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

Eighteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC

One look at the Tree of Storm's End makes it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt why this of all Heart Trees cannot share a keep with a temple of Father Sky. Carved upon it is a woman with fine almost ethereal features, her long hair caught in in a whirlwind, upon her face a look of love and longing, Elenei. Only an artist's imagining of her of course, the tree is not old enough to hearken back to the Age of Heroes. Still, it is far older than Aegon's realm, perhaps enough to to have seen the first Andal longships crest the waves upon those bloody mornings of the world before the line of Durran slowly abandoned the secret gods of the deep woods for the sept at the keep's foot.

The air ripples behind you to reveal Vee, already looking the tree up and down with a considering eye accompanied by Ceria Storm, looking considerably more uncertain than usual under her mask of composure and Ysilla Royce who seems to have invited herself from the faintly challenging expression she gives you. Truth be told you had almost forgotten that her patron was the storm, though her power was not as close to a priest as even Ceria's.

Over the next hour Vee enacts the ritual to unbind the Heart Tree from the earth it had grown in, the magic of it everything you had expected from your friend's working, slow and subtle, coaxing the tangled roots apart as one might the move a wary beast to approach and heed. There is no pomp to it, no ceremony, it is not even uttered in the tongue of the First Men, but instead in Vee's native Low Valyrian. Doubtlessly if you asked her why that is she would look at you strangely and say it is because the words were more familiar, but you can see the symbol of it also. A new thing for the Old Gods to bear witness to, and unlike the guard against flame one that is not restrained to the darkest of moments, though this ritual must be performed in secret under the eyes of none but a fascinated Maester Cressen, Davos Seaworth looking like he is not quite sure what he is supposed to be doing here and of course the Lord of Storm's end himself who would never allow such a change to his ancestral keep to take place without overlooking it first hand.

As the magic nears its peak you consider where you might replant the Heart Tree, for it is hardly an alter of stone or gold to be stored in some dark corner before another place can be found. The first place that comes to mind, likely from your earlier conversation, is broken Heaven, but you dismiss it almost as quickly. The power of the Old Gods might be able to take root in that blighted soil, but there are far too many wandering the wastes who would take pleasure in defiling holy things. It will take protections far more formidable than even New Lys'os before you would dare to transplant a Heart Tree there.

That leaves other places too distant and remote that no one would recognize the face upon the pale wood, the realm of Earth or the farthest east. Your delegation to Yi Ti had negotiated a place for a Heart Tree if you wish to take it, the worship of the Old Gods having apparently been one of the most convenient shows of 'civilized behavior' to the local elites. Beyond that Dany points out that you could make a virtue of necessity and make the tree one dedicated to illusion and misdirection, not far at all from the Singer's fey roots.

Where do you replant the Tree of Storm's End?

[] Somewhere on the Plane of Earth
-[] Write in

[] Yin where your envoys have secured guarded hallowed ground

[] Make it a Tree of Illusion and plant it somewhere else
-[] Write in effects and sacrifices

[] Write in

OOC: Planar rumors interlude, next you guys have not gotten any news of the Upper Planes in quite a while though you did pay for it.