Remove ads

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

Reader mode
Hello new sacrifices.

Also this is annoying. Lolth is shaping up to be a real problem. Do we need to pull a Tiamat on her?
 
[X] Burn it all in primordial flame, the faster they die the better

The danger of the flesh forge being compromised outweighs potential sacrifices in my eyes.
 
So, did Urak after his corruption manage to create these Leng Spiders from the forge, or did he somehow smuggle in eggs?

Also, one has to wonder how they know of the Spider Queen? Did she maybe get first dibs on thelepathically talking to them, like how Tiamat can talk to newborn Dragons in our forge?
If so we'll have to be carefull creating anything spider-based in the future, even without Far Realm influence.
 
egoo said:
Aight, imma sleep through the rest of the day naow.

Notes for y'all while I'm not:
-[] Please keep in mind that the safety of the rest of the forge comes first, burn and break anything affected.
Letting Far Realm claim anything, in any manner, is a fuckfest in the making.

Even if we harm the output in the forge for the next month(s) as the result, this situation is too prone to spontaneously birthing an Elder God on PoB if we arent careful.
...I'm okay doing things like that on purpose, but not b/c of the rng.

------------‐‐-‐------‐------------‐--
-[] If Urak's too deeply affected we have to sacrifice/mercy-kill him.
Simple as that, really.

Losing knowledge and researcher is bad and sad and all, but letting someone potentially compromised work on such sensitive things as... Imperial Deity, or Heart Tree immunities, or the next Praetorians?
Madness madder than the Far Realm.

If he is salvageable, 1-2 months he's gonna spend not doing jack shit as we do our best to check for any triggers.
Maybe even handing him over to Gith wholesale and paying them a lot to deal with this for us.
------------‐‐-‐------‐------------‐--
-[] Saenena's not getting any tasks next month either.
We'll be low on researchers, but what can do, we fucked up in our planning, we deserve this.
------------‐‐-‐------‐------------‐--
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
On that note, maybe we should review some general protections for our researchers? I assume they don't have mindblanks since they spend all day in warded facilities, and we don't have an endless supply of those to hand out. With that in mind we could get them some stuff to mitigate the risks to their work a little more. Obviously we won't use all of these, but I'd like to provide a list of options.

Soul Vault items, which I believe we have an order out for.
Bloodstone Mirror items and some sort of dump creature to use as a repository of nasty effects. Possibly paired with a Spell Capturing Gem so they can immediately hit back with whatever was being used in them.

Mind Sentinel Medallions to provide that last minute re-roll.

Clasp of the Mind Scream because it sounds unpleasant for Psionic creatures and gives them another way to stab people in the brain.

Scarab of Protection For anyone with a spell resistance less than 20

Shadow Piercings to the chest and head for bonuses against various negative energy and mind effects.

Possibly a few Hands of Hoarded Death to charge on forged cattle or something so they can boost CL and gain temp HP as needed.

Visualization of the Mind 1/day items set to wisdom.

For the forge itself I'd like to suggest adding some creatures with some perception buffs wielding Master's Perfect Golden Bells to guard researchers and sensitive projects. If anything goes wrong they ring the bell as an alarm and debuff for things like this situation.

Finally, some strategically placedThreshold Guardians would be really useful. If we set up air lock style security checkpoints on main corridors and specific wards around rooms working on a particular topic they'd at least slow stuff down, and keep a good number of creatures completely bottled up.
 
DragonParadox said:
Webs in Darkness Spun ​

Twenty Seventh Day of the First Month 294 AC

Capillaries of the Flesh Forge, Gogossos

Being shrunk down the to size of a small child was oddly disconcerting to Lya in a way she could not quite put her finger on. She was still undoubtedly herself, but the way her body moved shifted, lower and closer to the ground. Pound for pound you are stronger now and its not just the magic, noted the part of her mind that was always weighing and studying the world. Not that she planned to get close enough to anything they might meet down there to actually punch it, but in the twisting corridors who knew what awaited them. The divinations said it would be 'weal', she reminder herself.

The sorceress shivered slightly as she followed Dany's luminous silvery presence up ahead, and not with cold, for the deep earth was sweltering as the jungle above, but neither was it with fear at stepping into the capillaries. No, it was the thoughts of what had happened to Urak that sent a chill down her spine. To no longer have control of one's own mind or minds, as the case may be, seemed to her a hell more profound than anything that could be conceived by infernal minds. And the fruit of that twisted labor was in here with them.

Alright, so maybe I am a little afraid to descend into this particular pit, she admitted, mentally sticking out her tongue at the part of herself that had pointed out the fact. The fact that it was a part currently enjoying the the comforts of Sorcerer's Deep just made the whole thing more aggravating. There was so much more room to second guess yourself when you had two heads to do so.

"Viserys, I think I found something," Dany's voice called out from up ahead, the sound of dragon's wings redoubled and Viserys, shrunk once more to match Varys, though by much stronger magic than in the old days, flew over to have a look. "What is it?" Lya called out.

"Webs..." The word turned out to be an understatement, past the latest turn the tunnel was a mass of sticky web-work that almost seemed to drip off the wall but never seemed to get any thinner.

The sight jarred a memory in the back of Lya's head, from a conversation she had with Xor during her brief doomed attempt to classify all the forms of Far Realm intelligence he knew of. "Leng spiders... little ones to fit in here, but watch out, they are intelligent and can weave madness and enchantment as easily as silk."

"We should be doubly warded against it than," Dany said.

"Watch your step anyway," Vee warned, taking on the voice of caution in Ser Richard's absence.

For a while longer the five of them advanced in silence as Viserys burned the webbing aside with arcane flame. Whatever was waiting for them at the end of this must know they were coming, but they had silently decided not to try to sneak. It would cost spells they might not be able afford to spend and more to the point, this was not some ruin they were exploring anymore, it was their forge and the interlopers had best beware.

"What the hells is that?" Viserys stopped abruptly. "There is sound coming through the stone, chanting by the rhythm of it. Lya, what's up ahead?"

She called to mind the map of the complex she had seen two months ago after its original refurbishing. "Nothing really, just another capillary node, there shouldn't be anything down here unless they are hoping to hole up."

"Well that has the sound of a ritual..." He paused a moment thinking, then added. "Wait here, I'll scout ahead."

Familiar words indeed, Lya snorted inwardly in spite of the weight in the air. Ser Richard would have words with all of them.

Time crawled by as they waited, every wet sound of the dying filaments, every hiss of the burned web strands amplified in the silence that followed, then Viserys' mind echoed in all their minds. "I found those Leng Spiders, but they aren't trying to summon aid from the Far Realm... They are trying to Invoke The Demon Queen of the Depths, the lady of the dark folk."

Lya's blood ran cold. Of course the Deep Ones would not try any sort of subtle corruption with their pawn discovered. They were mighty, but not yet so mighty as to challange the Old Gods in a place of their power on the strength of a few scribblings on a wall, but this... Let's you and him fight, the saying went in Braavos. The last thing they needed was an incursion of whatever the dark folk of Morwyn and Tuin's kin had become in the deep dark.

You discovered a cabal of seven newly-hatched Leng Spiders praying to Lolth for deliverance. What do you do?

[] Burn it all in primordial flame, the faster they die the better

[] Try to get them to botch the ritual, perhaps anger will make the capricious goddess turn her eye away

[] Try to capture all of them, you might as well get some information out of this

[] Write in

OOC: I wanted to try something a little different PoV wise since we so rearely see these expeditions from the perspective of anyone but Viserys when he is present. Not yet edited.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.
 
I think that the safest option is to botch the ritual. It ensures that Lolth us angry at the spooders, but not at us.

And we can take the surviving ones for interrogation
 
Goldfish said:
I get that ya'll want some conflict, but this is how we lose the Flesh Forge through complete destruction. Not cool.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's a risk I'm happy about. If we have a critical breach in our defenses in a place this important, it absolutely makes sense we'd be at risk of losing it. Our enemies have zero reason to play nice and every reason to screw us over.
Tomcost said:
I think that the safest option is to botch the ritual. It ensures that Lolth us angry at the spooders, but not at us.

And we can take the surviving ones for interrogation
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think Lolth will be angry at us anyway, because she is Lolth.
 
Last edited:
Tomcost said:
The idea is to get her angrier towards her failed followers, so that she focuses her anger in them and not us.

I mean, we can't open another warfront right now. We need to finish other ones first. Like the Brass Ballsack
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I understand the aversion here, I also wish the Underdark would just stay locked up and quiet for a decade, but the pattern here is pretty clear. Lolth is steadily breaching through to the surface, and we're going to have to fight her and the drow sooner rather than later. Granted, hopefully we are done with the Efreeti and the Deep Ones before that war starts in earnest.
 
We also have two free cities about to implode in whatever thing Yogg-Sothoth or Shub Niggurat has planned there (I honestly don't remember which one was the Goat supposed to be a reference to)

Oh, and Slaver's Bay too.

Please don't open another front right now
 
So Massacre? That's three dead on an average roll, and if we do really well we could get a few more. Follow with a Cosmic Ray and take the last few if they live. We can get our loot from feeding them to the forge instead of playing around in the middle of a critical industrial complex.
 
[X] Try to get them to botch the ritual, perhaps anger will make the capricious goddess turn her eye away
-[X] Capture the surviving ones.
 
[X] Burn it all in primordial flame, the faster they die the better

We really, really don't have the resources for another front.
 
[X] Line up a Massacre from Viserys
-[X] Dany simultaneously uses Cosmic Ray to sicken as many spiders as possible.
-[X] Lya uses casts Black Tentacles to catch as many of the spiders as she can, prioritizing the ones that resisted Dany's sickening effect.
Acolyte said:
We got the expertiese and a spare. We can rebuild it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
the expertise is currently infected with nurglite hyper syphilis/far realm cooties, so that'll be a problem. Additionally, we don't have the resources to rebuild this, fight all our wars, and deal with the new faction that will use all of our work to launch itself into our area of operations. Lets nuke the hell out of these things then make something shiny out of their radioactive corpses instead of playing around and risking the death of the empire before it even really gets going.
 
Leng Spiders have shitty Will saves, so this plan is heavily targeting that with various spells. One or more can avoid Dany's Sacramental Seal, but Lya's followup Feeblemind and Radiant Assault spells plus Viserys's Freezing Glance and Imperious Glare spells should outright incapacitate all of them. And then, if that somehow isn't sufficient, Viserys will hit the remainder with a Massacre spell as @BronzeTongue suggested.

I'm not using Greater Black Tentacles here, despite it being one of my favorite spells, because the effect is so massive that it could cause unintended damage far exceeding its usefulness in this situation.

[X] Exterminatus, Continued
-[X] Try to capture some of the Leng Spiders, but take no chances that they might escape or hurriedly complete their ritual.
--[X] Dany, Lya, and Vee all activate their Beads of Karma again, assuming the first use has expired.
---[X] Dany begins the attack by canceling her Sign buff to set her Initiative result to 28, casts Assay Spell Resistance, then targets the Leng Spiders with a Reached Chained Sacramental Seal using Inspired Spell (DC 27 Will save for primary target, DC 23 for secondary targets). She cancels her Battlemagic Perception spell to Counterspell anything that slips by Vee, Lya, and Viserys as a Free Action.
---[X] Vee casts Particulate Form on the group before combat, then casts Summon Monster VIII to Summon a Monadic deva to send against the Leng Spiders. She readies an action to Counterspell anything one of the Leng Spiders attempts to cast and uses her ring to Counterspell the first spell they use as an Immediate Action.
---[X] Lya casts Arcane Spellsurge and Aura of Vitality before combat. Once the attack begins, she cancels her Heightened Awareness buff to set her Initiative bonus to +12 targets one of the Leng Spiders with Greater Shadow Enchantment to duplicate a Feeblemind spell (DC 31 Will save) as a Swift Action then uses Inspired Spell to duplicate a Radiant Assault spell (15d6 damage & Dazed for 1d6 rounds, DC 27 Will save for half damage and no Daze). Her priority target for Feeblemind is a Leng Spider that escapes Dany's Sacramental Seal spell, and she only uses Radiant Assault if there are any remaining free afterward. She cancels her Battlemagic Perception spell to Counterspell anything that slips by Vee as a Free Action.
--[X] Viserys casts Freezing Glance before combat. Once the attack begins, he uses Freezing Glance (DC 30 Will save) as a Free Action against one of the Leng Spiders if any escape Dany's spell, followed by a Quickened Imperious Glare spell (DC 30 Will save) as a Swift Action targeting any remaining spiders. If there are any unsubdued Leng Spiders remaining after everyone has acted against them, Viserys spends one Mythic power to activated Amazing Initiative to in turn activate his Belt of Battle in order to gain another Standard Action worth of spellcasting, then uses Wild Arcana to target those remaining with a Maximized Massacre spell (DC 33 Fortitude save). He cancels his Battlemagic Perception spell to Counterspell anything that slips by Vee and Lya as a Free Action.
--[X] Varys stands in for Richard, acting to defend the group if necessary, favoring her Maximized Venomfire-augmented tail stinger attack (120 points of Acid damage per sting).
-[X] Incapacitated Leng Spiders will be placed in Amber Sarcophagus spells in the following rounds.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top