This is less about having access to Tongues and more that learning a language is a big step in learning about a culture. IMO Viserys should be picking up every language that his citizens speak, along with the ones his allies speak.
[X] Allow Xor, Naria, Danar, Alysa and Sandor to go to Winterfell in search of answers
-[X] Speaking of political entanglements, it is time you finish your business with the Riverlands. First stop off at Ser Benjicott's camp and deliver word that he will have spirit-forged guerillas to supplement his own woodcraft efforts very soon, resupply him from your cloak of any essentials he lacks or else leave further supplies for caches to be buried in preparation for the Reconquest. And more generally receive an update from him and his contacts as to where local Houses that have not declared for anyone might stand or their activities therein.
-[X] Pick up Rina and Ser Richard to accompany you along the way.
-[X] Mental note: Start a correspondence via Whispering Brazier with Embra using the local ACSEC branch, in an effort to learn Auran from her as it is spoken in the Courts of Armun Kelisk.
-[] As a side note, Viserys' next priority for languages to be learned are: Dothraki, Sarnori, Naathi, and Yi Tish.
Given that there's been almost three months so far with this, combined with bonuses from the Tree of the Dawn Age for learning (and of course Viserys' own intelligence and wisdom stats), can we assume he's picked up these languages?
Yes, yes, magic solves everything but DP has repeatedly driven the hammer into this nail. The Genies especially, but most Planar powers specifically, sit up and take notice when you express sophistication through means other than magic. Mundane universities, institutions that teach music or perform matters of state or statecraft like diplomacy, as in our Heralds.
And learning how to speak a language the hard way, with the right connotations, accent, etc. is more impressive than a couple of spells. Spells are natural to them. Culture is acquired.
Recounting what had happened beneath Hork's Hill, lies and all, had been a good bit easier than Rina had thought it would be. Her father did not want to know more than the bare bones of the matter, her mother not even that. At first she had thought it was fear of magic and all things strange rearing its head, but when her father had rather awkwardly started asking just how much there had to be left of a corpse to raise as a wight the young sorceress realized it was a far deeper and in the end more reasonable fear. The dead were supposed to stay in the ground and not wandering around to trouble the living, it was why the Silent Sisters were expected to pass through the world with scarce a whisper in their wake. Perhaps it was even why the Stranger himself stood alone along all the faces of the Seven.
Rina had done her best to explain the various sorts of unliving, the sorts that needed a body at least, but once those grim tales had been told and the bottle of Tyroshi brandy half-drunk in the doing she had spent the next week with her family, finding out more of the doings of her brother and sisters, aunts and uncles as well as the scamp pages to which she was an aunt, strange as that still felt. It hadn't all been comfortable of course, not like it had been before she had gone sliding and tumbling down the slope of life, but it was still more than she had hoped for. You can't put a snake back in the egg nor slip back into a shed skin, as the priests of Yss said and Rina had surely felt like she was trying it, like the skin of 'dutiful demure Rina' was about to burst any moment and reveal... all the rest of it.
So it was that for all the joy she took in reuniting with her family that Rina was a touch relieved to have a good reason to say her farewells and head home to Sorcerer's Deep. Not wanting to show up at the King's door with a sack full of relics knowing nothing of what they might be worth, she wove the spell of finding and peered through the shelves for answers into who might have bore the great axe and bracers of bronze before her uncle had taken them for his own.
The answer strangely enough lay in the only enchanted piece that didn't have runes upon it, the crown. The carvings of stag and swan, crab and bear, and of all of them a boar standing triumphant. All seals that would be later be borne by many of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms for the small corner of Westeros looking out over the village that would some day be Saltpans it lead along a simpler path, or so the books had accounted.
Hog's Fort became Hort, Hort became Hork in the tongue of the smallfolk long before the first Andal ships showed on the horizon, the last remnant of a short-lived kingdom at the mouth of the Trident. When had their king taken up Winter's poisoned gift, Rina wondered, running the chill metal of the chain through her fingers. The only things that still felt cold to her were works of Their craft, but she did not fancy looking too deeply into the matter. It would make a fine Heart Tree
Belt of the Battle Master:
Battle (3 Charges/Day): 1 Charge (gain a Move Action), 2 Charges (gain a Standard Action), 3 Charges (gain a Full-Round Action)
1/Day when activated as part of a melee attack, you inflict additional damage based on the type of weapon your are wielding: Light (+1d8), One-Handed (+2d6), Two-Handed (+3d6)
Icy Chain:
This chain can be worn as an amulet or a belt. It grants the bearer the Winter-touched feat as a bonus feat, as well as immunity to compulsions in a living bearer, or immunity to Rebuking in an Undead. However, in exchange it binds the soul to a power more malicious than most would-be enslavers could hope to be. The bearer has to make a will save (DC 15 +1 per week) once per week or fall under the thrall of the Others forever. This item can only be removed via Wish or Miracle and if the bearer is already in Winter's thrall it would take another Miracle or Wish against a high CL-check, or a divine intervention to free him.
Titan's Bracers:
Bronze Bracers engraved with sigils in the Old Tongue, promising the bearer the strength and resilience of giants. The bearer gains +6 Strength and +4 Natural Armor (this armor does not stack with permanent race- or size-related body, but it does with temporary enchantments such as Barkskin).
Diadem of the Chieftain:
A wooden hoop carved to resemble several interwoven bands, each marked with the sign of a different tribe. It gives the bearer +2 INT, WIS and CHA and a +4 Resistance Bonus on all saves, as well as an aura that grants all allies within 30ft a +4 morale bonus on saves against Fear.
Rising Sun:
This Bronze Greataxe shines almost golden, the signs along its blade all depicting the sun and fires. Despite this, millennia of the grave's corruption seems to have turned it into a tool of Winter.
Now the axe is a +3 Human Bane Speed Greataxe, it's splendor mostly hidden under a layer of ice.
OOC: I'll add Caster level and such in the morning, it''s really late now. Thanks again to @Artemis1992 for designing not just the items but the wight lord's build.
Recounting what had happened beneath Hork's Hill, lies and all, had been a good bit easier than Rina had thought it would be. Her father did not want to know more than the bare bones of the matter, her mother not even that. At first she had thought it was fear of magic and all things strange rearing its head, but when her father had rather awkwardly started asking just how much there had to be left of a corpse to raise as a wight, the young sorceress realized it was a far deeper and in the end more reasonable fear. The dead were supposed to stay in the ground, not wandering around to trouble the living. It was also why the Silent Sisters were expected to pass though the world with scarce a whisper in their wake. Perhaps it was even why the Stranger himself stood alone among all the faces of the Seven.
Rina had done her best to explain the various sorts of unliving, the sorts that needed a body at least, but once those grim tales had been told and the bottle of Tyroshi brandy half drunk in the doing, she had spent the next week with her family, finding out more of the doings of her brother and sisters, aunts and uncles, as well as the scamp pages to whom she was an aunt, strange as that still felt. It hadn't all been comfortable, of course, not like it had been before she had gone sliding and tumbling down the slope of life, but it was still more than she had hoped for. You can't put a snake back in the egg, nor slip it back into a shed skin, as the priests of Yss said, and Rina had surely felt like she was trying it, like the skin of 'dutiful demure Rina' was about to burst any moment and reveal... all the rest of it.
So it was that for all the joy she took in reuniting with her family, Rina was a touch relieved to have a good reason to say her farewells and head home to Sorcerer's Deep. Not wanting to show up at the king's door with a sack full of relics yet knowing nothing of what they might be worth, she wove the spell of finding and peered through the shelves for answers into who might have bore the great axe and bracers of bronze before her uncle had taken them for his own.
The answer, strangely enough, lay in the only enchanted piece that didn't have runes upon it, the crown. The carvings of stag and swan, crab and bear, and above all of them a boar standing triumphant. All seals that would be later borne by many of the Great House of the Seven kingdoms. For the small corner of Westeros looking out over the village that would some day be Saltpans, it lead along a simpler path, or so the books had accounted
Hog's Fort became Hort, and Hort became Hork in the tongue of the smallfolk long before the first Andal ships showed on the horizon, the last remnant of a short-lived kingdom at the mouth of the Trident. When had their king taken up winter's poisoned gift, Rina wondered, running the chill metal of the chain though her fingers. The only things that still felt cold to her were works of Their craft, but she did not fancy looking too deeply into the matter. It would make a fine Heart Tree
Belt of the Battle Master:
Battle (3 Charges/Day): 1 Charge (gain a Move Action), 2 Charges (gain a Standard Action), 3 Charges (gain a Full-Round Action)
1/Day when activated as part of a melee attack, you inflict additional damage based on the type of weapon your are wielding: Light (+1d8), One-Handed (+2d6), Two-Handed (+3d6)
Icy Chain:
This chain can be worn as an amulet or a belt. It grants the bearer the Wintertouched feat as a bonus feat, as well as Immunity to Compulsions in a living bearer, or Immunity to Rebuking in an Undead. In exchange, however, it binds the soul to a power more malicious than most would-be slavers could hope to be. The bearer has to make a will save (DC 15 +1 per week) once per week or fall under the thrall of the Others forever after. This item can only be removed via Wish or Miracle and if the bearer is already in Winter's thrall, it would take another Miracle or Wish against a high caster level check, or a divine intervention to free him.
Titan's Bracers:
Bronze Bracers engraved with sigils in the Old Tongue, promising the bearer the strength and resilience of giants. The bearer gains +6 Strength and +4 Natural Armor (this armor does not stack with permanent race- or size-related boni, but it does with temporary enchantments such as Barkskin).
Diadem of the Chieftain:
A wooden hoop carved to resemble several interwoven bands, each marked with the sign of a different tribe. It gives the bearer +2 INT, WIS and CHA and a +4 Resistance Bonus on all saves, as well as an aura that grants all allies within 30ft a +4 Morale bonus on saves against Fear.
Rising Sun:
This Bronze Greataxe shines almost golden, the signs along its blade all depicting the sun and fires. Despite this, millennia of the grave's corruption seems to have turned it into a tool of Winter. Now the axe is a +3 Human Bane Speed Greataxe, it's splendor mostly hidden under a layer of ice.
OOC: I'll add Caster level and such in the morning, it''s really late now. Thanks again to @Artemis1992 for designing not just the items but the wight lord's build. Not yet edited.
Here's an edited version of the chapter, @DragonParadox.
Very nice close and very cool loot (literally, too ).
Makes it a little harder to raise in cities not under our control, I assume.
@DragonParadox, would we be able with sufficient ease make some of these new temple-schools of his in Opaline Vault, Armun Kelisk and Vialesk, or laws there would define temple away from institution of learning too strictly?
Also, as usual, do Leshy fit as teachers?
For Zathir's purposes at least.
Advanced Cleric Leshies..?
Makes it a little harder to raise in cities not under our control, I assume.
@DragonParadox, would we be able with sufficient ease make some of these new temple-schools of his in Opaline Vault, Armun Kelisk and Vialesk, or laws there would define temple away from institution of learning too strictly?
Also, as usual, do Leshy fit as teachers?
For Zathir's purposes at least.
Advanced Cleric Leshies..?
That King had fairly good gear. A solid loadout fit for a ruler.
Sadly, he wasn't a Dragon and his kingdom crumbled. Ah well - we'll definitely put his stuff to better use !
