@Tomcost @Goldfish

Do you guys recognize what kind of horse Fake Renly might be riding?

Because I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a spy for whatever god made Fake Renly.

Not off the top of my head, but I know there are some horse riding Fey that would potentially be in the correct CR range.

They would need to be transformed through serious mojo to take the form of Renly, however, as they are pretty distinctive. That's the Red Rider. There's also a White Rider and Black Rider.

Unlikely, though.
 
So far this is what I have for Garin and Richard's level up. As always, these are rough drafts. Thoughts or suggestions, or in Richard's case, everything?

[] Garin Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Twilight Hunter
-[] Attribute: +1 Dexterity
-[] Skills (10 points): +1 Hide, +1 Move Silently, +1 Sense Motive, +1 Spot, +6 Gather Information
-[] Feat: Staggering Strike
-[] Spells:
--[] 1st level: True Strike
--[] 2nd level: Blacklight
--[] 3rd level: Vital Strike

[] Richard Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Paragon Knight
-[] Skills (5 points):
-[] Martial Maneuver:
 
So Ser Richard gets Mettle as part of his class this levelup. Since TNE specifically picked that out I know I should be excited about it, but I have no idea what Mettle does. I'm not really having much luck with googling it. @Goldfish, with Ser Richard's skillpoints is there any benefit to investing more into jump, or do we simply not need that now that we have Pounce as an Extraordinary Ability?

As for Garin, fuck yes, he's getting this with his levelup:
Master of the Craft: You've learned how to leave little to no gaps in your defense, frustrating your opponents to no end. Your masterful wielding of your weapon makes it so you become immune to critical hits and precision damage, and your enemies never gain any benefit from flanking you.
And I completely agree with the decision to invest most of the points into Gather Information, given how many spies we know we're dealing with now, and given how extensive the Devil infestation has proven itself to be. That being said I fully expect TNE to talk you into shifting some of those points into hide or something to keep Garin a top-notch assassin for his level.
 
Fell down a hole writing an update for my fic, and finally, gods finally caught up. Gods!!! the tavern, Fenly, Brienne, I think I've never before screamed LOOT again and again as I read chapter after chapter, looting people is oh so god damned more satisfying than looting stuff, though the latter obviously works, in a pinch...

@Azel I want you to know that you're talking a lot of damned sense and am fully behind your plan to turn Brienne. I don't care what it takes, offer her full magical plastic surgery, magical shiny plate, friends who will have her back (if we power level her just a bit she can turn into Maelor-Glyra's tank!!!), just dooooo iiiiiit! I wanted to reach into the screenand strangle the warrior when I read what he did, but our revenge will be so much sweeter in the end...
 
So Ser Richard gets Mettle as part of his class this levelup. Since TNE specifically picked that out I know I should be excited about it, but I have no idea what Mettle does. I'm not really having much luck with googling it. @Goldfish, with Ser Richard's skillpoints is there any benefit to investing more into jump, or do we simply not need that now that we have Pounce as an Extraordinary Ability?

As for Garin, fuck yes, he's getting this with his levelup:

And I completely agree with the decision to invest most of the points into Gather Information, given how many spies we know we're dealing with now, and given how extensive the Devil infestation has proven itself to be. That being said I fully expect TNE to talk you into shifting some of those points into hide or something to keep Garin a top-notch assassin for his level.

Mettle is a class feature that acts like Evasion, but for Will and Fortitude saves. Any spell he successfully resists, which would inflict some lesser penalty or effect, is instead ignored entirely.

As for Garin, his Hide, Move Silently, Sense Motive, and Spot skills are all maxed, so we can only put one point into each of them when he levels. Those six points I've currently got slotted into Gather Information could be shuffled around, but I think we should use this level to max the skill, considering the intelligence role we're have him fill.
 
Mettle is a class feature that acts like Evasion, but for Will and Fortitude saves. Any spell he successfully resists, which would inflict some lesser penalty or effect, is instead ignored entirely.

As for Garin, his Hide, Move Silently, Sense Motive, and Spot skills are all maxed, so we can only put one point into each of them when he levels. Those six points I've currently got slotted into Gather Information could be shuffled around, but I think we should use this level to max the skill, considering the intelligence role we're have him fill.
Wow, Mettle is completely worth it. :D

Also, you'll get no objections from me for Gather Information. I want those spies dead, and I want us to start rooting out supernatural spies too. :mad:
 
IIRC, literacy is fairly common among Westerosi citizens, especially skilled laborers, at least for a medieval setting. It only takes a single literate person to read to dozens of others. Literate nobles will also be prime targets for our broadsheets.

We don't even need to use the written word. Most things that were printed early on tended to purely be pictures instead of text. It would take some thinking on what symbols to use, but you can communicate a lot of information. Political satire and comics is extremely easy to start up. Perhaps far easier than giving out meaningful information about magical threats.

An actual newspaper is something that we can start to run in Sorcerer's Deep. Propaganda comics can be used externally.

To really combat magical threats, I think we'll need to sit down and basically write our own Monster Manual. Viserys is insanely knowledgeable and he could take a few buffs so that he could boost his knowledge high enough that he could pass the knowledge roll in order to completely write out a monster's stat block.

There was actually a similar situation I once saw in an Extra Credits video.

Basically, one kingdom's army managed to capture the king of another kingdom in battle, but it took forever to get the ransom because there was nobody with the right authority to make that kind of decision since the head of state was both still alive and yet unable to make the decision.

That's what we'd be walking into if we make a move to oust Renly now. Stannis can't really ransom himself, Renly wouldn't be acknowledged as a Baratheon and could not make any decisions as one, and Robert straight up wouldn't talk to us.

We'd never see a penny of that 12,000 IM we want. :o

Didn't we clear it with the Iron Bank that Stannis could take out a 12,000 mark loan in order to pay his own ransom? Provided Renly couldn't cover it? I was pretty sure we negotiated that when we set up our extraplanar trading company. Worst comes to worse and we out fake Renly, we can go with the loan plan and then leave Stannis figuring out how to pay it off after-the-fact. That's not ideal since it would really weaken Stannis and the Baratheons while strengthening the Lannisters, but it would still get us our money.

If Renly is not found and Fake Renly disinherited while Stannis gets disgraced twice over (failing against Damphair and us), it's likely the Storm's End will default back to Robert and thus, eventually, Joffrey once Cersei finally gets fed up and offs her husband.

So Ser Richard gets Mettle as part of his class this levelup. Since TNE specifically picked that out I know I should be excited about it, but I have no idea what Mettle does. I'm not really having much luck with googling it.

I presume it's like the Hexblade ability of the same name. Mettle is basically Evasion for Fortitude and Will saves. It negates all partial effects on successful saves.

Wow, Mettle is completely worth it. :D

Also, you'll get no objections from me for Gather Information. I want those spies dead, and I want us to start rooting out supernatural spies too. :mad:

I think we should start pushing Garin to help develop an intelligence service analogous to the Silver Eye to do this kind of work for us. His time is too valuable to spend chasing a small handful of spies. Only the very best should merit the involvement of PCs. Most of the grunts can be dealt with by grunts.

We are a King, we have people for that.
 
Didn't we clear it with the Iron Bank that Stannis could take out a 12,000 mark loan in order to pay his own ransom? Provided Renly couldn't cover it? I was pretty sure we negotiated that when we set up our extraplanar trading company. Worst comes to worse and we out fake Renly, we can go with the loan plan and then leave Stannis figuring out how to pay it off after-the-fact. That's not ideal since it would really weaken Stannis and the Baratheons while strengthening the Lannisters, but it would still get us our money.

If Renly is not found and Fake Renly disinherited while Stannis gets disgraced twice over (failing against Damphair and us), it's likely the Storm's End will default back to Robert and thus, eventually, Joffrey once Cersei finally gets fed up and offs her husband.
We asked them to look favorably on a loan for Stannis and they agreed, but that still requires Stannis himself to want to take out the loan. That being said I fully intend to just sidestep all that and have Fake Renly pay the ransom. Nice, clean, and 12,000 IM in our treasury. :D
I think we should start pushing Garin to help develop an intelligence service analogous to the Silver Eye to do this kind of work for us. His time is too valuable to spend chasing a small handful of spies. Only the very best should merit the involvement of PCs. Most of the grunts can be dealt with by grunts.

We are a King, we have people for that.
I completely agree with the idea of setting up an analogue to the Silver Eye in Sorcerer's Deep, perhaps with a name like "The Dragon's Eye" or something along those lines. :p But bottomline, an organization like this needs a strong leader. Not just PC-strong, but party member-strong. If it was just small-time spies and the like then you'd be right, this is completely beneath Garin's time and effort, but it's more than that. It's rooting out devil and demon cultists, it's finding Deep One infiltrators, it's hunting down any and all whispers of our enemies--not the petty rebels in the Seven Kingdoms, but our actual supernatural enemies--moving against us.

Garin is at the head of our entire Intelligence network, and if we want any hope of not being continuously blindsided we need him to stay there.

EDIT: I want to arrange it in such a way that all smaller problems are automatically handled with a bit of minor supervision, but that Garin has the resources of an entire organization to draw off of when hunting something big.
 
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We don't even need to use the written word. Most things that were printed early on tended to purely be pictures instead of text. It would take some thinking on what symbols to use, but you can communicate a lot of information. Political satire and comics is extremely easy to start up. Perhaps far easier than giving out meaningful information about magical threats.

Like... For our premier comic, I'm thinking this:

Slightly off center, a fat man with a crown of antlers sits on a throne, his back towards the center of the picture while he faces a feast. His hands are buldging, filled with rich cuts of meat, succulent gravy, pies and tarts, that he's just shoveling into his mouth. A young, pretty, innocent serving maid is uncomfortably squirming under his other reaching hand. On the right side of the picture, countless people are shouting, crawling, begging the fat man. These are people of all types; farmers and washer women, smiths and burghers, merchants and miscreants. They're begging for help against the shadowed hands that dog their heels. Tentacles reach out from the edge of the page, grasping at people's throats. Fiendish scaled hands reach up through the earth grasp at people ankles. Dead, rotting hands as well as those of pure bone pull at the waist. Over the entire scene, a small dragon circles, hallowed in light. Its fire breath scourges the undead, the Illithids, and the fiend. A few of the people look up, see the dragon and smile.

After all, when the monsters come in the night, would you rather have a Dragon on your side, or a Stag?

EDIT: I want to arrange it in such a way that all smaller problems are automatically handled with a bit of minor supervision, but that Garin has the resources of an entire organization to draw off of when hunting something big.

This was what I meant. I mean, as fantastic a spy as Garin is, he's one person. Having a few subordinates for him would vastly increase the amount of surveillance that we can commit to. For the most part, I see us having three levels to the organization:

On the bottom, we have a huge number of gossip mongers. Their basic role is to serve as an early warning system for people to trip. I honestly don't expect much. They're there to add more dice to the pool in the hopes that we end up rolling some Nat 20s. For the most part, the gossip mongers are only weakly associated with the organization. Most of these people are nameless NPCs; they could be shopkeepers, inn owners, servants, or other gossips. They may not even know they're part of our intelligence service. As far as they know, they're simply trading gossip.

For the mid-level, we have a the lieutenants that organize and pursue all of the information the gossip mongers gather. Their job is to collate it and look for trends. They're there to help look for conspiracies, inconsistencies and other, bigger picture problems. The captains will work to expand and organize the gossip monger network further. They are the ones that keep contact with the gossip mongers in order to move the information up the chain to where people can act on it. Most of the people here probably have skills specifically related to subterfuge. Most of these people are probably Experts.

The last level is problem solvers/specialists. Once the captains identify a problem, the problem solvers deal with it. That could include putting someone under surveillance, arresting them, or quietly disposing of them. Garin explicitly rests at the top of the heap here. Ideally, we'd have a few Rogues (or perhaps Bards later on) under him so that he doesn't have to do literally everything sneaky. There exists a level between 'Not Happening' and 'Fiendish/Illithid/Fey/Pick One' plot. Garin deals with the later, but the other problem solvers can cover things lower than that.

To be honest, I'm drawing a little bit from gang structure in conceptualizing this. Most of the actual labour is performed by 'outsiders' who aren't truly part of the gang. The actual entry level positions are supervisors of the unaffiliated hanger-ons. The cell structure makes it hard to rip holes in the net while also offering a lot of manpower and coverage.
 
This was what I meant. I mean, as fantastic a spy as Garin is, he's one person. Having a few subordinates for him would vastly increase the amount of surveillance that we can commit to. For the most part, I see us having three levels to the organization:

On the bottom, we have a huge number of gossip mongers. Their basic role is to serve as an early warning system for people to trip. I honestly don't expect much. They're there to add more dice to the pool in the hopes that we end up rolling some Nat 20s. For the most part, the gossip mongers are only weakly associated with the organization. Most of these people are nameless NPCs; they could be shopkeepers, inn owners, servants, or other gossips. They may not even know they're part of our intelligence service. As far as they know, they're simply trading gossip.

For the mid-level, we have a the lieutenants that organize and pursue all of the information the gossip mongers gather. Their job is to collate it and look for trends. They're there to help look for conspiracies, inconsistencies and other, bigger picture problems. The captains will work to expand and organize the gossip monger network further. They are the ones that keep contact with the gossip mongers in order to move the information up the chain to where people can act on it. Most of the people here probably have skills specifically related to subterfuge. Most of these people are probably Experts.

The last level is problem solvers/specialists. Once the captains identify a problem, the problem solvers deal with it. That could include putting someone under surveillance, arresting them, or quietly disposing of them. Garin explicitly rests at the top of the heap here. Ideally, we'd have a few Rogues (or perhaps Bards later on) under him so that he doesn't have to do literally everything sneaky. There exists a level between 'Not Happening' and 'Fiendish/Illithid/Fey/Pick One' plot. Garin deals with the later, but the other problem solvers can cover things lower than that.

To be honest, I'm drawing a little bit from gang structure in conceptualizing this. Most of the actual labour is performed by 'outsiders' who aren't truly part of the gang. The actual entry level positions are supervisors of the unaffiliated hanger-ons. The cell structure makes it hard to rip holes in the net while also offering a lot of manpower and coverage.
This plan has no objections from me. It's pretty much everything I and I suspect a lot of other people in the quest wanted. But anyway, we've already got our first rogue ready in the form of the baby PC Nymeria, and fortunately or unfortunately for us, as a former pirate's nest Sorcerer's Deep has a considerable amount of rogues and the like to draw on.
 
Like... For our premier comic, I'm thinking this:

Slightly off center, a fat man with a crown of antlers sits on a throne, his back towards the center of the picture while he faces a feast. His hands are buldging, filled with rich cuts of meat, succulent gravy, pies and tarts, that he's just shoveling into his mouth. A young, pretty, innocent serving maid is uncomfortably squirming under his other reaching hand. On the right side of the picture, countless people are shouting, crawling, begging the fat man. These are people of all types; farmers and washer women, smiths and burghers, merchants and miscreants. They're begging for help against the shadowed hands that dog their heels. Tentacles reach out from the edge of the page, grasping at people's throats. Fiendish scaled hands reach up through the earth grasp at people ankles. Dead, rotting hands as well as those of pure bone pull at the waist. Over the entire scene, a small dragon circles, hallowed in light. Its fire breath scourges the undead, the Illithids, and the fiend. A few of the people look up, see the dragon and smile.

After all, when the monsters come in the night, would you rather have a Dragon on your side, or a Stag?



This was what I meant. I mean, as fantastic a spy as Garin is, he's one person. Having a few subordinates for him would vastly increase the amount of surveillance that we can commit to. For the most part, I see us having three levels to the organization:

On the bottom, we have a huge number of gossip mongers. Their basic role is to serve as an early warning system for people to trip. I honestly don't expect much. They're there to add more dice to the pool in the hopes that we end up rolling some Nat 20s. For the most part, the gossip mongers are only weakly associated with the organization. Most of these people are nameless NPCs; they could be shopkeepers, inn owners, servants, or other gossips. They may not even know they're part of our intelligence service. As far as they know, they're simply trading gossip.

For the mid-level, we have a the lieutenants that organize and pursue all of the information the gossip mongers gather. Their job is to collate it and look for trends. They're there to help look for conspiracies, inconsistencies and other, bigger picture problems. The captains will work to expand and organize the gossip monger network further. They are the ones that keep contact with the gossip mongers in order to move the information up the chain to where people can act on it. Most of the people here probably have skills specifically related to subterfuge. Most of these people are probably Experts.

The last level is problem solvers/specialists. Once the captains identify a problem, the problem solvers deal with it. That could include putting someone under surveillance, arresting them, or quietly disposing of them. Garin explicitly rests at the top of the heap here. Ideally, we'd have a few Rogues (or perhaps Bards later on) under him so that he doesn't have to do literally everything sneaky. There exists a level between 'Not Happening' and 'Fiendish/Illithid/Fey/Pick One' plot. Garin deals with the later, but the other problem solvers can cover things lower than that.

To be honest, I'm drawing a little bit from gang structure in conceptualizing this. Most of the actual labour is performed by 'outsiders' who aren't truly part of the gang. The actual entry level positions are supervisors of the unaffiliated hanger-ons. The cell structure makes it hard to rip holes in the net while also offering a lot of manpower and coverage.

This plan has no objections from me. It's pretty much everything I and I suspect a lot of other people in the quest wanted. But anyway, we've already got our first rogue ready in the form of the baby PC Nymeria, and fortunately or unfortunately for us, as a former pirate's nest Sorcerer's Deep has a considerable amount of rogues and the like to draw on.
As long as Garin is only nominally part of the organization i am ok with this. He is just to good to be subsumed by the bureaucracy, ideally he would spend zero time doing paperwork or actually coordinating anything but the most crucial of operations.
I think he should remain as our direct subordinate most of the time, only occasionally training recruits (very intensive training) and going after already identified targets.
 
As long as Garin is only nominally part of the organization i am ok with this. He is just to good to be subsumed by the bureaucracy, ideally he would spend zero time doing paperwork or actually coordinating anything but the most crucial of operations.
I think he should remain as our direct subordinate most of the time, only occasionally training recruits (very intensive training) and going after already identified targets.
Oh, god no. I intend to have a PC overseer (still under Garin) who more or less takes care of everything, but when something big rears its head that's when they call Garin in to lead the charge. The only reason Garin's even putting time into this is because some things we face are simply beyond the ken of most people.
 
I keep seeing people talk about how real Renly abdicated to Fake Renly.

You know it doesn't work that way right?
You can't just abdicate to the butcher, I'm pretty certain the eldest of three can't even abdicate to the youngest.

Also I am not really a fan of Faerenly like the rest of the thread seems to be.

So he can keep a straight face when talking to a powerful enemy and was smart enough to not get himself murdered due to a subordinate's whim.

Canon Renly was much the same, a charismatic leader that didn't make any outrageous mistakes, people loved him and if he hadn't got Shadow Demoned by his own brother he likely would have taken Kings Landing quite handily due to that love.

FaeRenly still poses the threat he did before we met him. He is beholden to a god or Feylord and that's not something you want in a subordinate.

I'm still waiting for Burny and Garin to fuck us over somehow and that was much less drastic a binding.
 
Maybe I only understand Imperial units because I grew up using them, but the same could be said of the metric system. Point for fact, you don't understand Imperial because you never bothered to learn it, thinking your system inherently superior/more sensible.

We here in the Philippines grew up with an odd dichtonomy then as we can imagine distance only in kilometers or object length/height in meters, but couldn't comprehend length and height if it's not in inches and feet for anything measurable by the human body.

I fully blame our education system designed by Americans after the utter malicious ignorance-praising setup of the Spanish.

Finally finished the backreads.

[X] Teleportation

A proposal for what to do with getting the turtle asleep. Suffocate it.
 
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Pretty sure only a couple of people think Renly's "abdication" is a thing that could in any way be valid.

In fact, I'm pretty sure 99% of anyone anywhere don't even know what to think of it, besides "horrifying".

It overturns so much precedence there really is no good way to begin, and the fact that such duplicity as "switching the two so thoroughly not even the new copy is aware they've replaced the original" is necessary says everything.

Such as: "If it became common knowledge, chaos would reign, either from those trying to oust the copy, or those striking out in defense of their ostensible liege lord against all interlopers".

And that's just within the Stormlands. There's no way the Crown wouldn't interfere, much less the other neighboring Kingdoms. Dorne's only an exception because a key part of Doran's strategy is staying beneath everyone's notice.
 
Pretty sure only a couple of people think Renly's "abdication" is a thing that could in any way be valid.

In fact, I'm pretty sure 99% of anyone anywhere don't even know what to think of it, besides "horrifying".

It overturns so much precedence there really is no good way to begin, and the fact that such duplicity as "switching the two so thoroughly not even the new copy is aware they've replaced the original" is necessary says everything.

Such as: "If it became common knowledge, chaos would reign, either from those trying to oust the copy, or those striking out in defense of their ostensible liege lord against all interlopers".

And that's just within the Stormlands. There's no way the Crown wouldn't interfere, much less the other neighboring Kingdoms. Dorne's only an exception because a key part of Doran's strategy is staying beneath everyone's notice.

Like it's been said before, whatever they do we're getting a hell of a show.
 
I'm only really against it because I would like to sidestep all inter-kingdom conflict and retain most of their strength for the Long Night.

Granted, war this early wouldn't be too disastrous, but it would basically need to happen within the next year or so, because it would drain the current stockpiles of grain that have been stored up to this point, and we would need to make sure we had the food to last a potentially very long winter. Shipping it in from further south where we can use magic in climates that haven't been frozen solid is a stopgap, but only just.
 
I'm only really against it because I would like to sidestep all inter-kingdom conflict and retain most of their strength for the Long Night.

Granted, war this early wouldn't be too disastrous, but it would basically need to happen within the next year or so, because it would drain the current stockpiles of grain that have been stored up to this point, and we would need to make sure we had the food to last a potentially very long winter. Shipping it in from further south where we can use magic in climates that haven't been frozen solid is a stopgap, but only just.

What about interdimensional agriculture?

I mean if we were stuck on Planetos that would be one thing, but there are other markets we can get supplies from.

Granted food on that scale would cost astronomical amounts if we're buying from a merchant, but if we can get a toehold of property and grow stuff ourselves it might help mitigate the strain of the Long Winter.

But this is all speculation of course, and with my rather lacking knowledge of the other planes of existence it might just add up to a bunch of wishful thinking on my part.
 
I'm still waiting for Burny and Garin to fuck us over somehow and that was much less drastic a binding.
That reminds me, we need to go to the Vale and scare the fuck out of that Mountain Clan NPC and threaten to burn her and hers if she dares ask anything too much of Waymar's sister.

Actually, you know what? We don't even have to do anything. Just give Waymar free reign and sit back and watch. That should be fun.
 
That reminds me, we need to go to the Vale and scare the fuck out of that Mountain Clan NPC and threaten to burn her and hers if she dares ask anything too much of Waymar's sister.

Actually, you know what? We don't even have to do anything. Just give Waymar free reign and sit back and watch. That should be fun.

Do you really want Waymar conducting your diplomacy, with clansmen of all people?
 
Do you really want Waymar conducting your diplomacy, with clansmen of all people?
Diplomacy, no. Intimidating the pseudo-druid who managed to weasel a favor out of his kid sister? Yes.

I fully intend to be diplomatic and all that, but I definitely intend to scare the living shit out of them if they ever think of being opportunistic with Ysilla.
 
FaeRenly still poses the threat he did before we met him. He is beholden to a god or Feylord and that's not something you want in a subordinate.
We have no idea if that's the case.


Much more annyoing, though a few pages ago, @tarrangar :
I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding what "humiliating the Seven" means.
Killing the corrupt or evil members of their faith as you seem to plan is not harming them, that's helping them.

Would be much better for our goal to get the corrupt or false worshippers to lynch those truly chosen by the Seven, than the other way around.

But even aside from that issue, it's propably going to include a lot of dead or defecting Septons, burning Septs and not stopping until the Seven publically admit their failures and other gods (and our) superiority, to all of their own worshippers.

This is not going to be done with a few silent killings and then the Seven sending a Cleric to Bloodraven to start negotiating peace with something resembling dignity.
 
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