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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 always viewed them as lawyers first, salesman second.
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Contract devils serve Asmodeus, archfiends, and the vast bureaucracy of Hell as clerks, scribes, and bargainers for mortal souls. They exist to keep track of the damned, to manage Hell's endless ordinances, and, when time and opportunity permit, to coax mortals into damnation. Most phistophiluses spend their eternities in the various courts of Hell's nine layers, particularly in the maze-like fortress-libraries where all infernal laws and oaths are recorded. Occasionally they serve similar roles on the Material Plane when summoned by particularly desperate, arrogant, or foolish mortals.
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That seems correct.

But unfortunatly those we are most likely to meet on the material are more the latter kind.
So we have to be very discerning if we actually get one.
 
Artemis1992 said:
That seems correct.

But unfortunatly those we are most likely to meet on the material are more the latter kind.
So we have to be very discerning if we actually get one.
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They're not mutually exclusive? In the quote you just provided it says they're lawyers first, and when opportunity permits they tempt mortals. That doesn't mean their primary job stops being a lawyer.
 
Duesal said:
They're not mutually exclusive? In the quote you just provided it says they're lawyers first, and when opportunity permits they tempt mortals. That doesn't mean their primary job stops being a lawyer.
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I think his point was the ones we're actually likely to meet on business on this plane are likely to be salesmen first, because otherwise they'd stay in the Hells and do paperwork. Not an insurmountable problem, but worth keeping in mind that we might want to purpose summon them rather than hope to run into one.
 
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065tdsa said:
I think his point was the ones we're actually likely to meet on business on this plane are likely to be salesmen first, because otherwise they'd stay in the Hells and do paperwork. Not an insurmountable problem, but worth keeping in mind that we might want to purpose summon them rather than hope to run into one.
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I'm sure that Mereth would have some good criteria to recommend us some lawyers or accountants for us.
 
Vote closed.

Sorry for the delay. RL ambushed me.:V
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Dec 10, 2018 at 11:49 AM, finished with 147 posts and 11 votes.
  • [X] Plan Just Like In The Old Days
    -[X] Before leaving, take some minor thing from the office to use Touch of History on. A well placed book on a shelf or the like would be fine. It should be easy to miss the disappearance of that item. Viserys will use 1 hour to learn the events of the last 20 days.
    -[X] Meanwhile Hermetia will gather up a list of potential inheritors for the departed and a complete list of people Shara or Hermetia are indebted to.
    -[X] Aradia will immediately depart to the place mentioned in the latter and stake it out. Viserys will follow after an hour and plan his approach. Lend her the Wayfinder for this task, so that she doesn't get lost.
    -[X] Meanwhile Mia and Anya will stake out the offices of this solicitor. Once Aradia is back from the countryside, she will join them. They should either continue the stake-out or infiltrate the offices at their own discretion. The goal is to learn as much about the solicitor as possible, especially about his clients and activities in the past months.
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I'm still looking forward to a Cornugon of our own in the future. That would be an insanely effective tool to counter the demons the Drow summon against us in the inevitable war.
 
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Part MMCDLXXIV: Mismatched Gathering
  • Threadmarks
    • Mismatched Gathering​

    Tenth Day of the Seventh Month 293 AC

    In many ways the task now before you would not have been out of place in your days in Braavos or perhaps your first journey to Lys on Dario's trail—follow the hidden trail of the likely murderer into a den of iniquity... it even sounds like something from an overwrought morality tale, you snort to yourself at the jest. Still, there are as many differences as there are similarities. You have good men to set upon the different leads, or rather good women.

    By some quirk of fate it had come to be that each and every one of those assisting you in Lys is a woman. From Azema keeping Aedon distracted and Tyene attempting to set his army on the mend, to Hermetia and Shara compiling lore on the guests, to Anya, Mia, and Aradia following the leads on the ground... or in the air, you suppose. There is a unique sense of pride you have found not in solving a conundrum yourself, but finding the right people to do it instead, people who might have otherwise been scattered and lost upon the winds of fortune now gathered to help snare a dozen spiders in a web of steel.

    Setting aside such abstract considerations you fix your mind upon your own task, first removing a small cube of marble from the walls of the study, then filling in the hole with a second wish, leaving not a trace of your presence in the study. The stone whispers much in your ear, though as many questions as answers do you find.

    Over the past twenty days Jarlar had clearly been in contact with a great many interesting customers: from the heads of slaver families looking to diversify the family business in the face of growing uncertainty on the slave market to a man you suspect to have been an envoy from either King's Landing or Casterly Rock, speaking of dragon-slaying in vague but rather optimistic tones, to strangest of all a grain magnate's factotum whom he had paid handsomely in silver, though for what deed you can only speculate for.

    ***​

    "Ah..." your neck pops from enforced immobility. "Such a useful spell, and yet so bloody uncomfortable to stare at a rock for so long." You are surprised but pleased to see Shara already in the chamber, rather than still sequestered with Hermetia over the report: "Done already? I would have thought it would take you at least a few hours to work through all five other names on the list."

    "Many of them were potentates we already had our eye upon for various reasons, Your Grace" the young Rogare scion explains. "The first, Nikeos Armatis, is the head of the lotus trade, one barely respectable enough to be seen in public with even in Lys. He has a habit of sending those who cross him the eyes of their loved ones as a warning, supposedly still reflecting the horror of their last moments. He is known to be somewhat aligned with the Spicers, though not by blood or marriage, so the connection is one of convenience than true loyalty. Second on the list is Eferil Irjen, an apostate red priest whom many suspect to be some manner of sorcerer, though the Flame Keeper denies such rumors at every opportunity. For what it is worth no one has ever seen him use magic."

    "Have you tried divining the answer?" you interject. "Even a lack of answer can be telling."

    "The portents were muddled to say the least: 'Ask not if the worm can swallow its tail, but whether its jaws can engulf you...'"

    You nod for her to continue, setting aside another piece of the puzzle for consideration.

    "Next is lady Jeanna Forlys. Truth be told she does not seem to be important enough to even be at such a gathering. The best that can be said of her is that she is a professional toady and only middlingly skilled at that. Hermetia's best guess is that she is someone's cat's-paw in this meeting."

    "Though she had to have been mentioned in the will, surely?" you ask.

    "Lady Hermetia is not certain, and I am inclined to share her doubts. The collection of individuals is too eclectic, not even moving in the same circles as... the deceased." The last words are spoken with such loathing as a score curses could not hold.

    "Are there any others of your father's former creditors among the guests?" you ask softly, wary of causing her more pain but still needing to know.

    "Only one, High Priest Gorthor, keeper of the keys of the temple of Trios, though he is more banker to the desperate and foolish than priest," Shara explains. "He is a man of great appetites, and not only for food. He boasts to have once made women of two dozen girls in a single night." From the looks of bone-deep revulsion on Shara's face you suspect the priest had make her some unwelcome proposition in turn.

    "Lovely," you feel your lips twisting into a grimace of disgust to match. Still, the connection to the temple might make him a useful tool. "What of the last guest?"

    "The name is assumed," the young woman responds instantly. "Yango Reft is a play on a character in a popular Lyseni play, a villainous bastard, er..." her cheeks heat as she hesitates. "He is a freedman and 'half-breed' who is the play's main villain. The moral of the tale is that mingling pure Lyseni blood with that of lesser stock will breed a monster, sly and hateful."

    "You can hardly be made responsible for Lys' taste in plays," you reassure her. "So we have a gathering of very colorful individuals, likely summoned under false pretenses to a retreat lasting several days..." you muse. Reaching out for Aradia along the link you had forged earlier today you ask the incarnum if she is in place.

    "Of course," her words are cool with a faint edge of annoyance to them. "Where else would I be after all this time?"

    Aradia had not wanted to scout too far inside the manse itself without explicit orders, but she is able to confirm that the meeting place has none of the arcane warding of Jarlar's office. In fact she has seen no trace of magic for leagues around, and Jarlar himself is certainly within according to the Wayfinder.

    The last to report in are Anya and Mya, having found the solicitor's office, but not the solicitor himself, leading you to believe that he too might be at the meeting.

    What do you do next?

    [] Write in

    OOC: Hopefully this was a good balance between giving you the information you need to actually plan and not overwhelming you guys with an infodump.
     
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    • @DragonParadox, can you give us the results of Yrael's minions looting Lyceos for us? We loaned them Viserys' Satchel of the Crimson Wyrm and the extra Wayfinder for this. How'd they do? At minimum they should have gotten seven loot rolls for seven days spent looting.
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    @DragonParadox
    I'm not sure you saw the reply, but here:

    Discern Location is something different to what you talked about in your answer.
    Discern Location :: d20srd.org
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    Ah.. that. It would only have given you a name though, not a view of the place.

    Duesal said:
    @DragonParadox, can you give us the results of Yrael's minions looting Lyceos for us? We loaned them Viserys' Satchel of the Crimson Wyrm and the extra Wayfinder for this. How'd they do? At minimum they should have gotten seven loot rolls for seven days spent looting.
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    I have not rolled for it yet. I'll do it tomorow since there is quite a lot to do.
     
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    @DragonParadox, as we are viewing them from the location of the object, we should be able to pinpoint his visitors with the Wayfinder, right?

    What is Dany doing right now again?
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    Then we could have directed our investigation towards finding out about that manse, or directly broken into his office for hints like the one we actually found.

    I just mean we wouldn't have run for two days into a wall of "nobody knows where he is".
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    Point. Let's just put it down to Viserys forgetting (as I did).:oops:

    Azel said:
    @DragonParadox, as we are viewing them from the location of the object, we should be able to pinpoint his visitors with the Wayfinder, right?

    What is Dany doing right now again?
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    1. Yes
    2. Doing research into planar trade routes.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Point. Let's just put it down to Viserys forgetting (as I did).:oops:


    1. Yes
    2. Doing research into planar trade routes.
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    If Viserys forgetting obvious hindsight = 20/20 status things is IC now, can you insert that V8 headslap into the next update please? Because he should feel dumb. I doubt it is relevant to the plot TBH since arriving a day earlier probably just means we walk in during legal minutia section 2c dash 1.2, but still.
     
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