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

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Azel said:
I just see no way this could go without either handing major power to Zherys or starting a war with Volantis.

And I don't want to waste party time on choosing the flavor of the salt.
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It could also lead to us somehow making use of the echo, either more personally or by sacrificing it to Yss for power.

We could also semi rouse it possibly, maybe Malarys might know of some ritual, and then use the influence of actually having the blessing/ear of a Valyrian God and an ancient dragon lord to basically take over Volantis.

There's probably a bunch of other things we could do as well.
I'm not one of the people gunning for it, but there's no reason to be so negative before it even happens.
 
Diomedon said:
And lets not forget Runestone. Waymar is chafing under not being a knight.

Our schedule is painfully tight.
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Starmar, the most Powerful Starfish to Ever Live, is currently taking a nap. :V

Seriously, though, there are a lot of things we want to do, and some we need to do. I think finding another extraplanar market/staging point is closer to need than want. IMO, of course.
 
Raichu1972 said:
It could also lead to us somehow making use of the echo, either more personally or by sacrificing it to Yss for power.

We could also semi rouse it possibly, maybe Malarys might know of some ritual, and then use the influence of actually having the blessing/ear of a Valyrian God and an ancient dragon lord to basically take over Volantis.

There's probably a bunch of other things we could do as well.
I'm not one of the people gunning for it, but there's no reason to be so negative before it even happens.
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And all of these things are blatantly obvious, leading Zherys to demand a cut or starting a war.

I'm simply stumped that people are afraid to go within 50 miles of KL, but conducting major ritual work in the heart of Volantis governmnt is fine.
 
Azel said:
And all of these things are blatantly obvious, leading Zherys to demand a cut or starting a war.

I'm simply stumped that people are afraid to go within 50 miles of KL, but conducting major ritual work in the heart of Volantis governmnt is fine.
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So give Zherys something for the permission to work here.
For example Molten Skies as Planeshift-location, that's reasonably valuable, but not something we hold a monopoly on.

Also he angered Ymery as much as we did, so I suspect he'd run into trouble there.

Edit: I'm still stumped that people treat the most reasonable Sorcerer we met so far as a natural enemy.
 
[X] Haggle. Start at 100% profit rate, and allow Oberyn to bargain us down to 50% if he presses, but only so long as his total order does not require more than ten days of crafting. 100% profit on anything that exceeds ten days. No Mithral or Adamantine armor or weapons.
 
Next turn's biggest priorities in descending order:

1. Genius Loci & Lich grand sacrifice
2. Plane of Air Market Hunt
3. Runestone
4. Checking up on the Xorn & collecting first iron shipment
5. Sellsword hiring
6. Sending spies into Tyrosh (Glyra & Maelor with Greater Ribbons of Disguise)
7. Spend time getting charactersheets for Bronn and Malarys
8. Illyrio

And the rest is up in the air depending on how the visit with Bloodraven goes.
 
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@Azel next three turns will be extremely crammed and there's at least three things I see which NEED to be done, and this are no hobby horses of mine (not main reason anyway):

Illyrio: Varys' gateway into Essos and guaranteed to double or triple the cost of stabilizing Tyrosh.

Finish the Legion: They need some combat expirience, and Tyrosh is perfect for it (plus having a hand in Tyrosh's defeat is important, for prestige and honor reasons). Doesn't have to be important, just secure a granary or something.

Runestone: Way too delayed already, and I have the sinking feeling that Waymar's sister is a time bomb, a bomb that will be defused now or never as after Tyrosh we wont have time to tale care of it, and its already been severly delayed.
 
Artemis1992 said:
So give Zherys something for the permission to work here.
For example Molten Skies as Planeshift-location, that's reasonably valuable, but not something we hold a monopoly on.

Also he angered Ymery as much as we did, so I suspect he'd run into trouble there.

Edit: I'm still stumped that people treat the most reasonable Sorcerer we met so far as a natural enemy.
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He has an Azer minion and the astrologer has probably been replaced by some kind of Devil by now. I don't see MS hold any value to him that is remotely comparable to harvesting divine essence.

And I'm still not sure what we even want to achieve there. Poking the Genus Loci in Lys didn't do anything for us.
 
Azel said:
And all of these things are blatantly obvious, leading Zherys to demand a cut or starting a war.

I'm simply stumped that people are afraid to go within 50 miles of KL, but conducting major ritual work in the heart of Volantis governmnt is fine.
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I thought Zherys was one of our "allies"?

If he wants a cut then give it to him.
If you don't want to given it to him, kill him and all of his supporters while either installing a puppet government or ruling Volantis ourself.

I see no reason why we should be afraid of doing something near Zherys when we outclass him in every way.

Volantis is also much more self contained than the Iron throne, and is likely to be more receptive to our rule, so I see it as an easier conquest location.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Why would Zherys assault our party?

But even if he does, it will be with appropriate force and I have full trust in our party to win.
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Because he knows we're in a cold war situation, and we'll never be more vulnerable than placing only a few of our party members in the heart of his power? If he seizes Dany, he wins the cold war, hands down. He greatly suspects we are a bleeding heart for women in trouble, so capturing our sister to ensure our good behavior (before we go into ability to hold her, reminder that the guy has access to infernal aid) makes perfect sense.

I'm not expecting a CR appropriate encounter there, I'm expecting Zherys to throw everyone he has available at the party. You're thinking too far into pure d&d game terms, and misreading the setting details.
 
[X] Haggle. Start at 100% profit rate, and allow Oberyn to bargain us down to 50% if he presses, but only so long as his total order does not require more than ten days of crafting. 100% profit on anything that exceeds ten days.
-[X] No Adamant
 
Diomedon said:
Because he knows we're in a cold war situation, and we'll never be more vulnerable than placing only a few of our party members in the heart of his power? If he seizes Dany, he wins the cold war, hands down. He greatly suspects we are a bleeding heart for women in trouble, so capturing our sister to ensure our good behavior (before we go into ability to hold her, reminder that the guy has access to infernal aid) makes perfect sense.

I'm not expecting a CR appropriate encounter there, I'm expecting Zherys to throw everyone he has available at the party. You're thinking too far into pure d&d game terms, and misreading the setting details.
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I don't believe in the cold war situation or that Zherys is our enemy.

But even if he were I totally trust Dany to deal with anything Zherys can throw at us, or at least escape.
And last but not least I doubt he can scrape more than a CR-appropriate encounter together.

He has himself, the Astronomer, the Snake-guy and the Azer. That's one party, something we can easily match without sending in everyone.
 
[X] Haggle. Start at 100% profit rate, and allow Oberyn to bargain us down to 50% if he presses, but only so long as his total order does not require more than ten days of crafting. 100% profit on anything that exceeds ten days.
-[X] No Adamant
 
Duesal said:
Absolutely not an ally. At best he's someone we're in a ceasefire with simply because killing him is inconvenient.
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Okay, when will killing him no longer be inconvenient?

We are powerful, we have our fledgling kingdom, we have an armistice with the Mindflayers, Robert hasn't attacked since we rekt his fleet.

What reason do we have to let him deny us opportunities now?

We even have a genuine Sorceror of Old Valyria in our service now, plus the fact that we are Old Blood.

I'm not seeing any reasons not to kill him beyond just not wanting to.
 
@DragonParadox, when Oberyn buys stuff from us, can we assume that he's going to be prudent and buy essential adventurer's equipment?
Artemis1992 said:
I don't believe in the cold war situation or that Zherys is our enemy.
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It's the definition of a cold war. We preemptively made a ceasefire agreement while warily keeping an eye on each other, with no intentions of actually allying with one another.
Raichu1972 said:
Okay, when will killing him no longer be inconvenient?

We are powerful, we have our fledgling kingdom, we have an armistice with the Mindflayers, Robert hasn't attacked since we rekt his fleet.

What reason do we have to let him deny us opportunities now?

We even have a genuine Sorceror of Old Valyria in our service now, plus the fact that we are Old Blood.

I'm not seeing any reasons not to kill him beyond just not wanting to.
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Because he's the counterbalance to the Red Priests rising up and taking Volantis, and none of us want to hand a city over to R'hllor. That's the major reason that we're not killing Zherys. We don't have time to manage a post-Zherys Volantis, we don't have time to keep the Red Priests in check, so the next best thing is just leaving Zherys alive for now so we don't have to juggle politics in the east.

Also, I'd rather have a few Free Cities under our belt before we stomp on Volantis.
 
Duesal said:
It's the definition of a cold war. We preemptively made a ceasefire agreement while warily keeping an eye on each other, with no intentions of actually allying with one another.
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We forced the issue with our constant plans to kill him and take over his city, which should have shown up on his divinations.
Now we have a long-lasting ceasefire that might get back to true peace.

If people could just check their conquest-boner and live and let live for some years. We have no reason to conquer Volantis besides its existance.
No heritage besides the generally Valyrian, it doesn't need our protection, it's not close to our lands or to Westeros.

Azel said:
We've got rumour from there very recently. They are mustering an army to march against Volantis. Not a normal army at that.
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That's nice, but not relevant to our reasons to visit?
 
Duesal said:
@DragonParadox, when Oberyn buys stuff from us, can we assume that he's going to be prudent and buy essential adventurer's equipment?

It's the definition of a cold war. We preemptively made a ceasefire agreement while warily keeping an eye on each other, with no intentions of actually allying with one another.

Because he's the counterbalance to the Red Priests rising up and taking Volantis, and none of us want to hand a city over to R'hllor. That's the major reason that we're not killing Zherys. We don't have time to manage a post-Zherys Volantis, we don't have time to keep the Red Priests in check, so the next best thing is just leaving Zherys alive for now so we don't have to juggle politics in the east.

Also, I'd rather have a few Free Cities under our belt before we stomp on Volantis.
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That's actually something I've been wondering for awhile.

Why do people want to grab the other Free Cites before Volantis?
Is it just a matter of geographic location?

I would feel as though Volantis would be the easiest to administer, and a pretty good chunk of Essos worships R'hilor, so it's not as though dealing with them is a Volantis exclusive thing.
 
Personally, I see the Meraxxes thing not as a boon for us, so much as denying assets to a future enemy. And Zherys is a future enemy. I can't see the future where the two of us are just going to go along to get along. Both Viserys and Zherys are far too ambitious for that.

Furthermore, I'm not comfortable with powerful antagonists like Burny and Ameri possibly having access to dead god of death's power.
 
Artemis1992 said:
We forced the issue with our constant plans to kill him and take over his city, which should have shown up on his divinations.
Now we have a long-lasting ceasefire that might get back to true peace.

If people could just check their conquest-boner and live and let live for some years. We have no reason to conquer Volantis besides its existance.
No heritage besides the generally Valyrian, it doesn't need our protection, it's not close to our lands or to Westeros.
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This just goes to show how counter your ambitions run to the rest of the thread. Most of us want world conquest, and Volantis is definitely on the list for that. I aim to collect every single Free City.
Raichu1972 said:
That's actually something I've been wondering for awhile.

Why do people want to grab the other Free Cites before Volantis?
Is it just a matter of geographic location?

I would feel as though Volantis would be the easiest to administer, and a pretty good chunk of Essos worships R'hilor, so it's not as though dealing with them is a Volantis exclusive thing.
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Geography is a big part of it, yes. The closer the Free City the easier it is to administer from Sorcerer's Deep. That's why we had no plans of taking over Mantarys despite having Teleport, and that's why the Three Daughters are the first on the conquest list. The more our passive influence spreads the easier this gets.

The other part of it is that managing a city with a surplus of Valyrian Sorcerer's and R'hllor clerics will inherently be much harder than any other city. It's a bit of a rough challenge right off the bat, one that we weren't keen on tackling without practice.
 
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