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

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Goldfish said:
Huh, the Vomit Twin spells becomes much, much better when the Mythic version of the spell is used. I think I might be interpreting it incorrectly, because otherwise it seems ridiculously good and open to abuse.

And holy crap, Mythic Sending is just begging to be used to troll people. Sure, it is really helpful to be able to send a message to multiple people simultaneously, but being able to contact strangers using what amounts to a magic spreadsheet filter is amazing.

Set Filters: Void-tainted, Fey, Denizen of the Lands of Always Winter

Viserys: "What's up, bitches? Just dropping ya'll a line to remind you that I'm comin' for ya."

Set Filters: Main Branch Lannisters, Male

Viserys: "Boo!"

Set Filters: Denizen of X City, Plotting against the Imperium, Possesses X amount of wealth

Viserys: "One, two, the Inquisition is coming for you; Three, four, you better lock your door."
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"Hello Tywin, I'm sending you this magical message to remind you of your imminent demise. If you're wondering at the frequency of such messages it is to instill you with as much fear as I can, like basting a fowl. Which then I proceed to sacrifice to my heathen gods. That's right, I'm going to sacrifice the fear fowl!

Follow me @ViserysImperator on MirrorVision Channel(TM).

Signed, Viserys Targaryen."

Honestly if I didn't knew the construct ravens would be destroyed on sight I would had voted for us to send those back in the day.
 
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ryuan said:
"Hello Tywin, I'm sending you this magical message to remind you of your imminent demise. If you're wondering at the frequency of such messages it is to instill you with as much fear as I can, like basting a fowl. Which then I proceed to sacrifice to my heathen gods. That's right, I'm going to sacrifice the fear fowl!

Follow me @ViserysImperator on MirrorVision Channel(TM).

Signed, Viserys Targaryen."
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#BaelTheBardsBeenRealQuietSinceThisDropped #BestKing #LootTrainComing #AllYourBasebornAreBelongToUs #Don'tHateThePlayerHateTheGameofThrones #CancelLannister
 
ASWAH (is that the correct acronym?) Viserys I feel would absolutely be voiced by Crispin Freeman in a cartoon, with Abridged Alucard voicing the more silly moments.
 
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Canon Omake: The Artisans Pride XV
  • Threadmarks
    • The Artisans Pride XV​
    << Previous

    Third Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

    Repetition bred familarity. That was the most basic idea behind most ways of studying. Reading things again and again, until the information stuck with you. One had to be careful though to not just read the words over and over, but to think about them at the same time. To search for the context and implications that one missed on the first or second pass. Failing to do so made sure you only ever would be able to regurgitate what was written verbatim, which was barely tolerable for something like historic facts, but utterly useless for other fields.

    In his youth, Marwyn had hated that way of studying, having always preferred to discuss things with others in the order or, depending on the material in question, with someone who had a more practical connection to the matter. How the Citadel saw it fit to bestow a steel link on people who had never set foot in an actual forge still stumped him. However, in his years, he had accepted three exceptions to that rule.

    One was the tomes of higher knowledge which he had searched all over creation for decades. Obscure information and well-kept secrets that you could not easily pick up from a master in the field or recreate through simple study. Even with all the power he had gained over the years, he still could not expect to learn the knowledge of some long dead expert that had died centuries ago. Or those of one who was unwilling to share them in the first place. Acquiring a book or two was much easier then abducting the author.

    The second exception was when you wanted to learn more about the person who wrote something. In many ways, it was a better option then simply talking to them. People of all kinds lied when they spoke. Not only to you, but to themselves. Every word was tinged with what they thought of you and how they felt they had to comport themselves. All construed to uphold an image they had of themselves, masked by another layer of what they wanted you to believe about them. When they wrote though? When they thought they recounted facts in a neutral fashion? Then you could get a much better read on who they truly were.

    So, when he had been presented with the letter of his esteemed colleague, who was asking for his aid in the Citadel, he made sure to read it thoroughly. Three times so far, including all appendices. The man deserved the scrutiny and it still galled Marwyn that he seemed the only one to think so in the entire Citadel. Oh, they certainly were quick to pass judgement on his every move, but no one ever seemed to see the man instead of the sum of their preconceptions of him. Back when he had begun his studies in the order, Qyburn had already been an outcast. Tolerated, and even that only barely, with scarce a link to his chain as no one was willing to grant him even that recognition unless they had no choice.

    Had their roles just been different. Had Qyburn be a young lad whom Archmaester Marwyn could have taken under his wing. By all accounts, the man was everything you could have hoped for in an apprentice. Dedicated, curious and with a sharp mind. Ambitious too, in a sense, though far too many would not recognize that trait in a man when he was not lusting for a crown. To Marwyn, even back then before the Mending and all it brought, there was never a doubt that Qyburn was all but destined to become a scholar with few equals in the worlds. The question just was which path he would take to that goal, and it was others who determined that.

    There was cruel irony in the fact that, in the end, Qyburn was the Citadels creation. They thought he was reaching beyond his station by questioning them, so they punished him, and he began to question them behind their back. When he presented them his ideas, they ridiculed him, dismissed him and called him disgusting for the matters that had sparked his interest. So, he kept them quiet instead, studying somewhere in peace where their scrutiny could not reach.

    It was plain to see back in the Citadel and it was plain to see in his writings now. The accounts of how he found one forgotten tome or another, of the abandoned catacombs housing things only he saw the value of, every retelling tinged with a note of wistfulness that came with fond memories. Unlike anything he had to write about the people around him. "Grey Sheep" he called them and that was the merest trickle of the resentment he truly felt. But why should he have felt any different about an order that never welcomed him as one of their own and washed his hands of him the moment his rebellion against them could no longer be ignored? All because of the arrogance and ignorance of a few old men in masks.

    With all that Marwyn himself had seen in the Citadel, the accounts of scheming Archmaesters seeking to undermine each other for power and position was almost flattering. The real reasons could be so much dumber and pettier. He quiet vividly remembered a yearlong feud with Archmaester Walgrave over having "slighted" one of his pet pupils, some Valeman with connections to one important house or another, but with the wit of an inebriated ox, for not giving him a Valyrian Steel link. Were they still doing that, he wondered? Were they still trading favours and pissing in each other's porridge while the rafters were catching fire? He had not been in the Citadel for a good long while by now and maybe it was for the best that he didn't have to see the sorry display for himself.

    Perhaps all of this was inevitable. Not that the fickle hand of fate had wrote these events into prophecy. No. It seemed to be work of something far more certain and persistent. History. Many had defied prophecy, but no one had yet to defy the march of history, and the Citadel had been walking the path they were one for far too long to change it anymore. Qyburns recounting of how Archmaesters in ages past were slowly chipping away at the walls to claim the dust as their own was quiet nice evidence to that fact. The rot sat deep and had festered for far too long.

    Had they remained scholars, the Maesters might have endured. They could have even played their petty games among each other, where no one would have been bothered by them. But they just had to make other plays. They just had to meddle in the affairs of lords time and time again, throwing away the neutrality that had protected the Citadel. They just had to get it into their head to impose their own whims on the world, making enemies of whoever defied their visions. Certainly, they had power. Men sitting in every keep of Westeros, their loyalty never in doubt, but rarely checked. But it was power that was exercised in the dark and with subtle threats that were only implied, never spoken.

    Now they had finally found a king who was not afraid of them and knew full well of their other activities. Who had no need of their services and who placed much more value on the books of the Citadel then the men who tended to them. For that small part, Marwyn was unbelievably grateful in the privacy of his own head. Had their hand been discovered by another Targaryen, the results would have been so much worse. Had Maegor noticed the poison given to his dragons, he would have taken Balerion to Oldtown and made a pyre of the Citadel without a second thought. Maybe of the whole city, while he was at it.

    Luckily, the last son of the Targaryen line was less inclined to such brutality. No that he was shy of such measures, recent events were showing quiet clearly how far he would go if he truly felt threatened, but they were not his first course of action. But the Citadel had made itself his enemy, long before his birth by acting against his line and then again by acting against him. There was a reason it was one of the first topics Marwyn had spoken of with him. It was clear that there would be conflict and the best he could have hoped for was to moderate it. To preserve as much of the order as he could, even if it was just the books and the people.

    He had not, in all honesty, considered what the other Maester in his employ thought on the matter. Qyburn seemed quite happy to do research in the forges, but it seemed his recent changes had rekindled a desire in him to revisit his past. He certainly seemed more animated since then. Both in body and in spirit, but only the former could be explained by his new body. There was something that drove him, that much was sure, but Marwyn couldn't pinpoint what exactly, just that it had gained some degree of urgency.

    In the end though, the details mattered little. In their pride, their arrogance, the Citadel had made an enemy of a ruler that needed not to fear their power. And in the sum of their sins, they had shaped a man who would have not hesitated to skin them for parchment and who knew just enough of their secrets to topple them all. Truly, a better match could not have been. Maybe fate had made it's own annotations to the matter after all, if just to make it a better story for the bards and scholars to recall in equal measure.

    That all left the question of where he wanted to stand in all of this. Would Archmaester Marwyn be the traitor who helped destroy the Citadel? Would he stand aside as others did so? He had bargained to become the savior of what would be left in the wake of the events to come, but would that be enough? He could take a more active role, if he so wished. He had been openly invited to it. Maybe that way, he could sway a few more people to his side, presenting himself as the more pleasant alternative to whatever Qyburn was planning to do after becoming the new Seneschal.

    But there was this nagging fear of what he would find. For all his disgust at some of the Citadels actions and his open loathing of some who hid behind a chain to play their games in peace, he still loved the idea behind it all. He loved the knowledge and the search for ever more of it. He loved to discuss ideas with other scholars and work together on flights of fancy that might yet become reality. But, in the end, that was the crux of it all. He had left, because he felt that a wandering vagabond would have an easier time to find these things then an Archmaester in the Citadel. And a man who had been categorically denied all of this was now asking for his help in ending this farce.

    As he finished his fourth and final read of the letter, Marwyn quietly folded it and tossed it into the lit brazier next to him. The third and final advantage of memorizing things was that you did not need to leave things around that others could read. His answer wouldn't be presented in writing either. One last time, he would be the Archmaester of the Higher Mysteries. He would elect a new Seneschal. And together, they would see what could be built upon the ruins.


    AN: Mostly a character piece on Marwyn and some outside view on Qyburn by someone who knows the Citadel from inside.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Vote closed.
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Dec 14, 2020 at 2:34 PM, finished with 66 posts and 17 votes.
    • [X] Viserys' 4th Mythic Rank
      -[X] Attribute Increase: +2 Charisma
      -[X] Path Ability:
      --[X] Elemental Bond [Fire]: You are connected to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Whenever you cast a spell with the Fire descriptor, add your Mythic tier to your caster level for that spell.
      -[X] Mythic Spell: Mythic Blood Wish
      [X] Restore the Archmaester's body via a Miracle. Question it with Speak to Dead to corroborate the story you received.
      -[X] Before questioning, set up a Mindblank-ward around the corpse, so as to not ping any Divination by the corpse revealing the knowledge of the Conspiracy members and such.
      -[X] Learn what items he had on himself, and then use Miracle again to restore those.
      -[X] Establish a connection to either Marwyn or Qyburn, have them take part in asking the maester for anything of use in their task of infiltrating the Citadel.
      -[X] Meanwhile, while the corpse is being questioned, have the rest of the group move in to try and loot whatever of worth there is in Jabberwocky's territory. Just in case.
      [X] Leave the Feywild and go to the Citadel and demand the Maesters to face you.
    Click to expand...
     
    Robotninja said:
    The idea behind Maesters isn't bad. How it was executed. . . . Less than ideal.
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    The idea was always poisoned from the start.

    An order of scholars hosted and trained in the Reach, who are meant to be solely responsibly for the education, health, and advisement of the vast majority of lords across the entire continent? That's begging to be abused. What's more unbelievable is that the other kingdoms didn't see the issue here. There should have been rival Citadels.
     
    Duesal said:
    The idea was always poisoned from the start.

    An order of scholars hosted and trained in the Reach, who are meant to be solely responsibly for the education, health, and advisement of the vast majority of lords across the entire continent? That's begging to be abused. What's more unbelievable is that the other kingdoms didn't see the issue here. There should have been rival Citadels.
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    It certainly would make more sense if it was an organization founded and funded by the Targs but this thing is older than House Stark by its oldest origin story. Also how on earth did the Starks allow themselves to be subject to that after the Invasion of the Seven? By that point, the North should have created their own Citadel because anything coming from the Citadel after the invasion is tainted as all hell with biases.
     
    Azel said:
    The Artisans Pride XV​
    << Previous

    Third Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

    Repetition bred familarity. That was the most basic idea behind most ways of studying. Reading things again and again, until the information stuck with you. One had to be careful though to not just read the words over and over, but to think about them at the same time. To search for the context and implications that one missed on the first or second pass. Failing to do so made sure you only ever would be able to regurgitate what was written verbatim, which was barely tolerable for something like historic facts, but utterly useless for other fields.

    In his youth, Marwyn had hated that way of studying, having always preferred to discuss things with others in the order or, depending on the material in question, with someone who had a more practical connection to the matter. How the Citadel saw it fit to bestow a steel link on people who had never set foot in an actual forge still stumped him. However, in his years, he had accepted three exceptions to that rule.

    One was the tomes of higher knowledge which he had searched all over creation for decades. Obscure information and well-kept secrets that you could not easily pick up from a master in the field or recreate through simple study. Even with all the power he had gained over the years, he still could not expect to learn the knowledge of some long dead expert that had died centuries ago. Or those of one who was unwilling to share them in the first place. Acquiring a book or two was much easier then abducting the author.

    The second exception was when you wanted to learn more about the person who wrote something. In many ways, it was a better option then simply talking to them. People of all kinds lied when they spoke. Not only to you, but to themselves. Every word was tinged with what they thought of you and how they felt they had to comport themselves. All construed to uphold an image they had of themselves, masked by another layer of what they wanted you to believe about them. When they wrote though? When they thought they recounted facts in a neutral fashion? Then you could get a much better read on who they truly were.

    So, when he had been presented with the letter of his esteemed colleague, who was asking for his aid in the Citadel, he made sure to read it thoroughly. Three times so far, including all appendices. The man deserved the scrutiny and it still galled Marwyn that he seemed the only one to think so in the entire Citadel. Oh, they certainly were quick to pass judgement on his every move, but no one ever seemed to see the man instead of the sum of their preconceptions of him. Back when he had begun his studies in the order, Qyburn had already been an outcast. Tolerated, and even that only barely, with scarce a link to his chain as no one was willing to grant him even that recognition unless they had no choice.

    Had their roles just been different. Had Qyburn be a young lad whom Archmaester Marwyn could have taken under his wing. By all accounts, the man was everything you could have hoped for in an apprentice. Dedicated, curious and with a sharp mind. Ambitious too, in a sense, though far too many would not recognize that trait in a man when he was not lusting for a crown. To Marwyn, even back then before the Mending and all it brought, there was never a doubt that Qyburn was all but destined to become a scholar with few equals in the worlds. The question just was which path he would take to that goal, and it was others who determined that.

    There was cruel irony in the fact that, in the end, Qyburn was the Citadels creation. They thought he was reaching beyond his station by questioning them, so they punished him, and he began to question them behind their back. When he presented them his ideas, they ridiculed him, dismissed him and called him disgusting for the matters that had sparked his interest. So, he kept them quiet instead, studying somewhere in peace where their scrutiny could not reach.

    It was plain to see back in the Citadel and it was plain to see in his writings now. The accounts of how he found one forgotten tome or another, of the abandoned catacombs housing things only he saw the value of, every retelling tinged with a note of wistfulness that came with fond memories. Unlike anything he had to write about the people around him. "Grey Sheep" he called them and that was the merest trickle of the resentment he truly felt. But why should he have felt any different about an order that never welcomed him as one of their own and washed his hands of him the moment his rebellion against them could no longer be ignored? All because of the arrogance and ignorance of a few old men in masks.

    With all that Marwyn himself had seen in the Citadel, the accounts of scheming Archmaesters seeking to undermine each other for power and position was almost flattering. The real reasons could be so much dumber and pettier. He quiet vividly remembered a yearlong feud with Archmaester Walgrave over having "slighted" one of his pet pupils, some Valeman with connections to one important house or another, but with the wit of an inebriated ox, for not giving him a Valyrian Steel link. Were they still doing that, he wondered? Were they still trading favours and pissing in each other's porridge while the rafters were catching fire? He had not been in the Citadel for a good long while by now and maybe it was for the best that he didn't have to see the sorry display for himself.

    Perhaps all of this was inevitable. Not that the fickle hand of fate had wrote these events into prophecy. No. It seemed to be work of something far more certain and persistent. History. Many had defied prophecy, but no one had yet to defy the march of history, and the Citadel had been walking the path they were one for far too long to change it anymore. Qyburns recounting of how Archmaesters in ages past were slowly chipping away at the walls to claim the dust as their own was quiet nice evidence to that fact. The rot sat deep and had festered for far too long.

    Had they remained scholars, the Maesters might have endured. They could have even played their petty games among each other, where no one would have been bothered by them. But they just had to make other plays. They just had to meddle in the affairs of lords time and time again, throwing away the neutrality that had protected the Citadel. They just had to get it into their head to impose their own whims on the world, making enemies of whoever defied their visions. Certainly, they had power. Men sitting in every keep of Westeros, their loyalty never in doubt, but rarely checked. But it was power that was exercised in the dark and with subtle threats that were only implied, never spoken.

    Now they had finally found a king who was not afraid of them and knew full well of their other activities. Who had no need of their services and who placed much more value on the books of the Citadel then the men who tended to them. For that small part, Marwyn was unbelievably grateful in the privacy of his own head. Had their hand been discovered by another Targaryen, the results would have been so much worse. Had Maegor noticed the poison given to his dragons, he would have taken Balerion to Oldtown and made a pyre of the Citadel without a second thought. Maybe of the whole city, while he was at it.

    Luckily, the last son of the Targaryen line was less inclined to such brutality. No that he was shy of such measures, recent events were showing quiet clearly how far he would go if he truly felt threatened, but they were not his first course of action. But the Citadel had made itself his enemy, long before his birth by acting against his line and then again by acting against him. There was a reason it was one of the first topics Marwyn had spoken of with him. It was clear that there would be conflict and the best he could have hoped for was to moderate it. To preserve as much of the order as he could, even if it was just the books and the people.

    He had not, in all honesty, considered what the other Maester in his employ thought on the matter. Qyburn seemed quite happy to do research in the forges, but it seemed his recent changes had rekindled a desire in him to revisit his past. He certainly seemed more animated since then. Both in body and in spirit, but only the former could be explained by his new body. There was something that drove him, that much was sure, but Marwyn couldn't pinpoint what exactly, just that it had gained some degree of urgency.

    In the end though, the details mattered little. In their pride, their arrogance, the Citadel had made an enemy of a ruler that needed not to fear their power. And in the sum of their sins, they had shaped a man who would have not hesitated to skin them for parchment and who knew just enough of their secrets to topple them all. Truly, a better match could not have been. Maybe fate had made it's own annotations to the matter after all, if just to make it a better story for the bards and scholars to recall in equal measure.

    That all left the question of where he wanted to stand in all of this. Would Archmaester Marwyn be the traitor who helped destroy the Citadel? Would he stand aside as others did so? He had bargained to become the savior of what would be left in the wake of the events to come, but would that be enough? He could take a more active role, if he so wished. He had been openly invited to it. Maybe that way, he could sway a few more people to his side, presenting himself as the more pleasant alternative to whatever Qyburn was planning to do after becoming the new Seneschal.

    But there was this nagging fear of what he would find. For all his disgust at some of the Citadels actions and his open loathing of some who hid behind a chain to play their games in peace, he still loved the idea behind it all. He loved the knowledge and the search for ever more of it. He loved to discuss ideas with other scholars and work together on flights of fancy that might yet become reality. But, in the end, that was the crux of it all. He had left, because he felt that a wandering vagabond would have an easier time to find these things then an Archmaester in the Citadel. And a man who had been categorically denied all of this was now asking for his help in ending this farce.

    As he finished his fourth and final read of the letter, Marwyn quietly folded it and tossed it into the lit brazier next to him. The third and final advantage of memorizing things was that you did not need to leave things around that others could read. His answer wouldn't be presented in writing either. One last time, he would be the Archmaester of the Higher Mysteries. He would elect a new Seneschal. And together, they would see what could be built upon the ruins.


    AN: Mostly a character piece on Marwyn and some outside view on Qyburn by someone who knows the Citadel from inside.
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    Qyburn: "The life of a Malign Hypercognitive is fraught with suffering and hardship."

    Dr. Doom: "Preach it, brother."
     
    Duesal said:
    The idea was always poisoned from the start.

    An order of scholars hosted and trained in the Reach, who are meant to be solely responsibly for the education, health, and advisement of the vast majority of lords across the entire continent? That's begging to be abused. What's more unbelievable is that the other kingdoms didn't see the issue here. There should have been rival Citadels.
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    Bad world building, says Doyal.

    Watson says that other organizations have been created, but they rarely experienced the longevity of patronage that the Citadel did.
     
    Winning vote
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Dec 14, 2020 at 2:34 PM, finished with 66 posts and 17 votes.
    • [X] Viserys' 4th Mythic Rank
      -[X] Attribute Increase: +2 Charisma
      -[X] Path Ability:
      --[X] Elemental Bond [Fire]: You are connected to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Whenever you cast a spell with the Fire descriptor, add your Mythic tier to your caster level for that spell.
      -[X] Mythic Spell: Mythic Blood Wish
      [X] Restore the Archmaester's body via a Miracle. Question it with Speak to Dead to corroborate the story you received.
      -[X] Before questioning, set up a Mindblank-ward around the corpse, so as to not ping any Divination by the corpse revealing the knowledge of the Conspiracy members and such.
      -[X] Learn what items he had on himself, and then use Miracle again to restore those.
      -[X] Establish a connection to either Marwyn or Qyburn, have them take part in asking the maester for anything of use in their task of infiltrating the Citadel.
      -[X] Meanwhile, while the corpse is being questioned, have the rest of the group move in to try and loot whatever of worth there is in Jabberwocky's territory. Just in case.
      [X] Leave the Feywild and go to the Citadel and demand the Maesters to face you.
    Click to expand...
     
    Part MMMDCLXXXIII: Flames and Farsight
  • Threadmarks
    • Flames and Farsight ​

    Nineteenth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

    Fire has always been a part of you, the knack of conjuring it the first magic you ever mastered beyond the limitations of spellcraft. From candle's flame to alchemist's concoction, to altars upon which it burns unclothed from the will of gods you have witnessed flame in many things, but in this place in this time looking upon the petrified forms of your foes you understand for the first time a grander truth: there is fire in all things. Not just in dragonglass that is the bane of Winter, not merely in the power that dances across Oathkeeper's blade. Where there is life, where there is motion, where there is heat there too is fire waiting to be called. In a flash of insight too distant to be called a vision you begin to understand why the dragon's fire scared the Bloodstone Emperor and his hosts so terribly, why R'hllor calls to so many souls. Fire is the world's heartbeat.

    A gloved hand touches your arm. "Are you alright?" Maelor asks concerned.

    "Yes, I was just seeing something for the first time," you reply with a shake of the head.

    He snorts. "Reminds me of a joke I heard yesterday. What's the difference between a mage and..." he trails off then mumbles. "Never mind, I..."

    You actually do know the jape he means and can hazard a good guess why he stopped. "What's the difference between a mage and a madman, you mean?" You recite. "When a madman sees things men laugh, when a mage sees them they don't dare, whether he's mad or not."

    Amrelath finds it amusing enough to snort out a thin tongue of fire, though probably more at the foibles of 'lesser beings' wielding magic in general.

    With an understanding smile at Maelor you add. "A poor king I would be if I censured humor. I'd probably be deposed within the year."

    As the others spread out looking for whatever treasure or answers this strange place might hold you set in your mind an image of Archmaester Perestan, whom you had seen months ago in Oldtown. A thin lined face with a crown of grey hair around the back of his head, the front having lost any trace of it. He might be any age from fifty to seventy, though from speaking to Marwyn you know it is closer to the latter than the former.

    Setting your will upon the world you raise from the stone his likeness cloaked in grey to such precision as to retain some memory of his life and then you bid it speak. Yet as soon as your magic settles upon the body and its mouth opens a rune blazes upon the corpse's forehead and consumes the head in a flash of blue-green fire, leaving behind only the smell of seared flesh and burned bone. The rune was one the First Men used for a 'great deed' or more broadly 'history', the very title Perestan held in life. It seems the Citadel and the conspiracy within it will not reveal its secrets as easily as you had hoped.

    You cast the spells again in sequence, this time watching with senses beyond flesh. What you see is almost fascinating enough to drown out the frustration. Someone, likely someone long dead from the timber of the magic, had tied the spell to the very concept of the Archmaester of History as recognized by the Citadel. Given how easy Pycelle had been to interrogate the magic obviously did not extend to dealing with living members in high standing of the Order of Maesters...

    "I think I've found something..." Vee calls out from beyond the ritual chamber. At first you think it is the rows of books upon the walls but she shakes her head. "All blank, some sort of silly story logic, false wisdom and hollow tomes, but there's something behind the central shelf here."

    There is indeed. At first it seems a fine mirror of gold and silver set with sapphires, then the 'sapphires' open and close like eyes, crystalline irises black as midnight, peering curiously back. The presence within the mirror is more than glad to explain themselves, a thousand voices speaking over each other in what is almost an incomprehensible cacophony. They are a scrying instrument beyond price, certainly beyond most mortal artifice, able to look not only upon the outer realms, but even into the ethereal Dreamlands. A fitting piece, given what history inspired this corner of the Feywild.

    "It'll only work in the Feywild or other places like it..." Zherys muses, coming to stand next to the mirror, gazing upon it with a mix of interest and disdain. "Perhaps a gift to a vassal, or a piece to be kept in what was once the heartlands of the Court of Stars."

    What do you do with the Visionary Lens?

    [] Offer it to the Orphne Court, to be used by the Inquisitors therein

    [] Send it to the newly claimed portion of the Feywild that was once the domain of the Court of Stars

    [] Write in

    OOC: Pretty good loot roll and you got even luckier on the artifact's temperament. It is cheerfully voyeuristic without any particular dislike of Viserys or his House, representing some of the more passing follies of the Order of Maesters over the years.
     
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    • DragonParadox said:
    Flames and Farsight ​

    Nineteenth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

    Fire has always been a part of you, the knack of conjuring it the first magic you ever mastered beyond the limitations of spellcraft. From candle's flame to alchemist's concoction, to altars upon which burns unclothed in form the will of gods, you have witnessed flame in many things, but in this place, in this time looking upon the petrified forms of your foes, you understand for the first time a grander truth: there is fire in all things. Not just in dragonstone that is the bane of Winter, not merely in the power that dances across Oathkeeper's blade. Where there is life, where there is motion, where there is heat, there too is fire waiting to be called. In a flash of insight too distant to be called a vision, you begin to understand why the dragon's fire scarred the Bloodstone Emperor and his hosts so terribly, why R'hllor calls to so many souls. Fire is the world's heartbeat.

    A gloved hand touches your arm. "Are you alright?" Maelor asks, concerned.

    "Yes, I was just seeing something for the first time," you reply with a shake of the head.

    He snorts. "Reminds me of a joke I heard yesterday. What's the difference between a mage and..." he trails off, then mumbles. "Never mind, I..."

    You actually do know the jape he means and can hazard a good guess why he stopped. "What's the difference between a mage and a madman, you mean?" You recite. "When a madman sees things men laugh, when a mage sees them they don't dare, whether he's mad or not."

    Amrelath finds it amusing enough to snort out a thin tongue of fire, though probably more at the foibles of 'lesser beings' wielding magic in general.

    With an understanding smile at Maelor, you add, "A poor king I would be if I censured humor. I'd probably be deposed within the year."

    As the others spread out looking for whatever treasure or answers this strange place might hold, you set in your mind an image of Archmaester Perestan, you had seen months ago in Oldtown. A thin, lined face with a crown of grey hair around the back of his head. The front having lost any trace of it. He might be any age from fifty to seventy, though from speaking to Marwyn you know it is closer to the latter than the former.

    Setting your will upon the world, you raise from the stone his likeness cloaked in grey to such precision as to retain some memory of his life and then you bid it speak. Yet as soon as your magic settles upon the body and its mouth opens, a rune blazes upon the corpse's forhead and consumes the head in a flash of blue-green fire, leaving behind only the smell of seared flesh and burned bone. The rune was one the First Men used for 'great deed' or more broadly 'history', the very title Perestan held in life. It seems the Citadel and the conspiracy within it will not reveal its secrets as easily as you had hoped.

    You cast the spells again in sequence, this time watching with senses beyond flesh. What you see is almost fascinating enough to drown out the frustration. Someone, likely someone long dead from the timber of the magic, had tied the spell to the very concept of the Archmaester of History as recognized by the Citadel. Given how easy Pycelle had been to interrogate, the magic obviously did not extend to dealing with living members in high standing of the Order of Maesters...

    "I think I've found something..." Vee calls from beyond the ritual chamber. At first you think it is the rows of books upon the walls but she shakes her head. "All blank, some sort of silly story logic, false wisdom and hollow tomes, but there's something behind the central shelf here."

    There is indeed. At first it seems a fine mirror of gold and silver set with sapphire eyes, then the eyes open, crystalline irises black as midnight peering curiously back. The presence within the mirror is more than glad to explain themselves, a thousand voices speaking over each other in what is almost an incomprehensible cacophony. They are a scrying instrument beyond price, certainly beyond most mortal artifice, able to look not only upon the outer realms, but even into the ethereal dreamlands. A fitting piece, given what history inspired this corner of the Feywild.

    "It'll only work in the feywild or other places like it..." Zherys muses, coming to stand next to the mirror, gazing upon it with a mix of interest and disdain. "Perhaps a gift to a vassal, or a piece to be kept in what was once the heartlands of the Court of Stars."

    What do you do with the Visionary Lens?

    [] Offer it to the Orphne Court, to be used by the Inquisitors therein

    [] Send it to the newly claimed portion of the Feywild that was once the domain of the Court of Stars

    [] Write in

    OOC: Pretty good loot roll and you got even luckier on the artifact's temperament. It is cheerfully voyeuristic without any particular dislike of Viserys or his House, representing some of the more passing follies of the Order of Maesters over the years. Not yet edited.
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    Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    It seems the Citadel and the conspiracy within it will not reveal its secrets as easily as you had hoped.
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    Is there enough of a physical brain left after the death and the quantum reversion of entropy Miracle for us to throw it at Yss and expect some/all information recovered through sheer overwhelming power?
    I'd throw it Qyburn's way instead, but I don't think he can eat a brain and get the memories out of it like the proper illithids..? @Azel?
     
    egoo said:
    Is there enough of a physical brain left after the death and the quantum reversion of entropy Miracle for us to throw it at Yss and expect some/all information recovered through sheer overwhelming power?
    I'd throw it Qyburn's way instead, but I don't think he can eat a brain and get the memories out of it like the proper illithids..? @Azel?
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    Yss does not read corpses like that, especially since this corpse was never actually alive. His domains have no purchase here.

    Artemis1992 said:
    @DragonParadox
    Did we make any contact with survivors of the Golden Court so far?
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    Not really, no. You have not exactly been looking though.
     
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