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

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[X] Use Discern Location, Greater Scrying, and Greater Teleport to find and deal with the Wisps that you encountered so long ago in swamps of Braavos... One way, or another.

//
Done is done.
 
DragonParadox said:
The Scales of Kingship ​

Twenty First Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

"My lord, my lady," you nod to each in turn. "I will be blunt for time is shorter than many think and Robert Baratheon has done little to prepare the Seven Kingdoms for the coming of magic, a failing which even the Faith has been forced to admit and address during the Conclave of Oldtown. In a realm where priests are the ones to take up the struggle against the enemies of all, who is king?"

"He is the king to whom the lords swore their oaths, if their word is worth a damn?" Lord Smallwood answers darkly. "I never swore an oath to King Aerys. He never found the time to ride this way. King Robert did. I fought with him at Pyke. Mayhap he is not the best king the Seven Kingdoms have ever seen, but he has not dishonored his throne as..."

"As much as my father?" you cut him off while Rina surprises you with a flicker of an eye roll and Ser Richard wholly unsurprisingly glares at the Lord of Acorn Hall. "No that he has not, but is that to be the only standard to which a king is to be held? Tell me, my lord, if you aquired the services of a physician and his medicines made patients ill rather than well through sloth and folly, would you then say 'well, he has not poisoned anyone on purpose so far' and so resolve to keep him?"

Lady Smallwood smiles behind a decorously held hand. You note that unlike her husband she is not the least surprised to hear you admit your father's failings. How much had Tom told her, you wonder. How much had he guessed?

"You speak of the honor of the lords, but what of the confidence of the people high and low?" you continue not with anger, but as deliberate as the as the stamp of arcane seals upon the pamphlets you had scattered through the Riverlands and beyond. "Robert Baratheon hasn't been secure on his throne since shortly before the Ironborn uprising. When a King loses the confidence of the people, he must act swiftly so that he can reassure them, to prevent thoughts of sedition and anarchy, if nothing else. The bare minimum demanded of the man was to simply keep the peace until his children could inherit, but every plot and scheme launched from King's Landing had Lannister paw prints all over them, and hardly any accomplished much, let alone keep things 'peaceful'."

"You seem to know a great deal of the doings of the Red Keep and the workings of the Small Council?" Lord Smallwood cuts you off.

A small part of you regrets that you cannot tell him just how much you know, between Baelish snared in your plots, Pycelle sending weekly reports, and Bloodraven a thought away, you might well know more about the workings of the Usurper's Small Council than he does. Instead, you merely reply, "I do not need to see inside the keep to know what comes out of it. A king's task is the ordering of his realm."

The lord opens his mouth again to speak, you suspect to argue, but before he can his lady wife interjects. "Do you happen to know what devilry the Alchemists unleashed with the fire, Your Grace?" A reminder of just how little control Robert Baratheon had on doings just outside the walls of the Red Keep.

"Devils, creatures of the Hells," you reply keeping back the number of the dark realms to prevent the chance to the discussion straying into theology. "I can provide books on the matter that you might know more of that and other perils, but there is a peril in those books also."

You pause, letting them conjure whatever imaginings of fel arcane texts come to mind before continuing. "If you are found with tomes originating in Sorcerer's Deep, the man who claims to be Protector of the Realm will not care that such texts are useful or necessary, only that I had a hand in dispatching them. He is is obsessed with revenge against someone he's never even met. While I could understand hating my House on principle, he has hardly acted in his own best interests as a ruler when it comes to the matter. That is all that he cares about. Should the Lords of Westeros raise banners for such a King, an empty man on an empty throne, who offers naught the barest hint of attention toward their woes, even as night falls and men become prey for all manner of horrors?"

The silence that follows practically rings in your ears, though from the look of things, Lady Ravella is practically biting her tongue behind her polite smile so as not to speak.

"What of the other Houses who made war upon yours?" Lord Smallwood asks finally. "You named your father a worse king than Robert, who you wish deposed. What then is to be the fate of those who did the deed?"

You briefly consider answering as you had for Walder Frey, but you suspect Theomar Smallwood would be less practical than the Late Lord. Thus you settle for being truthful but vague, "I cannot lay all my plans before you now for they are not settled, but I can pledge that I will judge all those who rebelled justly by their deeds. The question before you is if you trust that pledge, and others I might speak?"

In the end he does, slowly, reluctantly, but sincerely, you think.

What do you do next?

[] Continue your tour of the Riverlands
-[] Write in House to Visit

[] Pause briefly for another minor action
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Viserys actually rolled pretty badly this time around, but between the buffs, the help and Lord Smallwood not being the most socially skilled character it worked out.
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Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.
 
Abhishek M said:
I knew I recognized it from somewhere. That's the Koibra homebrew creature right? Ita part koi, cobra and cat. Sadly feline not dog.

Mostly remembered it because of the Dandy Lion. Can we make that too?
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The Dandy Lion is great, should stat one up to be an AOE spore and Powder specialist.


DragonParadox said:
What do you do next?
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[X] Continue your tour of the Riverlands
-[X] House Lolliston

We should wrap up the Riverlands so we have a clean start on the next region, furthermore this particular lord is under time pressure.

He's got crop blight and floods to contend with.

That means small folk dead from disease and starvation easily prevented.
 
Deliste said:
We should wrap up the Riverlands so we have a clean start on the next region, furthermore this particular lord is under time pressure
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We can take a momentary break from the tour though, today's participation doesn't really fill me with much hope for an uninterrupted venture.
 
egoo said:
We can take a momentary break from the tour though, today's participation doesn't really fill me with much hope for an uninterrupted venture.
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There's a difference between an OOC break and an IC break.

I always am fully welcoming of interludes etc but Viserys having Attention Defecit Disorder just because the thread does isn't something we should vote into being.

DP will break it up for people who want a different flavour.

In fact he's already said the very first update of the day is going to be the Kytons.
 
Deliste said:
There's a difference between an OOC break and an IC break.

I always am fully welcoming of interludes etc but Viserys having Attention Defecit Disorder just because the thread does isn't something we should vote into being.

DP will break it up for people who want a different flavour.

In fact he's already said the very first update of the day is going to be the Kytons.
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There is a bit of a difference between "reading an interlude" and "having a discussion on a non-Westeros vote", but whatever, I'm really not interested in arguing right now.
If no one's really interested doing MAs instead, whatever, we'll do them later.

We can take more Westeros, I just don't think it is the best way to go about things.
 
Deliste said:
There's a difference between an OOC break and an IC break.

I always am fully welcoming of interludes etc but Viserys having Attention Defecit Disorder just because the thread does isn't something we should vote into being.

DP will break it up for people who want a different flavour.

In fact he's already said the very first update of the day is going to be the Kytons.
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No need to worry about the internal logic of Viserys' actions here I can work in a better reason than to take a break than a whim.
 
@Duesal

Did we have a rumour post due?

Between rumours, Kyton interludes, Tywin interludes, Iron Tome interlude and all the others requested in the last 24 hours we aren't going to lack for distractions without derailing ourselves in character.
 
egoo said:
There is a bit of a difference between "reading an interlude" and "having a discussion on a non-Westeros vote", but whatever, I'm really not interested in arguing right now.
If no one's really interested doing MAs instead, whatever, we'll do them later.

We can take more Westeros, I just don't think it is the best way to go about things.
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If it makes you feel any better I expect the Kyton to give us a voting decision point, a decent chance of the Iron Tome uncovering something with implications and rumours often generate more discussion than a vote.

Tywin probably will just be a read along though unless it links up with some action he's taken recently that we have reason to learn of IC.
 
I personally don't mind sticking to the Riverlands for a few more days, but I can see how some folks might like a break. If something relevant comes up to draw us back east, I wouldn't mind working that in somehow.
 
[X] Continue your tour of the Riverlands
-[X] House Lolliston

I understand wanting to move on, but I would rather finish the riverlands off once and for all, rather than have to come back and recruit the remaining potential loyalists at a latter date.
 
[X] Continue your tour of the Riverlands
-[X] House Lolliston

Finish off the riverlands, have a non-Westerosi interlude or two. Maybe one on that initial island that we took over before conquering Sorcerer's Deep?
 
Look on the bright side, guys. On the one hand, it's only... huh.

Eight more Houses.

On the other hand, that's Eight more Houses. And it looks hilarious on an enemy war map of the Riverlands. Little pockets of traitors, and a whole lot of angry Riverlanders.
 
DragonParadox said:
I could do voting interludes in parallel to the updates to have a bit more engagement on the non-westeros side. Does that sound good?
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DP, I'm mostly just meme'ing around.
I'm not enjoying Westeros much, yes - but please, don't go about messing up the pacing for my sake alone.

If everyone else is okay with doing Westeros, just do your thing.
I'll meme around and manage.
 
You know given Viserys 's social skills and the apparent discontent of some of the thread maybe we can just wrap up the remaining 8 houses off screen or in one long post that mostly glosses over the details?

I mean unless there is a realistic prospect that at least one of the eight houses will turn us down when faced with the full weight of Viserys's social power, it seems like we could just abstract the remaining recruitment process out if other readers are not enjoying it?
 
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