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

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Azel said:
You are largely treating it as a souped up Negative Energy template these days and the players now act as if it's just... something like an extra-fiend that corrupts other fiends, and can be renounced at will. That people think that just talking to it to make it get a more positive outlook on life will be enough to have it renounce the Void and convert to a happy little minion is proof of the latter part.
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I think that it has less to do with DP and more to do with how the thread is. We have been recruiting things or trying to loophole metaphysical contracts we really should not be since the very start. I don't think it's Villian Decay. It's just how we have always been. We see a shiny and we ask a bunch of questions about it. In this case the shiny is a Winter Fey.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I mean, was it ever different?

The Void was always just another enemy, maybe harder to destroy than any other, but not stronger than Tiamat, not smarter than Asmodeus, not more knowledgeable than Abraxxas.
In a way less insidious than even the Court of Stars, because the Void is very obvious about being an enemy of all that is and has had difficulty decieving people from the very beginning of the quest onwards, as seen with the Stark-related Sorcerer.
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Kinda? It was supposed to be an existential threat to the entire universe? Something so bad that it managed to break the balance of power in the Blood War and managed to tear apart entire planes in the process, just to be contained at the last minute through some unknown means?

I mean... you are probably the absolutely worst person to have this discussion with, since you generally don't take anything seriously at all, but still.
One Autumn Leaf said:
I think that it has less to do with DP and more to do with how the thread is. We have been recruiting things or trying to loophole metaphysical contracts we really should not be since the very start. I don't think it's Villian Decay. It's just how we have always been. We see a shiny and we ask a bunch of questions about it. In this case the shiny is a Winter Fey.
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I'm not sure if "the thread never had a proper villain at all" is really a great counter-argument.
 
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Azel said:
You are largely treating it as a souped up Negative Energy template these days and the players now act as if it's just... something like an extra-fiend that corrupts other fiends, and can be renounced at will. That people think that just talking to it to make it get a more positive outlook on life will be enough to have it renounce the Void and convert to a happy little minion is proof of the latter part.

There's just... nothing that makes this Fey more scary then any other random dark fey. Hence people treating it as they would any other dark fey.
That's villain decay.
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That s not a bad point, but the thing is degrees of separation exist, this is not a nightshade, an ancient outsider consumed by the void, it is not a frost dragon, its bones turned to ice, its eyes to black oblivion. This is still a being sympathetic enough to understand human emotion, even if that emotion is suicidal despair. Does that mean the Void is not scary? I would say no, the void-taint upon you can stain Viserys' soul though all his defenses. If you guys want to know what it looks like when someone tries to break a being of Winter from the Void, read the Thenhold updates again.

I have 'bargain' as an option because only because it is in Viserys' character to try these sorts of ambitious insanely perilous things. Expect pushback from Companions if you vote to try.
 
Azel said:
Kinda? It was supposed to be an existential threat to the entire universe? Something so bad that it managed to break the balance of power in the Blood War and managed to tear apart entire planes in the process, just to be contained at the last minute through some unknown means?

I mean... you are probably the absolutely worst person to have this discussion with, since you generally don't take anything seriously at all, but still.
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I think I have seen as a threat to everything, when talking to Burny about them for example.
But in other parts it's been clear that the whole VOid-threat was something elder Dragons could deal with, not easily, but they could.

And for the containment, while it is unclear what contained them in the West, aside from the Builder's work, we do know for sure that what drove them into the Shadow in the East was a very big and unusually well-organized Red Dragonflight.

So we do know that the minions of the Void at least can be held back by normal means.

As for the Void's direct power, we unfortunatly know too little about the War for Heaven to say anything with certainty, but it looks like Asmodeus was semi-successful in securing what remains of Heaven against them, so they can't be unstoppable either.
 
DragonParadox said:
That s not a bad point, but the thing is degrees of separation exist, this is not a nightshade, an ancient outsider consumed by the void, it is not a frost dragon, its bones turned to ice, its eyes to black oblivion. This is still a being sympathetic enough to understand human emotion, even if that emotion is suicidal despair. Does that mean the Void is not scary? I would say no, the void-taint upon you can stain Viserys' soul though all his defenses. If you guys want to know what it looks like when someone tries to break a being of Winter from the Void, read the Thenhold updates again.

I have 'bargain' as an option because only because it is in Viserys' character to try these sorts of ambitious insanely perilous things. Expect pushback from Companions if you vote to try.
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I'm 99% certain that, if I where to answer this, it will go nowhere productive so I will just take my leave from this until such a point where the topic is no longer relevant.


@One Autumn Leaf, @Artemis1992, same for what you two wrote.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I think I have seen as a threat to everything, when talking to Burny about them for example.
But in other parts it's been clear that the whole VOid-threat was something elder Dragons could deal with, not easily, but they could.

And for the containment, while it is unclear what contained them in the West, aside from the Builder's work, we do know for sure that what drove them into the Shadow in the East was a very big and unusually well-organized Red Dragonflight.

So we do know that the minions of the Void at least can be held back by normal means.

As for the Void's direct power, we unfortunatly know too little about the War for Heaven to say anything with certainty, but it looks like Asmodeus was semi-successful in securing what remains of Heaven against them, so they can't be unstoppable either.
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Consider that a single elder Red Dragon can probably eat a god's herald, now imagine scores of them, aided by hundreds of their younger kin after a centuries long ritual. Anything that needs that degree of power to fight is a threat to the world.
 
[X] Azel

Azel said:
I'm 99% certain that, if I where to answer this, it will go nowhere productive so I will just take my leave from this until such a point where the topic is no longer relevant.
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What is it about this fey that leaves you so unsatisfyied as an enemy? I don't quite get your argument.

I mean, yes, the void is suposed to be this enourmosly powerful thing whose appearance wrecked the entire setting, but that doesn't mean all of it's minions need to be absolute powerhouses. Even the mighty Asmodeus has Imps under his command after all. Unless I'm misunderstanding your argument?
 
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DragonParadox said:
Consider that a single elder Red Dragon can probably eat a god's herald, now imagine scores of them, aided by hundreds of their younger kin after a centuries long ritual. Anything that needs that degree of power to fight is a threat to the world.
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Well yes, the point was more about the lack of a fundamental difference I guess?
I know that the BS-Emperor has an incredible amount of military force, but again that's not different from Asmodeus or the other examples.

I just mean that the Void and its minions do not seem to be worse than other foes we have in any basic way.
No doubt that we still don't have the manpower to beat them in full force yet.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
All right. Fuck that. Once we figure out the purification process we can go from there but way too much of a risk right now. The fact that the void actively eats away at all prisons makes this supremely difficult.
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I'm not sure we are going to get better opportunities than to work with a tainted Fey to improve said process.
The Genie have been on the project for quite a while and we did get them several samples of Void-tainted stuff, but this would be the closest to a real deal there could be.
 
[X] Duesal

I'm all on board for not poking the Void with a stick, bee tee dubs.
 
Shador said:
What is it about this fey that leaves you so unsatisfyied as an enemy? I don't quite get your argument.

I mean, yes, the void is suposed to be this enourmosly powerful thing whose appearance wrecked the entire setting, but that doesn't mean all of it's minions need to be absolute powerhouses. Even the mighty Asmodeus has Imps under his command after all. Unless I'm misunderstanding your argument?
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Because they are all like that. There is nothing to see except the generic patheticness of this fey or any other Void touched creature, whose running theme is "being really sad".

This has nothing to do with power and everything with presentation. A high CR ranking is not what makes an effective villain. I'm in fact livid at the insinuation that all I'm talking about is a lack of +x to something.
Artemis1992 said:
Well yes, the point was more about the lack of a fundamental difference I guess?
I know that the BS-Emperor has an incredible amount of military force, but again that's not different from Asmodeus or the other examples.

I just mean that the Void and its minions do not seem to be worse than other foes we have in any basic way.
No doubt that we still don't have the manpower to beat them in full force yet.
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@DragonParadox, this here. This is what I'm talking about. There is zero difference in kind between the Void and any other villain. Neither in the way it's presented as threatening, no in the actual depiction of Void actors. Because "suicidal despair" is registering at most as mild melancholy to me, and you write every second villain like that. Back in the day, you insisted for the longest while that everything that is Evil on the alignment chart is like that. Without any exceptions.

There's just nothing that distinguishes the Void from any other fiend. And fiends have been treated as mostly a joke for the longest while.
 
Azel said:
@DragonParadox, this here. This is what I'm talking about. There is zero difference in kind between the Void and any other villain. Neither in the way it's presented as threatening, no in the actual depiction of Void actors. Because "suicidal despair" is registering at most as mild melancholy to me, and you write every second villain like that. Back in the day, you insisted for the longest while that everything that is Evil on the alignment chart is like that. Without any exceptions.

There's just nothing that distinguishes the Void from any other fiend. And fiends have been treated as mostly a joke for the longest while.
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Well I was wrong back in the day, that was boring. That said I can't really help you guys not treating this or that villain seriously, if it leads to doing something overconfident and then the dice fall badly you guys are going to have to deal with that.
 
[X] Try to get more information out of Robert's killer
-[X] Sacrifice it to a god (risk that any information will be lost since it is recent and not intrinsic to the spirt)
--[X] The Old Gods

Yeah, more info would be nice, but we shouldn't risk making any deals or getting corrupted. We can work with what we have already.
 
Azel said:
Because they are all like that. There is nothing to see except the generic patheticness of this fey or any other Void touched creature, whose running theme is "being really sad".

This has nothing to do with power and everything with presentation. A high CR ranking is not what makes an effective villain. I'm in fact livid at the insinuation that all I'm talking about is a lack of +x to something.
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I didn't mean to insinuate anything, and I'm sorry if my questioning came out that way. I genuinely didn't get what bothered you so much about it and wanted to understand.

I kinda agree with you now that you pointed my attention to this actually. I hope the Void is better presented when the Others advance south and the war actually begins.
 
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Azel said:
Because they are all like that. There is nothing to see except the generic patheticness of this fey or any other Void touched creature, whose running theme is "being really sad".

This has nothing to do with power and everything with presentation. A high CR ranking is not what makes an effective villain. I'm in fact livid at the insinuation that all I'm talking about is a lack of +x to something.

@DragonParadox, this here. This is what I'm talking about. There is zero difference in kind between the Void and any other villain. Neither in the way it's presented as threatening, no in the actual depiction of Void actors. Because "suicidal despair" is registering at most as mild melancholy to me, and you write every second villain like that. Back in the day, you insisted for the longest while that everything that is Evil on the alignment chart is like that. Without any exceptions.

There's just nothing that distinguishes the Void from any other fiend. And fiends have been treated as mostly a joke for the longest while.
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If I might say something, I think there is a difference in how we take individual actors and how we take whole organizations.

We wouldn't be having this conversation about a void cult. We are having this conversation about a lone captured fey in our power.
 
Azel said:
Because they are all like that. There is nothing to see except the generic patheticness of this fey or any other Void touched creature, whose running theme is "being really sad".
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BTW the general theme is nihilism, the desire to end everything forever. Translated to human emotions you get something like depression, which IMO is a lot more scary than any Big Stompy Monster or stat block because that is a thing humans out here is real life have to face.

That is why I try to give even the most eldritch evils a human face sometimes, because I believe that fundamentally the things that scare us the most are the ones we have experiance with. It's like the difference between Buffy the Vampire Slayer that used monsters as metaphors for the dangers of life and the evils of humanity and Charmed that just had monsters be weird dudes in cheap costumes.

I don't really want to pick this apart too much since I might accidentally give away plot developments or something.
 
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Why not burny to see what he can give us for this?

[X] Try to get more information out of Robert's killer
-[X] Sacrifice it to a god (risk that any information will be lost since it is recent and not intrinsic to the spirit)
-[X] R'hllor the Red, be his light reveal the truth
 
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