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

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So we now have word of DP that with a proper Reincarnate-limiting tree and "laws to enforce legal death" we can avoid this issue in this setting.
So let's make this happen, people! Within the next few years if possible! We need to actually do an action for this!

And of course if we're making a tree big enough for that... I wonder if we can add on other effects? Like a massive Cerulean Sign?
I'm going to add this to our "we talk the 15th Valyrian badass into joining the OG and obtaining peace" objectives: when they grow a massive tree from eating a God, one of its effects should be a worldwide block on Reincarnate.
Anyone against this?

Or could this be one of the effects on our big dead tree that we were trying to have Vee revive. Right? We'll be stacking a shitton of HD for it anyway...

Abhishek M said:
Honestly deal like this is a failing in the spells limits itself. In a setting where natural death is supposed that big thing to change. And where baddies on quests for immortality and death by age is a driver for lichdom...a lvl4 spell that Grant's youth through continuous reincarnation at no deeper cost than gold?

I mean this is the setting that makes you pay with literal parts of you spirit and soul to make rings that let you change things color once a day here. Who thought this spell shouldn't have an XP cost?
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Yes, this spell was clearly poorly designed.
 
DragonParadox said:
Waving the matter away you reply starkly: "I worry about about people filling the world like rats on a sinking grain barge. Two hundred marks is a great deal by most measures, a lifetime's work, but that's not so much of a problem if you have a lifetime to gather it, in the hopes of getting another chance. The whole point of forging a realm is to give people, all people beneath my banner a better life, safer, more prosperous. Should that come to pass would it not be reasonable for them to want more of it?"
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I don't really think overpopulation is that much of a problem, the planes are infinite, we can figure out how to grow thing such places as the Plane of Earth, and we have plenty of time to do it, Planetos can support many times it's current population.

But even if we have to put in limitations, I would rather put in a law, that you are only allowed to have living children from in 1 life, if you have living children when you are reincarnated, then you will have to agree to be rendered infertile, the punishment for having children from multiple lives, will be that you are banned from further life extension.
DragonParadox said:
For anyone wondering Viserys' concerns in the last update are intentionally not precisely in line with the thread's since he does not have the frame of reference to worry about wage slavery, but he is certainly clever enough to worry about the demographic issues of tens of thousands of immortals.
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Yeah but with places such as the Plane of Earth Being infinite, overpopulation is just not that much of a problem, especially considering the Underdark being a thing proves that there's things that can grow without sunlight, and even if any infinite plane is too dangerous for easy colonization, you can import building materials from them, and build endless caves upon caves, to grow underdark plants in, and with the Fungus Forge, we can even adapt surface plants to make Underdark versions, so people don't have to adjust their diet.
TalonofAnathrax said:
That's an absolute pipe dream. Insane.
Most peasants will never be immortal. Most well-off artisans will never be either. Why? Because there are very few spellcasters capable of casting that spell who will be selling their services (we currently have none who aren't Companions. None). Therefore the cost will be far more than the simply components of the spell.
And so maybe someday well-off middle class people will be able to afford it. But that'll be in ages: none of them will remember the "bad old days".
And since when have old people remembering the "bad old days" been enough to stop the youth doing stupid shit? "Back in my day we went hungry in the rice fields! Be thankful for France! Remember life in Cambodia!" gets you laughed at, not obeyed in all things.
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Magic is only a few years old, and even with 1 casting of it a day, that means a single archivist can reincarnate over 350 people a year, and if they turn a profit of 100 IM for each casting, that's a yearly income of 35k IM a year, that's a very good income from just your highest level spellslot.

And reincarnation isn't the only mean of immortality we can invent, create soulgem is a 3th level spell, so that's going to be a bit more widespread capability, and once we figure out how to implant a soul in a soulless body from the Fungus Forge, you can get immortality that way instead, which is likely to become the cheaper way to get a longer life, sure the price of growing even a CR 1 body in it is expensive, but considering your old body should be 2 HD at least, you can shave 2/3 of the price of your new CR1 body off, by donating it to the Fungus Forge, which take the price for a Fungus Forge grown body down to 150 IM.

And no old people remembering the bad old days, wont get the young to stop doing stupid shit, but it will lessen the impact when those old people are still working, because the young striking and protesting, is a bit less of a problem, when they are a smaller part of the work force.
Skjadir said:
No it will not, most people won´t be able to pay the money for the spell which is likely going to be more then just the money need to cast the spell.
A very limited amount of people will being able to cast the spell and alot of people wanting the spell cast on them, which means the people that can pay better then other will get the service and might even give money to mages to withhold that from other people.

This results in that only only these that are valueable enough to have it casted on them (master smith, etc), mages that can cast it or the rich haveing immortality.

That mean that the immortal rich will have even more time to accumulate wealth which means that they can leverage that money to generate more money, repeat this and a few time and you end with some ultra rich that own pretty much all wealth.

One very important thing to note is that Viserys is already on his way to do just that and it isn´t even his goal. He/the Kingdom is going to own pretty much everything that has any real value.
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The mage to non-mage ratio isn't quite that bad, a level 10 archivist can cast the spell multiple times a day, you only need the spell once every 50 years, if we say a level 10 archivist on average cast the spell 3 times a day, that's over a thousand people he can reincarnate a year, and considering it's only needed once every 50 years, that mean he can have a customer base of 50 thousand, needing 1 level 10 archivist for every 50 thousand people isn't so bad, especially when you consider that some will be higher level, Lya if I'm reading her character page right, has a total of 25 level 4+ spell slots each day, that mean she could reincarnate 25 people each day, meaning her yearly reincarnation rate if she was devoted to that, would be 8300 or so people, meaning she could reincarnate, 415k people in 50 years.

Now obviously Lya is so rare that not even 1 in 415k people have her talent, but not 1 in 415 having her talent, is different from not 1 in 415k being able to reach her current level, in 10 times the time she spent, reaching her level as quickly as she did is legendary, reaching it in 10 times as long is merely extremely outstanding.

Lya could by herself keepat least 20% of our population in reincarnation, if that was all she did, and she's going to reach even higher than that in time, and if she actually dedicated herself to reincarnation, she would probably develop a mass version of it for higher spell levels, so she could get the most out of her 7th level spellslots.
DragonParadox said:
The peasantry will never be able to do it regardless,not with the soft cap for mages being 2 levels lower than the spell's minimum.
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So not true, you haven't done the math properly, a single level 8 mage with 1 4th level spellslot, can reincarnate about 350 people a year, double that if they have something like our sleeping bag to allow them to recover spellslots twice a day, you need 1 reincarnate every 50 years at most, you can probably go 60 years between them if necessary, that mean 1 level 8 mage, can keep 18500 people reincarnated without 10 years where they are feeling the age, and 22000 people if they wait 60 years between reincarnate, and for every 4th level spellslot you add, you that amount to how many you can reincarnate, you have portrayed breaking the soft cap as rare, but not that rare.
 
065tdsa said:
Basically we either figure out space travel and put colonies everywhere fast, or we need to limit reincarnations soon.
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We don't need space colonies, we can use Underdark inspired cavern colonies, import stupid amount of stone from the Plane of Earth, stack caverns upon caverns upon caverns, and grow Underdark plants in there, you can endlessly expand your available land this way, and it will be a very safe place to live.
 
tarrangar said:
So not true, you haven't done the math properly, a single level 8 mage with 1 4th level spellslot, can reincarnate about 350 people a year, double that if they have something like our sleeping bag to allow them to recover spellslots twice a day, you need 1 reincarnate every 50 years at most, you can probably go 60 years between them if necessary, that mean 1 level 8 mage, can keep 18500 people reincarnated without 10 years where they are feeling the age, and 22000 people if they wait 60 years between reincarnate, and for every 4th level spellslot you add, you that amount to how many you can reincarnate, you have portrayed breaking the soft cap as rare, but not that rare.
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OK, what if the mage wants to be more than a reincarnation dispenser, as most do?
 
Azel said:
I'm not saying the elite won't get fucked just as much as everyone else, but what I am seeing is the edifice coming apart at the seams. The conclusion isn't set in stone, but the current trajectory isn't instilling much hope into me for the next 50 years.
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I don't know enough about economics to argue seriously about it, but I would say the fact that the Imperium is somewhat modeled to be as capitalistic our own society doesn't bode well for it in the first place.

What I'm trying to say is the point at which people become so dissatisfied with economic disparity between classes to the point that the function of society completely breaks down doesn't ever actually come to pass before human life itself becomes unsustainable due to poor decision making of people merely trying to maintain their own status for a combination of arrogance, hubris and unwillingness to change. But those in themselves are problems more likely to be solved "by other means" than it is to simply attempt to remove a piece of the puzzle, hide the piece so others can't find it and slot it into the jenga puzzle which will aide in eventually helping it come crashing down.

Like someone said, the ward is just creating another step so to speak in the group of people willing to pay money to live longer. They'll get better at making money. They'll go around the block, off plane, then you have to make restrictions to block people trying to circumvent the ward like people hiding their taxable money in off-shore accounts try to get around taxes for the sake of their "high score". People will go farther and farther for pettier reasons than their own lifespan and continued existence.

What we need are more opportunities and resources, not fewer people requiring both opportunities and resources, mostly because as we envision it, it is impractical to have a society with high standards that isn't some kind of carefully balanced and interconnected Orwellian nightmare, which, I posit, isn't sustainable for other reasons, mainly that this is BOTH D&D so plucky heroes will eventually stop you and cast down your utopia, and also because I suspect in real life we just aren't capable of developing that level of "cruel to be kind" system. We're just upjumped monkeys with a lot of imagination at the end of the day. Most of us are going day to day on pure inertia.
 
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Blocking Reincarnate on the plane is pointless. This is a socio-economic issue, not one of spellcraft.

@DragonParadox, how much did New Lys'os cost us in total? I pencilled in 8,400 IM for now in my statistics (the price if we had gone full Reincarnation), which should be plenty to keep the outpost supplied for a while.
 
DragonParadox said:
"That's not sustainable, it needs to be regulated..." she cuts herself off. "No, that won't work, not for long at least. Some sort of grand spell to prevent that manner of rebirth perhaps." Noticing your surprised expression she shakes her head. "It does not sound like something I would come up with, it sounds cruel. No, it is cruel, but it's a solution just the same, like cutting off the limb to save the patient. We may be spared that literal choice by magic, but it comes with its own costs and they must be paid lest we watch the whole world tumble into ruin."
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I guess we'll just have to make spell jammers to reach and live on other worlds...
 
Azel said:
Blocking Reincarnate on the plane is pointless. This is a socio-economic issue, not one of spellcraft.

@DragonParadox, how much did New Lys'os cost us in total? I pencilled in 8,400 IM for now in my statistics (the price if we had gone full Reincarnation), which should be plenty to keep the outpost supplied for a while.
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They are going to need some pretty esoteric supplies, but yeah 8,000 Gold sounds right.
 
Crake said:
Like someone said, the ward is just creating another step so to speak in the group of people willing to pay money to live longer. They'll get better at making money. They'll go around the block, off plane, then you have to make restrictions to block people trying to circumvent the ward like people hiding their taxes in off-shore accounts try to get around taxes for the sake of their "high score". People will go farther and farther for pettier reasons than their own lifespan and continued existence.
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This is a good point, trying to prohibit immortality is just going to create tons of law breakers.
 
Crake said:
What we need are more opportunities and resources, not fewer people requiring both opportunities and resources, mostly because as we envision it, it is impractical to have a society with high standards that isn't some kind of carefully balanced and interconnected Orwellian nightmare, which, I posit, isn't sustainable for other reasons, mainly that this is BOTH D&D so plucky heroes will eventually stop you and cast down your utopia, and also because I suspect in real life we just aren't capable of developing that level of "cruel to be kind" system. We're just upjumped monkeys with a lot of imagination at the end of the day. Most of us are going day to day on pure inertia.
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I think we are just talking past each other, as my goal is to shape society to accommodate immortals, not trying to shut this down.

For one, we already have immortal citizens. Moonsong, the Pech, some of our planar acquisitions, Relath and Amrelath being immortal for all practical purposes...
This is something we need to deal with and I'm merely trying to get the point across that this is a serious issue and a band-aid won't cut it.

If we somehow, miraculously, manage to actually block any and all Reincarnation shenanigans, which would already require High-Deity level power and attention to achieve in totality and without loopholes, we still wouldn't have solved the issue. Instead, we are damning humans to be single-lived chumps in a society ruled by immigrant Shaitan and Djinn immortals.
 
Crake said:
I don't know enough about economics to argue seriously about it, but I would say the fact that the Imperium is somewhat modeled to be as capitalistic our own society doesn't bode well for it in the first place.

What I'm trying to say is the point at which people become so dissatisfied with economic disparity between classes to the point that the function of society completely breaks down doesn't ever actually come to pass before human life itself becomes unsustainable due to poor decision making of people merely trying to maintain their own status for a combination of arrogance, hubris and unwillingness to change. But those in themselves are problems more likely to be solved "by other means" than it is to simply attempt to remove a piece of the puzzle, hide the piece so others can't find it and slot it into the jenga puzzle which will aide in eventually helping it come crashing down.

Like someone said, the ward is just creating another step so to speak in the group of people willing to pay money to live longer. They'll get better at making money. They'll go around the block, off plane, then you have to make restrictions to block people trying to circumvent the ward like people hiding their taxes in off-shore accounts try to get around taxes for the sake of their "high score". People will go farther and farther for pettier reasons than their own lifespan and continued existence.

What we need are more opportunities and resources, not fewer people requiring both opportunities and resources, mostly because as we envision it, it is impractical to have a society with high standards that isn't some kind of carefully balanced and interconnected Orwellian nightmare, which, I posit, isn't sustainable for other reasons, mainly that this is BOTH D&D so plucky heroes will eventually stop you and cast down your utopia, and also because I suspect in real life we just aren't capable of developing that level of "cruel to be kind" system. We're just upjumped monkeys with a lot of imagination at the end of the day. Most of us are going day to day on pure inertia.
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Our "capitalist system" is deeply socialist actually. Not only are major industries nationalized, but social security is strong and we have a dictatorial leader with the actual interests of the people at heart.
Everyday citizens think that they live in a capitalist society, but we're closer to 1960 France than current Hong Kong. We absolutely can shake up the economy and create opportunity, ensure a basic standard of living for all, and limit the wealth of the rich. And we always will be able to - because we have an unreasonably great ruler who will be there forever. This really isn't real life.
We can't argue that "IRL things go wrong with capitalism all the time" because this isn't really capitalism.

AND, about Reincarnation:

I didn't want to stop Reincarnation in the first place, I wanted to limit accumulation of wealth and power by making death count as death and by making inheritances happen after 1 or 2 centuries as an ageless being (undead, Construct...). But I don't seem to be getting a lot of support from the thread, so...
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
So we now have word of DP that with a proper Reincarnate-limiting tree and "laws to enforce legal death" we can avoid this issue in this setting.
So let's make this happen, people! Within the next few years if possible! We need to actually do an action for this!
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I'm against the idea, reincarnation shouldn't become a big demand for at least the next 20 years, the bulk of the people have at least that much time left to be comfortably alive, seeing as access to magic healing, has probably expanded the average lifespan by at least 30 years.
DragonParadox said:
OK, what if the mage wants to be more than a reincarnation dispenser, as most do?
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I know that, my point was more, that with the fact that most of those who climb to 8th level probably climb further, the amount of spell slots they have over 50 years is insane, Lya has 415k level 4+ spellslots available at the moment, and they climb with each level, a level 20 archivist, would be able to reincarnate over a million people in that time, and that's assuming a level 20 archivist, couldn't figure out a way to either split their higher spellslots into multiple lower spellslots, or create a higher level reincarnate spell that target multiple people at once.

Then there's things such as the bedroll we have, such a thing allow you to double your spell slots a day, and combined with a ring of sustenance you still only need to spend 4 hours sleeping, that increases how many spellslots you have available further.

So my point is, that with how rarely you need reincarnate, in a few decades, the Imperium should have many times the spellslots needed, to reincarnate everyone.

1 spellslot daily, adds up to 18500 spellslots every 50 years, double that with bedroll, even if you only want to dedicate half of your spellslots to that and don't want to use a bedroll, that's 9250 spellslots available for a level 8, and as they ascend to higher levels, the amount of spellslots they have available become multiple times that.
 
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BTW we are a getting close to 10000 pages. Since I won't be there for that (on account of being dead tired) I'll say this in advance:

This thread has been great and this community is awesome.:D

Edit: I'm not early after all.
 
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I don't think regulating Reincarnation itself is the answer, ya'll. If you can afford it and are able to tank the level/Constitution drain, fine, you can pay to be Reincarnated. It's too easy and cheap, relatively speaking, if someone wants to roll those dice.

As has been mentioned already, the chances of actually returning as a Human after being Reincarnated aren't all that great. The magic needed to direct a Reincarnation, or to cast Cyclic Reincarnation, is much harder to come by. The ultra-wealthy will be able to afford it, of course, but they will be few and far between.

Rather than restricting it, we should open state sponsored Reincarnation centers. You show up, pay for the spellcasting service itself plus the cost of the reagents, then you take your chances and hope to return as something close to Human. We can make it all run very smoothly, complete with pamphlets explaining your new physiology in detail, including dietary needs, hygienic concerns, etc.

Then you get a choice;
1) Your tax rate increases by some To Be Determined amount that isn't ruinous but makes it somewhat more difficult to save enough money for your next Reincarnation. This would compound over the course of each Reincarnation. Eventually only the most wealthy would be able to take this option. Most people wouldn't be able to do it more than a couple times, and that would still be extremely expensive.

or

2) You become a colonist. You'll be assigned to a new colony best suited to your skills and new species, and provided basic training if need be. Colonies may be on the Material Plane, but could just as easily be located elsewhere among the Planes, or even on another planet entirely.

or

3) You enlist in the Legion for 20 years.

Etc.

EDIT: HAHAHA, first non-DP post on page 10,000! I win the internet! :p
 
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tarrangar said:
So my point is, that with how rarely you need reincarnate, in a few decades, the Imperium should have many times the spellslots needed, to reincarnate everyone.
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Do you have any idea how huge the Empire is and how many mages that would require?
This will take centuries or millenia to get even close to Reincarnating everyone.
This isn't a feasible plan. Post-scarcity isn't happening anytime soon.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
Our "capitalist system" is deeply socialist actually. Not only are major industries nationalized, but social security is strong and we have a dictatorial leader with the actual interests of the people at heart.
Everyday citizens think that they live in a capitalist society, but we're closer to 1960 France than current Hong Kong. We absolutely can shake up the economy and create opportunity, ensure a basic standard of living for all, and limit the wealth of the rich. And we always will be able to - because we have an unreasonably great ruler who will be there forever. This really isn't real life.
We can't argue that "IRL things go wrong with capitalism all the time" because this isn't really capitalism.

AND, about Reincarnation:

I didn't want to stop Reincarnation in the first place, I wanted to limit accumulation of wealth and power by making death count as death and by making inheritances happen after 1 or 2 centuries as an ageless being (undead, Construct...). But I don't seem to be getting a lot of support from the thread, so...
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That's another stopgap. Azel is arguing all methods to try to impose a standard of living on an immortal being are unsustainable. I don't really disagree.

You'll just create enemies. You need to create ways for everyone to have their immortal cake, and slather it with gold, because as upjumped monkeys we won't be happy until we can have edible gold cake and live forever too, so long as both gold cake and living forever is something other people can do.

This isn't true for every individual, but it is true for enough to cause problems.
 
Wait hold on! You lose a level? Then what's the problem? Isnt leveling sort of a big deal? It means that people wont be able to do it often. And even over a lifetime that means they would have to do atleast a levels worth of useful shit to be able to not have their soul diminished to nothing by it.

I know we make level loss sound like a paint but you know in setting its felt like losing a chunk of your soul and self right? Like Visery losing his shadow but even more personal and deeper? Plus I kinda feel the natural failure rate for bringing back the dead should still apply.

Even if people agree before hand although at a lesser chance then. Mainly because of people being willing to leave their heaven until they have seen it. And me figuring the failure chance for evil people in evil after lives being less their unwillingness to leave and more helps unwillingness to let them.

So honestly even if it is monetarily possible I feel like people wouldn't actually do it lightly. Especially in a society where people KNOW that there is a heaven, a paradise, a Nirvana, a elysium, a plane of eternal learning where souls that long for and strive for them honestly go.

And if people who fear their after lives try anyway? Eh if hell doesnt manage to keep its grip on them, we will just sentence them for any shit they did.
 
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