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

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Bloodraven's "use Martyn to start a schism" plan has obviously failed. I wonder what the Harroway Fey Lord thinks of that?
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Bloodraven's "use Martyn to start a schism" plan has obviously failed. I wonder what the Harroway Fey Lord thinks of that?
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This isn't as clear cut as all that I think. The schism is still happening, it's just got a hot fix for the Fey issue. Near as I can tell there's a degree of internal dissent between Faces on what to do about different problems. The Father seems like he's trying to shore up the organized Faith's authority so that they can leapfrog that into taking more of the actual political power into hand. The Mother on the other hand is fine cooperating with all kinds of people. The Warrior is likely just trying to hone a blade to do something, anything useful with his mortal agent. The Smith is similar, only even less concerned with political squabbles (which most matters of directing zealots are--canny actors manipulating the masses to their whims, no matter how they say otherwise). Who the hell knows the other three's agenda.

This can still be corrected through Lucan's methods of shoring up authority and then getting the narrative straight. If everyone believes the same thing and follows the same faction, then that'll slowly bring everyone back on track.

It remains to be seen if it's actually in our interests to let him try. All told, probably not, but we were trying not the be the "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" guy when it came to scheming with the Faith. But we might have just bought another stupid prize.
 
Crake said:
This isn't as clear cut as all that I think. The schism is still happening, it's just got a hot fix for the Fey issue. Near as I can tell there's a degree of internal dissent between Faces on what to do about different problems. The Father seems like he's trying to shore up the organized Faith's authority so that they can leapfrog that into taking more of the actual political power into hand. The Mother on the other hand is fine cooperating with all kinds of people. The Warrior is likely just trying to hone a blade to do something, anything useful with his mortal agent. The Smith is similar, only even less concerned with political squabbles (which most matters of directing zealots are--canny actors manipulating the masses to their whims, no matter how they say otherwise). Who the hell knows the other three's agenda.

This can still be corrected through Lucan's methods of shoring up authority and then getting the narrative straight. If everyone believes the same thing and follows the same faction, then that'll slowly bring everyone back on track.

It remains to be seen if it's actually in our interests to let him try. All told, probably not, but we were trying not the be the "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" guy when it came to scheming with the Faith. But we might have just bought another stupid prize.
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A complicating factor in all of this is our clear efforts to manipulate faith to change the seven. I wouldn't be surprised if that bit of divine lore is something almost all gods hide from mortals out of a visceral fear of this exact scenario.

Even if we can somehow negotiate with the mortals (which I doubt given the difference in our views and goals) I think the gods are almost certainly not going to go for it unless there is no other choice.

I mean, how would we react if we learned that Tywin had been working on way to leverage Viserys' red dragon status and the Valyrian's curse to reduce him to a particularly uncooperative mount? Especially if he had made some progress on a ritual and had a clear path to continue on?

The seven probably see us Tywin, but with the kind of power and reputation he wishes he had. There's too much in the way of conflicting interests and mistrust for this to end in anything but a fight (in my view anyway).

Edit: forgot to vote

[X] Crake
 
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The difference between us and Tywin is we've repeatedly demonstrated ourselves capable of compromise, even if it isn't entirely in our best interests.
 
Crake said:
The difference between us and Tywin is we've repeatedly demonstrated ourselves capable of compromise, even if it isn't entirely in our best interests.
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There's also the fact that we tend towards trusting people to keep their end (with assurances of course) instead of feeling the need to visibly threaten them into compliance.
 
Crake said:
The difference between us and Tywin is we've repeatedly demonstrated ourselves capable of compromise, even if it isn't entirely in our best interests.
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It's not a perfect comparison, I was just looking for something with about the right level of personal distaste and conflict in belief system for comparison.

We're willing to compromise sure, but we do have limits, and so do they. The only claim I'm making is that we have a few key issues that fall beyond the bounds of compromise on either side.

If the seven can't come to terms with things like other gods, blood sacrifice, secular magic, and the state's monopoly on force it doesn't matter how many other issues we can agree on.

Further, I think the kind of existential horror of having someone perform remote brain surgery to control your opinions induces is a sour note that will be difficult to get over. We've not only tried that, we're still trying it right now, and they (the seven themselves) have to be aware of both of those things.

I could be wrong (and I'm hardly unbiased) but just deciding they'll come around eventually is a mistake. We need to consider what they want and why they're fighting us in the first place to figure out what will work.

So far it seems that neither side can compromise on the core issues without meeting what it considers a lose condition.
 
BronzeTongue said:
It's not a perfect comparison, I was just looking for something with about the right level of personal distaste and conflict in belief system for comparison.

We're willing to compromise sure, but we do have limits, and so do they. The only claim I'm making is that we have a few key issues that fall beyond the bounds of compromise on either side.

If the seven can't come to terms with things like other gods, blood sacrifice, secular magic, and the state's monopoly on force it doesn't matter how many other issues we can agree on.

Further, I think the kind of existential horror of having someone perform remote brain surgery to control your opinions induces is a sour note that will be difficult to get over. We've not only tried that, we're still trying it right now, and they (the seven themselves) have to be aware of both of those things.

I could be wrong (and I'm hardly unbiased) but just deciding they'll come around eventually is a mistake. We need to consider what they want and why they're fighting us in the first place to figure out what will work.

So far it seems that neither side can compromise on the core issues without meeting what it considers a lose condition.
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We can renegotiate when we're the ruler of all of their worshipers.
 
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