A minute of internet surfing proves otherwise.
A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
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- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
A minute of internet surfing proves otherwise.
iggyfan
Verified Man-Thing
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- Kentucky
Proves what the Martells avoiding Sunspear being burned to the ground on their own merit or the much more urbanized Essos is less populated then Westeros?
Yi Ti still isn't the size of a continent though. Anyways most of Westeros is fertile land and isn't Not-Mongole infested, so I'd wager that Westeros has significantly more population than any of the factions in essos (free cities, Yi Ti, etc)
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
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It's not anywhere close to that simple. But sure, whatever, maybe magical dragon blood will give us a free pass out of this. Or we could not have brought Lya across and not have had to face this problem until we'd had more time to prepare for it!
You are asking her to compare the value of a loyal Kingdom (when she has no awareness of our renegotiations with them) against a fairy tale - which is what mages still are to her. This isn't complicated!
And we wouldn't be in this position if we hadn't brought Lya along in the latest vote. I'm not afraid of 'stupid' decisions, I'm afraid of the entirely valid ones that myself, @Diomedon and others are going to end up having to deal with. And the potential damage doing so will do to everything we've been doing to so carefully bring Rhaella into our world.
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- Brazil
We are. In fact, we were like super hyper nice with the contract terms, essentially giving them three months to start paying their part even as we roll out ours'.
They eat metal and gems, the rarer the better. Iron is like eating cardboard to them, but salt is nice and flavorful and fulfilling. And I think steel is even better.
So they are like sahaarans trading sand for fillet mignons or something.
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- Germany
True.
But while she's pretty, she's not on Lya's level concerning vast cosmic powers in the end.
Not even a Wish SLA, I give her 2/10, would rather marry a Pit Fiend.
You do know that population density isn't the same as population right? Yes, most Essos towns can be considered as westerosi cities, but the number of those towns are very few and with little farmland (again, dothraki) to feed them, and constant raids for slaves and food (again, dothraki) wouldn't allow for much population growth compared to the much easier life in westeros.
PS, the Surfing bit was for population sizes, the Dorne part is just different opinions between you and I. I mean, there's no argument to be had against "the author wanted it!".
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
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There's a difference between troublesome and what you've actively set in motion by including Lya in this. And without meaning offence, this really isn't all that funny after the first time (and that wasn't great).
Emotional components matter, and it feels like a lot of you are trying to discount them >.<
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- Chile
But isn't that exactly why it wont break her? In fact, having to argue at us over Lya should take her mind away from other concerns.
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- United States
@Snowfire, you've said again and again that the "familiar" is to be feared compared to the fantastical, but can you please explain further? Why does Lya have to be such an utterly taboo topic? Yes, the fantastical is harder to process and thus safer, but why is it Lya in particular you're viewing as such a massive landmine?
Rhaella has already demonstrated:
1) When we told her we had magic, she cared more about how the taboo against magic might affect our image than she cared about us actually having magic, and even when being told it wasn't a secret by any means she wasn't upset with us
2) She holds no loyalty to the Seven and doesn't view us negatively for our enmity with the Seven, despite her being raised in the Faith and being rather intimately familiar with it
3) DP has told us that Rhaella lives for her children and values them above all else
So with that in mind, why are you so terrified of Rhaella meeting Lya? Can you explain in detail?
From what I can tell, the "problems" are:
1. Lya is common-born -- kind of made moot by her being a powerful mage and one of our most valuable companions, and she just heard stories of exactly how valuable Lya is
2. Marriage alliance with Dorne -- we just need to tell her the deal to bring Elia back to life
3. Abandoning duty like Rhaegar -- we never abandoned our duty, we never broke a promise that we didn't make, and with Dorne we salvaged the situation pretty well
I'm honestly not seeing it. Can you please articulate your fears? Because you seem very adamant that this will end badly, and I don't know why.
Rhaella has already demonstrated:
1) When we told her we had magic, she cared more about how the taboo against magic might affect our image than she cared about us actually having magic, and even when being told it wasn't a secret by any means she wasn't upset with us
2) She holds no loyalty to the Seven and doesn't view us negatively for our enmity with the Seven, despite her being raised in the Faith and being rather intimately familiar with it
3) DP has told us that Rhaella lives for her children and values them above all else
So with that in mind, why are you so terrified of Rhaella meeting Lya? Can you explain in detail?
From what I can tell, the "problems" are:
1. Lya is common-born -- kind of made moot by her being a powerful mage and one of our most valuable companions, and she just heard stories of exactly how valuable Lya is
2. Marriage alliance with Dorne -- we just need to tell her the deal to bring Elia back to life
3. Abandoning duty like Rhaegar -- we never abandoned our duty, we never broke a promise that we didn't make, and with Dorne we salvaged the situation pretty well
I'm honestly not seeing it. Can you please articulate your fears? Because you seem very adamant that this will end badly, and I don't know why.
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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Arguing is still stressful. So stress due to adjustment + argument stress (instead of support) with Viserys leads to more unhappy Rhaella.
I think Snowfire is worrying a bit too much, but an argument still isn't optimal, particularly since our counter-arguments are wrapped up in what she's trying to adjust to (magic).
iggyfan
Verified Man-Thing
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First in a pre-agricultural revolution society you need 9 farmers to support 1 other person so the Free Cities high urban population necessitates a even higher rural population second World of Ice and Fire offhandedly mentions that Valasyr and Volon Therys, in Essos mere towns under the control of Volantis that are scarcely worthy of mention, are larger then Kings Landing.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
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Not even slightly. This makes it worse, because it's pouring the familiar into the fairy tale. There are many, many reasons I've been so careful and worried about these dynastic concerns. This is only one of them.
It is also mentioned that the dothraki regularly scour the lands around walled settlements and that food imports are a large business in the free cities. Look, you can't convince me on this at all, so just let it go.
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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- The interblag
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As for the population estimates, looking over some math on the internet, and adjusting for some details of DP's world building, gives me an estimate of around 40m for Westeros (South of the Wall), and around 30m-35m (DP's disputed land is better populated) for all the Free Cities (so ignoring Dothraki/Slavers Bay/Anything to the east). So Westeros is larger, but only by about a third. If you start including dothraki or slaver's bay you start equaling it, and once you expand further Westerosi stops being the majority population (though it looks like it has a good chance to maintain a plurality until the Great Grass Sea starts being resettled).
Yi Ti we actually have no idea how large it is. We know that DP doesn't consider the maps 100% accurate or to scale as you get further from Westeros (which is why they just stop at points). It's influenced by china, so we can expect a very high population density, but that's about it.
Dual Official Languages is how I think it'll actually shake out. I should look up what issues Austria-Hungary had with such things.
Yi Ti we actually have no idea how large it is. We know that DP doesn't consider the maps 100% accurate or to scale as you get further from Westeros (which is why they just stop at points). It's influenced by china, so we can expect a very high population density, but that's about it.
Dual Official Languages is how I think it'll actually shake out. I should look up what issues Austria-Hungary had with such things.
Interlude in beta.
- Location
- Germany
Oh, but she swill learn. They all will.
Interlude CXCVIII: A World of Miracles
A World of Miracles
Twenty-Third Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC
There was something oddly comforting about the ancient Maester's presence, though he had been only a tale of her childhood before she knew his story well from her father and even her grandfather in those bright days before the horror of Summerhall. It was a relief to know her children had not been left entirely alone in the word save for the whispers of the oathbreaker in his nest of roots, like a spider in its web. In spite of this, like all the tales she had heard before her return, there was an edge of the fantastical to it.
'I was blind and then a raven gifted with the power to heal me came upon me and returned the light to my eyes,' he said, and Daenerys had blushed and waved it away as though embarrassed to have someone make much of some minor generosity. Her daughter treated as the most ordinary thing that she had healed him by the laying of hands like a saint out of a Septon's sermon. 'A spell of the third circle,' she had called it, where she and Viserys could both work those of the sixth.
It was hard to nod along and smile as though she understood, and harder still to try and do so. The worst of it was the fear that if she ever did manage it; it would feel just as natural to her, that it would somehow make sense that Daenerys had embraced the thing Bloodraven had become just the same as the kindly old Maester.
"Would the Lord Commander mind if there were slightly more of us helping out?" Viserys' question startled Rhaella form her thoughts. She had grown to recognize the tone he used when he was planing something he actually didn't even realize was extraordinary.
"Certainly not," Aemon replied. "Are there more of you waiting past the Wall?"
"Not quite..." he said, turning slightly addressing her as much as the aged Maester. "The influence of the Wall extends far north of it, forbidding greater acts of translocation, but now that we are on the other side I can travel to the Deep by sorcery and bring more of my associates back, both to heal and help with the library."
"How quickly can you travel all the way to the Stepstones and back?" Rhaella's voice sounded a little strangled to her ears, which some small part of her noted was a great deal better than she would have managed a few days ago.
"In the span of a few moments, though I have to leapfrog to Dragonstone due to a limitation of the spell. Beyond that it can only travel to places I have already seen," he answered.
"Er... and which circle is that?" That was a sensible question, surely?
"Fifth," Daenerys replied, sounding a little surprised.
Aemon cleared his throat. "That would seem a useful ability for a king," he noted.
Rhaella let out a breath she had not known she was holding in, the words helping her consider the matter rather then simply reacting to the sheer impossibility. She could do this... damn it she had to. It helped to keep firmly in mind the musings about how it would change royal visits as her son simply spoke a handful of words and then vanished with a hiss of air.
"He'll be back in a few moments, mother," Daenerys assured her, holding her hand in encouragement. Then her child turned to Aemon, asking, "How has the Watch been doing with the rising tide of magic to the North?"
The maester took out a scrap of parchment from his robes, smiling slightly. "It is a great a relief to be able to do this to help keep things in order again."
Again her daughter blushed at the implicit show of gratitude.
The stories that followed were as fantastical as anything she had ever heard: of ghosts rising from frozen corpses to possess the living, hungry for vengeance, of direwolves white as driven snow whose breath was frost like the ice dragon's, even of a mare in the Gift that had given birth to winged foals. Though most of them had been deformed ,one of the creatures had flown away soon after and the smallfolk and even a few of the Black Brothers had seen it flying near the Shadow Tower.
"Someone must have unearthed a fount of sorcery of some sort," Daenerys was saying in response to the last. "That sort of flesh-change even in the womb would take potent magic, far beyond what a newly-awoken mage could manage. You should be looking for a place or an object, likely not a person, and it is also probably not cursed since the result was merely strange not actively malevolent. If anyone ever manages to get close, tell them to try talking to it... after all, you never know when something touched by magic is man-smart and the poor thing must be rather confused...."
The conversation was interrupted by the same hiss of air that had marked Viserys' vanishing, only now there were three others with him: a young girl in a simple earthy green dress bound with a snake-skin belt who was for some reason barefoot, a blond-haired young woman whose delicate features and wide blue eyes contrasted strongly with a wine-red dress that would raise eyebrows anywhere outside of Dorne and perhaps even some places inside it... the bastard girl... and finally a young woman whose hair floated artfully in a constant whisper of sorcerous power, with eyes as bright as candle-flame.
Rhaella steeled herself as one going into battle for the revelations ahead.
OOC: The vote is 'how do you introduce everyone?'
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- Sweden
iggyfan
Verified Man-Thing
- Location
- Kentucky
I think you meant "he answered"
I think their might be a missing word in this sentence
"whose hair floated artfully"
Sorry if I'm being annoying.
Fixing typos is never annoying and is entirely welcome.
- Location
- Germany
Random thought: We should make sure that Vee isn't present when we introduce Rhaella to Yss.
Rhaella: "That's... that's... a living god..."
Vee: "More a lazy snake. Oi! Wake up! The Lady wants to meet you!"
Rhaella: "What is she doing!?"
Viserys: "Politely waking him."
Rhaella: "That's polite!?"
Viserys: "She hasn't thrown any rocks at him. Or kicked him in the ribs."
Apparently nobody told Tyene that it might get a bit cold and drafty in here...
Oh... that's... well...
How do we explain that one!?
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
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Because of the dynastic concerns that Rhaella will consider us to be abandoning in favour of love, and more than that, the logic behind which @MTB has pointed out runs utterly contrary to her own worldview. Lya isn't a taboo subject, I was planning on bringing her up a few votes back but the conversation got diverted by a diversion into RMT (Rhaegar Memorial Time). My worry is that without proper grounding and pre-given context, our arguments will appear (rightfully) as ones that Viserys produced after he decided to follow things through to a romantic relationship with her. It's not Lya herself, it's what her presence and position within Viserys' life means, and how much the underlying reasons will clash with the dynastic existence that she was raised in to the point that she (as far as I can tell) willingly married her own brother despite the taboo incest is considered to be by the Seven.
So to go through these one by one. The first is utterly discounted by the existence of the third. Because she values and lives through her children so much, her first concern will be for how the world will see us, nothing more. And on the matter of loyalty to the faith? When one prays and prays and receives nothing but silence, it wears away your willingness to believe. This was covered in the Games of Gods and Mortals interlude.
There's a basic principle in psychology and counselling, where it relates to grief and other vast movements within someone's life. When helping them restructure their own perceptions of reality to suit the new world they find themselves living in, you need to leave forcing them up against the edge of what was to them. Not shove it at them. The points here are manifold, and I really can't write them all down in one go. But the core one? Your implication that nobility, that blood and heritage, matters nothing. For one of a dynastic bent, which she is and we still are (no, we are) that statement is tantamount to committing suicide. It would set the entire Seven Kingdoms against us, and Rhaella is certainly canny enough to know that. Lya is...to her mind, a uniquely skilled and useful individual, but ultimately an underling. Someone like...say...a Maester. Not marriage material. Not even slightly. Your assumption that she can somehow make the jump in so little time to a mage being equivalent to a noble in terms of marriage prospects is farcical. Especially when she's still processing so much else.
Everything else, however, runs fully into the realms of fairy tale. Of something she can work through by...lessening it. The Frost Dragon, Bloodraven, other things. They're still objects that exist outside of her worldview, which makes them (paradoxically) safer. Lya currently exists there, but if we drag her into the feudal responsibility and dynastics that are and I find highly unlikely won't remain part of Rhaella's mindset, we break that separation. Put a crack in that wall, and everything else might come shattering through, and I'd really prefer to not leave Dany in the position of possibly having to cast Heart's Ease on her own mother. Yes, this statement is an exaggeration, but it puts things in stark clarity.
A promise made in the name of our house, is a promise made by us. And it's her work that we broke. Yes, we renegotiated, and Dorne accepted what we offered. But trying to push that in around any argument that might result here? Trying to...let her understand that in time we ourselves will be able to do what Bloodraven did for us, at the same time as trying to argue for the reduction of dynastic importance to a sham? It means hammering the familiar together with the unfamiliar, which allows both to make it through, and could cause a great deal more damage than I think any of us are prepared for. Am I worrying perhaps overmuch? Quite probably. But I'm doing so because we only get the one shot at this. If we fuck this up, we lose her. And bluntly, I don't care how you try to frame that. Viserys will not take that well, and he shouldn't.
Oh, and just as an idle addition. We brought Lya and Mercy. Consider for a moment that, in our explanations, we are likely going to run up against the point that we can create life. No return it to one dead, but create it. For all that the Seven weren't kind to her, I really doubt Rhaella is going to be able to process that.
Oh... that's... well...
How do we explain that one!?
Oh hey, look what I just wrote up above.
Why did people think bringing both of them was a good idea? Just why?
G'Night and goodluck!
Excuse me whilst I go drown myself in brandy. I'll be back in a few to try and salvage this clusterfuck.
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