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

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What's done is done, we just need to improve security as much as we can and accept momentary incompetence is unavoidable.
 
@Goldfish Add placing a Mindblank item on each of the Valyrian dragons to the list of things to do. Seems prudent since most of their riders only monitors them in between many, many other calls on their attention.
 
Crake said:
@Goldfish Add placing a Mindblank item on each of the Valyrian dragons to the list of things to do. Seems prudent since most of their riders only monitors them in between many, many other calls on their attention.
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In theory PfE should be enough for most intents and purposes.
And the Valyrian Saddles also prevent compulsion.

If someone is willing and able to know down two protective items to control a dragon, then a third one will hardly make a difference.
 
@DragonParadox Did Teana finally, finally tame Grey Ghost?

Artemis1992 said:
In theory PfE should be enough for most intents and purposes.
And the Valyrian Saddles also prevent compulsion.

If someone is willing and able to know down two protective items to control a dragon, then a third one will hardly make a difference.
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We we just have to accept that if the enemy wants to kidnap the dragons, there's nothing we can do to stop it?

We should do something, even just out of petulant anger. Like surround their enclosures with Watchmen creatures.
 
Crake said:
@Goldfish Add placing a Mindblank item on each of the Valyrian dragons to the list of things to do. Seems prudent since most of their riders only monitors them in between many, many other calls on their attention.
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We're steadily increasing our number of Mind Blanks, so this is something we can do soon.
 
Crake said:
We we just have to accept that if the enemy wants to kidnap the dragons, there's nothing we can do to stop it?
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No.
We have to accept that if the same general type of defences is limited, more of the same are rarely going to be the difference.

Having stables full of Watch-creatures for those occasions when the Rider can't be around the dragon are a different approach and can very well cover some of those limitations.
 
Also, we are not resurrecting the darkenbeast rider, right?

I mean, we should... if we can combo it with more people to rezz
 
Artemis1992 said:
No.
We have to accept that if the same general type of defences is limited, more of the same are rarely going to be the difference.

Having stables full of Watch-creatures for those occasions when the Rider can't be around the dragon are a different approach and can very well cover some of those limitations.
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Dragon Eye Runes / Arcane Marks on all of their gear would be another. That takes time to shed, and it's not like they have limbs suited towards doing so/nor would most of it reasonably be reachable while possessed. And if Watch Creatures nail it with a Dimensional Anchor, that's no teleportation, and difficult to ration out action economy for possession unless the possessor also has Timestop.

@Goldfish Though that's something to consider, even a Celerity would be bad news. Maybe a Sorcerer Creature as part of the guard detail in their enclosures with access to Celerity as well? Edit: Or just a ring of Spell Battle.



Tomcost said:
Also, we are not resurrecting the darkenbeast rider, right?

I mean, we should... if we can combo it with more people to rezz
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Duesal said:
I think we set a precedent of darkenbeast riders qualifying for resurrection. We'll just wait for more important people to die before spending a diamond on them all.
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We'll preserve the body and get back to him. I expect more deaths before the end of the month.
 
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We don't have Watchmen creatures on Dragon Island, but we do have a small military outpost with a cannon battery.

Also, @Crake, make the rune marked item an implant somewhere on the Dragons body. Or make it two, with a third one that has Magic Aura on it to avoid detection.
 
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Azel said:
We don't have Watchmen creatures on Dragon Island, but we do have a small military outpost with a cannon battery.

Also, @Crake, make the rune marked item an implant somewhere on the Dragons body. Or make it two, with a third one that has Magic Aura on it to avoid detection.
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Well, that's one way to do it.

it's worth noting each Dragon has a soul bond to its specific rider. As long as we have the Rider, we can find the Dragon, but it basically means we have to chase it down or we're giving up the Rider and the Dragon... which is sub-optimal. We can find it, but it's a guaranteed way to bait us into rushing in after them. Granted as it's rather obvious we're being led into an ambush, we can bring whatever escalation of force that we can, but that's also contingent on the assumption they're going directly to a ritual site to do something nasty to the person on the other end of the bond ASAP. Which is what I would do to force an engagement.
 
Crake said:
Well, that's one way to do it.

it's worth noting each Dragon has a soul bond to its specific rider. As long as we have the Rider, we can find the Dragon, but it basically means we have to chase it down or we're giving up the Rider and the Dragon... which is sub-optimal. We can find it, but it's a guaranteed way to bait us into rushing in after them. Granted as it's rather obvious we're being led into an ambush, we can bring whatever escalation of force that we can, but that's also contingent on the assumption they're going directly to a ritual site to do something nasty to the person on the other end of the bond ASAP. Which is what I would do to force an engagement.
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Mind you that once we got that Baleful Greater Teleport spell, we can just shove a few tons of explosives to the site of the dragon and use two castings of Miracle to resurrect it without the corpse.

There's always a nastier stick to use.
 
Crake said:
it's worth noting each Dragon has a soul bond to its specific rider. As long as we have the Rider, we can find the Dragon, but it basically means we have to chase it down or we're giving up the Rider and the Dragon... which is sub-optimal.
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I would disagree with that.
Cutting the connection between rider and dragon should be possible if we can't risk recovering the dragon.

Given that we did stuff like seperating our local Psion from her real body and destroy it so perfectly it wasn't used against her, I'm optimistic.
 
Azel said:
Mind you that once we got that Baleful Greater Teleport spell, we can just shove a few tons of explosives to the site of the dragon and use two castings of Miracle to resurrect it without the corpse.

There's always a nastier stick to use.
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Yeah. Just a matter to internally review, improve and evaluate. I feel as though with the above in mind, we need some kind of rapid reaction, heavy combat force, composed of mostly CR 15 creatures, all capable of self-teleportation. If the enemy uses this ploy, I'd like to at least bring in enough firepower to level a small country.
 
Azel said:
Mind you that once we got that Baleful Greater Teleport spell, we can just shove a few tons of explosives to the site of the dragon and use two castings of Miracle to resurrect it without the corpse.

There's always a nastier stick to use.
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Huh, and I was thinking about using it to send people to the Snare. I didn't think about the endless possibilities of telefragging people.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I would disagree with that.
Cutting the connection between rider and dragon should be possible if we can't risk recovering the dragon.

Given that we did stuff like seperating our local Psion from her real body and destroy it so perfectly it wasn't used against her, I'm optimistic.
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Then that's a race against time, and personally I prefer to get carve recompense out of my enemy's flesh.

Though you're right, it's a viable option. Probably with some downsides.
 
Crake said:
Yeah. Just a matter to internally review, improve and evaluate. I feel as though with the above in mind, we need some kind of rapid reaction, heavy combat force, composed of mostly CR 15 creatures, all capable of self-teleportation. If the enemy uses this ploy, I'd like to at least bring in enough firepower to level a small country.
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Getting Greater Teleport and Greater Planeshift on something is sadly not trivial, but I'm already tinkering on a few more mundane improvements to our doctrines.

Like formal alert levels, so that we can give short and conscience orders to trigger specific levels of readiness, and some improvements to communication protocols.
 
I don't think the bond between a Valyrian Dragon and their rider should be magically exploitable, at least not in the sense that y'all are insinuating. That doesn't seem like something the Valyrians would have gone for, and we've never had any hint of it that I can recall, either.
 
Goldfish said:
I don't think the bond between a Valyrian Dragon and their rider should be magically exploitable, at least not in the sense that y'all are insinuating. That doesn't seem like something the Valyrians would have gone for, and we've never had any hint of it that I can recall, either.
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I honestly see the Valyrians as generally having many Taboos. Many Taboos. One of them is that if you fiddle with the dragons in any way metaphysically or physically, the disproportionate retribution would be aimed at you as it had in the past at many other of their enemies. That's how they discouraged fuckery. Which absolutely should be possible given what is described of the soul bond.

I'm not expecting instant death total annihilation from one ritual, but I honestly wouldn't call bullshit on being able to lob a SoD through the Dragon at the Rider.
 
Since Viserys does know plenty of Valyrian history I can say @Crake is right here, anyone messing with dragons would have a bad day and not just other people's dragons, their own too. Keep in mind what Valyrian dragons are, cursed yes, reduced to weapons yes, but in the deepest vaults of Oros in the libraries of the Fourteen the truth of their origins was still written.

Most of those mages did not know how the curse, the binding of the dragons worked and they were very very sure they did not want to find out in the form of some mage poking a dragon the wrong way and unleashing True Reds on everyone. Sure it did not seem likely but neither was slaves descended of shepherds overthrowing an empire of these near-godlike tyrants and turning them into mounts.
 
Speaking of the Freehold, there's something that went under a bit.

DragonParadox said:
"Indeed, the Formless is a marvel, the sort of marvel that would likely have kept the Freeholder Lords awake at night," the mage-priest replies with a much colder smile of his own at the thought of how much you had surpassed the Freehold of old, not necessarily in knowledge and power, but in the willingness and ability to use both.
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We have finally surpassed the Freehold. By Malarys reckoning no less.
 
DragonParadox said:
Since Viserys does know plenty of Valyrian history I can say @Crake is right here, anyone messing with dragons would have a bad day and not just other people's dragons, their own too. Keep in mind what Valyrian dragons are, cursed yes, reduced to weapons yes, but in the deepest vaults of Oros in the libraries of the Fourteen the truth of their origins was still written.

Most of those mages did not know how the curse, the binding of the dragons worked and they were very very sure they did not want to find out in the form of some mage poking a dragon the wrong way and unleashing True Reds on everyone. Sure it did not seem likely but neither was slaves descended of shepherds overthrowing an empire of these near-godlike tyrants and turning them into mounts.
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Basically it became social taboo to do ANYTHING to them, even if only the secretest, oldest cabals and the high echelons of the various Temples of the Fourteen were aware of WHY exactly that was the case, or at least close to why.

And no one changed this, because it was probably made religious taboo, one of the most sacrosanct ones, and the one guaranteed way to get the Cult of Balerion to call in every chit and every favor to ANNIHILATE the offender.
 
So, ah, what are our rough priorities for the 4th month, assuming all of CoS do die by the time 4th month starts?
@Azel, @Crake?

We'll keep a smaller force in Slavers' Bay (of course), and prolly will keep on infiltrating Lannisters' Defenses, but are there any other points of interest left to cover in the last month before the Reconquest?

I just dare to assume we won't be launching any expeditions/dungeon delves in places like the Far North, Snek Cities, Valyria, or PoF just before the main event.
...At least not with the main characters.
.......Which kiiiinda leaves us with dozens of people to assign somewhere :V

See preliminary RAs for the 4th month here.
 
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