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

Twenty-Third Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

For all the revelry beyond the keep's walls, the cheering crowds and awed visitors, the tasks of kingship never wane. Each day there are more knights offering their fealty, from hedge knights to younger sons hedging their bets with their families tacit encouragement. No House as important as the Freys, no armed company anywhere near as large and well-equipped as the Lads. Half the men offering their swords now had probably been bandits at some point in their lives. Then again, half your captains began their lives as pirates so you are hardly in a position to judge their past deeds harshly.

Yet not every matter brought before your seat is from without, not every bastard comes before you to pledge a sword to your reign. Elaesys 'the Red', so named for her fiery hair, had spent much of her life as a pillow slave to one of House Dalteos, among the major Spicer families of Lys, for the last two years exclusively attentive to the heir of the House. From the way she speaks of him it is clear she relishes his death in battle against the Legions, just as she does the extinguishing of the line... or perhaps the near extinguishing. Carried in the former slave's arms is an infant, one born of the blood of the fallen house, as proven not only by her words but by the magic of the House of Mirrors.

"Why should he get nothing of his father's gold just because he didn't wed me like some prize cow with bells on?" Elaesys' words are intentionally crude you suspect, addressed to the handful of magisters in attendance, though you suspect their frowns have rather more to do with the substance of her request than the manner in which it is presented.

If you should make it a matter of precedent of law that bastards are deserving of some compensation, then the vast majority of noble houses in Essos will find themselves paying the price quite a few times. The political price would far overshadow any compensation paid now from the treasury.

Then again, not only is it simple decency to see that such children are cared for, they also provides a way to chip away at the great fortunes and prevent the accumulation of wealth that could in the fullness of time be so pernicious to the realm as a whole.

What do you rule?

[] Bastards deserve no compensation beyond what they are willingly offered

[] Bastards do deserve some compensation
-[] Write in

The next case before you is not a complaint at all, but a delegation garbed in red and bearing the seals of their god. The highest ranking priests of R'hllor in Sorcerer's Deep have gathered to request permission to erect a temple. Not one word do they speak of patronage, for they have coin enough from the donations of the faithful. At once a show of humility and of strength. Were you wearing a hat and not a still unseen crown you would tip it to them.

Still, there is something to be said for erecting a temple to the Red God at least as grand as the Great Sept that nears completion even now, for followers of R'hllor to make up a majority of the Deep's citizens and an even greater one of the formerly Disputed Lands. In giving such a gift you could also further cement your prestige among priests and laity alike, helping to mold ideas in a more cooperative direction.

What do you do about the Red Priests' request?

[] Refuse Permission

[] Grant permission to build a Great Temple

[] Patronize a Great Temple
-[] Write in (optional)


Lastly, as evening begins to fall and the audience begins to wind down, your least common guests of the day step forth, or at least one of them does—Denys Trainer, not Ser Denys he insists when one of the heralds appends the honor to the Westerosi name, is obviously not wholly unused to court, though you would judge he has not had much practice recently. The ashen-haired man looks to about halfway through his third decade of life, so certainly old enough to have seen your father at his worst, though you do not see the shadow of that particular fear reflected in his eyes, perhaps he had simply not been at court, then.


"Your Grace, my father had the privilege of serving as a household knight to your House until the war of the Usurper when he fell in battle. It is my honor to take up that mantle of service if you would have me, though my skills are not those of the sword. I have some small skill in the brewing of potions and concoctions, though besides my good friend Ceria I am a novice in the arcane as I am besides Ser Criston with the sword." The words come clearly and obviously rehearsed, but too swiftly to keep himself from being overcome by nerves in your presence.

To give him time to catch his breath and regain his composure you look in turn to the two he had indicated—the sorceress Garin had said was so interested in the city's underbelly, her eyes missing nothing of the exchange and revealing little of herself. The older man standing beside her, however, is anything but difficult to read. Though he had chosen to forego the heavy steel armor and spiked shield he had put to such good use in the Circle, the man looks in many ways to be the quintessential gruff Stormlander, his age anywhere from thirty to fifty for the years lay easily upon him. Only the eyes tell a deeper stories, of battles won and lost, of broken hopes, their edges still jagged in the heart.


"Ser Criston Storm, Your Grace," he bows. "I fought beside Denys' father at the Trident." And there he suffered more sorrows than a battle lost, according to Ser Richard, who upon hearing his name recalled that Ser Criston met his half-brother the Lord of House Dondarrion, on the field. The best that could be said of that meting was that neither died and made the other a kinslayer.

How do you respond?

[] Write in

OOC: I rolled to see if Ser Richard saw the confrontation between the brothers and he did, so you guys have a better handle IC on Criston than say, Ceria.