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The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest

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Omegahugger said:
@Teen Spirit Just to be clear, if we pick Honourable Rhaenyra isn't going to start getting stress from doing things like courting her very pretty handmaiden instead of her lawfully wedded husband, right?

Because that would be a dealbreaker for my vote.
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This.

There is no way you can justify cheating on your spouse as "honourable". ESPECIALLY in a society like Westeros.

AND this isn't modern days interpretation of "honourable" - this is WESTEROS'

You know, that land where women are considered property? And gay people are disliked at BEST and killed at worst?

That thing that our MC is both of?

So she wouldn't even get the rep bonuses of being "honorable" as she'd either have to undo basically everything she's done to be Westoros' idea of a "honourable" woman, or go on a different idea of "honourable", and NOT be "honourable" according to 99% of Westeros.

So Rhae would be stuck in a stress loop - she either cheats on her spouse and gets stress, or stays loyal and gets stress from the romantic trait of breaking up with and then staying away from the woman she loves.

Literally the worst option.

Zimmerwald1915 said:
[X] [Trait] The Honor You have Been Given

After Ser Arnold's execution, we picked the Vale Knights' words to stick with us most. These were:

And, well, that says it all, doesn't it?
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So why are you voting for it twice? If a previous vote already coded being honoruable then why vote for it again? It's just a waste of losing the opportunity to be diligent or ambitious.

hailcapital said:
I like Ambitious: Frankly, I think it's the most IC for our Rhaenyra. Many of our primary goals revolve around acquiring and maintaining power - the SC position and then the Iron Throne. And these are not goals we'd have been culturally encouraged in - yet we want power in spite of that. Like:



This is a little ambitious.

There's also our defiant nature - there's been talk in the thread about permanently changing the Targaryen succession to a equal inheritance model, and that's an ambitious goal. Our general stance has been that if something we want goes against customs and traditions, we will go against customs and traditions and they will break before we do. That both requires power and is itself ambitious.

Ambitious is the most culturally-evil coded (both IRL and In Universe). And I'm by no means arguing that we should be willing to do immoral things in pursuit of power. However, I think that the combination of our morality and ambition is some interesting texture. An honorable romantic knight is a bit of a tautology. A diligent romantic knight isn't, but isn't necessarily any more interesting than a romantic knight. An ambitious romantic knight is a bit spicy.

And honestly, words like "grasping" and "power hungry" and just words to describe ambition in someone the speaker thinks ought to know their place.
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Also this.

Why is ambitious being coded as "evil" or "amoral" by so many people?

Wanting to cure cancer is pretty fucking ambitious. But who'd argue that's evil.

You can still be ambitious and NOT go off the deep end trying to reach it.

Ambitious includes aspects of diligent - because genuinely ambitious people WORK HARD - without the downside of being unable to abandon something or minimum effort something (not everything NEEDS maximum effort, it's called being efficient)

Plus it's just the best for the future of the quest in terms of plot/scope as the "goals" of the mc/quest would be higher.

And voters are already RP'ing honoruable a lot of the time, so just keep doing that - getting a honourable trait will just handicap the quest as it will cut of a ton of flexibility without incurring massive stress.

[X] [Trait] All That You Could Achieve
[X] [Trait] The Hard Work That Brought You Here

Literally only voting diligent to go against honoruable.

[X] [Celebrate] Visit Your Father
[X] [Celebrate] Celebrate Your Success with Ser Tarly
[X] [Celebrate] Speak to Rhaenys The Queen Who Never Was (GM Discretion)

Don't mind to much here - though we've spent a lot of time with Alicent already and the nature of the quest makes opportunity cost so important.
 
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[X] [Celebrate] Spend Some Time With Alicent

I am not going to vote for the Trait without having a bit of a better idea of what it would actually mean (I. E. if Honorable means Rhaenyra gaining stress for "going around her husband's back"), but this part I am certain of.

Zimmerwald1915 said:
Because I believe if something "sticks with us" it should shape our choices going forward, not merely be a one-and-done.
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Also because having the Honourable Trait will open up (and/or close off) actions in a way that merely having an appreciation for honourable behavour does not.

See the amount of times we have picked [Romantic] or [Defiant] actions.
 
Omegahugger said:
@Teen Spirit Just to be clear, if we pick Honourable Rhaenyra isn't going to start getting stress from doing things like courting her very pretty handmaiden instead of her lawfully wedded husband, right?

Because that would be a dealbreaker for my vote.
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I will say, Rhaenyra's relationship with Alicent won't cause her stress if she's honorable as long as her husband is okay with Rhaenyra being with Alicent since then as far as Rhaenyra's concern, there's no lying and it's not like Rhaenyra could dishonor her marriage with a bastard. But Honorable would make it so that hiding the relationship would create a fair amount of stress.
 
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Teen Spirit said:
I will say, Rhaenyra's relationship with Alicent won't cause her stress as long as her husband is okay with Rhaenyra being with Alicent since then as far as Rhaenyra's concern, there's no lying and it's not like Rhaenyra could dishonor her marriage with a bastard. But Honorable would make it so that hiding the relationship would create a fair amount of stress.
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And what about rubbing shoulders or working with "lowlifes" like Larys or Mysaria @Teen Spirit ?
 
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Fanhunter696 said:
And I suppose the same applies to witches, warlocks, and other magic users, no?
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Winning through magical means outside of Dragons is generally not considered honorable.

Honorable is not rigid since as a female bisexual knight and future Queen Rhaenyra has to have some flexiblity on that matter. But Honorable means Honorable, it means Rhaenyra holds herself to a high standard in terms of behavior and probably thinks Viserys has the right idea in not having a Master of Whispers.
 
If honorable rhaenyra is chosen then any intrigue options will be at a higher cost of stress and probably something else. I would prefer that we have more options available then less. Especially when there are characters, who are good at intrigue or other skills, who will maybe try to eventually tear us down, for later chosen options. Rhaenyra is female bisexual knight and future Queen, information will most likely get out eventually and I want to be able to do something about it with more options.
 
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Teen Spirit said:
In-character wise, Dorne is something of a family black mark, the only realm in Westeros that resisted the Dragons, even killed one and one of Aegon's queens. Plus Rhaenyra has spent the past two years around someone who very much wants to conquer Dorne. So Conquering Dorne is an idea that Rhaenyra definitely sees as having Merit.
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Oh, I agree that in character it's certainly plausible that this is an idea that IC Rhaenyra's would think has merit. I'm just speaking to the fact that currently most of the adversaries we've actually been giving brainspace to have been internal to the realm.

And as a quester I don't see a great reason to push Rhaenyra in that direction - narratively we already have our likely big war and main rivals in the civil war, Dorne is something we only have unexamined inherited opinions on and no particular reason to personally care about.

If we do conquer Dorne it makes most sense to me for it to be a war we wage to cut our teeth on before the main event, which suggests a straightforward conquest and not a marriage.

Edit: On the honorable discussion - I think we should remember that honor is a cultural feature in the same way that say, Westerosi misogyny is. We might have different opinions on their moral value and Rhaenyra has her own view which is very much in-culture on some matters and wildly discordant on others. But acting in accordance with cultural expectation looks the same from the inside to the rest of Westeros. There will be exceptions, but in many cases the people who look favorably on honor are going to be the exact same people affronted by our unwomanly behavior.

This is not to say we shouldn't hold ourselves to our own code of honor, but I'd like to be able to run absolutely roughshod over a cultural view if it furthers our own goals and fits our own code of honor, which IMO fits ambitious best.
 
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hailcapital said:
If we do conquer Dorne it makes most sense to me for it to be a war we wage to cut our teeth on before the main event, which suggests a straightforward conquest and not a marriage.
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A war with dorne isn't that smart, especially when the dance occurs, do you think that dorne will side with us? No they won't, they will use the dance to free themselves, maybe attack us. The only way will be through negotiations or through marriage.

We will waste many turns fighting a war, turns that we could use elsewhere. With potential allies who can die during said war with dorne.
 
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FallenDawn said:
A war with dorne isn't that smart, especially when the dance occurs, do you think that dorne will side with us? No they won't, they will use the dance to free themselves, maybe attack us. The only way will be through negotiations or through marriage.

We will waste many turns fighting a war, turns that we could use elsewhere. With potential allies who can die during said war with dorne.
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I'm not in favor of attacking Dorne.
 
Eternal_0bserver said:
[X] [Trait] The Honor You have Been Given.

While diligence is not a bad thing, SV can really easily give up halfway through, pursuing the next shiny option.
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Indeed. So having to fear actual mechanical drawbacks for that could be a motivation for us to keep us in line.

Zimmerwald1915 said:
[X] [Trait] The Honor You have Been Given

After Ser Arnold's execution, we picked the Vale Knights' words to stick with us most. These were:

And, well, that says it all, doesn't it?
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That doesn't bind us, though. So it isn't really an argument. Basically, you're running afoul of Hume's law :p
 
CharlieKing said:
if Rhaenyra did conquer Dorne, wouldn't the smart thing to do be marrying their rulling line into ours anyway?
i was under the impression that when a nation with a monarch conquers territory, it was typical of them to marry the local equivalent in order to both have hostages and grant legitimacy(?) to the next in line for the throne in the eyes of the newly annexed territory.
so, funny enough, it would be either Rhaneyra marrying Dornish royalty, or Rhaenyra's children doing the marrying
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Well. This is an element x is part of set y, but element y is not part of set x thing.

Yes, if you conquer a territory it is wise to legitimize your rule by marital links to the established local nobility.

But the reverse doesn't always hold true: Just because you marry an independent place's nobility doesn't mean you're annexing it.

hailcapital said:
It's okay for people to not be ruled by Targaryens.
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In the general yes, we but aren't looking at it from the outside. We are a future Targaryen monarch, so people being ruled by Targaryens is a good thing.

Like, as just me looking at the setting I'd prefer an independent Dorne, because Dorne is cool, but as a Rhaenyra Quest quester, an annexation would be kinda cool. If it could be arranged. Which a marriage doesn't necessarily do.
 
Wolfman217 said:
Also this.

Why is ambitious being coded as "evil" or "amoral" by so many people?

Wanting to cure cancer is pretty fucking ambitious. But who'd argue that's evil.

You can still be ambitious and NOT go off the deep end trying to reach it.
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I will say Ambitious is not "Why by Queen when I can be Empress of the World!" stuff, maybe if you pick a particularly Bold Dream. Ambitious could be a lot of things. It can be the greatest knight in Westeros, Wanting to be known as the greatest monarch the Seven Kingdoms has ever known, wanting to remake King's Landing into something the rest of Westeros would envy, deciding Rhaena Targaryen had the right idea and you should have three girlfriends at once, that kind of thing.
 
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