The Golden company is not a kingdom, you cannot rule a kingdom the way you do a collection of hired killers. What happens when you do that is that you end up like another king whose name starts with an M... Maegor. Or for that matter Joffrey. A monster cannot rule, it is a simple as that because no matter how much you scare the nobles and commoners alike, you still have to sleep.
Song of the Dragon (ASOIAF/WOT Quest)
- Thread starter Mazrick
- Start date
- Crossover
The Golden company is not a kingdom, you cannot rule a kingdom the way you do a collection of hired killers. What happens when you do that is that you end up like another king whose name starts with an M... Maegor. Or for that matter Joffrey. A monster cannot rule, it is a simple as that because no matter how much you scare the nobles and commoners alike, you still have to sleep.
- Location
- France
[X] Healing- Breaking or destroying a thing with magic is much easier than fixing or creating. Still, driven by your father's condition, you sought after a way to cure him. The healing knowledge of the maesters married with many other healing traditions, such as the Godswives of the Great Shepherd of Lhazar, serve as a strong base for healing others.
The hands of a true King are the hands of a healer.
The hands of a true King are the hands of a healer.
Varys is a no name eunuch from Essos. The lords would drown him in a cesspit if he tried to take the throne and no amount of mute children are going to help with that. To illustrate:
Also, if you think about it with glamour and our chosen spec of intrigue it would synergize quite well with a subtle strategy of divide and conquer pitting our foes against each other, through impersonating figures of note, a dagger in the dark here and there and generally using our skill in shadow to make our enemies lives a living hell. The more they get paranoid through our illusions and glamour's, the easier it will be to neutralise them as they succomb to the irrationality that stems from fear.
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Healing- Breaking or destroying a thing with magic is much easier than fixing or creating. Still, driven by your father's condition, you sought after a way to cure him. The healing knowledge of the maesters married with many other healing traditions, such as the Godswives of the Great Shepherd of Lhazar, serve as a strong base for healing others.
As far as I know, good ole' Aenar is just a sixteen year old who's found out he's a dragon turned human, that he's been giving his father a slow death, has just gave his father the final killing blow, has sworn to take back Westeros, and is likely going to be 'removed' by his cousin if he doesn't get a move on. He isn't a king yet, though he soon will be. And whoever siad anything about making house calls? Are the Lord Paramounts perhaps to low-born for you to even consider worhty allies, when Aenar has not even come within 100 miles of Westeros? A conquering knig is all fine and good, but nobody ever said about having to kill everything in their path. Villiazing oursleves is alot more different from someone else (an enemy who needs to be eliminated, no doubt) villifying us. It's one thing to be unlikeable, it's another to purposely make yourself unlikeable so everyone'll hate you, and you can be justified in killing and burning down everything you see.
From what I've read in the previous ones, it's not that far of a stretch at all. Besides, healing is about beings and life, is it not? What are dragons, if beings not made to live, from fire made flesh?
Oooh, it seems interesting. THe first picture on the wiki says "Magic turning stone statues to move" or something, which makes me imagine it's pretty strong. Nevertheless, I think Mazrick will do something to not make AsoIaF completely obsolete.
How does it even work...I'll check that our later.
Don't be so quick to shoot down what'll work. Dragons coming back into the world has made magic stronger than ever, and I'm sure that our Blackfyre's unique physiology will only enhance the capabilities and connections he has with magic. And didn't yo usay we also have wonky Wheel of Time magic as well?
shrug I mean...it seems prudent to hide it for part of the time, but they don't need to know our full capabilities. "All warfare is based on deception." some guy named after a moon or whatever said. A 'new glorious age'has already begun, with the Mad King's daughter hatching those beasts of hers, and doun't doubt the willingess of people to change.
That applies to alot of things, and it's up to us to take the initiative and make sure it's useful to the greatest exent it can be. To all paths, we must make sure that we can do the absolute best we can in them, otherwise Aenar is wasting his potential.
.....Robert.But Aenar isn't going to be an acceptable king. He's going to be an absolute emperor that breaks the power structure of Westeros.
You know I am hearing a lot of things about how we are going to break the wheel, but I have to ask, how does being able to play cut rate Faceless going to help us change the fundamental economical realities and cultural and religious imperatives of feudalism? Because I am hearing a lot of grand ambitions with no back up beyond Chaos is a Ladder, which is fine if you want to burn the world down like Littlefinger, less fine if you want to make something out of it.
The rulers (most of them anyway) who did that did it because they had to. Choosing violence when it obviously waste resources and time compared to an alliance which takes just a little diplomatic measures, and perhaps a trick or two, is literally diminshing from his ability to conquer Westeros. Offer the honeycomb in one hand, and show the whip with the other. Even some guy with a book named after him said "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." I'm not saying don't fight because battles are fun, yeah, but don't simply throw away saftey. No man wants to die. Use it to Aenar's advantage.
And yet so many parallels exist between them. One thing to distinguish them, is the fact that Aenar should have the brain and wisdom to comprehend how best to have allies, and how best to rule.
My guy, we jetting outta Qarth for Westeros. And we already have Qartheen magic of sorts.
Fun is only limited by our imagination, by our creativity.
Knight-Radiant
Recovering Rageaholic
Okay, now you are just being silly
First Viserys and now Robert? Just because we don't want to be a bootleg Symeon/Arragorn/etc doesn't mean we're going to go full retard like Viserys.
And Robert didn't break shit, he inherited the throne whole due his grandmother then neglected it because his girl died. He has nothing in common with Aenar at all
-Edit-
Look... I find the idea of openly ruling as a sorcerer king more challenging and fun than lying and pretending to be holy with healing magic just to get good PR
The problems inherent with that idea? Are challenges that make it more fun!
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Robert's inheritance was the thinnest of fig leaves, he got his throne at the end of a warhammer, and that fact was what Renly used later to argue for 'the most able brother' otherwise known as pure anarchy at every succession.
[X] Glamour- Through the manipulation of light and shadow a sorcerer can alter the appearance of himself or others. More powerful glamours can seem to lie to the world itself, making lies into truth. Rumors say the Warlocks of Qarth are masters of illusion, and the Faceless Men of Braavos marry glamour to bloodmagic.
Depends on the objective. Do we want to literally burn Westeros to ash? Slaughter ALL existing noble families, the church and basically make ourself the most hated figure in history? Then we don't need PR.
If however we want there to still be people there for us to rule over and any hope of long-term stability, then having PR (or diplomacy basically) is required.
I mean the goal is conquest, not genocide right? We want to do what Aegon 1st did and take the throne and rule the place, which requires some degree of acceptance. If everyone thinks we are literally a devil, it's going to make that nearly impossible. Something positive would allow our opponents and the faith an excuse to save face, making it easier to bend the knee for us.
Not really no, but by the time we are an emperor, we will presumably have our own students and organization who can do much of the general work, leaving only special and uniquely interesting cases to us.
Hmm. I wonder what that ??? could be
Think this might be a sign of the One Power? Either way, it should be a thing though I imagine that without any teachers it will take quite some time to get decent with it.
Could be.
There would still be a difference depending how overt we are about it.
A big difference between a ruler who is rumored to use blood magic, and a ruler who last week openly sacrificed your grandma.
Being able to save lives would be guaranteed to be useful somehow.
That would indeed be harder to defend against.
Though I do wonder how the faceless men would feel about us basically taking their thing, and overusing it like that.
Ngl I do be a lil' silly. And I don't know who Symeon is, and never bothered to watch LotR or read beyond the first book.
And I'm just saying Robert broke Westeros a bit. It was mostly the faults of the many, but Robert's Rebellion was one of a few tipping points that started Westeros going into this downward spiral. Though I mostly fault Aerys for this.
Knight-Radiant
Recovering Rageaholic
Symeon was the protagonist of Maz's last WoT/Asoiaf quest. A 100% White knight good PR guy who used that to become king of Westeros.
Alot of us don't want to go the good king route this time because we've already done it before.
Another thing to note, comparing Aenar to people like Bloodraven and Varys is quite disengenous. The two of those examples have barely any charisma to speak of and were not extensively trained to rule and reason like Aenar. Aenar is very eloquent and has shown to be very charming when he needs to be, I would wager he will be very good at one on one negotiation's we chose diplomacy as one of our specifications after all. Aenar is not some aloof sorcerer who hides in his tower and kills people for power like some Saturday morning cartoon villian. He knows how to conduct himself, displays considerable charm and has the classical Valyrian good looks to boot. He is not not just a sorcerer, he is also an eastern prince schooled in the art of diplomacy and stewardship. The guy knows what to sell to people. We can earn alot of good will with people in the east, already he has the prestige and connections that come from belonging to a powerful Qaurtheen family and already is the image of a successful essosi merchant prince, a wide pool of people are available in essos who can aid Aenar in his conquest of Westeros.
(Ohh, I see. Is it worth reading, even though it's over?)
As far as I remember nobody ever said become this great moral compass that'll only be honorable or some nonsense. Does having allies by not pillaging, incinerating their lands, and bringing ruin to the world have some bad connotation around it? Healing can get us allies, and can be useful in other aspects. And you don't want to be a good king? So you'd rather be a bad one, and lose your crown? And fail to rule? Trying to be Aegon the Unworthy, and prove you've got ample claim to the throne? (Overexaggerating here, but ya get me point.)
I'm pretty sure the guy who was for glamour first made the comparison with Varys.
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- Location
- USA
There's no need to be a monster. Of course we don't want people completely terrified to the point where they fear for their lives but we do want people to be scared just enough to think three times about acting against us. A reasonable amount of fear.
Lets not get Disney sentimental. This is ASOIAF.
That much I don't deny? We were talking about a scenario in which Varys was made a king. But that scene you posted doesn't give your argument any credence...
That is literally what people are arguing fall. Help this poor old lord that is suffering so we get some goodwill. It's like the only way SV knows how to get things. Whenever healing is offered up as an option that what people argue for again and again. We picked a charcter that will be focused on diplomacy and intrigue and stewardship along with sorcery. Lets not add healing as a crutch to better diplomacy like people always push for time and time again.
And no, killing everything in our path is not something we want. That's stupid evil/villain. But we're definitely going to come across as a villain and that is fine. Make allies where beneficial and crush the rest that do not bend the knee.
But until then Aenar will be making house calls because its a cheat code to getting in people's good books.
I mean, we have blue lips. People are going to know and word of it will spread.
Basically the goal should be to showcase ourselves as that big scary sorcerer that you do not want to cross. But sacrificing your grandma is not what we want to give the impression of. Sacrificing criminals and his enemies? That's fine.
Being able to have our men be glamored as random strangers able to discretely kill others would be super useful!
Probably not give a shit.
I mean people were talking about running though terror and intrigue... those are the comparisons that come to mind, well them and Maegor.
I'm pretty sure the guy who was for glamour first made the comparison with Varys.
Really? So far I haven't found a quest that does that, but maybe I'm jsut not lucky with that. Anyway, healing isn't just for diplomacy, but is once more, a branch of magic that can be explored, an could be used to our whims. Not only that, but it's a generally useful skill to have, especially with medics/healers few and far between this world.
Well I don't know now man, it sort of sounded like what you were suggesting. Break the enemies, crush them under our heel, serve them fire and blood. I know you were embellishing some things (or at least in pretty sure you were) but it's still a point that fighting is not the only answer. And once again, there's a difference between being seen as a villain, and actively villianizing ourselves, making sure we aren't liked. I doubt that bringing peace to the people, prosperity, and improved life would seem very 'evil'.
Sneaking into a rebel Lord's home (preferably one of the Paramounts) to incite rebellion, due to the lack of manpower and suport, and offering services doesn't seem like an ordinary housecall.
Yes, making ourselves intimidating is fine and dandy, and healing would detract from that how exactly? Besides, sacrificing criminals and enemies, literally nobody is objected to that, and it's a tool of mild fear for enemies
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- Location
- Pilipinas
[X] Glamour- Through the manipulation of light and shadow a sorcerer can alter the appearance of himself or others. More powerful glamours can seem to lie to the world itself, making lies into truth. Rumors say the Warlocks of Qarth are masters of illusion, and the Faceless Men of Braavos marry glamour to bloodmagic.
- Location
- India
[X] Healing- Breaking or destroying a thing with magic is much easier than fixing or creating. Still, driven by your father's condition, you sought after a way to cure him. The healing knowledge of the maesters married with many other healing traditions, such as the Godswives of the Great Shepherd of Lhazar, serve as a strong base for healing others.
Especially on SV, a lot of the more popular ideas goes along the lines of 'don't fuck with the healer'. I don't know if I'm communicating this idea the best, although it's not like I'm voting for Glamour just for the sake of being contrarian. With everything being as is, I find it far more novel than healing or alchemy.
Though, as you said, everyone's mileage will vary when it comes to that. With how often they see things and whatnot, and how much they stick our to them.
- Location
- France
Let's be serious then: "if you serve me I'll heal your incurable illness" is one hell of a pitch. Or "if you give me Highgarden I'll fix Wyllas' leg", "if you give me the Eyrie I'll make Sweetrobin healthy"...
The blackmail potential is also insane. "I can fix what I did to you, if..."
I'm also a bit sick of crafter MCs, so Alchemy is right out. Glamour seems uninteresting to me, so Healing it is!
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- Location
- USA
You've got people going with healing because a true king is one with healing hands or something along those lines. /shrug
We're not going to be pillaging or bringing ruin to the ruin. That is not what we want and we do want to make allies. That much is not in question. What I hate is this whole healing can be used to gain allies bit. Yes, it can be used for that but exactly for that reason I hate it. Fuck that. We have an intrigue/diplomacy focused character. Find better ways to gain allies than that cheat code. I want to be a good king but that term can mean a lot of fucking different things. Someone that breaks the feudalism of Westeros by diplomacy and/or killings while improving the lives of the common folk can be a good king.
A reasonable amount of terror, one just enough to make people rethink acting against Aenar. We don't want that terror to get so high that people live in fear of Aenar killing them.
I generally only read Maz quests these days but people always bring up that same damn argument when it comes to healing. Always without fail. No thanks, I'd rather find other ways to get goodwill.
Once Aenar is king he can push for more medics/healers. Glamour will serve us better in the immediate future in Qarth where intrigue and diplomacy are going to matter a fair bit and we may be required to assassinate our cousin because he hates our guts. Healing won't help out much there but glamor will certainly be useful if we want to pull off that assassination.
I mean, eventually we do want to completely get rid of feudalism because it is a blight. We will break the power structure because it will allow for the better of Westeros and only strengthens Targaryen rule. We don't want to actively make everyone our enemy but neither do we want to be seen as a goody goody healing king.
Not the strictest definition of a house call but it essentially is that.
Yeah, it is a hell of a pitch and it sickens me. Think of other ways to gain allies.
Huh. I should probably read some older posts, I guess, to gain an understanding of it. You're communicating it fine from my perspective. But I'm not lettin' stereotpyes detract from the general usefulness of the ability, as well as the round-about ways and (maybe...) fusion magic that could come from it. It's a good tool, politically and in a combat situation, and it's not like it's the only ability known to Aenar
Yeah, it's probably because I'm relatively new to the site I'm guessing. Closest I've gotten to something like that was a summoning quest hosted by Levelgap. But it was a necessity (because ressuraction blabbity blah), and technically hasn't even happened yet.