mountaingoat
mushi-shi
Hello! I am mountaingoat. I'm 26, go by any pronouns, and have been roleplaying for a long time. Most importantly, I am absolutely DESPERATE to find a buddy who will write Dragon Age with me. I will love you FOREVER if we can write this together. If you read the below and are interested in hashing something out, please, pretty please shoot me a PM.
What I'm Looking For OOC:
What I'm Looking For OOC:
- Lazy Lit. This is code for, we both write exactly as much as we feel is necessary, with no pressure to reach arbitrary word counts or match each other's posts. We can write novella posts to set up a scene, we can write short posts to keep dialogue flowing nicely. We trust each other to deliver "advanced" quality, regardless of quantity.
- Patience. How often I post depends a lot on my work schedule, how busy my weekend is, how tired I am afterwards, and how long my post is going to be. As such, there will be times where I take a couple weeks to respond, and other times where we're both online and we can go back and forth trading posts for a couple hours. I'm totally OK with you checking in if I'm taking a little while. As for you, I have zero expectations as to post frequency. I'll check in once every so often, but once I'm invested, you can literally take months to respond and I'll still be happy to hop back in, whenever you're ready. That being said, I do love a faster back and forth, so whenever possible I will try to make that happen!
- OOC chat. I like to eventually become friends with my RP partners. Trading RP-inspired playlists, gushing about characters, talking about life, I'm all about it. If we vibe, I imagine this will come naturally. Discord is my preferred OOC platform.
- Long term. I like to actually finish stories, sue me.
- Someone who is OK with me rambling passionately at great length while we're planning.
- LGBTQ+ friendly.
- If we are in the plotting stages, generally my policy is to get back to you within a week, and if it seems like it will take longer than that, to check in with you so you know I'm still interested. Ideally you would do the same!
- No pressure for you to be a super expert on the lore.
- A short writing sample would be helpful. I'll provide one below. I think this will help us judge whether our writing styles mesh, before getting too deep into the weeds of plotting.
- I prefer to write over PMs or Google Docs. I can make Discord work if that's a dealbreaker, I just hate the character limit there. I can also make email work if none of the other options are to your liking.
- Post-Trespasser Dragon Age, leading into Veilguard. Basically, we will put on our tin foil hats and write what we think ought to happen! I have a very rough story outline of future events, based off of my three-game world state, and a lot of ideas/themes I'd like to explore. I also don't mind incorporating bits and pieces we learn about Veilguard as we go.
- If the fancy strikes us, we can make this a long-form collaborative fanfic instead of a typical RP? I haven't done that before with someone, but I'm open to the idea!
- Also open to semi-DMing this if that is your preference. I WOULD love to brainstorm with you, but I also have enough material in my head where I could conceivably set up our plot at the get-go, and throw you in blind and lead the first few story beats.
- I so, so, so want to explore my male mage Inquisitor Mahanon Lavellan and his journey after Trespasser. And it would be my DREAM COME TRUE if you are, like me, very into Dorian's character trajectory post-Trespasser, and want to play him against my Lavellan. This isn't just, like, "write my pairing for me!", I'm really very passionate about exploring Dorian and making you feel like you're the star of the show too!!! These two would be our "primary" characters.
- With that said, I'm open to you playing an OC or another canon you love, and incorporating them into the central plot with Dorian and Mahanon. If you want doubling (tripling, etc.): I don't LOVE doubling if it has a "favor" vibe (I want us both to be equally passionate about our pairings!), so let me know what canons you would want me to play, and I'll let you know if I think I can passionately deliver. But even if that doesn't pan out, I can make an OC or multiple OCs to complement whoever else you'd like to play. Heck, maybe you play Rook?
- Plus, we can make the world vibrant with all sorts of side characters--including canons!
- Themes & Things I want to explore:
- The Evanuris, the Titans, the Old Gods, and how they all connect. We can incorporate Tevinter Nights stuff too, if you've read that!
- Dorian’s new political position and his Lucerni
- the Tevinter v Qunari war
- Solas’s grand plan and its effects
- How Dalish culture is affected by the revelations in Trespasser regarding the Evanuris
- Basically, my Lavellan’s trying to chase Solas down/get ahead of the next end-of-the-world event, and it's going to feed into Dorian’s own adventures as well. I imagine they're long distance at the start, and through Secret Plot Points we bring them together in Tevinter and delve into the political and social turmoil there. So we will have an epic overarching narrative, but I really like to zoom in to character development as well. So like, I’m interested in exploring power and ego (Dorian gaining power politically, Mahanon losing power after disbanding the inquisition and losing his left hand), grief (Dorian losing his dad, Mahanon losing his clan), searching for home, trust, intimacy (trust and emotional intimacy I think being huge things in the game’s romance arc with Dorian), aaaaaand so much more!
- I can go on the LONGEST RANT EVER introducing you to Mahanon (my Inquisitor) and what I'd like to explore with him and Dorian, at your request.
Since Haven–since Corypheus–Mahanon’s dreams had taken on a new form. Or an old one, really. It went like this: total darkness, uncertain awareness. Then pinpricks of light, soft and faded, gaining prominence, until he realized he was sprawled on a forest floor, facing the sun as filtered through the summer canopy. Branches swayed in the warm east wind, and the leaves rattled, rejoicing to an old wisdom he would never know. Birds chattered and whooped. The grass was parched with drought, its crisp blades tickling his arms.
It had not rained in months. This was important.
And, just as important, this forest was home. Not his current home, but his old home. His first home. Dread filled him up, chilling his blood despite the heat of the season. He knew what would happen next. Discarding the insouciant mood of the afternoon, the pleasant heaviness of rest after play, Mahanon found his feet and filled up his lungs to call for his brother. He would not wait for disaster to strike. They would run–they would run, now–but the yell burst forth breathless, soundless, useless.
In the dream, what happened next never matched the well-worn archives of memory. It was here that the dream-memory would warp like the bindings of an old book coming undone, pages fleeing from the spine, and an alternate series of events would unfold as if written by another's quill.
As Mahanon stood yearning for a brother who was not there, the birds went silent, the leaves stilled in reverence, and someone erupted from the brush–not Tevinter slavers with glinting blades and cage-laden wagons, but the Elder One himself. The mottled flesh of his face creased with vengeance as his Blighted hand outstretched to Mahanon, aglow with fatal magic. A branch appeared in the elf’s palm, knotted and crude. It was a child’s toy, a sword in fantasy alone. He held the so-called weapon aloft, a boy standing up to a god.
He would lose. He would try not to tremble.
Great wings blotted out the sun. He cast his gaze up into the jaws of an archdemon. Its undulating throat flickered with fire.
These ancient trees were nothing but kindling.
Flames tickled his flesh, and then consumed it.
Everything, erased.
A voice resonated at the base of his skull:
You are not strong enough to stop it. Let me help you. Let me take you.
Mahanon startled into consciousness. Instead of dragonfire raining from above, he saw the vaulted ceiling of his quarters, cobbled stone by stone by long-dead craftsmen. The sheets adhered to his skin with sweat, and when he threw off the heavy quilt, the high mountain cold settled over him like a balm. Bare feet met the ornate bedside rug. He sunk his toes in. It grounded him.
These demon dreams had grown more common since he gained the power of the Anchor. He figured its Veil-bending light was as irresistible to spirits and demons as a candle was to moths at dusk. Perhaps the Anchor was not due all of the blame, though. It was true he was scared. Uncertain. Drawing on strength he wasn’t sure he possessed. Such doubts tended to attract demons. He was not tempted by the nighttime offers of power and glory, but the stakes had evolved, and so had his responsibility to resist. If his guard faltered just once, an essential part of him would be lost forever–and the world with it.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, and released a clouded breath. A peek towards the balcony revealed a purple sky. Dawn was approaching. Sleep, after everything, would surely elude him.
Good morning, Skyhold.
He wrapped himself up against the cold and stepped out into the castle halls with no path in mind. He found new routes, new rooms, each one layered in dust from the Exalted Age or earlier. One grand room full of books caught his interest–a place to return to later, to be sure. Eventually, he left the shelter of the castle walls to walk along the battlements. The night guard had become accustomed to the new Inquisitor’s early-morning strolls. Quiet words of greeting were exchanged. Mahanon didn’t linger to chat–there was something too sacred about the mountain’s dawn silence to want to disrupt it for long.
By the time the afternoon arrived, he’d already completed his daily combat training, war table meeting, and had several audiences with travel-weary diplomats eager to collect intelligence on the fledgling Inquisition. They had commanded the world’s attention–now it was a question of whether Mahanon, and by extension the Inquisition, could keep hold of it.
After ushering out an auspicious lord who had solicited his land as an outpost in exchange for Inquisition protection, Josephine surprised Mahanon with the most unusual of assignments: an etiquette lesson, this afternoon, after lunch. “This is most necessary,” she had said. “Without these skills, you will never turn the most discerning of dignitaries–and purses–to our cause.”
The busyness of the day had lifted his spirits from the morning’s low, but this task needled his pride. Him, lacking etiquette? What, because of his Dalishness? It wasn’t his fault these shemlen carried all of these strange expectations. Did he really need to assimilate himself to using peculiar silverware in a particular pattern, to performing bows and handshakes as individually appropriate according to lineage and arbitrary titles? Why was earnestness to save the world not sufficient?
Mired in moral outrage as he was, Mahanon took a very long lunch–then vanished down into those dusty hallways he’d discovered this morning, intent on finding a place where Josephine and her shiny little spoons would not find him. He would feel guilty later, and accept the lesson from her eventually, however humbling. It would be a valuable cultural exchange, he told himself. He would go.
Just not yet.
He let his eyes adjust to the darkness of the corridor. On light feet he followed the trail of memory to the room with all the enticing old books. A little bit of quiet reading would do him some good. But as he approached, he realized someone else had claimed this outpost before him. When he realized who it was, his lips curled up in a mischievous grin. Mahanon halted at the entrance of the room, boots kicking up a century of dust. He crossed his arms as if affronted, and announced himself, voice bouncing off the walls, “Two questions. First–how dare you steal my secret hideaway? And second–what are you reading?”
Without waiting for an answer, he moseyed up to peek over Dorian’s shoulder. With him he brought the lightly spicy scent of pipe-smoked Gossamer Elfroot. The magic bauble of light danced in his dark eyes, electrifying the green flecks that had only appeared since the Anchor. Voice warm with interest, he continued, “I see Elvish. And… rather detailed dragon anatomy?”
It had not rained in months. This was important.
And, just as important, this forest was home. Not his current home, but his old home. His first home. Dread filled him up, chilling his blood despite the heat of the season. He knew what would happen next. Discarding the insouciant mood of the afternoon, the pleasant heaviness of rest after play, Mahanon found his feet and filled up his lungs to call for his brother. He would not wait for disaster to strike. They would run–they would run, now–but the yell burst forth breathless, soundless, useless.
In the dream, what happened next never matched the well-worn archives of memory. It was here that the dream-memory would warp like the bindings of an old book coming undone, pages fleeing from the spine, and an alternate series of events would unfold as if written by another's quill.
As Mahanon stood yearning for a brother who was not there, the birds went silent, the leaves stilled in reverence, and someone erupted from the brush–not Tevinter slavers with glinting blades and cage-laden wagons, but the Elder One himself. The mottled flesh of his face creased with vengeance as his Blighted hand outstretched to Mahanon, aglow with fatal magic. A branch appeared in the elf’s palm, knotted and crude. It was a child’s toy, a sword in fantasy alone. He held the so-called weapon aloft, a boy standing up to a god.
He would lose. He would try not to tremble.
Great wings blotted out the sun. He cast his gaze up into the jaws of an archdemon. Its undulating throat flickered with fire.
These ancient trees were nothing but kindling.
Flames tickled his flesh, and then consumed it.
Everything, erased.
A voice resonated at the base of his skull:
You are not strong enough to stop it. Let me help you. Let me take you.
Mahanon startled into consciousness. Instead of dragonfire raining from above, he saw the vaulted ceiling of his quarters, cobbled stone by stone by long-dead craftsmen. The sheets adhered to his skin with sweat, and when he threw off the heavy quilt, the high mountain cold settled over him like a balm. Bare feet met the ornate bedside rug. He sunk his toes in. It grounded him.
These demon dreams had grown more common since he gained the power of the Anchor. He figured its Veil-bending light was as irresistible to spirits and demons as a candle was to moths at dusk. Perhaps the Anchor was not due all of the blame, though. It was true he was scared. Uncertain. Drawing on strength he wasn’t sure he possessed. Such doubts tended to attract demons. He was not tempted by the nighttime offers of power and glory, but the stakes had evolved, and so had his responsibility to resist. If his guard faltered just once, an essential part of him would be lost forever–and the world with it.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, and released a clouded breath. A peek towards the balcony revealed a purple sky. Dawn was approaching. Sleep, after everything, would surely elude him.
Good morning, Skyhold.
He wrapped himself up against the cold and stepped out into the castle halls with no path in mind. He found new routes, new rooms, each one layered in dust from the Exalted Age or earlier. One grand room full of books caught his interest–a place to return to later, to be sure. Eventually, he left the shelter of the castle walls to walk along the battlements. The night guard had become accustomed to the new Inquisitor’s early-morning strolls. Quiet words of greeting were exchanged. Mahanon didn’t linger to chat–there was something too sacred about the mountain’s dawn silence to want to disrupt it for long.
By the time the afternoon arrived, he’d already completed his daily combat training, war table meeting, and had several audiences with travel-weary diplomats eager to collect intelligence on the fledgling Inquisition. They had commanded the world’s attention–now it was a question of whether Mahanon, and by extension the Inquisition, could keep hold of it.
After ushering out an auspicious lord who had solicited his land as an outpost in exchange for Inquisition protection, Josephine surprised Mahanon with the most unusual of assignments: an etiquette lesson, this afternoon, after lunch. “This is most necessary,” she had said. “Without these skills, you will never turn the most discerning of dignitaries–and purses–to our cause.”
The busyness of the day had lifted his spirits from the morning’s low, but this task needled his pride. Him, lacking etiquette? What, because of his Dalishness? It wasn’t his fault these shemlen carried all of these strange expectations. Did he really need to assimilate himself to using peculiar silverware in a particular pattern, to performing bows and handshakes as individually appropriate according to lineage and arbitrary titles? Why was earnestness to save the world not sufficient?
Mired in moral outrage as he was, Mahanon took a very long lunch–then vanished down into those dusty hallways he’d discovered this morning, intent on finding a place where Josephine and her shiny little spoons would not find him. He would feel guilty later, and accept the lesson from her eventually, however humbling. It would be a valuable cultural exchange, he told himself. He would go.
Just not yet.
He let his eyes adjust to the darkness of the corridor. On light feet he followed the trail of memory to the room with all the enticing old books. A little bit of quiet reading would do him some good. But as he approached, he realized someone else had claimed this outpost before him. When he realized who it was, his lips curled up in a mischievous grin. Mahanon halted at the entrance of the room, boots kicking up a century of dust. He crossed his arms as if affronted, and announced himself, voice bouncing off the walls, “Two questions. First–how dare you steal my secret hideaway? And second–what are you reading?”
Without waiting for an answer, he moseyed up to peek over Dorian’s shoulder. With him he brought the lightly spicy scent of pipe-smoked Gossamer Elfroot. The magic bauble of light danced in his dark eyes, electrifying the green flecks that had only appeared since the Anchor. Voice warm with interest, he continued, “I see Elvish. And… rather detailed dragon anatomy?”
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