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

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So, how likely it is to calm the other two? Considering how we can go back and come again later when they have time to cool off.
 
Azel said:
... I'm definitely unable to say anything more on this without dropping fucktons of spoilers with every breath, so I'll just quietly grind my teeth and seethe at you ...
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This makes me strongly suspect Asmodeus did more to hinder the Sundering than to help it....

tarrangar said:
Hell at least for a time marched with the Void as opposed to against the Void, if I'm wrong about that then I apologize, but if Hell marched with the Void even temporarily, then they carry some of the blame.
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Just gonna point out that if @Azel clearly WoGs that Asmodeus caused heaven's rupture neither intentionally nor unintentionally, it seems likely that one of your core assumptions (which you're making with limited information like the rest of us, of course) is wrong. For example, the quoted passage presupposes that Hell marching with the Void helped the Sundering more than it hindered it. But what if it was part of a double-cross that ultimately hindered the Void more than doing nothing would have done? I'm sure there's a lot of even more plausible alternatives. My point is that trying to pin down Hell's responsibility in the outcome that is the Sundering with certainty is, given the limited information at our disposal, a futile effort. And when someone who actually has the background worldbuilding knowledge that the rest of us lack points out that one conclusion is definitely wrong, I can understand why they'd get a little cranky when we insist "no, I can clearly see the picture better from behind this dirty pane of semi-transparent glass than you who painted it and is standing in front of it".
 
I think it would have been ludicrously hard to set up equitable, Lawful Good governments in Essos while simultaneously being the messianic figure for a Lawful Evil deity. The Deity would have been pushing us toward his ultimate goal of absorption of religions. Now, if we remained a Dragon Sorcerer, it is possible that we could have just paid lip service and never actually mantled the role and thus gained the benefits (and the drawbacks, like having our spellcasting converted to purely divine which could be withheld from us by R'hllor if we didn't toe the party line). But this still would have been extremely hard. Many would have used this as an excuse/valid point that because we did not wield R'hllor's spells, we were not Azor Ahai. That's not perfectly accurate anyway since the messiah could just as easily be a non-spellcaster. But it would have worked on more than a few priests.

Another thing is that it is difficult to do all of this without a support network. Wielding the Red Faith as this without compromising with the leadership (which is still somewhat political, at least in comparison to Benerro who also presumably knows enough not to make demands of the other denominations without expecting consequences).

I think it would largely have come down to convincing not only Benerro but people like Melisandre, the big figures, that reshaping the religion was actually a good idea... a process that would take years on its own in the latter case, all without many tangible results of our thinking to show for it, just a lot of chaos and blood as we try to uphold our ideals. It might have even drove Mel to kill us rather than help us because we are seriously putting her Gods' plans in jeopardy without any guarantee of results.

That's the difference I think, we managed to convince her with not only the results of our actions which didn't exactly diminish nor damage her Gods' master plan, but we didn't force her to abandon her Faith, merely accept others as equally valid under the shared context that there were immutable known factors and transient unknown factors at work and hasty judgement would do more harm than good to her cause.

Every time Viserys achieves a victory in convincing someone to cooperate with him or help him, it's borne off the back of ideals, they're just... Lawful Neutral ones. They're balanced enough that Good people can try to push their agenda and expect some of it to go through, and Evil people are satisfied with the framework of Order that they can fall within its ranks even if it wastes its time on frivolities or even wastes resources on things it perceives to be pointless, because the alternatives at the time were worse or insane/idiotic.

Justice, Peace, Prosperity, Security and Innovation. These are all lofty, high minded ideals for a monster of logic and utility, no?

Yet without them we're just a petty tyrant, all too easy for people to band together and cast down. Who would follow them otherwise?

Yet at its core I think it is equally valid to point out that this all comes from a basis of hunger for power, an unquenchable thirst for control, because of being convinced that everyone else is either woefully incompetent, or were merely following the wrong people. Thus far this has rarely if ever been convincingly challenged, because everyone currently in power are blithering idiots or insane psychopaths, or at the least so morally bankrupt combined with overmuch power that it just compounds and becomes poisonous.

Thus we can say we respect Benerro and Zherys equally in the same breath because most important of all, we know they are competent.
 
I've never said that wrangling with Rh'llor and his faith would have been easy.

Just that it would have been an option. After all, even gods can be convinced of things.
 
Crake said:
@Goldfish, Xor will be Level 16 when he caps out in Beholder of Wonders. He will not have room for a five level PrC.

Not to say he couldn't just gain 4 in this and fall short of the capstone, it's as good an option as any.
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Yeah, it just won't be attainable by Xor unless he skips the final level of Beholder of Wonders. I still made it a neat and powerful capstone for the PRC, though, because that's how my OCD steers me.

Thoughts on the class?
 
I think that we have achieved a nice position to divide them. We could simply let the offer to parlay hang, and come back later.

It is not like these barely thinking ghosts will be able to orchestrate anything mayor than what they already done. Once their rage goes down, this colony might gain some powerful water guardians.
 
man it's odd to think about how different the quest, playstyle and the world would have been if we had picked a different character
 
DragonParadox said:
Of Tears and Blood ​

Fourteenth Day of the First Month 294 AC

Ghoyan Drohe, New City

Water was the stuff of life, it is the blood that beats in every heart, it is the mist on every breath. In the water of the womb are men born and even from their graves a trickle flows to feed the worms, insects and other humble things. Man may be mortal, but the water that flows through the body and nourishes the soul is old enough to have quenched the thirst of elder beasts when the world was young and it would flow and shape the world so long as it endured. That was a lesson the Three in Green learned a century too late to aid their kin in the breaking of their realm, a moment too soon to find peace.

Once they had been sorcerers of fair Ghoyan Drohe of the singing strams, workers of ephemeral wonders and speakers of the river once called affectionately Little Sister by those who dwelt along its banks. Now they were memory of water flowing, eternity folded in three luminous forms and they remembered.

The shadow of dragon's wings.

The screams of children seeing their whole world tumble around them in fire and ruin.

The wails of those lead away in chains.

Tears into the river flowing.

The three woke but could not be roused, they watched the breaking of their home, they raged, but the veil held against them thick and heavy like s shroud. They listened as silence fell and only the rain wept over the city of their birth, as willow roots worked their way under once-colorful paving stones and worms are away at flesh and old bones. Rage wore away into acceptance as rivers flowed towards the sea. Almost they loosed their grip, almost they found peace.

Defilers came, with stolen flame and incantations of the enemy into the very tombs that had lain untouched since the fall. Always taking always stealing.

Blood to water passed.

New voices strange and loud echoed over the river, they spoke the tongue of the accursed Freehold, but poorly, colonials, petty settlers sewpt before the wings of the dragonlords. Not so different from those with whom the Three-Many had once traded in peace. Stone they tore at but not flesh... until... until... the Dragon.

It didn't die, she didn't die. All was dust in the dragon's wake. Sorrow begets weakness begets sorrow, once the Three had known this, once they had lived by it. Now water flowed where it will.

A thought echoed through the ether, a subtle susurration that living men would have found fair, a greeting and a pledge to honor parley. It tasted sweet and bitter all at once, like nothing that had ever been spoken in the silence of the mind over fair Ghoyan Drohe. It did not taste of fire or of pride.

Eyes... eyes.. flesh that should not be. What horror had the fools unleashed? The thought was sharp immediate, terror almost touching the immediacy of life.

They sought to steal the air from its lungs to drown it where it flew like some obscene growth upon the heavens, driving killing mist though every orifice.

"Bide a while dancing," it said threads of light flowing from this eyes, each to bind one of the spirits to its will and there was music familiar and strange and dance they had to do.

Twelve heartbeats only the magic held... twelve heartbeats was enough, to know the purpose in its words, to read compassion in eyes that looked upon them. To hear the freehold was dead and gone.

Three did not think as one for as the music's hold died one withdrew and two lashed out: "Liar! Monster! Defiler!" Blows like hail fell upon otherworldly flesh harder than stone, but in time water would wear away stone.

Enemy:
2x Prana Ghost Hydrokineticists

Neutral (may decide to rejoin its fellows depending on tactics used):
1x Prana Ghost Hydrokineticist

Party:
Xor (Currently attacked over the river)
Valaena (Flying overhead invisible on Dawnfyre)
Mercy (Flying overhead invisible)
Argo (Standing on the bank of the river 30 ft away)
Shara (Standing on the bank of the river 30 ft away has a readied action to cast or use her launcher)

How do the party face this threat?

[] Write in

OOC: As a small hint if you decide to have Dawnfyre breathe on the two hostile ghosts it is unlikely the one Xor managed to convince not to attack will remain non-hostile. Not yet edited.
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This was a very nice POV chapter, DP. Neat enemies, too. More of @Artemis1992's NPCs, I'm assuming?

With his standard buffs, Xor should have 163+1d8 HP, so at a minimum he should still have 122 once his ablative Temp HP were knocked down. With his Gravewatch Pendants effect, plus Mage Armor, Shield, and Scintillating Scales spells, his AC vs the Ghosts attacks should be 35. Thats not enough to stop every hit, but most of them won't get through.
 
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Crake said:
Xor has Temporary HP from Heart of Earth and False Life.
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Right, thanks for reminding me

*rolls 1d8 for the false life casting*

Make that a total of 165

Goldfish said:
With his standard buffs, Xor should have 163+1d8 HP, so at a minimum he should still have 122 once his ablative Temp HP were knocked down. With his Gravewatch Pendants effect, plus Mage Armor, Shield, and Scintillating Scales spells, his AC vs the Ghosts attacks should be 35. Thats not enough to stop every hit, but most of them won't get through.
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Gravewatch does not do anything against these ghosts, they are not made of negative energy.
 
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Goldfish said:
This was a very nice POV chapter, DP. Neat enemies, too. More of @Artemis1992's NPCs, I'm assuming?assuming

With his standard buffs, Xor should have 163+1d8 HP, so at a minimum he should still have 122 once his ablative Temp HP were knocked down. With his Gravewatch Pendants effect, plus Mage Armor, Shield, and Scintillating Scales spells, his AC vs the Ghosts attacks should be 35. Thats not enough to stop every hit, but most of them won't get through.
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Lucky find.

Nothing better than finding a complete sheet on the internet, that works perfectly for what you wanted.
Saves time and effort.
 
[X] Plan Xoromancy
-[X] Xor casts Inner Beauty on himself, hopefully revealing to the Ghosts his truly benevolent nature, then pleads with them to cease their attacks. He has no desire to fight them if not absolutely necessary. They have already shown by their restrained and nonlethal actions against the settlers that they are not typical, revenge-driven Ghosts. This assumes Xor has already cast his Voice of the Dragon and Air of Nobility spells prior to attempting to make contact.
-[X] If the Ghosts continue to attack Xor after he tries to talk them down:
--[X] Mercy targets one of the attackers with her Manyjaws spell and Valaena targets the same one with a Magic Missiles spell.
--[X] Xor uses Celerity to Teleport down to the shore with Shara and Argo. As soon as he is able after recovering from using Celerity, he targets one of the attackers with his Unicorn Arrow spell, directing all four Force arrows at the same Ghost Valaena targeted.

[X] Shara Rogare Level Up
-[X] Class: +1 Shadow Thief of Amn
-[X] Skills (8 points): +4 Hide, +4 Move Silently
 
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