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

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DragonParadox said:
"Thy words are wise, yet they fill me with a chill deeper than the shadows of this place," Zathir hisses softly. "What use would you place those who forged this bargain to?"

"Sacrifice them," Melisandre meets the winged serpent's gaze without flinching. "Else they would have to pay some heavy forfeit. Death on the other hand wipes many a slate clean."
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...Damm. Just immediately moving to sacrifice them. Can't say I don't like how blunt she is. I am impressed.
 
Very impressive chapter.

Though jumping to sacrificing the lords who made the deal is really a bit rash. Well, we would have done it if the power they pacted with had tentacles or horns, but Fey still have slightly better PR than that.
 
Huh I wonder if we could have a counter ritual that results in a Florent/other Gardner substitute (I highly doubt this thread is going to pick the Tyrells) "offering" the Crown to Viserys and having Viserys eat/subsume it into the Imperuim as a whole. In General I think any such ritual would have to wait until we invade Westeros in general since magically establishing a Lord of the Reach is kinda uh... Yeah. Provacative.
 
DragonParadox said:
Guys maybe it's best deal with the fey in front of us not the Seven that aren't. The quest is complex enough that it's probably preferable to take things as they are relevant, not dredge up the past.
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This is really partly your own doing for creating so many disparate factions with nuanced motivations and then trying to involve players at multiple levels in how those relationships intermingle or shake out.

That's not a bad thing to receive blame for, in a way, but you are certainly responsible for it. :V
 
Ideally I'd like to scoop up the local fey courts not associated with the Court of Stars in addition to all this. They're saturating the land with their power, we need to start cornering them.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
Wait we can make a detection system capable of just straight up predicting when/where devils are?
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No but you can make one that has a good chance of finding them in real time

One Autumn Leaf said:
Explain. How? Who? What? This is possible?
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The Old Gods, instead of the peasants hearing 'this is a squid' the old Gods get a more sensitive sensor array for otherworldly

Azel said:
@DragonParadox, could we reverse the effects to bind the Fey to the land and us instead of the other way around?
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For some fey like Dryads maybe, but for the majority of fey no, they are too much beigns of two worlds.
 
[X] Plan Digging Deeper
-[X] Put the following on the agenda for next month:
--[X] Send teams that will investigate the effects of the pacts that already exist, find out where the rituals where enacted and how they are tied together.
--[X] Send teams to contact those lords who rejected deals to ally.
--[X] Send teams to negotiate with any lord who is being offered a pact right now or will soon be offered one to stop further pacts.
--[X] Also recruit any unaligned Fey in the Reach you might find.
-[X] You will refine the idea of a counter-ritual once you are more informed about the exact nature of effects you are fighting.
-[X] Move on to the topic of eliminating CoS envoys.
 
DragonParadox said:
No but you can make one that has a good chance of finding them in real time



The Old Gods, instead of the peasants hearing 'this is a squid' the old Gods get a more sensitive sensor array for otherworldly



For some fey like Dryads maybe, but for the majority of fey no, they are too much beigns of two worlds.
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Okay, third question. Is this something unique to the Old Gods or could the future Imperial deity be capable of doing this? Fourth question. Can the Old Gods do this in every region of our Empire or is the Reach unique for this protection?

[X] Azel
 
DragonParadox said:
"We are goin' to need to know how this magic of theirs really works out there before we can plan much more," Vee points out practically. "Get folk down there to see with their own eyes, hell ask the one's that aught to be doin' the persuading on the lords that haven't decided yet what they are meant to be doin'."

"And you think they will simply tell us?" Rhaella asks incredulously.

"Bribe 'em," the girl replies. "It's worked a treat so far on all sorts of folk."
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Vee is always so refreshingly straight forward. It's nice to have such people in positions of power, makes plans much more effective.

Also considering we literally just did that she's not wrong. All it took was a plot of dirt, some clothes, and a horse.


[X] Azel
 
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DragonParadox said:
A Fair Unbinding ​

Twenty Fifth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC

Your envoys in Yin had been rather surprised when you had asked to borrow the Rhaella, as had the locals, you imagine, when the great ship vanished from the harbor, but you have need of the insight of its guardian spirit. So it is that a full sixteen of you descend into the depths of the Shadow Tower, amid the hollow trophies of battles fought and won. What better place for a council of war?

Among your companions, you had called upon Vee and Lya, the first for her knowledge of nature, the second for her deep lore of magic. And because a queen should be there if the king declares war? A small insistent voice in the back of your mind chines in. You shake off the thought. Not all present would lightly argue for war. Zathir looks incongruous in these shadowed halls, and not only because he had shrunk himself down to better fit the chamber.

The High Priest of Yss, by contrast, observes proceedings with a cold dispassionate gaze, a glint of gold within them reflecting the serpent God's own intent stare. Melisandre, too, arrives a moment later and though the eye of R'hllor does not seem any more affixed upon her than in any other moment, the spark of crimson flame suspended above her heart marks that even that is more than enough. Never before have you asked gods to send representatives to such a gathering, but even so they had arrived, perhaps the powers' own pondering of the future giving a sign of such a portentious event.

Only Bloodraven had chosen not to attend directly, but speak instead into your mind so as not to reveal himself to all the others present. Despite the distance between you, you can feel his will as close as the shadow of wings over the sun.

Among the deathless fey who have little use for gods, there is Rhaella Nemyos, 'Seaborn' in the tongue of Valyria as she had chosen to be called, but also her father, the Once-King of the Orphne court who embraces her tightly in greeting before somewhat gingerly seating himself next to Melisandre, his curiosity about a Shadowbinder visibly at odds with the dislike of divine meddling. Glyra, of course, suffers from no such subtlety, and complains about the 'smell of moldy gods' and that there is no window to open before settling down as much as she ever does. Thankfully, Moonsong's newly elevated position makes her react with slightly more decorum. She only takes the chance to flirt with the Red Viper by reminding him 'of all the places she hasn't journeyed to and enjoyed properly'.

Were Zherys one to perform so inelegant a gesture, you suspect he would roll his eyes. Soft Strider, by contrast, merely looks bemused, the manner of human courting and seduction still opaque to her for all the companionship of the once-mortals who have joined her kin.

As to the other city rulers present, they are taking the presence of gods and spirits with surprising alacrity. Ferrengo Antaryon is doing his best to take in all his fellow guests and their relationship with each other without seeming to gawk. Doing a very good job of it, too. Without mage sight, you could have well missed the spell of silent speech that connects him to Alysande Redsail of the Silver Eye. Although Hermetia has no such direct support, she finds her seat next to Shara quickly and turns to you expectantly, as though you are about to announce some minor change to the tax code. Then again, a change to tax law is likely to have more of an impact on her responsibilities than any conflict with the Court of Stars.

You lay out what you have discovered at Ashford and what subsequent divinations had revealed, as well as the ultimate intention of the Queen of Stars and her court for those who do not yet know. Three paths stand open before you, mitigating the Court's influence, or better yet reversing the effects of deals already struck, preventing further deals and removing the assets by which they were struck, and lastly removing and the dissolving the entire court, preferably while absorbing as many of its members as you can, though removing them if necessary.

"I think..." the Orphne Lord begins, an unexpected first speaker. "What we need to first learn is why they are forging such pacts. These lands that you have described as under the influence of the Star-Crowned share no commonality of purpose or spirit, they are not even close to each other as the raven flies," he motions to the map. "We are seeing an edifice built upon sand, which means either our the Court of Light has grown foolish without warning or there is a keystone we cannot see."

"Flawed or not, we cannot ignore the current entanglements of the Lords of the Reach," Zherys interjects. "The most straightforward way to reverse a ritual is with its initial casters, which if I understand correctly includes the lords themselves, 'wedded to the land'."

"It is an old magic and one particularly suited to the Sunset Lands, where the roots of its lords go so very deep," Melisandre agrees. "Make use of the Lord or Lady and the place of Power in which the ritual was wrought, and it shall be undone without harm to land or people."

"Thy words are wise, yet they fill me with a chill deeper than the shadows of this place," Zathir hisses softly. "What use would you place those who forged this bargain to?"

"Sacrifice them," Melisandre meets the winged serpent's gaze without flinching. "Else they would have to pay some heavy forfeit. Death on the other hand wipes many a slate clean."

"That," the Sealord says, his voice soft but firm, "is politically unfeasible, or at least not feasibile in any case. The lord who made this bargain to protect his people when no other aid seemed forthcoming could not be made to die a justifiable death before his peers unless we are to argue that the Court of Stars is as great a peril as the Hells or the Blackest Abyss."

Lya clears her throat. "We have the Tyrells and the Florents for that matter, if their claim to the old Gardener blood is indeed better. Make use of their authority to enact our own ritual, proclaiming the bonds already in place illegitimate, null and void. That would not be a breech of contract, would it?"

Moonsong starts giggling. "The look on the Queen's face. Oi, you bargained with the petty lordlings so we stole your high lords when you weren't lookin'."

"That... should be posibile," Melisandre draws out the words, looking first to Zherys, then Vee, and receiving nods from both. You are inclined to agree and that neatly solves the issue of preventing further such pacts from being enacted, though that raises another concern...

"A ritual that proclaims, 'no this place should not be protected' might have unforeseen and likely unfortunate consequences," you point out. "A shattered gate is an invitation to foes who would walk through it."

"So we replace one protector with another," the voice of Bloodraven echoes in your mind, whisper-soft. "The Old Gods care nothing for how men choose to live their lives, only for the land, and knowing when one touched by Hell or the Deep Ones set foot within the villages and towns of the Reach would certainly be useful."

"We are goin' to need to know how this magic of theirs really works out there before we can plan much more," Vee points out practically. "Get folk down there to see with their own eyes, hell ask the one's that aught to be doin' the persuading on the lords that haven't decided yet what they are meant to be doin'."

"And you think they will simply tell us?" Rhaella asks incredulously.

"Bribe 'em," the girl replies. "It's worked a treat so far on all sorts of folk."

How do you judge the notion of a counter-ritual?

[] Worth pursuing
-[] Write in plan and timeline

[] You have more questions
-[] Write in

[] Impractical, look for other suggestions
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Wow, I don't think I've ever had to handle this many distinct characters in a scene before. Hopefully it struck a good balance and did everyone justice. Not yet edited.
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Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.

Great chapter, too. I enjoyed the differing perspectives. It's cool that we've been able to gather such disparate people together under our banner.
 
Evaunit02mark1 said:
Also considering we literally just did that she's not wrong. All it took was a plot of dirt, some clothes, and a horse.
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>vomits up stream of rare things no one else in the Plane can provide, who isn't some kind of inimical eldritch horror anyway

Thread!Viserys: "It's just some trinkets, I don't see what the big deal is."

Real Viserys: "I don't understand how this always works. I do it often enough, why don't I understand???"

Lya: "...Hold still, I need to poke your soul."

Viserys: "WAIT NO--"

Thread-Zeitgeist-Hivemind: "LOOTKILLSCHEMELOOTKILLSCHCEMEPLOTMURDERCONQUESTINNOVATERESEARCHPRESSINGBOUNDARIESVIOLATESOVEREIGNTY"

Lya: "Well the good news, you've got something like the Old Gods attached to your soul..."

Viserys: "That's the GOOD news?!"
 
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