of Dreams to give you an edge in battle, I can help you there. Mages won't get much out of this; you already have a better connection than mine, eh? But I won't stop you from watching, if you like.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

God-inspired augmentation is one thing, but forging a connection to the Fade is something else entirely.

[He pauses a moment. The whole thing is disturbing, he's already concluding, and not in the mind to change that opinion. But, well... he gets fascinated by other cultures. The Avvar are one culture which he's a lot less familiar with.] I've never considered the abilities of spirit warriors much before. With such a close connection... how do you stop yourselves from getting possessed by demons?

Demons don't really care about us; we're not mages and they know it, and that's where their interest lies. I've never met a Spirit Warrior who became possessed by a demon, but if that ever happened...well, my people don't allow that to continue. We take care of our own, and if that means focusing on the health of the hold as opposed to one person, so be it.

It's rare, but it can happen. Anyone could be a target... although you're right, the mages will always be more vulnerable. Apparently rifters as well, with those shards of theirs... or so I've heard. [There is at least one pretty unsettling story about that rifter who got possessed about a year ago.]

It's good to know that you're prepared in case something happens. Messing with the Fade is all too dangerous of a prospect, after all... there's always potential for something to go wrong. [Are you gathering how much he distrusts all of this sort of thing? Because he sure does distrust it.]

Fair enough, but it's the Avvar way to include the gods in our lives. Ignoring or fearing the Land of Dreams leads to its own brand of trouble, and weakens us all.

[See, mentor, she does listen to your words sometimes.]

Judge for yourself, of course, but I ask that you do so in person. See what I can do, how I do it...and then decide, eh?

Trouble? How so?

[He can't imagine how it might be more dangerous to ignore the place where magic comes from. Shutting it away for good would be pretty ideal, but he knows better than to believe that's possible.]

That's fair. [It's... not as if he can talk when it comes to "weird special powers", but there's a difference, in his mind. His lyrium-related abilities were forced upon him. This woman is deliberately choosing what she does. Only time will tell whether she uses it in a reasonable manner or not.] I can't say I'm usually fond of magic and what it can do... That doesn't mean I won't fight beside a mage in battle, if it comes to it.

Ignoring the gods never bodes well for a Hold. If they aren't treated with respect, they won't strive to protect it, and the Hold suffers. They want -or think everything has to be- separate, that this world and that of the gods isn't as connected as they are. Nothing good comes of cutting ourselves off, discarding an entire other half of existence. The lowlanders may have forgotten such things, but we haven't.

[And yes, she's proud of that. How can she look at all the turmoil in the lowlands and think they've done better? Half their problem with the mages, was rooted in their backwards way of doing things.]

Good to hear, because I bet that happens a lot now. Mages, non-mages, non-humans...I don't give a shit, as long as they can fight.

Some things are meant to be left well alone. [Look, magic, the Fade, all of it, just leads to unspeakable horrors.] And what are your gods like? I'm afraid I know very little about the Avvar compared to other cultures.

[He knows plenty about Andraste and the Maker, plenty about what they used to worship in Tevinter, but this is something else entirely. At least he doesn't sound all that disparaging about the gods part, just curious.]

Yes... and we need all the help we can get in this battle. It doesn't matter much what source it comes from.

Magic isn't safe, the Land of Dreams isn't safe...but neither is any other part of our world. Acknowledging it, working with it at least hasn't lead to the big wars the lowlanders have brought upon themselves.

My people still worship the old gods of the Alamarri, the chief among them Korth the Mountain-Father, Hakkon Wintersbreath, and The Lady of the Skies. There are many more -nature spirits, legendary mortals who ascended- and those tend to vary with each hold, but everyone reveres the first three. We believe that the gods live in all things; wind from an unexpected direction, birds flying in unusual patterns, a sudden, fierce storm—these are nothing but chance to a lowlander, but are messages from the gods to an Avvar. We know better, and we listen.

The gods are a major part of our lives, in many ways. We invoke them for strength in battle or ask them for advice. Some gods have lived in their holds for many generations, guiding our people.

Fascinating... [Very unlike the Andrastian teachings, and completely unlike the traditional practices of Tevinter. One has to wonder which of them is right, or if they all have some of the details down in part. That's a lot of deities running around, otherwise.] The gods actually live among you? I assume they do more than join you for the occasional cup of tea. Do they answer your prayers directly, then? Do you simply... stop by the gods' dwelling on your way to lunch?

[There's something almost-comical about it, in a way.]

[Skadi chuckles at that.]

That's what I mean about how lowlanders' love of keeping things separate. The gods are everywhere among us, so why would we confine worship to a single place?
The augur does his best to interpret the signs the gods send us, so that we live in harmony with them...or at least don't offend them. But worship can happen anywhere, it's not as though we all pile in at his home. Lady, there wouldn't be enough room.

The Chantry teaches that the Maker works in mysterious ways, right? Or something like that? It's the same with the gods; they aren't like us, don't think or work as we do. But if I fail in battle, I have reason to wonder if Hakkon is displeased with me and go to the augur to work out how to make it right. Maybe I have to make an offering, or go on a quest. Something like that.

That's one way to get your prayers answered swiftly, to go straight to the source like that. It's hard to say whether or not the Maker is even listening... or if he cares at all. [There's still a lot about the chantry's ways that he isn't sure what to do with, entirely. It's not as if he was raised with any of it that. All that he really knows about it has been learned much more recently.]

You have to wonder if it would kill these deities to be a little less mysterious for once. [He sighs.] And does it work? Do your offerings and quests regain you their favor? Do they give you some sign when you've satisfied them?

I can't say shite about the Maker, only his followers. And most of them call me a heathen, so why would I care what they have to say?

Aye, they do if offered in the right way or the quest is finished. There are always signs, like I said. The Avvar just know to look for them in the world around us.

When you put it that way... you have no reason to listen to them whatsoever.

[He can't blame her, really.]

I hope those signs are very obvious, or else it seems you might spend forever looking for them, everywhere you go.

Sending Crystal

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