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

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Winning vote
Adhoc vote count started by zxzx24 on Jun 2, 2019 at 11:35 AM, finished with 228 posts and 13 votes.
  • [X] Plan "Nothing to see here..."
    -[X] We will venture to the Court of Travelers. Of all the places we might best find our footing in Heaven's Shore, a market that caters to travelers and traders seems most promising. We still know far too little of the lay of the land to seek out more interesting locales.
    -[X] Greet the Devils respectfully, as befits their duty, then use the full weight of Viserys' Knowledge(The Planes) and his social acumen, along with Telepathic assistance from Mereth should it prove helpful, to navigate the encounter with an aim toward minimizing suspicion as best we can and without making ourselves any more memorable than necessary.
    --[X] If questioned about our intentions, we are headed to the Court of Travelers, where we intend to peruse the markets and speak with the established traders. We often act as traders ourselves, as opportunities present themselves, and we're always on the lookout for a bit of profit.
    ---[X] If pressed, admit that much of the reason for our visit is simple curiosity, to see the shattered remnants of Heaven, though we really do intend to conduct some trade while we're here.
    ---[X] Give false names and backgrounds, if necessary, but not complex ones. The Devils shouldn't expect honesty here, but they might be suspicious if we are too willing to share with them.
    ---[X] We have acquired the services of a Lantern Archon familiar with the area to act as a guide on our visit.
    -[X] Viserys and Dany will all be disguised via Cloak of Khyber augmented glamours, altering their general appearances. Viserys' cloak will be most carefully disguised so as to not rouse suspicion.
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Part MMDCCCLXXI: Fallen Courts
  • Threadmarks
    • Fallen Courts ​

    Twentieth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC

    For a while longer you study the lights of the city from afar, showing no worry or disquiet at the Devils' approach. With each moment they become clearer to your eyes and you begin to recognize their sources. Some shine from stately apartments which look faded but well cared for, while others illuminate the all too easily recognized patchwork of slums—roads that had been built over, alleys that had been roofed over, and houses repaired or made entirely from stones scavenged elsewhere in the city.

    Alas that you cannot yet descend to explore the city before dealing with its current 'protectors'. You allow none of your displeasure at their presence show upon your face, revealing instead a careful smile, with just an edge of wariness to it. "Hail, guardians of the gates of Heaven. Long have we traveled, yet much have we heard of your tireless vigil against the horrors that haunt this realm."

    The flame-winged Fury glances over your company without a word, lingering in turn upon Mereth with suspicion rather than sisterhood and Yrael with cruel amusement, perhaps guessing the newness of his fall. Only you and Dany escape her piercing gaze by wards of dream and wishcraft wrought. "What is your business here?" she asks at last, not bothering to acknowledge your compliment with any other pleasantry. All the while the Zebubs buzz around you like the bloated flies they so resemble, watching each and every one of you with their piercing gazes.

    "We are here to trade, as I imagine many are in these days with paths opening once again between the Inner Spheres and the Outer." You hesitate a moment as though the Devil's gaze were enough to draw some admission you had not wished to share. "We come to satisfy our curiosity also, for who but one touched by wanderlust would wish to make their fortune on the roads between the worlds?"

    "Careful that your inquisitiveness does not leave lead you into folly. The laws here may belong to the Court of Stalwart Light, but it is not softhearted Archons who enforce them," the Fury warns.

    "Never fear, we have no interest in such perilous distractions," you reply hastily, feigning what you hope is just the right amount of worry at the threat to be believable.

    "If only she knew what she faced..." Mereth's thought is caught half-way between mockery and frustration at seeing one of her sisters so easily fooled.

    One of the Host Devils speaks next, its misshapen beak leaking noxious fumes: "And what are you doing along in such a dangerous place, little girl?" he asks Dany.

    "In my business it is better to keep one's kin close, rather than leave them in the care of another far away," you interject as Dany leans back from the Devil as though in sudden fright

    After you give a name assumed to be false by either side, but enough to fill some infernal ledger, the Devils part to let you pass, though they linger just close enough as to have been disquieting were you indeed the merchants you wished to be seen as.

    ***​

    As you land in the city behind the Devil-guarded wall, you feel something strangely alien. Some buildings seem too clean and orderly to stand in any of the realms of man, even with the markings of decorations pried off millennia ago still visible, yet besides them stand simpler dwellings wrought by mortal hands from whatever was available with no regard to the order that must have once defined the city's heart. The contrast is jarring.

    Instead of the glory of old preserved, it makes the old buildings look dead and lifeless, while the huts look all the more ratty next to seamless marble. On you go on paths lit by lanterns wrought from gilded stars, their mismatched appearance making you wonder where they might have been scavenged from or when in the long ages the deed was done.

    Soon after the rows of homes give way to rows of warehouses, all made from simple grey granite and looking so drab and uniform as if cast from the same mold. Here and there you can spot the beginnings of a fresco or mosaic as though some long ago artist had tried to bestow upon them some vestment of grace and beauty, only to trail off in apathy or worse despair. Yet for all they seem as interlopers amid the fading grace of the city, you cannot long begrudge the warehouses their purpose.

    The streets have begun to fill as you come closer to the Court of Travelers, and you see scenes not all that unfamiliar to your eyes—people chatting on the sidewalk, a poor salesman harking his wares from his home's front door, a cart loaded with apples and grain pulled by an ox. But it is the small differences that make the scene alien. The oxen are white as snow, though looking sickly and harried by the winged Archon walking along the cart and driving it on. The tradesman has horns and the eyes of a cat, the wares he hawks talismans against nightmares caused by this realm. And the two men chatting on the sidewalk talk about their work for the Legion of Hell, one having hooves and bearing a pitchfork, the other a human male like you could see in any city of Westeros and Essos.

    Moran leads you on, more certain now than he had been before, barely glancing at tarnished copper plates that give each street a number and at times a painfully ironic name.

    The Street of Charity's Grace opens up onto the market proper, a place where the harsh tones of Infernal mingle with old Celestial tongue into a sort of uneasy patois, its edges long since worn smooth by the passing of ages. Here the light of Archons' presence falls upon poison-maker's stalls as they pass, there a Steel Devil stands beneath a sign requesting mercenaries for the Blood War. Yet not all the mismatch is so painful to behold.

    "Look," Lya says, tilting her head to the left where an uncanny couple walks side by side—a young man with curling black horns and crimson eyes that mark infernal blood besides a woman in whose step one can still see the echo of Lost Nirvana's grace, neither draw a second look from the busy shoppers, either by their presence, nor the fact that they are obviously deeply in love. Even here under the broken sky and the shadow of Devil's wings life moves on by its own inexorable rhythms.

    Children run messages between the stalls while dogs and cats linger near the food peddlers looking for a chance to beg or steal food as one might see in any other city under the sun of mortal realms, yet the reminder that this is not Braavos or Volantis is not long in coming. An Eye Tyrant, its gaze alight with malice, slays one of the hounds with a crimson ray while the reminder of its eyes stay fixed on its merchandise and its slaves.

    Yrael opens his mouth to speak, then sighs and closes it, knowing there is nothing he can do.

    The rattle of chains draws your attention to a merchant farther down the line. A Bone Devil bearing the mark of Dis hisses in annoyance as the enormous quivering Lemure he had chained next to his stall gnashes its teeth, trying to get at the dog's corpse.

    What do you do next?

    [] Approach one the the Baatezu merchants to buy some Devil's craft
    -[] Write in

    [] Approach the Beholder to see if he has any psi-craft to sell
    -[] Write in

    [] Approach the recruiter to discover the terms of his contract

    [] Search for something else
    -[] Write in

    OOC: Here we are at last. Decent rolls for dealing with the devils though nothing remarkable.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • @DragonParadox @Azel so would this be the place to poke around for a celestial smith? Also, for the Animals, do they have the Celestial template? Because I'd like to buy one for the Fungus Forge.

    If that dog has the template then it is a very convenient corpse.
     
    Duesal said:
    @DragonParadox @Azel so would this be the place to poke around for a celestial smith? Also, for the Animals, do they have the Celestial template? Because I'd like to buy one for the Fungus Forge.

    If that dog has the template then it is a very convenient corpse.
    Click to expand...
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    We can get Celestial corpses in Nirvana, the Fortress cities are under constant siege, we can get them to let us loot the battlefields, in return for us giving them some help.
     
    [X] Celestial Shopping
    -[X] See if there are any Celestial Smiths available for hire
    -[X] In general get a good idea of what Outsiders are available for hire
    -[X] Approach one of the Baatezu merchants to buy some Devil's craft
    -[X] Approach the recruiter to discover the terms of his contract

    After this I really want to go to the library and get that lore.
     
    Last edited:
    [X] Approach the recruiter to discover the terms of his contract
    -[X] Mereth and Yrael go, a Fallen Archon and an Erynies with no lord look like people who have nothing better to do than fight the Abyss

    [X] Meanwhile the rest: Approach one the the Baatezu merchants to buy some Devil's craft
    -[X] Inquire about the cost of unworked infernal steel (if it's cheaper than the component-cost for Vs-Production it might be worth buying in bulk)
    -[X] See if there are any Celestial Smiths available for hire
    -[X] In general get a good idea of what Outsiders are available for hire
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Fallen Courts ​

    Twentieth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC

    For a while longer you study the lights of the city from afar, showing no worry or disquiet at the Devils' approach. With each moment they become clearer to your eyes and you begin to recognize their sources. Some shine from stately apartments which look faded but well cared for, while others illuminate the all too easily recognized patchwork of slums—roads that had been built over, alleys that had been roofed over, and houses repaired or made entirely from stones scavenged elsewhere in the city.

    Alas that you cannot yet descend to explore the city before dealing with its current 'protectors'. You allow none of your displeasure at their presence show upon your face, revealing instead a careful smile, with just an edge of wariness to it. "Hail, guardians of the gates of Heaven. Long have we traveled, yet much have we heard of your tireless vigil against the horrors that haunt this realm."

    The flame-winged Fury glances over your company without a word, lingering in turn upon Mereth with suspicion rather than sisterhood, and Yrael with cruel amusement, perhaps guessing the newness of his Fall. Only you and Dany escape her piercing gaze by wards of dream and wishcraft wrought. "What is your business here?" she asks at last, not bothering to acknowledge your compliment nor with any other pleasantry. All the while the Zebubs buzz around you like the bloated flies they so resemble, watching each and every one of you with their piercing gazes.

    "We are here to trade, as I imagine many are in these days with paths opening once again between the Inner Spheres and the Outer." You hesitate a moment as though the Devil's gaze were enough to draw some admission you had not wished to share. "We come to satisfy our curiosity also, for who but one touched by wanderlust would wish to make their fortune on the roads between the worlds?"

    "Careful that your inquisitiveness does not leave lead you into folly. The Laws here may belong to the Court of Stalwart Light, but it is not soft-hearted Archons who enforce them," the Fury warns.

    "Never fear, we have no interest in such perilous distractions," you reply hastily, feigning what you hope is just the right amount of worry at the threat to be believable.

    "If only she knew what she faced..." Mereth's thought is caught half-way between mockery and frustration at seeing one of her sisters so easily fooled.

    One of the host Devils speaks next, its misshapen beak leaking noxious fumes: "And what are you doing along in such a dangerous place, little girl?" he asks Dany.

    "In my business it is better to keep one's kin close, rather than leave them in the care of another far away," you interject as Dany leans back from the Devil as though in sudden fright

    After you give a name assumed to be false by either side, but enough to fill some infernal ledger, the Devils part then to let you pass, though they linger just close enough as to have been disquieting were you indeed the merchants you wished to seem.

    ***​

    As you land in the city behind the Devil-guarded wall, you feel something strangely alien. Some buildings seem too clean and orderly to stand in any of the realms of man, even with the markings of decorations pried off millennia ago still visible, yet beside them stand simpler dwellings wrought by mortal hands from whatever was available with no regard to the order that must have once defined the city's heart. The contrast is jarring.

    Instead of the glory of old preserved, it makes the old buildings look dead and lifeless, while the huts look all the more ratty next to seamless marble. On you go on paths lit by lanterns wrought from gilded stars, their mismatched appearance making you wonder where they might have been scavenged from or when in the long ages the deed was done.

    Soon after the rows of homes give way to rows of warehouses, all made from simple grey granite and looking so drab and uniform as if cast from the same mold. Here and there you can spot the beginnings of a fresco or mosaic as though some long ago artist had tried to bestow upon them some vestige of grace and beauty, only to trail off in apathy, or worse, despair. Yet for all they seem as interlopers amid the fading grace of the city, you cannot long begrudge the warehouses their purpose.

    The streets have begun to fill as you come closer to the Court of Travelers, and you see scenes not all the unfamiliar to your eyes—people chatting on the side-walk, a poor salesman harking his wares from his home's front door, a cart loaded with apples and grain. But it is the small differences that make the scene alien. The oxen is white as snow, though looking sickly and harried by the winged Archon walking along the cart and driving it on. The tradesman has horns instead and the eyes of a cat, the wares he hawks talismans against nightmares caused by this realm. And the two men chatting on the sidewalk talk about their work for the Legion of Hell, one having hooves and bearing a pitchfork, the other a human male like you could see in any city of Westeros and Essos.

    Moran leads you on, more certain now than he had been before, barely glancing at tarnished copper plates that give each street a number and at times a painfully ironic name.

    The Street of Charity's Grace opens up onto the market proper, a place where the harsh tones of Infernal mingle with the old Celestial tongue into a sort of uneasy patois, its edges long since worn smooth by the passing of ages. Here the light of Archons' presence falls upon poison-maker's stalls as they pass, there a Steel Devil stands beneath a sign requesting mercenaries for the Blood War. Yet not all the mismatch is so painful to behold.

    "Look," Lya says, tilting her head to the left where an uncanny couple walks side by side—a young man with curling black horns and crimson eyes that mark infernal blood besides a woman in whose step one can still see the echo of Lost Nirvana's grace. Neither draw a second look from the busy shoppers, either by their presence, nor the fact that they are obviously deeply in love. Even here under the broken sky and the shadow of Devil's wings, life moves on by its own inexorable rhythms.

    Children run messages between the stalls while dogs and cats linger near the food peddlers looking for a chance to beg or steal food as one might see in any other city under the sun of mortal realms, yet the reminder that this is not Braavos or Volantis is not long in coming. An Eye Tyrant, its gaze alight with malice, slays one of the hounds with a crimson ray while the remainder of its eyes stay fixed on its merchandise and its slaves.

    Yrael opens his mouth to speak, then sighs and closes it, knowing there is nothing he can do.

    The rattle of chains draws your attention to a merchant farther down the line. A Bone Devil bearing the mark of Dis hisses in annoyance as the enormous quivering Lemure he had chained next to his stall gnashes its teeth, trying to get at the dog's corpse.

    What do you do next?

    [] Approach one the the Baatezu merchants to buy some Devil's craft
    -[] Write in

    [] Approach the Beholder to see if he has any psi-craft to sell
    -[] Write in

    [] Approach the recruiter to discover the terms of his contract

    [] Search for something else
    -[] Write in

    OOC: Here we are at last. Decent rolls for dealing with the devils though nothing remarkable.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Made some minor edits to the chapter, DP.

    So far the most disturbing thing we've seen has to be a Beholder acting as a merchant. That's super weird... o_O

    It might be the most same Beholder in existence.
     
    A beholder merchant? :???:

    I'm intrigued, can we poke it?

    [X] Approach the recruiter to discover the terms of his contract
    -[X] Mereth and Yrael go, a Fallen Archon and an Erynies with no lord look like people who have nothing better to do than fight the Abyss

    [X] Meanwhile the rest: Approach the Beholder to see if he has any psi-craft to sell
     
    Goldfish said:
    So far the most disturbing thing we've seen has to be a Beholder acting as a merchant. That's super weird... o_O

    It might be the most same Beholder in existence.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yeah, aren't they insanely angry at everything and even themselves? How the heck is it able to set up a shop and interact with others without trying to brutally murder or enslave everything?
     
    egoo said:
    I'll be honest, originally I've skipped some text, read the "Hound", and jumped to a conclusion that a Beholder just killed an Archon.
    After that, what this place really is, seems but (somewhat) reasonable, really.
    :V
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    For casual murder the Bazaar of Beggars is an excellent place. The one market we've been to where we can keep what we kill.
     
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