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

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The boy is either not a threat at present or he's playing a very dangerous shell game.
 
[X] One Autumn Leaf

Honestly, out of all the unknowns the Chosen are, the one of Stranger is the biggest potential pain in the butt.
And we don't have any way to track them either, so...
Yeah, this one sucks.

[jk]
But hey, next month we are talking to Faceless Men's leadership... might as well ask for tips on assasin-proofing our administration!
[/jk]

For real though, I'm not excited to dealing with FM either. Too much baggage they can bring in - and we don't exactly have a reliable way to kill off their entire order in event they go rogue. And they know that :/
 
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@DragonParadox Tagging because this is basically Viserys' internal monologue as who else is going to 'break it down' like some kind of chessmaster for you if not I these days? Feel free to villainously monologue with my stream of consciousness to Dany if it so please you.

So I've given it some thought. I'd be so utterly bored to the point that Alyn's existence as a character is almost without merit or bearing on our plans if it was otherwise, which is mostly why I'm entertaining this idea. To expand on that a bit, if I'm not correct, there is quite literally nothing he can do to meaningfully impact our plans within the next six months. If we do nothing after that, of course he has the potential (and possibly motivation) to careen into relevancy, but that's an outside chance because of the following.

I believe Alyn is playing one of the world's most deadly shell games, quite simply because I believe if there is anyone who should have their plans, short, medium and long-term shrouded by sorcery, since turtling up and designing an innovative way around the problem is basically the bare minimum expectancy of competency I expect from them if they weren't either some fiend pawn or being used as a sacrificial lamb by their own God, in which case the shell game become's that of the Smith's more than Alyn's.

Moreover, Alyn might seem confident because of recent success against the fiends who tried to make a puppet of him, but I would posit something deeper and more profound than that.

The Smith's Chosen is rusecruising us. He's built Dragon-slaying weapons at another's suggestion (possibly Lucan's, possibly some other ally--Crone's chosen?) to have something in reserve to deal with the Lannisters and their dragons--they weren't hiding their activities very well even without Brynden making it obvious what their game was). So far Viserys has had the capabilities of burning Westeros to the ground for nearly a year, and that potential as merely expanded exponentially every other turn. And he hasn't. Clearly that's not how he wants to win. So reserving weapons for one who's strategy does not rely on them seems foolish.

Moreover, I think purposefully forgoing Mind Blank is a decision a Chosen can repeat for purposes less benign than Danelle.

He's revealing what he's doing, and allowing us to divine what he plans to do with those weapons, because there's a hidden twist to "would sure as fuck use those weapons against Viserys, if he was of a mind to use Dragons to wreak bloody havoc and conquer like Aegon did". Only he also knows we aren't keen on that, so really that hides third layer to his plans, which is prove we're incapable of leaving a potential threat alone despite the fact that the kind he presents is more of a nebulous, future variety contingent on multiple factors. I think we also proved that totally false with our aggressive, and yet restrained actions against Lucan. We acted in haste, but realizing we were basically railroading ourselves into a religious war, wheeled ourselves around for another pass at peace.

So why bother? To prove the veracity of our treaty with Lucan, a much harder target, a less expendable champion of his faith, yet valuable enough if what he's working on is an assassin's weapon more than a pile of pointy bits for knights to wave around.

Granted, Viserys would also note, none of the Chosen probably know what to make of artillery barrages from half a mile away obliterating a fortified, even heavily warded, position, or Viserys to simply leverage divine aid to cancel out their own, from multiple sources, and with clever enough usage of those pacts, boons and sacrifices could 'equalize' the playing field, except a knife fight to the death between equal forces is a bunch of Chosen with radically different values and experiences, what aid from overly pious Lords they could get, vs. Viserys' empire and over a dozen high leveled and extremely well-equipped PCs. Well, unless a portion of their time now is being traded over to spywork instead of diplomacy, we don't know who the Stranger's Chosen is after all.

The point is more that that third hidden layer to why he's basically saying "come at me bro" either to talk to him or to fight him. What's he hiding?

It's a trap. It's a trap warded against divination. With him as bait. Not necessarily because he's planning on our coming, it's just that he's got nothing better to do if it's not out hunting devils or making gear.

He's ballsy, I'll give the guy that...
 
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Speaking of the Seven should we talk to Lucan next month? Try and see if we can finish this. Also @DragonParadox how have the priests (spies) been doing? Have they managed any headway? What have they accomplished?
 
Crake said:
@DragonParadox Tagging because this is basically Viserys' internal monologue as who else is going to 'break it down' like some kind of chessmaster for you if not I these days? Feel free to villainously monologue with my stream of consciousness to Dany if it so please you.

So I've given it some thought. I'd be so utterly bored to the point that Alyn's existence as a character is almost without merit or bearing on our plans if it was otherwise, which is mostly why I'm entertaining this idea. To expand on that a bit, if I'm not correct, there is quite literally nothing he can do to meaningfully impact our plans within the next six months. If we do nothing after that, of course he has the potential (and possibly motivation) to careen into relevancy, but that's an outside chance because of the following.

I believe Alyn is playing one of the world's most deadly shell games, quite simply because I believe if there is anyone who should have their plans, short, medium and long-term shrouded by sorcery, since turtling up and designing an innovative way around the problem is basically the bare minimum expectancy of competency I expect from them if they weren't either some fiend pawn or being used as a sacrificial lamb by their own God, in which case the shell game become's that of the Smith's more than Alyn's.

Moreover, Alyn might seem confident because of recent success against the fiends who tried to make a puppet of him, but I would posit something deeper and more profound than that.

The Smith's Chosen is rusecruising us. He's built Dragon-slaying weapons at another's suggestion (possibly Lucan's, possibly some other ally--Crone's chosen?) to have something in reserve to deal with the Lannisters and their dragons--they weren't hiding their activities very well even without Brynden making it obvious what their game was). So far Viserys has had the capabilities of burning Westeros to the ground for nearly a year, and that potential as merely expanded exponentially every other turn. And he hasn't. Clearly that's not how he wants to win. So reserving weapons for one who's strategy does not rely on them seems foolish.

Moreover, I think purposefully forgoing Mind Blank is a decision a Chosen can repeat for purposes less benign than Danelle.

He's revealing what he's doing, and allowing us to divine what he plans to do with those weapons, because there's a hidden twist to "would sure as fuck use those weapons against Viserys, if he was of a mind to use Dragons to wreak bloody havoc and conquer like Aegon did". Only he also knows we aren't keen on that, so really that hides third layer to his plans, which is prove we're incapable of leaving a potential threat alone despite the fact that the kind he presents is more of a nebulous, future variety contingent on multiple factors. I think we also proved that totally false with our aggressive, and yet restrained actions against Lucan. We acted in haste, but realizing we were basically railroading ourselves into a religious war, wheeled ourselves around for another pass at peace.

So why bother? To prove the veracity of our treaty with Lucan, a much harder target, a less expendable champion of his faith, yet valuable enough if what he's working on is an assassin's weapon more than a pile of pointy bits for knights to wave around.

Granted, Viserys would also note, none of the Chosen probably know what to make of artillery barrages from half a mile away obliterating a fortified, even heavily warded, position, or Viserys to simply leverage divine aid to cancel out their own, from multiple sources, and with clever enough usage of those pacts, boons and sacrifices could 'equalize' the playing field, except a knife fight to the death between equal forces is a bunch of Chosen with radically different values and experiences, what aid from overly pious Lords they could get, vs. Viserys' empire and over a dozen high leveled and extremely well-equipped PCs. Well, unless a portion of their time now is being traded over to spywork instead of diplomacy, we don't know who the Stranger's Chosen is after all.

The point is more that that third hidden layer to why he's basically saying "come at me bro" either to talk to him or to fight him. What's he hiding?

It's a trap. It's a trap warded against divination. With him as bait. Not necessarily because he's planning on our coming, it's just that he's got nothing better to do if it's not out hunting devils or making gear.

He's ballsy, I'll give the guy that...
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Well, this here is a sufficient level of paranoia, I'd say.
Thanks.

What are we to do about it, though?
As a chosen of Craftgod, he likely has the equivalent of Fey-wards to spoof even Yssian divination unless laser-focused on a specific task - and again we don't know enough to divine a specific part of the trap (if there is one).

Going to him now would kinda eat into our time a bit, and possibly extend into an entire Action by itself if all is as bad as you assume.


And leaving him be is a no-go from the start, one doesn't leave powerful casters and crafters to their own devices.
And that's before said casters happen to be Seven's Chosen.
 
If he does have an assassin's weapon against us then at least we know where he stands (and falls). It would be nice to get that cleared out at least.

Edit: The more likely option could be that he is a fifteen year old low level character and not a Machiavellian schemer. But that is boring.
 
Crake said:
@DragonParadox Tagging because this is basically Viserys' internal monologue as who else is going to 'break it down' like some kind of chessmaster for you if not I these days? Feel free to villainously monologue with my stream of consciousness to Dany if it so please you.

So I've given it some thought. I'd be so utterly bored to the point that Alyn's existence as a character is almost without merit or bearing on our plans if it was otherwise, which is mostly why I'm entertaining this idea. To expand on that a bit, if I'm not correct, there is quite literally nothing he can do to meaningfully impact our plans within the next six months. If we do nothing after that, of course he has the potential (and possibly motivation) to careen into relevancy, but that's an outside chance because of the following.

I believe Alyn is playing one of the world's most deadly shell games, quite simply because I believe if there is anyone who should have their plans, short, medium and long-term shrouded by sorcery, since turtling up and designing an innovative way around the problem is basically the bare minimum expectancy of competency I expect from them if they weren't either some fiend pawn or being used as a sacrificial lamb by their own God, in which case the shell game become's that of the Smith's more than Alyn's.

Moreover, Alyn might seem confident because of recent success against the fiends who tried to make a puppet of him, but I would posit something deeper and more profound than that.

The Smith's Chosen is rusecruising us. He's built Dragon-slaying weapons at another's suggestion (possibly Lucan's, possibly some other ally--Crone's chosen?) to have something in reserve to deal with the Lannisters and their dragons--they weren't hiding their activities very well even without Brynden making it obvious what their game was). So far Viserys has had the capabilities of burning Westeros to the ground for nearly a year, and that potential as merely expanded exponentially every other turn. And he hasn't. Clearly that's not how he wants to win. So reserving weapons for one who's strategy does not rely on them seems foolish.

Moreover, I think purposefully forgoing Mind Blank is a decision a Chosen can repeat for purposes less benign than Danelle.

He's revealing what he's doing, and allowing us to divine what he plans to do with those weapons, because there's a hidden twist to "would sure as fuck use those weapons against Viserys, if he was of a mind to use Dragons to wreak bloody havoc and conquer like Aegon did". Only he also knows we aren't keen on that, so really that hides third layer to his plans, which is prove we're incapable of leaving a potential threat alone despite the fact that the kind he presents is more of a nebulous, future variety contingent on multiple factors. I think we also proved that totally false with our aggressive, and yet restrained actions against Lucan. We acted in haste, but realizing we were basically railroading ourselves into a religious war, wheeled ourselves around for another pass at peace.

So why bother? To prove the veracity of our treaty with Lucan, a much harder target, a less expendable champion of his faith, yet valuable enough if what he's working on is an assassin's weapon more than a pile of pointy bits for knights to wave around.

Granted, Viserys would also note, none of the Chosen probably know what to make of artillery barrages from half a mile away obliterating a fortified, even heavily warded, position, or Viserys to simply leverage divine aid to cancel out their own, from multiple sources, and with clever enough usage of those pacts, boons and sacrifices could 'equalize' the playing field, except a knife fight to the death between equal forces is a bunch of Chosen with radically different values and experiences, what aid from overly pious Lords they could get, vs. Viserys' empire and over a dozen high leveled and extremely well-equipped PCs. Well, unless a portion of their time now is being traded over to spywork instead of diplomacy, we don't know who the Stranger's Chosen is after all.

The point is more that that third hidden layer to why he's basically saying "come at me bro" either to talk to him or to fight him. What's he hiding?

It's a trap. It's a trap warded against divination. With him as bait. Not necessarily because he's planning on our coming, it's just that he's got nothing better to do if it's not out hunting devils or making gear.

He's ballsy, I'll give the guy that...
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Or, and hear me out here, he might just be some damn kid who doesn't even do the planning himself. Why? Because there's one trait all the Chosen of the Seven share: they're as bound to the feudal order as their gods. Between his short age, being a commoner and having only vague directions from the Smith, the boy is probably just doing whatever the knights tell him to do. The Smith is the God of Commoners Who Are Useful, after all.

The Chosen of the Crone and the Stranger on the other hand, are the actually dangerous, problematic ones, they represent transgressive roles and therefore are allowed to be smart and not wait for marching orders. This doesn't mean we should leave him to his own devices, by any means, only that we shouldn't expect an endless shell game to be orchestrated by this particular guy. If there's a trap here, he probably wasn't even told about it.
 
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That's also an equally plausible reasoning, but obviously nobody would expect the Useful Smallperson Who History Won't Remember Except the Monuments He Built To My Mighty Deeds would be the mastermind behind everything.

I was presenting the most paranoid possibility, not the most likely. I was also mostly using it as a rhetorical tool, trying to get across that unless he was either the mastermind behind some vast scheme (or a piece on the board for a vast scheme, which is basically the same outcome) he is basically beneath our notice for the immediate future. And I can say that verily, because we actually legitimately can't act against our own interests to neutralize him as a threat, nor even if we spent time diplomancing him does he have anything to offer to us except a net-positive on our little black book of enemies.

Tl;Dr, it would be way more boring if I was wrong. :V
 
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Honestly I am more worried about the Chosen of the Stranger. The Smith boy can be dealt with fairly quickly. Lucan can have a smear campaign placed against him. Danielle...can be dealt with. And Brienne is recruitable to the point that I am surprised that we haven't done it. The Crone Chosen has gone and fucked off somewhere so that needs to be looked into but the Stranger Chosen is dodging mother fucking Bloodraven. The fact that he is hiding from the best spymaster in Westeros (as limited as Bloodraven may be) causes some concern here. This is why I hate Intrigue specced characters.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
Honestly I am more worried about the Chosen of the Stranger. The Smith boy can be dealt with fairly quickly. Lucan can have a smear campaign placed against him. Danielle...can be dealt with. And Brienne is recruitable to the point that I am surprised that we haven't done it. The Crone Chosen has gone and fucked off somewhere so that needs to be looked into but the Stranger Chosen is dodging mother fucking Bloodraven. The fact that he is hiding from the best spymaster in Westeros (as limited as Bloodraven may be) causes some concern here. This is why I hate Intrigue specced characters.
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Brienne was recruited already. She and her father swore fealty after we went around and started recruiting Stormlords on Stannis' behalf.

The two chosen we haven't heard anything about are the Chosen of the Stranger and the Chosen of the Mother.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
Honestly I am more worried about the Chosen of the Stranger. The Smith boy can be dealt with fairly quickly. Lucan can have a smear campaign placed against him. Danielle...can be dealt with. And Brienne is recruitable to the point that I am surprised that we haven't done it. The Crone Chosen has gone and fucked off somewhere so that needs to be looked into but the Stranger Chosen is dodging mother fucking Bloodraven. The fact that he is hiding from the best spymaster in Westeros (as limited as Bloodraven may be) causes some concern here. This is why I hate Intrigue specced characters.
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He's also the most worrying because he's allowed to do pretty much anything, to the point that if it hadn't swiftly turned out to be the others that one time, we'd still suspect him of necromancy. The Crone may have power over magic and unconventional wisdom, but the Stranger is widely regarded by worshipers as the evil teammate, and that means he probably is, at least partly.
 
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065tdsa said:
He's also the most worrying because he's allowed to do pretty much anything, to the point that if it hadn't swiftly turned out to be the others that one time, we'd still suspect him of necromancy. The Crone may have power over magic and unconventional wisdom, but Stranger is widely regarded by worshipers as the evil teammate, and that means he probably is, at least partly.
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The issue there is that we don't even have a face, much less a name. Hell I am inclined to use Yssian divination next month topic this fucker down. Yes I know it isn't a guarantee...Although do we know of any artifacts fo the Stranger? If we had a holy reliquary we could find him using that.
 
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