The Game of Crusading Thrones, Self-Insert Edition (GoT CK2)

As the sun sets you gather before the barrow, the flickering light of torches making shadows dance. Dark clouds hang heavily in the sky, shapes half-visible among them. You spy what looks like a grinning skull for a moment, but then it vanishes, leaving you uncertain if it was ever really there. The town seems quiet and forlorn, bereft of market stalls and the noise of people going about their business. Instead, there are just you, your bond-mates, Frost, Lord Dustin, and twenty guardsmen, half from your guard, half from Lord Dustin's.

You stand straight, wearing a suit of fine plate armor, subtly shaped to evoke images of running wolves. Ice is loose in its sheathe on your back, an ironwood shield painted with your arms is strapped to your right forearm. Lord Dustin is similarly dressed and equipped, although he wields a massive battleax. His helmet is off as he stares up at the immense barrow with nervous brown eyes. Lord Dustin turns to meet your gaze. "We are ready, Your Grace." He tells you formally as his armsmen form up behind him, taking up their axes as Frost steps forth, pressing one gloved hand against the side of the hill.

The earth shifts, flowing away from his touch like water, revealing a tunnel lined with stone descending into the ground. Frost calmly begins striding forwards. You follow, doing your best to appear calm. You are all silent, unwilling to disturb the still air of the tunnel. The torches reveal jagged walls, looking like they were carved into the stone with claws. You are unable to conceal a shiver as you follow Frost deeper into the barrow and the air begins to change. It feels heavy, like it's pressing down on you. The scent of dry bone fills the tunnel, making your direwolf sneeze. You open your eyes and See.

The barrow thrums with currents of power, all dense and twisted. Some are as dry as dust, some are heavy with decay. But there's one that's still bright and green and vibrant. You reach for it, almost instinctively, trying to find where it leads. And as you do, you arrive in a round chamber. Four plinths stand in a semi-circle, facing the entrance. On each is a warrior, flesh long rotted away, wearing bronze armor which has long since faded to green, their skeletal hands clasped around blades etched with runes which still gleam brightly. Tendrils of energy reach down to each body. There is a flash of energy, surging through each corpse, and you close your eyes lest you be blinded, Ice appearing in your hands as though by magic. Your wolf steps forth, snarling. Your shadowcat hisses. Lord Dustin readies his ax, howling the words of his house: "For us all!" Frost draws a pair of bronze knives, spinning them deftly as he draws back to your side. But your guards seem to be caught in some dream, eyes wide with terror as they stare at the slowly rising dead, their hands trembling, their feet taking slow steps back from the four horrors. The jaws of the skeletons are rising and falling, a horrid sound, part mad cackling and part death rattle, issuing forth, shaking you right to your bones. Unbidden, words spring forth.

(Sudden Speech: 1d100+19 (Diplomacy) + 15 (The King in the North!) – 10 (Supernatural Terror) = 116. 1d100+16 = 110. 1d100+10 = 85.)

"Men of the North! Sons of Winter! Hear me now!" You roar, filling your voice with the instinctive snap of command. All the armsmen heed it, responding to instincts deeper than any fear. "Fear not these crumbling bones! Come forth and slay them!" You howl, your wolf joining, your shadowcat letting out a defiant screech. Three bodies leap forth as one. Your guardsmen react without thinking, all fear banished. All they have is the bite of shame and the need to expunge it and their duty. "Protect the king! Protect Lord Dustin!" Twenty voices call out as one, seeming almost as bestial as your warcry.

(Striking Skeletons: 1d100+ 27 (Personal Combat) = 44)

(The Guard's Attack: 1d100+ 15 (Stirring Speech) + 15 (The Stark in Winterfell) + 15 (Equipment) = 46)

(Lord Dustin: 1d100+ 18 (Personal Combat) + 15 (Stirring Speech) + 10 (Son of the Barrows) = 59)

Despite your fury, you are unable to strike at the skeletons, the very air seeming to thicken and shield them, pebbles always landing under your feet and spoiling your footing. Your bond-mates are similarly impeded, but through sheer ferocity manage to push through, pinning one skeleton to the ground and disarming it. The other three are charged by the armsmen, who are similarly hampered even as they form a shieldwall, which is soon battered as the three standing skeletons launch a flurry of impossibly fast blows, their bright bronze scoring the shields as your men struggle to advance. Lord Dustin, shockingly agile for a man of his size, darts around the formation to launch a blow of his own, seemingly unbothered by whatever force worked against you. His gleaming steel ax struck down onto the shoulder of one of the skeletons, sundering bronze and bone with equal ease. Then the skeletons begin to strike back as the runes on your crown flared with an inner light.

(The Crown of Winter: 1d100+ 21 (Piety) = 87.)

(Skeletal Attack: 1d100 + 15 (Rune-Forged Blades) + 20 (Deathless Duty) – 10 (Son of the Barrows) – 15 (The Crown of Winter) = 18)

They glow brighter than the torches, brighter than the sun, a corona of gray and white light spreading outwards. Where it meets the rune-etched blades of the skeletal warriors, they stop like they have struck into solid stone, unable to withstand the power of the crown which marks you as the rightful king of the First Men. They pull their weapons back and strike again and again, but the light expands outwards, and where it touches them their bones begin to collapse. You fall into formation with your men and press forwards, even Frost joining in.

(Striking Skeletons: 1d100+ 27 = 121. 1d100+21 = 111. 1d10+ 11 = 46.)

The power that resisted you before is gone. As your direwolf cracks the skull of the disarmed skeleton and the shadowcat tackles the one Lord Dustin struck, you step forwards, Ice pivoting in your hands, sweeping across, the light of the crown preventing your foes from bringing forth their blades to parry. They must trust their armor. Even good castle-forged steel would fail against Valyrian steel. They are not wearing steel. You don't so much cut them as shatter them, returning Ice to your sheathe as they collapse into piles of broken bronze and sundered bone. You take another step forwards and the last skull is ground to powder under your heels. You take a deep breath as the light of your crown fades, although you can see some hint of its radiance lingering, working its way into the very walls of the tomb.

You continue forth, the atmosphere of the tomb growing increasingly oppressive. The hall you walk down now is too wide for the light of the torches to truly reveal, and unknown things skitter in the darkness. Immense pillars, some cracked, others crumbling, rise up, carved with even more runes. Even the guards can sense the sheer power running through them as you trek down into the dark. As you walk, you start seeing broken pillars, first rarely, then more and more frequently.

You come to another room, this one lit by sickly yellow lights which drift in the air. Dust rains down from the ceiling. An immense door of bronze inlaid with gold and silver runes stands across from you. The presence behind it looms in your senses, almost awake but still dreaming kindly dreams, wanting to fix that which has been broken. You just know that if it awakens you can make it understand, that it is like you…But in between you and it are at least a hundred skeleton warriors like those you fought before, led by a large horned skeleton wielding a pair of bronze axes easily as big as Lord Dustin's. "Halt, interlopers, defilers of my father's tomb! I, Brandon the Foe-Hammer, swore that none would disturb his rest nor surpass his glory! My curse took the mind of the Hungry Wolf and the strength of Edrick the Cunning, and it shall take you too, no matter what power you bring against me. You have sundered my wards and trespassed where none of the living may walk! Turn back, or die!"

Steadying yourself, you…

[] Leave. You are not getting paid enough for this.

[] Call to the Crown once more.

[] Challenge this Brandon to single combat.

[] Try and call out to the presence to awaken it.

[] Write-in