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

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How about we start killing the Tyrells now?
Mind Blank and overwhelming force against the Lord and his closest family should be a good start.
Because if we can't break their alliance with the Fey and we can't get the Fey under control, then all that's left is war.
War against the Fey sounds hellish for both sides though. Let's avoid that as much as possible!

For socials: I now want to keep pressing her, but by speaking to Paxter. He just spoke to us, after all.
And worst case we simply leave and make it clear that our waters are OURS and that if they want that crown they can fight us for it.
 
Yeah no, the crown is in our waters and as such it belongs to us. If they want it then they have two choices, give us something worth it or try to fight for it. Either way we're getting something out of it, even if it's only compost for the fungus forge.

DragonParadox said:
"Indulge?" the sorceress scoffs. "Is that how you see all the world, mortal and deathless, spirit and flesh? As children to be praised or punished, to have toys offered or withheld?
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"You have met the Nobility of Westeros, the men who call themselves rulers. You've treated with them even. Look me in the fucking eye and ask that again."
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
How about we start killing the Tyrells now?
Mind Blank and overwhelming force against the Lord and his closest family should be a good start.
Because if we can't break their alliance with the Fey and we can't get the Fey under control, then all that's left is war.
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Not needed. All we need to do is make it impossible for the Tyrells to deliver on their bargain, at which point the Court of Stars is forced to negotiate with us.
 
Evaunit02mark1 said:
Yeah no, the crown is in our waters and as such it belongs to us. If they want it then they have two choices, give us something worth it or try to fight for it. Either way we're getting something out of it, even if it's only compost for the fungus forge.



"You have met the Nobility of Westeros, the men who call themselves rulers. You've treated with them even. Look me in the fucking eye and say that again."
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Funny, but counterproductive. We're Diplomancing Paxter here.
Let's stop talking to her directly, and speak to Paxter.
 
Crake said:
The problem here is, middling or great, we have the leverage in this situation. She has been discourteous and dissembling as a viper in a boot.

I mean, okay, the Reachers aren't turned against her, but she hasn't exactly delivered a compelling argument at ANY point during this conversation @DragonParadox. They have been consistently weakly constructed.
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She kind of gave up on compelling arguments when you asked for the loyalty of the entire court. The suggestion was such an enormous reach from her perspective that he basically saw it primarily as an attack on her alliance with the Reachers so she focused on keeping that.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
How about we start killing the Tyrells now?
Mind Blank and overwhelming force against the Lord and his closest family should be a good start.
Because if we can't break their alliance with the Fey and we can't get the Fey under control, then all that's left is war.
War against the Fey sounds hellish for both sides though. Let's avoid that as much as possible!

For socials: I now want to keep pressing her, but by speaking to Paxter. He just spoke to us, after all.
And worst case we simply leave and make it clear that our waters are OURS and that if they want that crown they can fight us for it.
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I doubt that it is all the fey under control of one court. If it is a specific court we can wipe them out in a night. The crown adds influence as the fey in charge would be a king now. All in all I am seeing a noble house who fucked up by bargaining what wasn't theirs to bargain in the first place. That and trying to give symbols of royalty away but that's another story
 
Crake said:
I'm more baffled that rolling well allowed her to even scrape by with a non-hostile atmosphere when she hasn't said anything of true substance so far and we've pointed out every faultline in her arguments like a chisel and hammer going to town at every point.
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Agreed. The opinion modifiers of the Redwyne's simply shouldn't be high enough to offset our superiority in skill and argument.
 
DragonParadox said:
She kind of gave up on compelling arguments when you asked for the loyalty of the entire court. The suggestion was such an enormous reach from her perspective that he basically saw it primarily as an attack on her alliance with the Reachers so she focused on keeping that.
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Well in our defense if she didn't want us asking that she shouldn't have implied she could guarantee it.

Every word out of her mouth was an assurance that "give me the crown and the court will do it's utmost to be just and favorable" and if she couldn't make that true then why should we give her the crown?

Hell we only have her word that she's even going to give the crown to the guy in the first place, for all we know she could kill everyone on this ship and take the crown for herself the minute they leave our waters.
 
DragonParadox said:
She kind of gave up on compelling arguments when you asked for the loyalty of the entire court. The suggestion was such an enormous reach from her perspective that he basically saw it primarily as an attack on her alliance with the Reachers so she focused on keeping that.
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Better than dying, either when they instigate conflict against us, or when they go mad and thus have to be put down like dogs.
 
How much do Resurrection quality diamonds cost again? I feel we should ask how much the Redwynes were charged, make sure they weren't swindled. After all, the gem and the caster's time are both expensive, to be sure, but there are limits.
spiritualatheist said:
Agreed. The opinion modifiers of the Redwyne's simply shouldn't be high enough to offset our superiority in skill and argument.
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I think it's because we can't see her, that it's not obvious to us:
DragonParadox said:
She plays at outrage masterfully, you must admit. Rare is the eye that could see her flushed cheeks and guttering gaze for the mummer's mask it is. Alas that none present can be counted such. Looking around the great cabin you see concern aplenty, but only that a fight might start, no wariness over having been deceived, not even in Lord Paxter.
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But here it's made pretty clear that she's fooling them mostly by playing the damsel in distress, and she's presumably very good at that, with supernatural grace and beauty.
 
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spiritualatheist said:
Agreed. The opinion modifiers of the Redwyne's simply shouldn't be high enough to offset our superiority in skill and argument.
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Agreed, but well, we might have made more of a dent here than we think. We'll only know for sure when we try arguing towards Paxter instead of this brickwall of obstinate idiocy.
 
Crake said:
I'm more baffled that rolling well allowed her to even scrape by with a non-hostile atmosphere when she hasn't said anything of true substance so far and we've pointed out every faultline in her arguments like a chisel and hammer going to town at every point.
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Keep in mind that she has been playing the game of making vague pronouncements and papering over flaws in arguments with emotional appeals fora long, time. People are not logic machines, especially there people.
 
Hmm I wonder if we can use runes to make anti-fey weapon which sends them back to the Feywild or kills them. Because, unfortunately, this conversation is justifying all my preconceived notion about the so-called "Fair Folk".
 
Crake said:
Agreed, but well, we might have made more of a dent here than we think. We'll only know for sure when we try arguing towards Paxter instead of this brickwall of obstinate idiocy.
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What gets me is that playing at being the damsel shouldn't be working here, unless the Redwynes are somehow forgetting all of our arguments. Even if they believe she is sincere, Westerosi Lords should not be okay with this.

Seriously, she should be eating major penalties to her checks here.
 
DragonParadox said:
Keep in mind that she has been playing the game of making vague pronouncements and papering over flaws in arguments with emotional appeals fora long, time. People are not logic machines, especially there people.
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The problem here DP is that we've made serious concessions towards the system at making sure that write-ins which consistently hit the high points and target the opponents low points mean more than any differential in skill, something we have suffered for by misreading the situation, something I have fallen victim to in the re-work. You took ruthless advantage of those situations and I applauded you for it.

This time we nailed it every time and it turns out the strength and character of our arguments as well as those little asides where we have had ample opportunity to let the Reachers get a read on our ideals and own character, meant nothing in the face of emotional appeals? "Oh, but I did not mean to trick you," or "think of that one time I gave you back your son... who was killed by a deathless spirit such as I. T'was it a Fey plot? Why, never!"

Fuck, do we have to save his first born before we get our foot in the door? Do we have to do that with every Reacher lord?
 
DragonParadox said:
"Indulge?" the sorceress scoffs. "Is that how you see all the world, mortal and deathless, spirit and flesh? As children to be praised or punished, to have toys offered or withheld? I have given you reasons why the Reach would be well served with a more steady hand upon the tiller of the Court of Stars, yet you have claimed that we seek dominion through it.
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Yet again she's avoided answering whether or not the Reach mortals would lose their dominion over their own lands. I've also got to admire how she blithely ignores how much of a potential threat the fey are to mortals when the crux of our argument hinges on that in the first place.
 
Crake said:
The problem here DP is that we've made serious concessions towards the system at making sure that write-ins which consistently hit the high points and target the opponents low points mean more than any differential in skill, something we have suffered for by misreading the situation, something I have fallen victim to in the re-work. You took ruthless advantage of those situations and I applauded you for it.

This time we nailed it every time and it turns out the strength and character of our arguments as well as those little asides where we have had ample opportunity to let the Reachers get a read on our ideals and own character, meant nothing in the face of emotional appeals? "Oh, but I did not mean to trick you," or "think of that one time I gave you back your son... who was killed by a deathless spirit such as I. T'was it a Fey plot? Why, never!"

Fuck, do we have to save his first born before we get our foot in the door? Do we have to do that with every Reacher lord?
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Guys I get the frustration but let me put it this way, have you ever argued politics online with someone who was doing it in bad faith, someone who was playing to win not find the truth? Moving the goalposts, taking one small part of the argument and making that the new argument, these are all tried, tested and successful strategies.
 
So I'm thinking, we go for the Resurrection angle:
DragonParadox said:
Silence descends like a lead curtain. If looks could cut as easily as steel then Paxter Redwyne's gaze would have skewered the unfortunate sailor clear through the heart. There is something else there beyond anger... fear. Not fear of the fey directly, it seems almost furtive, as though some secret was being kept, one to which Dusk Dancer at least was party too. What could have...

The answer comes in a flash, the secrecy, the friendliness towards the fey even going to far as to side with them against elements of the Faith. Perhaps Horas Redwyne is not now as dead as he had once been, perhaps fey sorcery had restored him to life. At Sunspear you had seen how strong a bond of loyalty that could forge. Had it been to House Tyrell or to the Court of Stars? Did it even matter ultimately?
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Paxter is afraid, so we reassure him, we know everything about how real Resurrection works, and how it's different from the mockeries of life some people manage. There should no stigma over someone who was properly raised and when we get on the throne it'll be perfectly legal, certain regulations aside.

Then we probe on whether they've had any particularly onerous conditions imposed on them in exchange, pointing out that Resurrection is actually a spell with a quantifiable cost that can be cast by the right sort of mortal caster, rather than some miracle with a great price by default. I am certain the Fae that cast the spell for them took them for all they were worth, so we'll hit paydirt.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Guys I get the frustration but let me put it this way, have you ever argued politics online with someone who was doing it in bad faith, someone who was playing to win not find the truth? Moving the goalposts, taking one small part of the argument and making that the new argument, these are all tried, tested and successful strategies.
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I agree. It's how we win these social situations so often. By rearranging the game until we win by default.
 
DragonParadox said:
Guys I get the frustration but let me put it this way, have you ever argued politics online with someone who was doing it in bad faith, someone who was playing to win not find the truth? Moving the goalposts, taking one small part of the argument and making that the new argument, these are all tried, tested and successful strategies.
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It makes actual skill at discourse and rhetoric seem fucking toothless.
 
Crake said:
The problem here DP is that we've made serious concessions towards the system at making sure that write-ins which consistently hit the high points and target the opponents low points mean more than any differential in skill, something we have suffered for by misreading the situation, something I have fallen victim to in the re-work. You took ruthless advantage of those situations and I applauded you for it.

This time we nailed it every time and it turns out the strength and character of our arguments as well as those little asides where we have had ample opportunity to let the Reachers get a read on our ideals and own character, meant nothing in the face of emotional appeals? "Oh, but I did not mean to trick you," or "think of that one time I gave you back your son... who was killed by a deathless spirit such as I. T'was it a Fey plot? Why, never!"

Fuck, do we have to save his first born before we get our foot in the door? Do we have to do that with every Reacher lord?
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Yeah, this is just bringing up Manderley flashbacks. She's what, CR 9? Her social skills simply shouldn't be this good, so she must be getting really substantial boosts from the opinions of the Redwynes. The thing is, they are too substantial for what she is actually saying. This whole combat seems to suggest that we could Alter Self into a comely damsel and convince the whole reach to sign up with our realm by blushing and tittering.
 
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