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

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

It is considered unwise in cyvasse to try to take the pieces of one's opponent using the king, lest he be snared and the game lost, but the truly great player knows there comes a time and a place to break with caution if the prize is great enough, and this is great indeed. The fate of whole campaigns might be decided here as the battle can be won with a single stroke of the dagger. Of course, one might be forgiven for thinking the guises you have taken on are not precisely subtle or prone to stealth. Ser Richard makes for the grandest show, in armor of azer-forged steel, his face marked by the scars of a failed arcane brand, his hair a mass of flames. As is his wont when you play such games, he keeps one step behind you, hand on the hilt of his sword.


Now and again he glares at the passing patrols of dervishes to give silent credence to the notion that he is a failed initiate of their order. It is uncommon for the Sultan's most faithful servants to let one in such a position live, but for the rare failures of the order that are allowed to do so, by reason of patronage or intercession by family, there is always a place to be found as sellswords and bodyguards. It is counted flattening to the Great Sultan to take his leavings and the part you are playing is certainly that of one who would have cause to flatter the Sultan by imitation.

The Hawanar, or ember-born, are children of unhappy unions between Djinn and Efreeti, and any who should then find themselves in the service of the Brazen Throne made all the more bitter by the scorn of the Masters of Fire, yet they are not half-caste, not born of mortal blood and prone to mortal frailty, and so they are often used as spies and agents of the Throne, utterly dependent on the favor of the Sultan not just to thrive, but even to survive. Hopefully, this is the very last sort of person one might expect treachery form at least at first sight.


Meanwhile, Garin plays the part of a far more lowly servant, one of the oath-bound. Not quite a slave in common parlance, for the arcane bond can all too easily be turned against the unwary master, he nonetheless walks with his head bowed as though not daring to look into the eye of any of the soldiers of the Eternal Guard. In truth, you have no doubt that your friend sees far more than even you can and he will put it to good use. The hardest part of that particular disguise had been actually investing him with the powers he should have as such a servant. No one would dare demand that you show magic after all but they might for him. Thankfully, you do have your own ways to invest sorcery in allies and with the inability to use spells of the higher circles you do not regret the loss of magic.


While the three of you march up towards the first check point bold as brass, appropriately enough Lya and Waymar take Maelor's lead to more humble roles, having stolen the faces of several of the workers who actually load the piston train. It should be easy enough for them to slip inside even as the shadow cats had done, what they lack for in stealth they make up for in having magic and thumbs, or so you hope at least. A web of mind speech connects all six of you just to be certain.

If there is one major flaw in the guise you have taken, it is that one can only mock up actual efreeti documentation so well. Even with help from Shaitan intelligence and the most careful arcane forging there is one aspect of a Decree from the Generals of the Brazen Hosts you cannot imitate, a wax seal that is supposed to match the magical signature of the bearer under careful divination. The last thing you can afford at the moment is careful study of your present form. Luckily, you are not expected to present that in 'public' before the first check points, for to one with the habits of the Sultan's court it would be like stripping naked before a multitude of knives. You are to do so inside the fortress in the presence of an official greeter of genie-kind.

Unluckily, it seems as though the local garrison has some reason to suspect they should be on high alert even if the common soldiers know nothing of the wardstones. "This way kartula," the dervish in command of the outer harbor leads you towards the bridge and the inner fortress, flanked by seven more of her fellows. She does not seem hostile, or even overly suspicious, her gaze fixed on Ser Richard with the sort of scorn for the 'failures' of her order that seems to distract her just as you had hoped.

"I could slip into the slave barracks and then deeper into the fortress to try to find the vault while you wait for confirmation of your papers. They likely do not see me as a threat," Garin sends mentally.

You cannot deny the point, but he would be isolated when the mission begins in earnest. Alternatively, you could try to enchant your guards while waiting for the greeter. They have basic mind wards of course, but you are fast and quiet enough with your magic to both remove that and weave the enchantment while you are still on the bridge.

Which path do you take?

[] Plan Scout, send Garin to the common quarters 'so as not to bring insult to the local officers' giving him the chance to scout ahead

[] Plan beguile, take the chance to charm your guards into potentially revealing more than they should about the layout of the fortress

[] Write in

OOC: As high as your charisma is trying to get the guards to tell you were the vault is just by mundane means is simply is not going to work, it is too suspicious, at least not without some kind of write in I have not thought of. Not yet edited.

Darkmark (Su): As a Standard Action, you can place a Darkmark on a touched target. The range that marks can be placed increases at higher Mythic Tiers (25 feet at 2nd tier, 100 feet at 3rd tier, 400 feet at 4th tier, plus 100 additional feet for tier after 4th). You can have a number of Darkmarks active equal to your Charisma bonus plus twice your Mythic Tier. Darkmarks are Permanent magical effects which persist until Dispelled or dismissed, though if you add a Darkmark to a target when you are already at your maximum number of marks, the oldest active mark is automatically dismissed. Darkmarks resist Dispelling as if they were Shadow spells with a caster level equal to your character level plus twice your Mythic Tier. For unwilling targets, the DC to resist being marked is equal to 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Mythic Tier + your Charisma bonus.

The Darkmark appears on your target's body where you touched them to apply it, but at 2nd Mythic tier and higher you can place it anywhere on them you wish. Unless the target or a nearby ally sees the Darkmark upon their flesh before it fades to Invisibility one round after being applied, only inspection with See Invisibility or a similar effect will reveal its presence, nor do those who successfully resist the mark realize they have done so. The Darkmark serves as an anchor which duplicates the effects of the Dragoneye Rune, Status, and Telepathic Bond spells. You can suppress or restore any of these functions as a Free Action for individual Darkmarks or for as many of them as you desire.

The greatest power of your Darkmark is not the information it can relay to you about your targets, however, but the conduit it forges for your magic. Any spell you personally cast can be made to originate from a selected Darkmark, regardless of range between you and the mark's recipient so long as they are on the same Plane. At 3rd Mythic Tier, the conduit is able to extend even beyond Planar boundaries. Spells cast from items (wands, talismans, scrolls, etc.) cannot be transmitted through the mark, but those which are powered using your spell slots (Runestaves, Pages of Spell Knowledge, etc) remain eligible. Touch spells used in this manner automatically target the bearer of the Darkmark, but spells which have an area of effect, conjure or create matter or energy or Summon other beings, treat the mark as the spell's point of origin.

Spells cast through the Darkmark are limited by your Mythic Tier. At 1st tier, you can only cast 1st level spells through the mark, at 2nd tier this increases to 2nd level spells, and so on.