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

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DragonParadox said:
Souls Lost and Secrets Found ​

First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

There was rarely a case where asking too many questions of the future was to the detriment of the one doing the asking. And so you ask four more of the serpent-god Yss: "Why has Lord Stark not received word Robert Bratheon's death? Is Master Luwin to blame? Is Maester Luwin loyal to Lord Stark? Is master Luwin part of the Conspiracy of Oldtown?" Each time the vessel's answer is the same: No.

Good. The last thing you needed to do was tell the man who had just lost his foster brother and son that the man whose counsel he had lost trusted was a traitor. One more question you ask of the Great Serpent before departing. "Can Rob Stark be restored. to life?"

"Yes..." You breathe a sigh of relief...too soon. "So long as his soul is recovered from its prison."

Your thoughts go back at once to the leshy's account of the murderer. "Its body lived and its heart beat, but its soul was elsewhere, in the grip of the Enemy..."

"Fuck," Dany curses beside you, the sound unnaturally loud in the sanctum. Thankfully, Yss does not seem to care.

***​

You arrive in Winterfell without fanfare under cover of night, under the boughs of the Godswood, to find Lord and Lady Stark waiting for you alongside the aged Maester Luwin and a grim-faced man you guess must be Jorry Cassel. Guilt still lingers behind his eyes, for all he tries to show a brave front. Jon, you note, is not here, nor are any of the other children.

"My lord, my lady," you begin courteously introducing your company. Ser Richard is the easiest, his purpose here as obvious as the sword at his side, in a way you suspect reassuring that you would still need protection, though you doubt the Starks would find comfort knowing the sorts of foes the knight had guarded you from.

Dany offers a small smile and a charming little curtsy that comes off as putting a brave face on things, while your mother draws looks surprise but not shock, news of her return to life having already been both heard and believed. As to Vee, you suspect she might have drawn more attention from Lady Stark on any other day, but not in the wake of her son's death. Her eyes fix on Rina before you can offer her name, sorrow shifting to rage: "You... you're one of them! You did..."

"Catelyn," Lord Stark cuts her off, though his words are soft. "The letter mentioned the lady and that she is no enemy. Prince Viserys is a guest here and so are those brought with him."

"Yes... yes... I apologize, can you...?" her eyes your mother before she cuts herself off, the oft practiced mask of noble courtesy slipping over shock and grief with the skill that only long practice can breed.

"There is much to speak of, but before all else I must bring news of another who died to Winter's embrace." You sigh as you hand over the newspaper fresh off print "I make no claim to sorrow for it would not be believed regardless, but I feel it will serrve us all here to know where we stand in light of this."

Eddard Stark reads the lines, once, twice, three times, you can see his eyes moving over the lettering even as his mind or perhaps his heart cannot believe it. You expect him to call you a liar at least once, until his reason catches up to his emotions. He does nothing of the sort. All he asks is. "Can I keep this?"

It is a ridiculous question, in a way this is a ridiculous circumstance, just as it it tragic in light of Robb Stark's death. "Of course." After a moment, you add, "If you need time, I understand..."

"No," the word is harsh, as if torn from his throat. "Too much time has been wasted already. You have to see to the thing that killed Rob. I think it is safe to say that all of us here share an enemy, whatever else might lie between us."

Lady Stark gives him a worried look, then catches sight of the Times' headline and looks almost... relieved. Of course, she would have little cause to be attached to Baratheon beyond the practical, and sending her daughter to Runestone could be seen as hedging her bets.

Investigating the wards reveals that the protections of Winterfell are as intact as they can be, though unmanned as in your last visit. it appears that the attacker has simply scaled the wall and not been recognized as a creature of Winter. Perhaps, Rina posits, a new sort of servant, though that had not spared it from being barred from the crypts by the defenses Jon erected. Alas, the agent's nature was such that his remains could not be read as usual.

Divinations bespeak bones or read the imprint of the soul upon the body, and no soul has dwelt in those bones for centuries. All this Vee recounts silently from her investigation on the other side of the keep, while in Lord Stark's solar you give as close and accounting of Winter and the Void as you can.

You glance at Dany and see the same uncertainty in her eyes as is likely reflected in yours. How to tell grieving parents their son's soul had been stolen by an all consuming darkness of the Far North. Yet tell them you must. You had not forgotten Lady Stark's aborted question upon your meeting, and worse yet according to Rina, attempts to raise Rob will restore him to life yes, but only as something akin to his killer, utterly in the thrall of Winter.

"May I speak to Jon?" your sister asks, shattering a moment of silence. Catching Lord Stark's eye she says simply. "I think it is best if you just tell them now. Robert is not around to care and any sorcerer who cares to look deep enough into his parentage can see." That last part is not strictly true, thanks to the meddling of Bloodraven and the Old Gods, but the Starks do not need to know that.

The shock lies so heavy you can almost feel it like the air of a brewing storm. For his part, the Lord of Winterfell looks like he had been struck by lightning, finally he says, "Before you offered me a moment, I shall take it now... while your sister speaks to Jon."

"Certainly," you bow. "We will be in the Godswood..." Which will hopefully give you a chance to speak to the Old Gods about Robb's soul.

***​

Alas, the answers you get from a grim and weary Bloodraven are not what you might have hoped, the mutilated shell of Robb's body is not enough to simply pull his soul back. You will have to recover it some other way. Worse yet, there is nothing stopping the Lords of Winter from now animating Robb Stark as a soulless automation under their control, to put him to whatever use they deem fit. As news to give a grieving family on a day so many secrets have already been unveiled, this makes a poor telling indeed.

How do you explain the situation of Robb's soul to the Starks?

[] Write in

OOC: Well this was a lot longer than I anticipated, there is a lot going on chracter-wise. I'm tempted to do interludes, but I don't want this to drag. Not yet edited.
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Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.
 
DragonParadox said:
Oh you have the whole body, but it's not enough and neither is his parents' blood.
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You said Mindblank and you've said before that gods can punch through Mindblank as well.

Feels like people want Viserys to be out of character lazy about this for no reason. When was the last time shit went down, and the answer wasn't a matter of one spell. So he just up and gave up then and there. Just because this doesn't come with lots of loot doesn't means it doesn't NEED to be done.
 
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I don't actually know of anything we can do at this point, not if the soul is hidden behind that sort of Divination warding.

@DragonParadox, if we Resurrected Robb as a soulless abomination, would there then be enough of a metaphysical link between his physical body and his imprisoned soul that we could possibly use the Staff of Ages to target the soul itself with a curse of some sort, one that forces it to move on to the afterlife?
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
It's Divination, unfortunately. It is blocked by a Mindblank effect. If we could scrying beacon Robb's soul with his parent(s) blood maybe we could do a direct Find the Path Soul Edition straight to him.
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Yes, but I was thinking that we don't have to just stick with mortal magic here. The question is, supposing that it's possible to arrange, is this information worth what it'd cost to overcome their protections.

It might also be worth considering trying something other that just looking for Robb or trying to get him back directly. It'd probably be easier to use him as a target to detonate wherever he's being held and then try to resemble his soul after the fact than to try to pull him out while the Others are directly struggling with us.

Normally I'd hate this kind of plan, but whatever the Others are doing to him it's almost certainly worse than true death. I wouldn't be surprised if being broken down into living brass compared favorably with it honestly.
 
[X] They already have the context to what the Void and Winter are, lay out the facts:
-[X] You cannot bring Robb back, no one can - his soul is with the Enemy, and warded beyond even deific divination.
-[X] The body needs to be destroyed as soon as possible, it cannot be used to restore Robb, but the Enemy can and will raise it as a puppet instead.

I'm not the most diplomatic person around, but there isn't much of a way to handle the subject gently.

I kinda expect them to have had expected the answer, regardless.
Westeros lacks Rezz-happy mages of our caliber.

Also, I am highly uninterested in doing fetch-quests for Robb's soul right now/ever.
We have other shit to do.
 
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One Autumn Leaf said:
Well, the boy is utterly fucked then. Oh well there were enough spares at the very least.

Edit: The only thing that can pierce Mindblank to my knowledge is Metafaculty.
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It's more that it's analogous to mind blank than an assurance that it is mind blank. If you guys want the Old Gods to try to throw a divine salient at this you can ask, but it's going to take a hell of an argument for them to take the risk

Goldfish said:
I don't actually know of anything we can do at this point, not if the soul is hidden behind that sort of Divination warding.

@DragonParadox, if we Resurrected Robb as a soulless abomination, would there then be enough of a metaphysical link between his physical body and his imprisoned soul that we could possibly use the Staff of Ages to target the soul itself with a curse of some sort, one that forces it to move on to the afterlife?
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*rolls knowledge religion*

You would not be able to do it instantly, though given months of study by people like Rina it might be possible. It's one of those projects that would not get a set progress meter from the start since it might also be a dead end.
 
Well, one thing is for sure. That Wall is fucked. Oh lord, it is fucked. Like the best we can do is probably sever any connection Robb would have to that thing and hope that it's enough.
 
DragonParadox said:
If you guys want the Old Gods to try to throw a divine salient at this you can ask
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Yeah, no, hard pass on this from me.

How many people die to the Void?
Lots.

This kid is a nice kid, but beyond being named character, he's no CR 20+ asset, he's not worth the effort and the risk.

This is far beyond what Rina's case was.

silvanknight said:
If we had to do a fetch quest in the Others' backyard id rather rescue Rina's not-eidolon 1st.
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That had been ret-conned, what with the thing never appearing on-screen and stuff.
It isn't a thing anymore.
 
[X] egoo

This is the most sensible thing to say right now. If we privately decide to look for ways to destroy his soul so that the Others can't use it to bypass the Wall, then that's something that Ned doesn't need to know.
 
[X] egoo

As long as we look for a way to make sure the Others don't get past the Wall through Robb's soul this is fine.

Edit: I believe that Bran is the heir now? Well, he is young and he can come to learn in the heart of the Imperium.
 
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Do we actually have any confirmation that Robb's disembodied soul will give the Others some means to bypass the Wall? I don't remember getting any hints of such a possibility. It seems like Benjen would have already been snatched and used for this purpose, as he has long been a much more conveniently reached target than anyone in Winterfell.
 
egoo said:
That had been ret-conned, what with the thing never appearing on-screen and stuff.
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It has been referenced by Rina herself when we talked with her that something else was freed aside with her.

@DragonParadox, your official stance on this? Does Rina have a companion that was freed from the void or not?

Also, fetch quest! Let's all assault thr Others' stronghold in the middle of winter and while invading Westeros at the same time!

[X] Begin preparations to assault the Lands of Always Winter to mess with the schedule!
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
[X] egoo

As long as we look for a way to make sure the Others don't get past the Wall through Robb's soul this is fine.

Edit: I believe that Bran is the heir now? Well, he is young and he can come to learn in the heart of the Imperium.
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Either him or Sansa, but generally speaking, the North uses Agnatic-Cognatic succession, so it should be Bran.
Goldfish said:
Do we actually have any confirmation that Robb's disembodied soul will give the Others some means to bypass the Wall? I don't remember getting any hints of such a possibility. It seems like Benjen would have already been snatched and used for this purpose, as he has long been a much more conveniently reached target than anyone in Winterfell.
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Not to my knowledge. No.

We still should throw some research at the Wall and the wards of Winterfell for a host of reasons, but yeah. Benjen being alive despite being regularly north of the Wall is a strong indicator that a Stark soul is not a game-changer.
 
[X] egoo

So, I guess I'll have to be the one to point out that we've had two near simultaneous Rob deaths, one Robert Baratheon and the other Rob Stark.

It's a conspiracy!

/puts on his tinfoil skullcap 🦳
 
@DragonParadox To be clear--there's literally nothing we can do, since going by our usual modus operandi, we won't take risks, or force the Old Gods to take risks, which do not have a clear cost-benefit analysis, just a guarantee of an absurd amount of danger.

We have no leads from the body, no leads from the castle, no leads from Robb Stark's corpse, no means to divine it, and no information to guess since the thing they sent is just a puppet of a Power in the distance.

It's reasonable to assume if Robb's soul is beyond all hope of divination that Viserys, Mythic Dragon Archmage Sorcerer King, cannot do anything about this, not even make a gamble, because he doesn't even know what he's gambling for.

So this isn't a case of "when you try your best but you don't succeed" and more us being given the news "you never had a chance".
 
Crake said:
@DragonParadox To be clear--there's literally nothing we can do, since going by our usual modus operandi, we won't take risks, or force the Old Gods to take risks, which do not have a clear cost-benefit analysis, just a guarantee of an absurd amount of danger.

We have no leads from the body, no leads from the castle, no leads from Robb Stark's corpse, no means to divine it, and no information to guess since the thing they sent is just a puppet of a Power in the distance.

It's reasonable to assume if Robb's soul is beyond all hope of divination that Viserys, Mythic Dragon Archmage Sorcerer King, cannot do anything about this, not even make a gamble, because he doesn't even know what he's gambling for.

So this isn't a case of "when you try your best but you don't succeed" and more us being given the news "you never had a chance".
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The best suggestion I head so far was to try raising the body as a soulless and studying that, though it is by no means guaranteed. Winter did its homework on you guys and played its hand much better than say White Harbor.
 
@Goldfish Do we have a containment method we can use on the body? Being able to reverse whatever they do to people like Robb or Rina reliably doesn't sound like bad research.
 
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