A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
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- Tags
- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
It's just the magical version of being an intern. Until you can cast the big kid spells on your own it's your job to provide the bonus feats/get the coffee.
- Location
- Germany
There aren't really other LG outsiders, unless you go into the servants of specific gods, but those are made by their patrons, not some generic process we could copy.
The other Upper Planes still have some, though greatly diminished capacity to convert Petitioners, that much is true, but they won't exactly greet us with open arms if we ask to poke them. The reason that Angels, Azata and co are still around is that they paranoidly guard those temples and confluence points that didn't get destroyed yet. Imagine someone walking up to us and asking to take Gogossos apart to see how it works. Now multiply that by the fate of your species if not the entire universe hanging on that forge continuing to work.
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- Location
- Reno Nv
[X] Azel
Well look here, something to reappropriate for a our usage.
Well look here, something to reappropriate for a our usage.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
It's very tempting, but I'm not sure if it's worth the cost and potential over-specialization of a servitor unit.
I can already see how a good Booster Mold would come together; 8 HD to get up to 3rd level spells in Sorcerer Creature, Versatile Spellcaster and Expanded Arcana feats, with spells like Nerveskitter to boost their partner's Initiative, Moment of Greatness + Heroism for the exceptional Morale bonuses, Collaborative Thaumaturgy for reasons already given, etc.
But it would probably be too niche.
A good alternative is to just provide our mages with scrolls of Collaborative Thaumaturgy. Those are cheap and we produce massive numbers of low level scrolls now.
- Location
- Germany
I'm not thinking about using that arrangement for low-level mages, but as helpers for mid to high level mages. It's too costly to consider for a lvl 6 sorcerer, but the calculus looks different for a lvl 10 Wizard.
- Location
- Germany
Ifrit are technically Outsiders though.
I mean, even learning to reforge one kind of Outsider into a different kind is highly valuable, as it is essential to turning Petitioners into something useful, but don't overerstimate it.
Still as you said, murdering Efreeti mages is its own reward.
- Location
- Germany
Added a tally for the total forces committed for quick overview @DragonParadox. It's nearly 500 undead and 200 flesh forges creatures.
[X] Plan Kidnapping, Looting and Murder for Fun and Profit
-[X] Your forces will focus on assassinations and commando raids, targeting enemy leadership and especially any and all casters who are using this ritual.
-[X] You will abduct or kill everyone involved in this project, stealing every writing or object associated with it and burning everything that you can't take. The goal is aquire all available knowledge for your own projects in regards to the creation of Outsiders from souls.
-[X] Send additional forces:
--[X] 50x undivinable raid groups made up of 9 Black Wardens each with a Necrotic Mold in charge of the unit. (6,600 IM per unit, 330,000 IM total)
---[X] As chaff for the regular operations of the Shaitan and to mask the movements of our more elite forces.
--[X] 10x Lead-Clad Black Brutes with Bloodclot Molds (9,680 IM each, 96,800 IM total)
---[X] As heavy kill units and to break up fortifications.
--[X] 10x Lindworms with Bloodclot Molds (8,720 IM each, 87,200 IM total)
---[X] Doing the actual abducting and creating attack routes by digging.
--[X] 10x Vigilant Hunters from the Inquisition pool to assist the abduction teams
--[X] 90x Vigilant Briars (CR 4) and 70x Watchmoles (CR 6, 6 HD) from the Inquisition pool to support Shaitan patrols and guard posts
--[X] Total cost: 514,000 IM
--[X] Final force tally: Sari (Bounty Hunter 15); Ashin (Occult Historian 15); 5x Very Old Myrkdreki; 450x Black Wardens; 50x Necrotic Molds; 10x Lead-Clad Black Brutes; 10x Lindworms; 20x Bloodclot Molds; 90x Vigilant Briars; 70x Watchmoles; 10x Vigilant Hunters
[X] Plan Kidnapping, Looting and Murder for Fun and Profit
-[X] Your forces will focus on assassinations and commando raids, targeting enemy leadership and especially any and all casters who are using this ritual.
-[X] You will abduct or kill everyone involved in this project, stealing every writing or object associated with it and burning everything that you can't take. The goal is aquire all available knowledge for your own projects in regards to the creation of Outsiders from souls.
-[X] Send additional forces:
--[X] 50x undivinable raid groups made up of 9 Black Wardens each with a Necrotic Mold in charge of the unit. (6,600 IM per unit, 330,000 IM total)
---[X] As chaff for the regular operations of the Shaitan and to mask the movements of our more elite forces.
--[X] 10x Lead-Clad Black Brutes with Bloodclot Molds (9,680 IM each, 96,800 IM total)
---[X] As heavy kill units and to break up fortifications.
--[X] 10x Lindworms with Bloodclot Molds (8,720 IM each, 87,200 IM total)
---[X] Doing the actual abducting and creating attack routes by digging.
--[X] 10x Vigilant Hunters from the Inquisition pool to assist the abduction teams
--[X] 90x Vigilant Briars (CR 4) and 70x Watchmoles (CR 6, 6 HD) from the Inquisition pool to support Shaitan patrols and guard posts
--[X] Total cost: 514,000 IM
--[X] Final force tally: Sari (Bounty Hunter 15); Ashin (Occult Historian 15); 5x Very Old Myrkdreki; 450x Black Wardens; 50x Necrotic Molds; 10x Lead-Clad Black Brutes; 10x Lindworms; 20x Bloodclot Molds; 90x Vigilant Briars; 70x Watchmoles; 10x Vigilant Hunters
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Thanks , that will make things easier to roll for.
Vote closed.
It's a bit of a tangent, but I had an idea I wanted to get the thread's opinion on.
The forges can make all kinds of things, but we have to balance how we allocate enhancements to particular creatures to avoid giving them critical weaknesses. Some creatures we can't reasonably use at all because getting the weakest parts of their stat line up into a useful range isn't worth the effort.
We also have wargs, which can possess a target and use their own mental stats from whatever platform they're in.
Would it be worth our time to make dumb as bricks physically optimized creatures to act as telepresence combat and infiltration drones? It seems like the kind of thing that'd be fairly powerful and bring a flavor variety of magic native to the GoT side of things back into relevance.
We can do things like field mutant animal commandos or harvest things from the green hell to let us grow dinosaur shock troops.
Cheap mutants:
Gorilla Bears
Turtle Sharks
Crit fishing dinos:
Iguanodon
Quetzalcoatlus
For underlining points:
Mega raptors
Siege Owlbears
edit: the other useful thing about this is that it makes it easier for the state to maintain a monopoly on force. Intelligent actors are much more capable than animals, but making powerful sapients or training natural born ones gives them power that can't be taken away.
Contrast that with a warg, whose power is constrained by the animals they have access to. We could easily get away with putting magical control elements into our war animals that we could never manage with people, which means that disgruntled wargs need to find and bind powerful creatures or steal military hardware to be a threat.
The forges can make all kinds of things, but we have to balance how we allocate enhancements to particular creatures to avoid giving them critical weaknesses. Some creatures we can't reasonably use at all because getting the weakest parts of their stat line up into a useful range isn't worth the effort.
We also have wargs, which can possess a target and use their own mental stats from whatever platform they're in.
Would it be worth our time to make dumb as bricks physically optimized creatures to act as telepresence combat and infiltration drones? It seems like the kind of thing that'd be fairly powerful and bring a flavor variety of magic native to the GoT side of things back into relevance.
We can do things like field mutant animal commandos or harvest things from the green hell to let us grow dinosaur shock troops.
Cheap mutants:
Gorilla Bears
Turtle Sharks
Crit fishing dinos:
Iguanodon
Quetzalcoatlus
For underlining points:
Mega raptors
Siege Owlbears
edit: the other useful thing about this is that it makes it easier for the state to maintain a monopoly on force. Intelligent actors are much more capable than animals, but making powerful sapients or training natural born ones gives them power that can't be taken away.
Contrast that with a warg, whose power is constrained by the animals they have access to. We could easily get away with putting magical control elements into our war animals that we could never manage with people, which means that disgruntled wargs need to find and bind powerful creatures or steal military hardware to be a threat.
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- Location
- United Kingdom
Do we have enough Wargs for that to be viable?
- Location
- United States
*vietnam flashbacks of Kingmaker intensify*
Abomination aside that list looks great. I will always support more dinosaurs.
I'm seriously looking forward to that ritual.
Not at the moment, but up until now it's been treated as a minor magical talent we haven't put much effort into cultivating. We have a few different sources to get it from through, including OG blessings and the lore of that crazy warg stalker.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
This could be a viable tactic if we could find and train enough Wargs. Making our servitors sentient isn't really that much trouble, though, as the templates we use for that are generally pretty good already, so it doesn't hurt to apply them to a suitable chassis.
Even if they aren't something we mass produce for an army of Warg Bio-Drone Pilots, we could still grow specialty creatures to allow those Wargs we already have to make the most of their abilities.
We could try something based on Phase Fleas for that. It depends on how hard they are to find, and if it's possible for fleas to throw up on command.
Winning vote
Interlude CMXXX: Death's Heralds
Death's Heralds
Twenty Third Day of the Third Month 294 AC
The dead served admirably upon the blasted plains from what Ashin saw from behind the wall of steel and stitched flesh. He heard their whispers, black and cold, seeking, tearing, rending and killing, hideous strength and unstoppable purpose. Once he would have imagined himself standing against the tide, bell and rod in hand, a hero that would unveil himself to the world in its darkest hour, now he was leading them, guiding them against an army just as relentless, just as poisonous. Monsters fighting monsters out of sight of man. Was that all a lifetime's seeking the truth had lead him to, peeling back the skin of the world to reveal its squirming innards?
The sorcerer shook his head. The lindworms would descend soon, down into the rotted belly of this place, through the black ravines older than all the cities of men. There was yet knowledge to find in this land of tainted spirits, a war to be fought even if it was not his. The pay was good, that too the dark haired boy cast out from the temple had learned once the tears had dried.
Resolved, he turned his power inwards to find the sorcerer he had glimpsed in the scrying mirror. It was difficult to keep the expression in mind as the screams of doomed slaves echoed back at him.
***
Sari felt the blood gush under the knife, scalding and sticky over her hands and arms. The giants had a lot of life in them, that just meant you had to make a bigger gash. She never saw the flame weaver taking aim at her from behind the corpse of the slain lindworm, never heard the slave wizard raising a wand of unraveling.
Her world was fire as she collapsed beside her victim. What a fucking stupid way to die.
A stone hand rose out of the broken ground, carrying a gilded talisman, golden light suffused her and in a moment she was back on her feet, gasping for breath through lungs that weren't quite what they had been, but she would live and she would kill. Sari was good at both.
Even as the earth began to open beneath her feet from some war mage's spell the assassin dived over it and introduced her would-be killer to cold steel. She did not have to pin him down long, three of the black clad knights had managed to flank him from the south. The damn things could be surprisingly quiet for clanking piles of ironmongery and dead flesh.
"Draw back, now!" a toneless voice echoed from the depths of one of the helms.
Sari had only the barest sliver of a moment to dive out of the way as the efreeti crushed a talisman of charred bone in his fist. Dark flame bloomed outwards, drawing in the dry earth and scorching dead air.
Two of the knights had fallen, though she was not sure if the molds within had burned or if they still 'lived' inside the husks of melted metal and charred flesh. The third was laughing, and the laughter became a curse... Sari had known enough wizards to recognize them. The sorcerer seemed to wither before her eyes.
With a practiced motion Sari put away the dagger. It would not do to damage that head before the Inquisition got what they wanted out of him. The sap worked just as well on this damn battlefield as it did in Oldtown.
***
The lindworm roared not with fury, but with cold intent as it tore through the ranks of flame-touched servitors, it did not know anger, it did not feel pain, it did not know regret. There was only the purpose, the Enemy to slay, then it could dream again in the embrace of the Green whole and untouched. The spirit within did not know what the dragon meant to do with whatever treasure or lore they might gain here, but it found the deaths of the Burning Ones good and the dragon had not lead it wrong yet.
The hum of its fellows' minds deeper than the screams of battle and the cries of the dying brought joy, fleeting as it must be in the waking world.
- 87x Black Wardens;
- 1x Necrotic Mold;
- 4x Lead-Clad Black Brutes;
- 1x Lindworm;
- 3x Bloodclot Molds;
- 33x Vigilant Briars;
- 16x Watchmoles;
- 2x Vigilant Hunters
Efreeti Ritualists Secured
Enemy Advance in Div's Delight halted. Current Status: Shamm Shaitan Gains
What next?
[] Write in
OOC: I rolled a lot more than I could realistically show in the narrative without an interlude series. Hope this works.
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egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
[X] Restore the losses suffered by Div's Delight fleshcrafted and Soulforged units: pay 145,840 IM and leave the unit under Shaitan command to use in their best discretion.
-[X] Expand the forces deployed by another 20x groups of Black Wardens (9x Black Wardens, 1x Necrotic Mold each) (Cost: 132,000 IM)
[X] Report:
-[X] Raiding the Efreeti on Plane of Fire:
----[X] Siduri, Yurten & the crew; 2x Heralds;
----[X] 1x Gelugon / Ice Devil, 2x Steel Devil, 3x Lead Devil, 6x Salikotal (previously established group)
Fjnishing up with off-plane stuff, after this only Hermetia's Plane of Water efforts and we're back to CoS to move the IC timeline of the month, summoning stuff until about the 20th of the month.
-[X] Expand the forces deployed by another 20x groups of Black Wardens (9x Black Wardens, 1x Necrotic Mold each) (Cost: 132,000 IM)
[X] Report:
-[X] Raiding the Efreeti on Plane of Fire:
----[X] Siduri, Yurten & the crew; 2x Heralds;
----[X] 1x Gelugon / Ice Devil, 2x Steel Devil, 3x Lead Devil, 6x Salikotal (previously established group)
Fjnishing up with off-plane stuff, after this only Hermetia's Plane of Water efforts and we're back to CoS to move the IC timeline of the month, summoning stuff until about the 20th of the month.
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egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Basically, I don't mind mind leaving the units there - we get to show off 'halping' the war effort beyond just the ships and occasional "totally not us!"-raiding and that one sole Research Action we took up.
We also have plenty units even if we deduct these.
And the place seems like it needs some if nothing else.
Also, it is one strategic front we can semi-reliably push from being stalemated with sheer numbers, it seems. That's a rare one in the conflict from what we've seen so far.
...Also also I personally woild hate to have to handle these re-assignments and accounting for losses, considering I already have a whole list to overhaul.
We also have plenty units even if we deduct these.
And the place seems like it needs some if nothing else.
Also, it is one strategic front we can semi-reliably push from being stalemated with sheer numbers, it seems. That's a rare one in the conflict from what we've seen so far.
...Also also I personally woild hate to have to handle these re-assignments and accounting for losses, considering I already have a whole list to overhaul.
- Location
- Germany
I'm with you on that @egoo. The mindblanked undead seem to be clearly working, or we wouldn't have flipped this from the Shaitan loosing ground to the Shaitan making gains.
@DragonParadox, would fliers be useful here?
I'm tempted to throw the Shaitan an even thousand of Necro Harpies as chaff as a quasi-payment for helping our troops looting the mages.
@DragonParadox, would fliers be useful here?
I'm tempted to throw the Shaitan an even thousand of Necro Harpies as chaff as a quasi-payment for helping our troops looting the mages.
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] egoo
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Death's Heralds
Twenty Third Day of the Third Month 294 AC
The dead served admirably upon the blasted planes, Ashin saw from behind the wall of steel and stitched flesh. He heard their whispers; black and cold, seeking, tearing, rending, killing, hideous strength and unstoppable purpose. Once he would have imagined himself standing against the tide, bell and rod in hand, a hero that would unveil himself to the world in its darkest hour, now he was leading them, guiding them against an army just as relentless, just as poisonous. Monsters fighting monsters, out of sight of man. Was that all a lifetime's seeking the truth had lead him to, peeling back the skin of the world to reveal its squirming innards?
The sorcerer shook his head. The lindworms would descend soon, down into the rotted belly of this place, though the black ravines older than all the cities of men. There was yet knowledge to find in this land of tainted spirits, a war to be fought even if it was not his. The pay was good, that too the dark haired boy cast out from the temple had learned once the tears had dried.
Resolved, he turned his power inwards to find the sorcerer he had glimpsed in the scrying mirror. It was difficult to keep the expression in mind as the screams of the doomed slaves echoed back at him.
***
Sari felt the blood gush under the knife, scalding and sticky over her hands, her arms. The giants had a lot of life in them, that just meant you had to make a bigger gash. She never saw the flame weaver taking aim at her from behind the corpse of the slain lindworm, heard the slave wizard raising a wand of unraveling.
Her world was fire as she collapsed beside her victim. What a fucking stupid way to die.
A stone hand rose out of the broken ground, carrying a gilded talisman, golden light suffused her and in a moment she was back on her feet, gasping for breath through lungs that weren't quite what they had been, but she would live and she would kill. Sari was good at both.
Even as the earth began to open beneath her feet from some war mage's spell, the assassin dived over it and introduced her would be killer to cold steel. She did not have to pin him down long, three of the black clad knights had managed to flank him from the south. The damn things could be surprisingly quiet for clanking piles of ironmongery and dead flesh.
"Draw back, now!" a toneless voice echoed from the depths of one of the helms.
Sari had only the barest sliver of a moment to dive out of the way as the Efreeti crushed a talisman of charred bone in his fist. Dark flame bloomed outwards, drawing the dry earth and scorching dead air.
Two of the knights had fallen, though she was not sure if the molds within had burned or if they still 'lived' inside the husks of melted metal and charred flesh. The third was laughing, and the laughter became a curse... Sari had known enough wizards to recognize them. The sorcerer seemed to wither before her eyes.
With a practiced motion, Sari put away the dagger. It would not do to damage that head before the inquisition got what they wanted out of it. The sap worked just as well on this damn battlefield as it did in Oldtown.
***
The lindworm roared not with fury but with cold intent as it tore through the ranks of flame-touched servitors. It did not know anger, it did not feel pain, it did not know regret. There was only the purpose, the Enemy to slay. Then it could dream again in the embrace of the Green, whole and untouched. The spirit within did not know what the dragon meant to do with whatever treasure or lore they might gain here, but it found the deaths of the Burning Ones good and the dragon had not lead it wrong yet.
The hum of its fellows' minds, deeper than the screams of battle and the cries of the dying, brought joy, fleeting as it must be in the waking world.
- 87x Black Wardens;
- 1x Necrotic Mold;
- 4x Lead-Clad Black Brutes;
- 1x Lindworm;
- 3x Bloodclot Molds;
- 33x Vigilant Briars;
- 16x Watchmoles;
- 2x Vigilant Hunters
Efreeti Ritualists Secured
Enemy Advance in Div's Delight halted. Current Status: Shamm Shaitan Gains
What next?
[] Write in
OOC: I rolled a lot more than I could realistically show in the narrative without and interlude series. Hope this works.Not yet edited
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm