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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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I just wanted someone to condemn me, @Azel, let's not beat around the bush.

This shame is all that I wanted. It's all the validation I'll ever need.
 
Actually, DP did say Lya would be able to give templates to creatures / NPCs if we put her on it.

What if we make Axiomatic Pods, inspired by Lyas Arcanum mold. Volunteer NPCs goes in, Lawful NPCs comes out with perfext (Ex) abilities for legionnaries and combat on general. Also Smite Chaos against many fiends and undead.

Wonder what the cost would be per pod and person. 500 IM per pod and CRtot×arbitrary IM cost per person?
 
I prefer the idea to spike the water reservoirs with Axiomatic Water.

Though the idea of a genuine super-soldier program is too awesome to discount.
 
@DragonParadox can we make Leshys with the Advanced Creature and Cleric creature Template? Or with a homebrew "Druid Creature" Template (Cleric Creature but with Druid spell list, and instead of Channel Energy based on HD-2 get Druid class featured based on HD-2).
 
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Part MDCCCLXXIII: Signs of the Future
  • Threadmarks
    • Signs of the Future ​

    Fifth Day of the Second Month 293 AC

    The oddest thing you find about the Dothraki while living among them is that they are, for all their deserved reputation for savagery and barbarism, a people defined by ancient immutable custom. They live amidst a web of carefully woven beliefs where chance has no place and every occurrence, no matter how small, serves some hidden purpose waiting to be unveiled. Every shape in the clouds or shift in the wind marks some portent, every dip or protuberance in the land is a sign of some significance to the Living Earth to whom they give homage. So they are born, tangled in omens said to foretell their fate, and so they die, their passing attributed to dozens of strange conjunctions.

    That is not to say the Dothraki always agree on what fate has in store or how it might be fulfilled or thwarted. In your time among the khalasar you have seen as many brawls over the theft of talismans, the supposed breech of some taboo, as over wealth and prestige. The two aspects are impossibly tangled together so it is more than you can say after mere days' observation where one ends and the other begins.

    It is in this unspoken understanding that everything is tied together that some of the more savage acts of the people of the Great Grass Sea find their spiritual bed-rock. Beyond plunder and rapine there is the honest belief that to turn over the earth and make it flower and fruit as man wills work blasphemy, casting out the spirits of the earth and blinding one to its signs.

    Sitting quietly at the campfires in the evenings you hear a dozen tales and more about the greed and folly of settled people who do not move on to let the earth rest but instead enslave it until it likes rotting and spewing foul miasmas and plagues. There are other tales you have to ask Rhango to tell, for no other among his people would dare speak them to your face: ones speaking of the evils of magic.

    'Sorcery is like the flame that burns one corner of the tapestry to illuminate the whole,' one of the most well known ballads of the Dothraki decries before going on to recount the evils of magic, some of which you sadly recognize as the distorted echoes of Valyrian practice: the warping of flesh and the rot that overtakes the soul.

    "Why did you give your people onto me though you died in the doing?" you ask the old khal curiously as he finishes yet another tale of 'witchery' and the ills it supposedly brings.

    "The whole world was alight," he answers softly, his single eye darkening with the memory of horror. "What was there for a man to do but lay down to die... or challenge the wisdom of those who have come before that his sons may live on? This too is fire, and yet without it we would perish or be little better than beasts among the long grasses," he finishes, motioning to the banked embers of the flame in the center of the tent.

    "You seem to have been doing quite a bit of challenging," you reply, not hiding the admiration you had unexpectedly come to feel for the old man. For all his many, many sins he is struggling to be a good and fore-thoughtful lord for his people, more than many 'civilized men' can claim. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

    "I thought that was what your bloodrider-kinght was doing rattling the heads of fools who thought they could get through his steel?" he replies with a laugh. "Unfair business, that. From the look of him he could have won against any three of them at once naked as the day he was born and them armored in steel shells." For all Rhango wears his new cuirass, with pride even, it is clear even he thinks a full suit of plate is excessive.

    "Other than a great triumph to raise the banners high, having sorcerer here, a healer best of all, would give me something to point to and say 'here is magic that has saved the lives of warriors'."

    What do you reply?

    [] Write in

    OOC: I know you guys might have preferred an update of Richard swatting Dothraki, but that was a foregone conclusion so I could not find a way to make it interesting.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Azel said:
    Problem is that the trading ship needs 1,000 metric tons of steel. Making the vessel out of wood is not an option to me, since it would need that strength to withstand the rigours of its speed and I don't want to build a hideously expensive vessel that burns easily.

    @DragonParadox, how much for the ton of iron in the Opaline Vault? The Xorn are great guys, but I don't see the small tribe capable of meeting our voracious appeite for metal.

    Also: Need to figure out ways to cheat at mining if we get a iron mine somewhere.
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    Better to ask the Xorn first though. Bypassing them like that is already insulting enough. If we then justify that by saying "you wouldn't have been able to deliver anyway" then we're just further throwing salt into the wound.

    I think between the massive fallout of Tyrosh, following up the Lannister theft, and all those other projects that were put on the sideline, I think we should have a few turns worth of time until we could start a mass-freighter company.
    So why not just ask the Xorn to stockpile additional iron over the next few months? If they can't, they'll tell us and we can still rely on the Opaline Vault to deliver, and we prevent any deterioration of our relationship.

    Plus, we'll still need to visit soon anyway, to see if they want their own Tree.


    Also, here's an idea. We know that King's Landing is hungering since food deliveries from the Reach are no longer safe, - fae along the Kingsroad, and pirates by the sea - why not throw our hat into this business? We can safely deliver great amounts of grain and other foodstuff safely and with ease (we could even use teleport once a month to deliver just one single massive delivery), allowing us to undercut the competition, who is likely demanding exorbitant prices (as we've seen in KL in canon). Of course, the Silver Serpent is known to operate out of Sorcerer's Deep, so rumors of Viserys Targaryen being the one to feed the people will spread...

    So, Upsides:
    - Good PR
    - Beginning of our Contact Network in Westeros
    - Safe, constant stream of revenue

    Downsides:
    - Less revenue than otherwise - food probably isn't the most lucrative market, even with the prices high due to the dangers
    - Easily sabotaged causing massive infamy gain - If we're the one delivering the grain, then we're also the one responsible for plagues and other illnesses. And seeing as we'd be acting in the heart of the enemy, that'd be easy for them to arrange
    - Easily shutdown, possibly across all of Westeros - If the Silver Serpent becomes too closely associated with Viserys, then Robert and the Lannisters can simply forbid our ships from docking, which would also cripple our other trade ventures across Westeros. Maybe create a second Cover Company precisely to prevent such a fallout?
     
    Azel said:
    I think Financial Center is a given once the IB branch opens it doors for business and ACSEC starts arranging long-range trades. Doubly so if we build my proposed freighters and thus gain a tremendous bulk-transport capacity to rent out via ACSEC.


    So it will become relevant as SD gains more satellite settlements?

    Speaking of which, we found the ancient tree by our last commune with nature, but is it the only thing that we found or the only thing that exists? Still hoping for a nice iron mine in SD.
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    1. Yes
    2. The geology is not right for iron ore

    Fehu said:
    @DragonParadox

    1. Could the fungus forge produce generic awakened plants +templates? There really arent alot of nice plants, not at affordably CRs anyhow.
    2. Would the research result differ depending on who we put on exploring the fungus forge functions?
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    1. What do you mean by 'generic awakened plants'?
    2. Yes, as well as the intent of the research
    TalonofAnathrax said:
    @DragonParadox can we make Leshys with the Advanced Creature and Cleric creature Template? Or with a homebrew "Druid Creature" Template (Cleric Creature but with Druid spell list, and instead of Channel Energy based on HD-2 get Druid class featured based on HD-2).
    Click to expand...
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    Yes to the second but that would take a blood sacrifice of some kind to the Old Gods.
     
    Algalon said:
    Also, here's an idea. We know that King's Landing is hungering since food deliveries from the Reach are no longer safe, - fae along the Kingsroad, and pirates by the sea - why not throw our hat into this business? We can safely deliver great amounts of grain and other foodstuff safely and with ease (we could even use teleport once a month to deliver just one single massive delivery), allowing us to undercut the competition, who is likely demanding exorbitant prices (as we've seen in KL in canon). Of course, the Silver Serpent is known to operate out of Sorcerer's Deep, so rumors of Viserys Targaryen being the one to feed the people will spread...

    So, Upsides:
    - Good PR
    - Beginning of our Contact Network in Westeros
    - Safe, constant stream of revenue

    Downsides:
    - Less revenue than otherwise - food probably isn't the most lucrative market, even with the prices high due to the dangers
    - Easily sabotaged causing massive infamy gain - If we're the one delivering the grain, then we're also the one responsible for plagues and other illnesses. And seeing as we'd be acting in the heart of the enemy, that'd be easy for them to arrange
    - Easily shutdown, possibly across all of Westeros - If the Silver Serpent becomes too closely associated with Viserys, then Robert and the Lannisters can simply forbid our ships from docking, which would also cripple our other trade ventures across Westeros. Maybe create a second Cover Company precisely to prevent such a fallout?
    Click to expand...
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    I'd rather not prop up the unstable Westerosi government. The more famine spreads, the more shaky the Crown's rule, the easier we can transition to power when the time comes.
     
    @Algalon, I'm not proposing to cut out the Xorn from the deal, but to buy additional iron on top of everything they can get us.

    We can literally use every scarp of iron we can get out draconic claws on, so the Xorn will always be able to trade with us at their full capacity.
     
    [X] Next month ask among your fresh Adepts if any would be willing to travel, heal and fight with the Dothraki, for good payment and part of the loot of course

    Any reason not to?
    We know now they grow faster this way.
    Just have to wait post-Tyrosh.
     
    How about we give him a healing belt? Or we fetch Malarys and do a Regeneration spell once or three. What can the hardcore believers complain against, when even maiming, and blindness can be cured with magic?
     
    In regards to our Dothraki: Spirits of the land, eh? I think we got someone who they might be interested to meet.

    [X] Plan Re-Education
    -[X] Let Vee sporadically Teleport over to heal the Dothraki as part of her healer duties.
    -[X] Check with the Lotus Leshy what he thinks about farming. If he has no blanket problem with doing so, introduce him to the Dothraki. A spirit of the land given flesh should be able to talk them around.
    -[X] Tell them about the Old Gods, who have given great boons to you for a tithe of the blood from demons and great beasts.
    -[X] Also look for a few freshly trained mages after Tyrosh, who would be interested in riding with the Dothraki.


    Vee will get along just fine with those guys. Will probably need to inflict a few wounds she has to heal afterwards, but they should get the message soon enough.
     
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    So, on the topic entirely unrelated to Dorthraki...
    What was our plan about making SD super-rich farming environment?
    Basically, gaining this:
    Abundant
    Source Cityscapes: New Settlement Options for the Pathfinder RPG.
    The settlement has access to extraordinary natural resources: rich farmland, a deep lake, excellent hunting grounds nearby or even a convenient source of magical sustenance. The local food surplus makes the settlement a major exporting hub, and increases the standard of living for its inhabitants.
    Increase Economy +1. Reduce the purchase price of most forms of locally-grown food and livestock by 25% or more.
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    ?
    We have Lehshys and other Fungi-forged stuff to make soil perfect, we have that once-a-year (or was that once per 5 years?) spell to double the gains, we have CotF with possibility of druid spells for them.
    How were we going to make it all work together?

    Because with Tyrosh people coming here we'll need more stable and secure means of feeding the population than trade does allow.


    Also,
    [X] Azel
     
    Aside from these plans, maybe a short IC speech to address his most obvious complaints?

    The earth spilling foul miasma is clearly a sign of idiots being unable to farm in a fashion that is remotely sustainable. The description sounds a loot like overuse of manure as fertilizer.
    And the Valyrians... I can't find polite words to describe my opinions on these chuckle-fucks.
     
    @Azel @Fehu @Duesal Plan for the Plant&Sacrifice&Planning people: so if we do a proper Sacrifice to the Old Gods we can make a Leshy with a Druid Creature Template. We also make it an Advanced creature. What we would get: a solid creature with excellent mental stats, that likes philosophy and debating (if we pick the right Leshy) and that has Druid casting. Send it to the Scholarum and train Druids!
    Might take a while, but ABSOLUTELY worth it. That'd be like having our own Cleric teacher!

    Edit: This is confirmed by DP a little earlier. Would this be a minor action, do you think?
     
    @DragonParadox Does Viserys come to feel respect for people he takes the time to learn because of some need to feel more down to the earth, or is it some part of him more open to the idea that there's something worth respecting about most, if not all, people, if you take the chance to listen to them?

    I mean obviously it is hard for Viserys to feel respect for slavers, but then Rhango was a slaver when the world "made more sense". So is Viserys warming of disposition coming more from respect for people who adapt to the new world and less about the things they do to adapt to it by themselves?

    I get the notion that you write it as though Viserys is less concerned with the details, and more about the character. Basically as soon as he humanizes someone and separates the actions they do and the "good" that they are, he's more likely to respect them (and make little secret of it in some cases).
     
    -[] "Let me ask you a question then. If a young boy picks up his first arakh, he will not be skilled with it. But the boy in question is a headstrong one and doesn't ask for training and just tries to learn by himself. One day, he cuts himself and the other boys who witness this laugh at his misfortune. So rage grips him and he takes the blade and slays one of the others. So I ask you, is that the arakhs fault?"
    -[] "What you describe about the act of farming is like the boy who cuts himself. A farmer who doesn't know what he is doing, just taking from the land and expecting it to accommodate him, will quickly see his work come to naught. Meager harvests rotting on the stalks, spreading foulness through the air. But a skilled farmer knows not only what the land can give him, but what he can give in turn. He tills the land with care and foresight, reaping vast harvests for his respect to it. It angers the spirits of the land if you try to steal from them, but they hold no rancor when the farmer gives to them in turn."
    -[] "Magic one the other hand is like the arakh wielded against another man. It can be wielded for both worthy and unworthy purposes. The depravities you describe can be done with it, yet it can also be used for honorable deeds. It can heal the sick and wounded, even make the lame walk and the blind see. It can bolster a warriors strength and protect him from harm. I do not doubt the tales you tell, for I have seen likewise and worse in my travels, yet it is also magic that gives strength to the blade of my bloodrider and makes his armor endure even the most vicious strikes."
    -[] "But do not take my word for it. One of mine will come to you in the coming days, showing you how magic can heal and strengthen and with her will come a spirit of nature given flesh."

    Thoughts?
     
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