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

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ryuan said:
So, generally speaking we prefer to keep Pentos for ourselves? Won't that make our relationship with Braavos antagonistic since we would be getting too much power too quick?

I mean, in the game of nations you can't concede land like that for free, not without gaining enmity in the process at least. Even if we don't directly threaten him he will feel threatened due to our quickly raising hegemony and his inability to act. It's one thing not to be able to keep up, it's another to believe he's powerless.
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Which is why I want to talk shop with him. He should know what he is getting into with declaring on Pentos and that our aid on that scale would not come for friendship alone.

We need to hammer out our future relationship before doing this.
 
[X] Azel

I want a stronger start to this conversation, but frankly, until we understand his motives, there's not too much we can do. We can either say "press your luck" and let him sink or swim, but that's a level of negligence for the fates of our neighbors (and thus our subjects by extension due to proximity) that we find intolerable, so our only recourse is to give him a slight advantage by pressing his terms first, then finding a way to match them while meeting our own concerns.

The main problem as I see it is that Braavos is only interested in Pentos insofar as it could release greater threats from its downtrodden populace and greedy magisters if left alone, but once they have control over it, it is more in their interests to downscale it into ignominy so that it can never rise to threaten their position ever again.

But this renders a population center and entire region into something propping up Braavos, the people leveraged to produce raw materials for Braavosi export. It doesn't actually benefit us.

Now take what we would do with the whole region. We would link it up to our roads. We would redevelop the city so that it retains all or most of its current size, but create more viable long-term industries, increase local trade and sponsor new businesses. This would lead, inevitably, to developing and exploiting the hinterland to provide for these industries, so more mines, more fields, and more mills, and so on.

Which means more taxes. Which is good for us.

Braavos hasn't ever focused or revolved around taxes beyond the context of trade duties, and they get better duties from their own port (and from trade deals, like what they have from us).

Targaryens understand taxes. Every great project they have undertaken, has been to the ends of increasing their piece of the pie that assessors collect. It's probably the one success of Aerys' rule, even if it had nothing to do with him. Thanks to our ancestors, Tywin found it trivially easy to make the royal treasury fit to burst with gold.
 
Alternatively we could reassure the Sealord that Pentos won't blow up by secretly sending a few PCs down there every month to reassess the situation.

I very much prefer that Pentos stay ours in the future.
 
I'd say the important thing is that Braavos doesn't act half-assed, because a wounded but living enemy is one who can resort to questionable pacts.

So, I don't care if Braavos goes all in or not at all, just not a bit.

[X] No problem with it, just make clear that leaving any foe in this new world time and no good options can lead to them choosing darker ways, so quick and decisive action is necessary, if action is taken at all
-[X] Otherwise agree with the idea.
 
To be honest... splitting it in half would probably be the option we'd both have to quibble but eventually agree upon.

We would need a serious incentive to both defend their acquisition and also ensure that it goes smoothly and swiftly, with a minimum of fuss or damage involved. It would also have the side effect of forcing Braavos to seriously consider developing their parcel of Pentos too, because they will feel the pressure to keep up with our development. If they end up outsourcing contracts for such to us to do so, all the better.
 
DragonParadox said:
You did, but he already knew. In fact he had a firm understanding of arcane matters to the point where Viserys is certain that he gained quite the education in such things (mechanically retrained some skills into knowledge arcana and maybe nature too).
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I thought you had ruled that you could learn skills beyond your skill points, by spending sufficient actions on studying, seeing as the Sealord is non-magical, and so don't get any of his skills from magically remembering them, shouldn't he just have learned them without losing old skills?
 
[X] Azel

I agree with Takesis I'd rather conquer in the name of the Tattered Prince and allow him to swear fealty to us. The question is if we actually know about him.
 
Doesn't really line up. We're just as bad a robber baron. In fact, we're probably this world's first literal robber baron type capitalist.
 
@Duesal, wait, is this "Sealord's library" also the same "Braavos Archive" we've gotten access back in the beginning of the quest?
Didn't go that far in my re-read yet :/ .
 
Duesal said:
Yep.

We bargained for unlimited access way back at the beginning of the quest.

It's now time for us to cash in on that.
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I see. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

Also, would @Everyone be okay with moving our entire library to Shadow Tower for now, while we have actual library only in planning?
I don't want to deal with someone getting smart and trying to steal our lore. Especially more secret parts.

And we can continue adding stuff while it's in Shadow Tower.
No pesky 20/20 number holding us back!
The lore shall grow!
Caw!
 
"Heh... they want access to the archives as a reward? Fine. What's the worst harm it could do?"

*years later*

"You want to what?!"

"Just going to have every book I don't have copied. Shouldn't take long."

"That would take years! Decades. I can't have you occupying the archive for so long--"

"Nah... shouldn't take more than a week."

"How?!"

"Magic!"
 
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