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
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
If he spends the first 250,000, we can loan him more. It encourages some degree of moderation, but just dropping 2,000,000 in his lap is just asking for a great deal of wastage, even if he has the best of intentions.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Our crafting time is more valuable to our own forces. I don't intend for us to ever use our crafters on stuff for the Iron Islands, if I can help it. We can commission it all from extraplanar markets, in which case he will be paying market cost and we won't make one red cent off of him.
- Location
- Australia
If you change no mages to specifically selected squads of low-mid level mages that we tender the offer for rather than allowing free market for Rodrik then you have my vote.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Dude, 250,000 IM is extraordinarily generous. That's not going to damage relations between us and the Iron Islands.
- Location
- Germany
No it isn't. I really would have preferred not to have this discussion in depth, because I know people will balk at the idea of handing out money to the Iron Isles, but give me a bit to lay out my reasoning. A loan of 250,000 IM amounts to nothing at all.
- Location
- Australia
This seems to have had the opposite effect, also I think people would probably prefer to have anyone's full reasoning in thread rather than being mislead by omission as this sentence seems to imply.
- Location
- The internet
That feels unfair, I doubt Azel intended to mislead anyone. Just probably didn't want another episode of 'Azel Vs Half the Thread'. can't say I blame him really.
- Location
- Germany
This here is the most important part:
As it is, the Iron Isles are incapable of producing much wealth domestically and at the same time utterly dependent on imports for base necessities such as food an agricultural products. With trade being unreliable, we have rising prices and thus unrest, the obvious venting mechanism being to go on raids and just take the cash and goods they otherwise can't get. This is the very cycle that keeps the Ironborn a bunch of reaving failures.
So what the area needs to stabilize and what needs to be done to prevent the Illithid from exploiting unrest caused by inflation and shortages is to prop the Iron Isles up economically. And they need a damn lot of money to do so. At the same time, Harlaw doesn't have the funds to buy much magical gear and lacks the mages to have even a minor chance at fighting back against Illithid infiltrators.
Thus me offering him a loan about a huge sum, so that he can fix the damage being done to his lands and afford to actually buy weapons. We could gift him 500,000 IM of equipment and it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference, as the Illithid could still start a civil war at any point in time, just by raiding a bit more. The solution to those raids themselves are mages, equipment and the funds to hire Triton mercenaries.
Is this costly? Fuck yes. Is it necessary? Also yes.
Frugality has it's place, but this isn't it. Penny pinching and hoarding our casters will loose us the Iron Isles to the Illithid.
The Iron Isles are bleeding money at a hilarious rate. Every trading ship sunk amounts to damages along the lines of 50,000 IM just in trade goods. This doesn't even account for the vessel itself, the failing company dragging more money down the abyss as it goes tits up or the tremendous damage this does to the economy as a whole.
As it is, the Iron Isles are incapable of producing much wealth domestically and at the same time utterly dependent on imports for base necessities such as food an agricultural products. With trade being unreliable, we have rising prices and thus unrest, the obvious venting mechanism being to go on raids and just take the cash and goods they otherwise can't get. This is the very cycle that keeps the Ironborn a bunch of reaving failures.
So what the area needs to stabilize and what needs to be done to prevent the Illithid from exploiting unrest caused by inflation and shortages is to prop the Iron Isles up economically. And they need a damn lot of money to do so. At the same time, Harlaw doesn't have the funds to buy much magical gear and lacks the mages to have even a minor chance at fighting back against Illithid infiltrators.
Thus me offering him a loan about a huge sum, so that he can fix the damage being done to his lands and afford to actually buy weapons. We could gift him 500,000 IM of equipment and it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference, as the Illithid could still start a civil war at any point in time, just by raiding a bit more. The solution to those raids themselves are mages, equipment and the funds to hire Triton mercenaries.
Is this costly? Fuck yes. Is it necessary? Also yes.
Frugality has it's place, but this isn't it. Penny pinching and hoarding our casters will loose us the Iron Isles to the Illithid.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Keep in mind that our low level mages are low level mages. We only have three Wizards at 5th level (not counting Mia who has joined the Inquisition), one who is off working for Salladhor Saan. The other two are currently serving as craftbots for us until we find somewhere to assign them. We have two 4th level Archivists and one 5th level Archivist (not counting Leila) who are in the same position, working as craftbots until suitable duties can be found for them. That's the highest we've got, not counting Adepts and Hedge Mages, who are barely mages at all and would be even more easily slaughtered. The rest are levels one through three.
Illithid SR is high enough that just one of them would be all but invincible to an entire squad of low level mages. It could feast on their brains with impunity. Add a few Sahuagin and it would be even more of a slaughter.
That's not true at all. 250,000 IM is a freaking gigantic sum of money.
I'll add a statement into my version of the plan that allows for further loans, as needed.
[X] Azel
I've gathered up a few questions from my read through so far and figure now is as good a time as any.
Did we ever figure out a way to resurrect Xor?
I recall towards the beginning of the quest with the fight with the leader of the Orphene court seemed to imply it is conquerable. Is that something that might be worth doing?
I just read the interlude with Ser Raymun Darry and his niece. Did we ever get a chance to follow up on that? There was a lot of enthusiasm at the time to try to recruit the niece.
I've gathered up a few questions from my read through so far and figure now is as good a time as any.
Did we ever figure out a way to resurrect Xor?
I recall towards the beginning of the quest with the fight with the leader of the Orphene court seemed to imply it is conquerable. Is that something that might be worth doing?
I just read the interlude with Ser Raymun Darry and his niece. Did we ever get a chance to follow up on that? There was a lot of enthusiasm at the time to try to recruit the niece.
- Location
- Brazil
@DragonParadox Has Bronn thought up a good surname and coat of arms yet?
Pro be clear, does he already want land? It's been months, I think.
Besides, I'd expect him to want Westerosi land.
While I am on it, and least of your troubles..
He is missing 3 skill points so no problem.
We don't use Bluff too much these days, tho, and Intimidate should have +8, not +6 from MotD.
- Location
- Germany
Well, I need to sleep sometimes so I prefer not to drag out my entire reasoning when I know it will spark a huge row about the merits of letting all the Ironborn die to Illithids instead of spending some coin on them that we very much have.
Though I can't sleep anyway, so might as well have that row.
Pretty much this. I didn't mislead anyone, I just didn't announce that the platform I'm standing on is a unpopular one.
It isn't. That's less then the monthly tax revenue of Tolos.
As far as war finances go while your economy is falling apart, this is pretty much nothing.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Raised mine to 500,000.
- Location
- The internet
Why? He never struck me as much of a patriot and he knows very well how much of a shit hole Westeros currently is.
I don't doubt he'd take it, but I don't know that it would be his major preference.
I'd expect 'angry Grumpkin free' to be his major prefence, if anything.
- Location
- Germany
Yes. There is a spell that can resurrect Outsiders, which we used to resurrect some of our Erinyes before recruiting them. Only downside is that we need a pound or so of Far-Realm stuff for that, so might need some Bilestone or Illithid parts.
That would be politically awkward due to them being in Braavosi lands and more specifically squatting in a mine of the Iron Bank.
We get them for free when we get Braavos anyway. Unless they are uppity about that, in which case the Old Gods will get them.
No IC knowledge about that, so it's mostly a pipe-dream. Pretty much like how we wanted to snatch Theon from Damphair long before we got there, as we didn't even know Theon was there IC.
Might be worth to visit the Darrys on our next Riverland tour though.
- Location
- Australia
What other word could I use, I tried to be as fair in language as possible and didn't ever say he was actually doing so.
How do you read his sentence other than:
"I didn't want the full information of this discussed because I predicted it would result in an outcome I didn't want."
- Location
- Germany
Hm... then no. More accurate would be:
"I didn't want the matter discussed in depth, because I did not have the time or inclination to do so, especially as there likely would be not much opposition anyway."
What I do strongly object to is the implication that I withheld information. We all here have exactly the same information available to us. What I withheld is my analysis of the information.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Although I disagree quite strongly with your proposed loan to the Iron Islands, I can't say that you seemed to be attempting to mislead anyone at any point. You've been quite straight forward from the beginning, though I do think you might not have chosen the best wording earlier.
- Location
- The internet
Well, I can tell you I read it as
"I don't have the energy for this fight at the moment, so I was hoping it wouldn't be needed."
Subsequent postings have held up this interpretation, so I'm pretty comfortable with it.
Also, I think it's a little disingenuous to conflate being circumspect in order to potentially avoid unnecessary conflict with being intentionally misleading. It is assuming a level of bad faith from the start of the discussion that simply isn't helpful, and in this particular case is pretty unwarranted.
