- Location
- ?????????
[X] Goldfish
A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
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- Tags
- 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
- Location
- Mexico
Maybe temporarily make a job finding agency? Where people in need of workers can post requests, and people can offer their services. Set the ground rules for employee/employer rights and duties.
It seems that many people are falling into chaos following the mass emancipation of slaves, this will serve us once we finally get around to conquering Slaver's bay.
It seems that many people are falling into chaos following the mass emancipation of slaves, this will serve us once we finally get around to conquering Slaver's bay.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
It wouldn't be hard to foster an image of Good Queen Lya, champion of the people.
Hell, just visiting the poor areas of a city and casting a few Lya's Magnificent Mansion spells would be a very easy way to get the ball rolling. Each of those could feed and house 240 people (using Wild Arcana and Harmonic Chorus).
She could show up with a group of healers to provide medical treatment, some Legion soldier guards to keep the peace and prevent abuse by those who don't need assistance, then use Wild Arcana to create four Magnificent Mansion portals. Each would last for 40 hours, unless Xor for in on the action, too. He could double the duration by helping with an Arcane Concordance spell, while also providing some entertainment to the unfortunates.
Maybe do it once a week at random? It would barely impinge on Lya's time, but could go a long way toward building a solid rep for her.
Edit: While people are in residence in one of the Mansions or receiving medical treatment, we could use the opportunity to pitch the idea of joining the Legion, immigrating to one of the frontier communities where work might be more plentiful, encourage them to attend one of the schools we are building, etc.
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- Location
- France
We seem to have that in SD (for new immigrants at least).
What's needed here is :
- Advice. Seriously, while Viserys just says "in Westeros they'd be using apprentices for these tasks and wouldn't have collapsed when the slaves left" I'm betting that many of these ex-slaves who've never seen Westeros have never thought of it. Tell people what's worked elsewhere. We have mass media now, use it!
- Expand our job finding agency, I guess. There could be one in every city!
- Some sort of basic relief for the destitute. Right now, anyone who can't work (for example, the sick, the insane and the elderly) needs to have someone who can take care of them (family, maybe some religious charity if they're lucky. If they don't, they die. These people are obviously easy breeding grounds for cultists and whatnot. The basic needs are :
- Food. Enough not to starve, at least. It doesn't have to be amazing and it can be repetitive, but people shouldn't be starving while we're struggling to avoid a literal food overproduction crisis. That's obviously morally wrong, right?
- Shelter. At the very least, shelter in Winter. It can be really dumb (a warehouse with internal partitions and heating) but it needs to actually exist, you know? Ideally, they should be spread out throughout the rest of the city. As an urban planning student, I can tell you that creating any sort of ghetto really never ends well.
- Hope for the future. There's hope for magical healing for the sick, and hope to find a job with our job-finding centers. And of course, there are always approved religions for those whose life is about to end.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Well, the point about not feeding the poor when we can trivially afford it isn't wrong, and magic could even make the food taste good for cheap, WE aren't facing a crisis of overproduction, Westeros is.
We can make massive granaries with purification enchantments to keep immense food reserves. The state can always carry the burden if the market might suffer. Less food helps no one in winter.
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- Location
- France
Let me clarify : we aren't facing a crisis of overproduction because we've been putting a lot of effort into encouraging increased production of luxuries and/or cash crops, and decreased production of basic staple crops. Remember our massive businesses (Golden Fields) in the Disputed Lands? Our talks with various Essosi nobles?
We could reduce those efforts slightly and have enough stocks for Winter AND to feed a portion of our population. Not only are we absolutely filthy rich, but we're also massively decreasing the cost of a basic meal.
And I'm not saying that these should be 5-star meals or anything! I'm aware that there are people in the thread who think that such charity has to suck, so that people are still incentivized to work. But IMO making sure they don't literally die of hunger or become too physically unfed to work is both good anti-cult work and morally necessary. This seems like a basic function of government, and something we can all agree on OOC without getting into a big political debate about how much social safety is too much.
And keeping immense food reserves is something we should already be doing. It's a basic function of government in the setting, and we know that the next Winter will be exceptionally harsh.
- Location
- Mexico
Yeah, at this point SD does not need much in terms of social services, but I fear our recent conquests are falling behind.
Do we have census capabilities? We need to make sure everyone is accounted for and part of an approved religion.
- Location
- florida
I would suggest Danny personally. It's more in line with her interests and abilities? Kind of?
I also think we should take advantage of existing structures from the moon singers, Rhllor, and the 7.
Just like, steal as many ideas and techniques as physically possible from them.
- Location
- France
Lya has expressed a desire to be more involved in politics if she's to marry us. This seems like a good way for her to get started there.
Definitely. It's also something Viserys would support IC; since he believes so strongly in the nobility of talent, he should want to give everyone as much room as possible for their talents to express themselves, and you can't do that when you are starving and homeless.
Also,
[X] Goldfish
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Actually, I figured out that it would be really fucking easy to take a proper census via divination with Yes/No data-finding. It wouldn't count people properly warded in the data, but you could eventually get fairly decent data with it.
The problem would be your actual numbers would be close to the between state of binary questions as possible, and complex matters like "how many people are faithful to R'hllor" would be muddled because you are also bouncing off the gradient of people who are truly faithful to more than one deity.
But it's good for getting a nice general idea of what a place looks like. For one thing you can now get a decent picture of how many mages are present and even how strong they are within ten questions or less, unless the majority of mages are organized and behind wards, and the absence of mages in your readings tells you one of two things: organized magic eliminates or absorbs all other mages like with Myr, or all mages in the area are organized.
- Location
- Reno Nv
[X] Goldfish
We may also need to give them some work so they don't only rely on handouts. That and it should make very fertile governmental recruiting grounds.
We may also need to give them some work so they don't only rely on handouts. That and it should make very fertile governmental recruiting grounds.
I don't think so? The value judgement that "relying on handouts is bad" aside, most people aren't going to want to stay on that kind of thing forever, and they'll find their own work and try to improve the situation for themselves and their families. Spreading the job board we have in SD to other cities would probably be helpful, though.
Edit: Schools, literacy programs, and vocational training would also be good, if we can swing it (though those will probably need to wait). Let's go full on Gospel of Wealth.
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The logistics of teaching people who barely qualify spells (INT 11 or 12 for first level) would be u8nmanageably slow and even if you could manage that you now have magic missile... two or three times per day doing about as much damage as a thrown dagger.
Anyway vote closed
Yes but it doesn't miss and they can prepare several different spells that would be usefull in day to day lives. Pregiditation alone makes it worth it.
As for it being slow thats because its basically a college equivalent specialisation. So maybe we can start with something like 1 in 10 with scopes to expand.
Rather than wizards, I think a much more realistic goal would be something like general literacy, or as close as we can get. We can always use more clerks.
Canon Omake: Storm-Tossed
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Storm-Tossed
Twenty-Sixth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
<<<Previous Next>>>
Davos Seaworth wasn't much used to the sight of men gazing upon him with respect, as he made his way through the Keep with a will and purpose known only to himself and his liege. Respect borne of having faced perils that warding gestures or even castle-forged steel couldn't stave off with better chances than a wish and a prayer. He found that martial men were often accepting of danger when it came from familiar quarters but were just as likely to shy away from the birthing chamber for a sport of hawking and hunting, as was the case with the King and his three children... with Lord Robert Baratheon, he stuttered the correction, even in his thoughts, as if you had asked the former smuggler and seafarer a few weeks past, he would have declared it sheer lunacy, a farce, that his liege lord would ever raise his hand in defiance to his elder brother, much less name him usurper and break bread with his enemies.
Davos was born in Fleabottom. The most he could say about Kings was that it was right and good and proper when they concerned themselves even a small amount with the ills that plagued the common folk, and from mumbling his way through still hard-to-read books and scrolls, the works of some of the better ones had worn down his natural suspicion at the noble intentions simply holding authority and power would seem to imply. Lord Stannis Baratheon demonstratively proved that cleaving to what being a Lord demanded was not actually what was expected, and it had actually won him few friends or allies... except for one boy, a boy no one in the world had thought much of or expected anything from, a lad of an age with his oldest, Dale.
One who had risen to become the new terror of his age, as Daemon Targaryen of old, or so the books described. Who had conquered and talked his way into cities dipping their banners to him as Aegon of old had, and who's words were felt across two lands in their entirety every day from sea to sea. He had taken Lord Stannis' side when his back was pressed to the wall on two occasions, then, a false shade of his brother occupying his ancestral home and once more when he faced hostile and reluctant vassals, who were only a thin margin from outright rebellion, turning them into steadfast allies overnight, letters flying in from all over the Stormlands, not enough to make anyone suspicious, but regular correspondence that seemed a fevered dream.
Lord Stannis was facing an uphill battle to simply gain control of his Kingdom, and Viserys Targaryen's first act as his rightful liege was to... simply erase the problem. Through threats or honeyed words, Davos couldn't be sure, but it was done. Aye, there were still troubles, still suspicious Lords and Knights, but the muttering had become quiet whispers nearly overnight, and no one spat at his feet anymore--that lot had almost sprinted their way out of sight the day dozens of other knights had rode up to Storm's End, sent forth from several Lords to make a show of support to some of the Lord's policies and efforts to organize defense against the otherworldly. Now men tried to curry favor with Stannis, Davos thought, as was proper.
So when he had learned, not long ago, that he would be company to royal blood that night, if only briefly, he had just hoped he wouldn't make a fool out of himself and shame his lord. Princess Daenerys wasn't anything like he had expected of princesses, but she was just about everything he expected of a Targaryen in this age. He had heard the stories that had worked their way across Westeros at this point, and it was a mixed bag, much of it spinning yarns of how she'd turn into a baby dragon just like her brother and steal into the eaves and hollows of people's homes to whisper their secrets into his ear, or how she spun abhorrent sacraments to dark gods to slake the Blood Dragon's thirst for death and destruction. Hogshite, Davos knew then, but still there to hear and quite loudly.
Davos had also spent time in Sorcerer's Deep, and heard all the other tales that got spun in a city which was ruled by their kin, and what struck him was how people didn't bother to embellish stories about the good she did, not when so many of them had the air of "I was there" and "she helped me", "fixed me right quick, she did", "told me a nice story" and "gave me sweets when I was sad", smiles on their faces and proud to talk about all the little things the girl did for the people living there. The Princess had free reign of the city and wasn't at all afraid to get her feet wet or her hands dirty interacting with the common folk. Actually, people would just about worship the ground she walked on, if there weren't laws against exactly that in a city where paying false witness would anger a giant snake that ate demons, fed to it by the King's own hand more often than not.
"Your Highness," Davos kneeled, now that he had lead them into the Keep properly, but she waved him off, then stepped forward and grasped his hand between two of hers in something that almost seemed like a benediction. "I won't be here long, but give this to Shireen for me, will you?" It was a box, like you might place jewelery in. "Actually, show it to cousin Stannis first," she said thoughtfully. Davos blinked at the remark. "He'd appreciate the gesture if he was the one to deliver it, after inspecting it first. Her scars..." she explained.
"Honest truth, your Highness?" She nodded. "He'd probably be chewing iron if he heard gifts were delivered, even by the person who cured her of her greyscale herself, even after inspecting it." She smiled softly, and nodded. "But even if he does still comb over it with a fine Myrish lens, it's mostly because it's Shireen you see, so don't think too harshly of him..." he trailed off as she kept smiling, their steps taking them away from prying eyes and ears in the Keep, though not too far from where he had to lead her back through darkened hallways.
"I don't," she proclaimed, and it was there and then that Davos realized he was speaking to her like she wasn't a child of ten years, barely half a decade older than Lady Shireen herself. "There are only perhaps two, maybe three Lords in all of Westeros who my brother respects as much as Lord Stannis. And I think that, personally, he would be first among equals in some cases, if not in all matters. You cannot value true loyalty like coin or even a strong wind at your back," she declared in a common seaman's adage to his surprise.
He got the point, however: If it was good enough for her brother, Davos thought, it must be so for her. He also understood the other unspoken part, so long as they didn't go against her brother, she would be on their side too.
Davos flicked his gaze to the side, where her companion had remained silent all the while. They wore a white cloak with a blued steel clasp and her grey walking dress was dry despite the earlier rain. The Princess gestured at her, and the woman lowered her cloak. Eyes of storm-cast blue gazed back as his own widened in shock.
He never would have caught it if she hadn't appeared in the Princess' company and hadn't looked at him dead-on, and there were of course plenty of people in keep's surrounds who might have similar features from byblows long past. It took him a moment to place her age, and he decided she probably couldn't be Robert's, as his eldest bastard was barely older than the girl nearby, unless he got started on that damn early. "This Steffon's get, then?" He decided to be blunt, as this mire couldn't get any less tangled if he tried, and it was with that air of resignation he knew he would be explaining all of this to Lord Stannis before the night was over.
"No," the woman replied instantly with a look of brief exasperation, even as the Princess shot her an amused glance. Davos began to relax. "It was actually Ormund Baratheon who sired my father with a maid, unknowing, though his son Steffon never knew of the fact. He had just learned about it not long before he died, since he took father on that campaign in the Stepstones, and I still can't decide if that was to name him worthy or to see him dead." She shook her head in false sadness, "The Gods really do make mockery of all our plans." The Princess shot her another look, though this one Davos was less able to read through.
"Then..." Davos began, then trailed off, realizing the hidden tension that had lifted and reappeared just as quickly.
She breathed out softly, squaring her shoulders and standing a little taller, features even more noble-seeming in the dim torch light. "Lords would say blood only matters when they say it matters. I'm not even a bastard. I'm a nobody, a bastard of a bastard. But my father matters to me. I'm taking him with me, because I am somebody now," she proclaimed, and sparks of sky's flame danced across her eyes, and she seemed as if she could unleash the fury of a thunder cloud and shatter stone and sunder earth. "Because my blood is the blood of Elenei, like as not. And even if he is an oafish cad, even if he is a violent brute, even if he is from an old and small world who can barely understand the struggles I've been through..." the lightning in her gaze seemed to vanish and she seemed... smaller herself, somehow, less sure.
"He's still my father."
Davos didn't dare to breathe for what felt like minutes. Then he nodded. "Aye," he said.
Kin... kin he could understand.
"Let's go find him."
Davos pretended not to see the Princess squeeze the woman's hand.
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That was excellent, Crake! Thanks!
That was some great Dany characterization @Crake , it was nice to see her through the eyes of someone as insightful and down to earth as Davos, and the casually delivered line about the giant snake that eats demons had me smile. But at the heart of it all it was the Ceria part that made the update, both in terms of her character development in calling herslef 'the blood of Elenei' and the insight about the world growing grander and more terrible with the return of magic. That is the sentment I wasnted to evoke with AWAH from the start, seeing it written up in an omake so eloquently is really nice to see.
- Location
- Germany
@DragonParadox your tally was rather old.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
The sheer irony of this is the fact that Stannis is probably nursing a migraine over the thought of more secrets hidden right under his nose, no matter how big or small, Davos feels the world is a stranger and scarier place because he actually achieved an understanding with royalty (he's a smuggler, he wasn't made for this kind of intrigue!) and Ceria is worried about how her father will react to seeing her.
And Uther Storm could not be more proud of all the ass kicked and names taken once he hears the full story and stops second guessing everything. There were a dozen things she could have been doing with her life that he would have lived with and tolerated begrudgingly, but only one thing that would have earned his respect.
It just so happened to be the least likely outcome, since who ever heard of a lady who crushed demon skulls in with a warhammer and blasted ghosts with lightning?
He's precisely like Robert Baratheon in a "that's my girl!" kind of way. So long as its something he can be proud of, even if it isn't "proper", he'll make it proper.
Feel free to write him however you want from that if he ever comes up, but if you aren't making him boisterous enough--imagine a drunken Robert, then dial his lack of inhibitions back around three, maybe four, steps, and you're on the right track.