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

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I don't think the Void is a big danger here and in the foreseeable future, if you let me explain:

Fact: Taking control of this amount of Undead (with constructs thrown in too) is impossible with regular magic. Literally. You would need an army of Clerics that is about equal in total HD to the kingdom full of Undead here and nobody has that, not even extraplanar Empires we know of.

That leads to the point, that you would need either ritual magic or divine intervention of immense scale here.

If the minions of Winter would move by sending an agent so good that he has a chance to do this (and has the narrative abilities to get around the Wall), and then this agent either has to prepare a big ritual (giving us time and chances to oppose him) or channel a stupid amount of divine power that makes your regular Miracle look like a candle next to a furnace. And in the latter case Bloodraven will both know about it and be able to answer in kind.

The second option for Void-interference comes from the furthest east. In that case an agent of the Bloodstone Emperor has to bypass Asshai or the Five Forts before standing before similar challenges as the hypothetical Winter-agent. Unfortunatly without a direct counter like Bloodraven, but in turn more vulnerable to other divine forces that narrativly oppose him, like Rh'llor who could warn Mel with a vision (because warning her about Great Other actions on such a scale should be relativly easy for him and perfectly fits his story and behaviour so far).

So all in all, I think it is unlikely that someone can just take control of a kingdom of Undead and if someone tried we would get chances to stop that.
 
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I am not sure it would be as simple as slapping everyone in the city with a wand of raise dead.

They have been dead for a long time. To say nothing of those mythic ranks.

Edit:
The easiest way for the void to take the city wont and never would have been magic.

It will try to sway their hearts and minds.
 
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Artemis1992 said:
I don't think the Void is a big danger here and in the foreseeable future, if you let me explain:

Fact: Taking control of this amount of Undead (with constructs thrown in too) is impossible with regular magic. Literally. You would need an army of Clerics that is about equal in total HD to the kingdom full of Undead here and nobody has that, not even extraplanar Empires we know of.

That leads to the point, that you would need either ritual magic or divine intervention of immense scale here.

If the minions of Winter (the by far biggest asset the Void has in this world) would move by sending an agent so good that he has a chance to do this (and has the narrative abilities to get around the Wall), and then this agent either has to prepare a big ritual (giving us time and chances to oppose him) or channel a stupid amount of divine power that makes your regular Miracle look like a candle next to a furnace. And in the latter case Bloodraven will both know about it and be able to answer in kind.

The second option for Void-interference comes from the furthest east. In that case an agent of the Bloodstone Emperor has to bypass Asshai or the Five Forts before standing before similar challenges as the hypothetical Winter-agent. Unfortunatly without a direct counter like Bloodraven, but in turn more vulnerable to other divine forces that narrativly oppose him, like Rh'llor who could warn Mel with a vision (because warning her about Great Other actions on such a scale should be relativly easy for him and perfectly fits his story and behaviour so far).

So all in all, I think it is unlikely that someone can just take control of a kingdom of Undead and if someone tried we would get chances to stop that.
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What makes you believe the Void is limited to those two sources? Or that agents of the Void cant just saunter on over to Sarnor and outright bargain with the undead here short of wholesale corruption? It's not an immediate danger, but it's also not as safe as you're making it out to be.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I don't think the Void is a big danger here and in the foreseeable future, if you let me explain:

Fact: Taking control of this amount of Undead (with constructs thrown in too) is impossible with regular magic. Literally. You would need an army of Clerics that is about equal in total HD to the kingdom full of Undead here and nobody has that, not even extraplanar Empires we know of.
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The Void has some trickery going on when it comes to undead, a single White Walker can control a Wight army, the question is just, whether their ability to control an undead army far in excess of their HD, is limited to undead they created themselves.
zxzx24 said:
I am not sure it would be as simple as slapping everyone in the city with a wand of raise dead.

They have been dead for a long time. To say nothing of those mythic ranks.

Edit:
The easiest way for the void to take the city wont and never would have been magic.

It will try to sway their hearts and minds.
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Raise dead isn't gonna work, but my plan is likely to work, it has been established in this quest, that implanting a soul in a new body, isn't subject to time from death limitations, which mean extracting their souls, and implanting them in Forge-grown bodies will work.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I don't think the Void is a big danger here and in the foreseeable future, if you let me explain:

Fact: Taking control of this amount of Undead (with constructs thrown in too) is impossible with regular magic. Literally. You would need an army of Clerics that is about equal in total HD to the kingdom full of Undead here and nobody has that, not even extraplanar Empires we know of.

That leads to the point, that you would need either ritual magic or divine intervention of immense scale here.

If the minions of Winter would move by sending an agent so good that he has a chance to do this (and has the narrative abilities to get around the Wall), and then this agent either has to prepare a big ritual (giving us time and chances to oppose him) or channel a stupid amount of divine power that makes your regular Miracle look like a candle next to a furnace. And in the latter case Bloodraven will both know about it and be able to answer in kind.

The second option for Void-interference comes from the furthest east. In that case an agent of the Bloodstone Emperor has to bypass Asshai or the Five Forts before standing before similar challenges as the hypothetical Winter-agent. Unfortunatly without a direct counter like Bloodraven, but in turn more vulnerable to other divine forces that narrativly oppose him, like Rh'llor who could warn Mel with a vision (because warning her about Great Other actions on such a scale should be relativly easy for him and perfectly fits his story and behaviour so far).

So all in all, I think it is unlikely that someone can just take control of a kingdom of Undead and if someone tried we would get chances to stop that.
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Them being taken by the Void is very much a long-term concern, a (very) low-chance (very) high-risk event and something we are handling now by removing the kingdom as such.

The "Kingdom full of unstable Undead" is a sane enough a reason to go omnicidal on them, all by itself.

The reasonable ones can fall in line and be worked with perfectly fine... but most of them aren't.

The fact we had our people attacked by them, and the info we had on them lately kiiinda reinforces that narrative so far.

So yeah, I don't think we are dealing with them now sk much because "Muh World, Void bad, gotta kill dead things super-dead!" as "oi, these crazy counts are unpredictable and we have a large war on the horizon, better take 'em out right quick while we can!"
 
Duesal said:
What makes you believe the Void is limited to those two sources? Or that agents of the Void cant just saunter on over to Sarnor and outright bargain with the undead here short of wholesale corruption? It's not an immediate danger, but it's also not as safe as you're making it out to be.
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Okay, even gods and as far as we know the Void too, need people capable of channeling power to reach big results.

You can't have any level 6 dude cast a big ritual or channel enough divine power to cast magic beyond Miracles results in "Pop goes the mortal".
So I concentrated on the 2 factions that have powerful agents and skilled mages, because randos from anywhere are unlikely to be able to do anything big here.

Of course bargaining and getting power over them that way would be possible and easier, but that's the point where we can warn a relativly sane queen about the dangers inherent in this. Either as our vassal or as an ally.

Admittedly, crazy and vengance-obsessed Undead will have to be dealt with and that's what we are planning to do this month, but it doesn't seem to apply to this city-state?
 
Before I head to bed.

Whatever they seem to be doing now seems to be working pretty well. So dont forget to grab their method as well.
 
egoo said:
Them being taken by the Void is very much a long-term concern, a (very) low-chance (very) high-risk event and something we are handling now by removing the kingdom as such.

The "Kingdom full of unstable Undead" is a sane enough a reason to go omnicidal on them, all by itself.

The reasonable ones can fall in line and be worked with perfectly fine... but most of them aren't.

The fact we had our people attacked by them, and the info we had on them lately kiiinda reinforces that narrative so far.

So yeah, I don't think we are dealing with them now sk much because "Muh World, Void bad, gotta kill dead things super-dead!" as "oi, these crazy counts are unpredictable and we have a large war on the horizon, better take 'em out right quick while we can!"
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I am talking about this city in particular, which seems to have sane leadership and thus does not need to be on the "submit or die" list anytime soon.

I'm fully behind you on taking out most of the rest of Sarnor, if that helps?
 
Artemis1992 said:
I am talking about this city in particular, which seems to have sane leadership and thus does not need to be on the "submit or die" list anytime soon.

I'm fully behind you on taking out most of the rest of Sarnor, if that helps?
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Eh, I'm not particularly married to the idea of vassalizing them at all cost either.
Cool, sure, but maybe not what we are here for.

If we can get good enough info on the other cities to fully raise them with, well, this one can stay largely as-is as far as I'm concerned, since it won't be nearly enough of a powerhouse to worry ourselves over. Unlike the rest of them combined.

Trading the "you have better chances at staying sane'-ritual from Wyla night be instrumental either way.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Okay, even gods and as far as we know the Void too, need people capable of channeling power to reach big results.

You can't have any level 6 dude cast a big ritual or channel enough divine power to cast magic beyond Miracles results in "Pop goes the mortal".
So I concentrated on the 2 factions that have powerful agents and skilled mages, because randos from anywhere are unlikely to be able to do anything big here.

Of course bargaining and getting power over them that way would be possible and easier, but that's the point where we can warn a relativly sane queen about the dangers inherent in this. Either as our vassal or as an ally.

Admittedly, crazy and vengance-obsessed Undead will have to be dealt with and that's what we are planning to do this month, but it doesn't seem to apply to this city-state?
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Gods and the Void do need agents to fully carry out their will. The only problem is we have no clue how many agents the Void has running around in Prime Material. We found a cleric in Volantis, Winterborn running around Westeros, an Oblivion Ooze in Sothoryos, Rakshasas everywhere in Valyria and Yi Ti, etc. I'm fairly sure the groundwork is laid out enough for the Void to send agents where it pleases as necessary, and that we're mostly playing catch-up trying to extinguish them.

With the rest of it, for the rest of the Sarnori they'd probably be insane enough to take a Void-backed bargain considering they're already kidnapping our citizens. This queen? Sure, she's most likely sane enough to say no to that. But the Void by its very nature has a massive affinity to undeath, and my concern is that a ritual could be enacted to force the issue and crumble the queen's will. It wouldn't be the first time we've seen the rules we expect to be followed being casually broken. I can't even remember all the times that Mind Blank has been ignored.

If there was a safe way to have an undead vassal state then that'd be amazing, but the Void ruins everything about it. :(
 
Duesal said:
Gods and the Void do need agents to fully carry out their will. The only problem is we have no clue how many agents the Void has running around in Prime Material. We found a cleric in Volantis, Winterborn running around Westeros, an Oblivion Ooze in Sothoryos, Rakshasas everywhere in Valyria and Yi Ti, etc. I'm fairly sure the groundwork is laid out enough for the Void to send agents where it pleases as necessary, and that we're mostly playing catch-up trying to extinguish them.

With the rest of it, for the rest of the Sarnori they'd probably be insane enough to take a Void-backed bargain considering they're already kidnapping our citizens. This queen? Sure, she's most likely sane enough to say no to that. But the Void by its very nature has a massive affinity to undeath, and my concern is that a ritual could be enacted to force the issue and crumble the queen's will. It wouldn't be the first time we've seen the rules we expect to be followed being casually broken. I can't even remember all the times that Mind Blank has been ignored.

If there was a safe way to have an undead vassal state then that'd be amazing, but the Void ruins everything about it. :(
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I'll have to disagree here.

Most of what we have seen in Void-agents was either relativly weak (the priestress, most Rakshasa and Winterborn) or has a good narrative reason to be active beyond the Wall or the Five Forts.
The Ooze was deliberatly called to capture it by uncorrupted mages of great power, the Raksha Lord was much weaker before the Doom and thus could move more easily and every attempt to wake up greater minions of Winter gives Bloodraven a chance to do something about it.
I doubt they have agents of greater power freely running around.

As for the non-sane majority of Sarnor? I'm very much in favor of dealing with them now, I support the action we are currently on. Burn 5/6 of the cities.
I just think the queen and her city here should be excempt from that, as she does not seem to be so desperate or insane to willing deal with the Void.

And for any later attempts at subversion or rituals, that's all things that either she can stop herself with the considerable ressources we see here, or things that we can aid her in stopping if she becomes and ally or vassal.
 
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Need some more votes, ya'll.

Let me know if there is anything else ya'll think needs to be adjusted in my plan. I already removed that one line at the end, just in case the queen found it offensive.
Adhoc vote count started by Goldfish on Jul 11, 2020 at 9:11 AM, finished with 54 posts and 4 votes.
  • [X] "Quite to the contrary, your majesty, it is a sign that time marches ever forward. We can move with it and advance accordingly, or attempt to fight the inevitable and be ground down by the relentless passage of pitiless moments."
    -[X] At this point, Viserys will pause to gauge the queen's response, if any. If he believes his answer was accepted and that further elaboration won't be offensive, he will continue with, "Terrible was the fate of Sathar in centuries past, but now there is hope for it to rise once more. We were heartened to learn the returned of Sathar were seeking to build anew, to restore what was lost and to move forward once more."
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Artemis1992 said:
I'll have to disagree here.

Most of what we have seen in Void-agents was either relativly weak (the priestress, most Rakshasa and Winterborn) or has a good narrative reason to be active beyond the Wall or the Five Forts.
The Ooze was deliberatly called to capture it by uncorrupted mages of great power, the Raksha Lord was much weaker before the Doom and thus could move more easily and every attempt to wake up greater minions of Winter gives Bloodraven a chance to do something about it.
I doubt they have agents of greater power freely running around.

As for the non-sane majority of Sarnor? I'm very much in favor of dealing with them now, I support the action we are currently on.
I just think the queen and her city here should be excempt from that, as she does not seem to be so desperate or insane to willing deal with the Void.

And for any later attempts at subversion or rituals, that's all things that either she can stop herself with the considerable ressources we see here, or things that we can aid her in stopping if she becomes and ally or vassal.
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My examples were to illustrate that no, the Void doesn't particularly care about distance, and can show up independently of Winter or the Bloodstone Emperor. The narrative reason for a greater servant to be active in the rest of Prime Material is its own issue. I have no idea why you're so confident that there wouldn't be a narrative reason for lesser agents of the Void to summon a greater one. We could have easily just not come across it yet, and be seeing the results a few months or years later down the line. We're not exactly privy to DP's background rolls.

As for the subversion or ritual, that's where most of my concern about the Void comes in. When a god or entity has power over a certain domain or aspect of magic, we've seen them bypass the normal restrictions. Normal immunities, mind blanks, etc. With the Void having that dominion over Undead, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were able to just force the queen into submission.

I'd like to spare this queen too, but ideally she doesn't stay undead. And given the circumstances of her rise, I doubt she's particularly attached to undeath.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Admittedly, crazy and vengance-obsessed Undead will have to be dealt with and that's what we are planning to do this month, but it doesn't seem to apply to this city-state?
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Stabilization of Sentient Undead research might come in handy even if we can't convince them to let go of the power Undeath grants them, and I am inclined to offer that much to most "straddling the border of sanity" types of Undead who refuse to either be lain to rest or put back together in life again.

I am mostly inclined towards that direction granted because I expect there are ways to mitigate the risk of Void taint taking hold of such a place by stringent and extreme measures and it's better to have some kind of short and then long-term solution put together than it is to waste a bunch of people who haven't hurt anyone yet, compared to those we know are hurting people.
 
DragonParadox said:
Hmm... not a lot of votes. do you guys want and interlude while you decide?
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Can I have an answer to my questions? I really would like to know how difficult the research action I'm proposing is, and how many reagents we can expect to get out of things.

tarrangar said:
@DragonParadox What's the research cost, of figuring out how to implant souls in soul gems made with Create Soul Gem – d20PFSRD into soulless bodies from either of our Forges?

Also how many IM worth of reagents, do 1 HD worth of sacrifice to a Heart Tree make(by making the Heart Tree use the sacrifice to grow magical plants)
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Here's my questions.
 
Duesal said:
I'd like to spare this queen too, but ideally she doesn't stay undead. And given the circumstances of her rise, I doubt she's particularly attached to undeath.
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I'm not particularly invested in her staying Undead, but we can't raise thousands that have been dead far beyond our Rezz-time-limit.
We could raise her in some ritual like Laenor or Amrelath, no doubt about it, but that doesn't solve anything on its own.

Unless we decide to go with one of tarrangar's schemes it seems much more reasonable to try for an alliance with her in her current state and offer support both on the sanity-side of things and agains the Void, rather than forcing any kind of quick decision without a viable solution.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I'm not particularly invested in her staying Undead, but we can't raise thousands that have been dead far beyond our Rezz-time-limit.
We could raise her in some ritual like Laenor or Amrelath, no doubt about it, but that doesn't solve anything on its own.

Unless we decide to go with one of tarrangar's schemes it seems much more reasonable to try for an alliance with her in her current state and offer support both on the sanity-side of things and agains the Void, rather than forcing any kind of quick decision without a viable solution.
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Oh, I have no intention of raising all of her subjects. Only her and her most loyal. Raising the entire kingdom would bankrupt even us.
 
Duesal said:
Oh, I have no intention of raising all of her subjects. Only her and her most loyal. Raising the entire kingdom would bankrupt even us.
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Then we'll have to live with a city full of Undead as Vassals, allies or neutrals.

Unless you think you can convince her to abandon her subjects right now, after she came back because helping her people in need is her legend and mythic path.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Then we'll have to live with a city full of Undead as Vassals, allies or neutrals.

Unless you think you can convince her to abandon her subjects right now, after she came back because helping her people in need is her legend and mythic path.
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We would, and that would be waaaaay less than ideal, but it would be with the mythic queen and her most loyal in control of the undead while also not suffering the same drawbacks.
 
Well I dunno... I had this idea.

@Artemis1992 Rather than resurrecting, I think @DragonParadox has stated it is easier to transfer a being from one state into a similar state due to sympathetic connections.

What if we designed an undead body similar to vampires in their "put-togetherness" and powered off Positive Energy like has been theorized? Then it would be a matter of designing some kind of animus spark for each body that a spirit of undeath could inhabit. This gives them all the sensation of life along with the immunities of Undeath.
 
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