Remove ads

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

Reader mode
Arimai said:
No. We volunteer to become their exclusive banking firm and handle their financial affairs for a reasonable 5% fee of the profits. Long term more pods will emulate Baella's clan and hopefully seek us out for the same services. Baella's word of mouth endorsement will ensure that. Netting us even greater profit. We can use that income for investments and many deals
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Baella don't have a clan, she's a loner as we have known right from the start, when we met her swimming all by herself, she probably visit a bunch of pods for time to time, but she's not really part of one.
Azel said:
Which reminds me of a US company that sells the blood of young, healthy people for $4000 a litre. I'm pretty sure the donors get way less then $2000 for it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah but in the blood market, the demand is smaller than the supply, at least at those prices, the Fire Whales gems are magical reagents, so even if every single Whale donated monthly, there would still be buyers for all of the gems, in a situation where there's 3 sellers for every buyer, you set the sellers profit margin low, in a situation where there's 3 buyers for every seller, you set the sellers profit margin high.

But you have convinced me 10% is too low, you haven't convinced me 50% isn't too much, but 20-30% seems more reasonable to me now.
Artemis1992 said:
As it is the whalers have a vested Interest in leaving a good population of whales alive and free so they reproduce.
With our method there is no incentive to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Of course any Whale farm wouldn't last long, as we would send Amrelath to destroy them and free the Whales, so unless we lose the war with the Efreeti, widespread Whale slavery is unlikely to become a thing, as the Whales wont thrive outside the Plane of Fire, and we are certainly going to make a lot of problems for any enslaver of Whales.
 
Last edited:
Azel said:
DP said that we could manage a dark, almost black shade of red.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Excellent. So we have red, black and grey. I can see some great colour patterns for that. Can we use gems and other metals to accentuate the creature? Nothing absurd like Flavor Flav. Tasteful a reserved way of flaunting our absurd wealth in the face of the Bloody, Damned LANNISTERS!
 
Arimai said:
Excellent. So we have red, black and grey. I can see some great colour patterns for that. Can we use gems and other metals to accentuate the creature? Nothing absurd like Flavor Flav. Tasteful a reserved way of flaunting our absurd wealth in the face of the Bloody, Damned LANNISTERS!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Once the first Whales have arrived for harvest, we could use Fire Whale gems, they are magical reagents, so using them instead of other reagents wouldn't increase the cost, and they look great.
 
tarrangar said:
Baella don't have a clan, she's a loner as we have known right from the start, when we met her swimming all by herself, she probably visit a bunch of pods for time to time, but she's not really part of one.

Yeah but in the blood market, the demand is smaller than the supply, at least at those prices, the Fire Whales gems are magical reagents, so even if every single Whale donated monthly, there would still be buyers for all of the gems, in a situation where there's 3 sellers for every buyer, you set the sellers profit margin low, in a situation where there's 3 buyers for every seller, you set the sellers profit margin high.

But you have convinced me 10% is too low, you haven't convinced me 50% isn't too much, but 20-30% seems more reasonable to me now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Reread the interlude again. Baella just is negotiating for her pod, with Xor's help. Using gems harvested from the aforementioned pod. It is subtle, but definitely present.
 
Last edited:
Arimai said:
Reread the interlude again. Baella just is negotiating for her pod, with Xor's help. Using gems harvested from the aforementioned pod. It is subtle, but definitely present.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She's negotiating for protectors for a pod, but she aint using that pods gem to negotiate it, those gems are rather clearly the gems harvested from her, the fact that they are noted to be burgundy where common whalegems are red, shows that these are the more valuable gems found in special whales.

She also says I and in time my fellows, rather hinting that for now only she is being harvested, I'm guessing she hired Yrten, to demonstrate the advantages of gem harvesting to her people.
DragonParadox said:
"The kind that glitters and gleams..." The great eye blinked once in concentration, and only then did those on board the Golden Wind notice a comically small satchel rising from the whale's back like a flake of ash in the wind. It landed at Yrten's feet with a familiar clinking sound and spilled out a dozen whale stones, though instead of being vivid red as most common whale-gems were they were a rich burgundy. "Those were not taken from the butchered bodies of my kin, but safely harvested instead, wealth by which I and in time my fellows can pay for our protection."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Here is the relevant parts, and from how I read it, it's rather clear those gems are all from Baella.
 
tarrangar said:
She's negotiating for protectors for a pod, but she aint using that pods gem to negotiate it, those gems are rather clearly the gems harvested from her, the fact that they are noted to be burgundy where common whalegems are red, shows that these are the more valuable gems found in special whales.

She also says I and in time my fellows, rather hinting that for now only she is being harvested, I'm guessing she hired Yrten, to demonstrate the advantages of gem harvesting to her people.

Here is the relevant parts, and from how I read it, it's rather clear those gems are all from Baella.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No. Red gems come from DEAD whales. It clearly states that in Yrten's inner thought and earlier in the story during their research. The rich burgundy colour of live gems should raise the price depending on the quality of the gems in question. I wonder if dead gems are of lower quality and clarity since the gems grow with the whale in question.
 
Last edited:
Arimai said:
No. Red gems come from DEAD whales. It clearly states that in Yrten's inner thought. These are gems taken from my kin.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There's no place in the interlude she says taken from my kin, she says they were not taken from her dead kin, which would be the first assumption, as prior to this gems from still living Whales was an impossibility.

And Yrten would know precisely nothing, about how gems from living Whales as opposed to dead ones look, as these are the first gem from living Whales ever, so while Yrten might assume it's because they were from living Whales they are Burgundy, that's no proof at all that's why.

And he don't even assume that, he specifically say as opposed to most common Whale-gems, not as opposed to gems from living Whales, hinting that non-red Whale-gems are a known thing, but also a very rare thing, which makes it more likely these gems are from Baella.

But we can always ask @DragonParadox were the gems Baella gave Yrten harvested from multiple whales? Or were they harvested from Baella?
 
tarrangar said:
There's no place in the interlude she says taken from my kin, she says they were not taken from her dead kin, which would be the first assumption, as prior to this gems from still living Whales was an impossibility.

And Yrten would know precisely nothing, about how gems from living Whales as opposed to dead ones look, as these are the first gem from living Whales ever, so while Yrten might assume it's because they were from living Whales they are Burgundy, that's no proof at all that's why.

And he don't even assume that, he specifically say as opposed to most common Whale-gems, not as opposed to gems from living Whales, hinting that non-red Whale-gems are a known thing, but also a very rare thing, which makes it more likely these gems are from Baella.

But we can always ask @DragonParadox were the gems Baella gave Yrten harvested from multiple whales? Or were they harvested from Baella?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I edited my post before you replied. As to Yrten's thought he says common whale gems are red. All whale gems prior to having been told of the possibility of live gems are from dead whales. Not just a few whale gems, all whale gems that he knows of are red.
 
Azel said:
We could easily charge 90-10 and it would still be a good deal for the whales. Imagine someone coming up and asking to buy your morning urine, offering $100 per cup. That's an awesome deal for you, no matter if they make $1000 per cup in resale.

I'm proposing to give you $500 for it. Oh cruel capitalism, breaker of the working class...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, it's more like "I will buy your piss from you, but I'll have to cut it out of your bladder. Oh, and in addition to all the normal risks of your life, the place where this operation will take place is likely to be watched by people who want to hunt you down and kill you".
I wouldn't take that deal unless the gold was damn good (and a lot of it went into getting anesthesia equipment).
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
No, it's more like "*I will buy your piss from you, but I'll have to cut it out of your bladder**. Oh, and in addition to all the normal risks of your life, the place where this operation will take place is likely to be watched by people who want to hunt you down and kill you".
I wouldn't take that deal unless the gold was damn good (and a lot of it went into getting anesthesia equipment).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

To be fair.

*Instead of people murdering you for it as they already do
**painlessly(?) and without permanent harm.
 
Deliste said:
To be fair.

*Instead of people murdering you for it
**painlessly(?) and without permanent harm.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh no, people will still be murdering them for it. Efreet still exist, after all. Still, if they have the money for good bodyguards their odds do improve quite a bit!

And painlessly seems hard to manage: the best anesthesia D&D has seems to be the sleep spell, and it doesn't stop you from waking up when they start cutting.
Well, there are nipple clamps that turn pain to pleasure...

I think that getting their gems harvested is a good thing, but they should be paid enough to get good protection (and hopefully some anesthesia).
In any case if we charge a huge price Baella can just go and hire someone else.
So IMO a smaller cut is better. For example we could charge a small cut for the harvesting and then a small cut for buying gear for them (they're too large to enter most markets), and have summoned phoenixes do the harvesting and mid-level minions do the shopping (if we can't craft it ourselves).
 
Last edited:
What about we go with two different levels of billable service?

We charge a larger amount, something like 40-50% to provide mobile harvesters, complete with a substantial protective detail to accompany them, who will come to the Fire Whales out in the wilds, but also maintain a large Fire Whale Harvesting Center in a semi-permanent location (perhaps mobile?) set up in territory controlled by our allies which has a much lower fee between 10-20% fee due to the decreased danger and more consistent harvest provided by Fire Whales making the trip to a centralized location rather than needing to track down individual pods.

The Harvesting Center would have better facilities, more guards, and increased defenses, along with accommodations for several pods simultaneously. It could become a regular gathering point for the Fire Whales, facilitating social interaction and serving as a seed from which a more complex society may form.
 
Last edited:
Goldfish said:
What about we go with two different levels of billable service?

We charge a lesser amount, something like 10-20% to provide mobile harvesters, complete with a decent protective detail to accompany them, who will come to the Fire Whales out in the wilds, but also maintain a large Fire Whale Harvesting Center in a semi-permanent location (perhaps mobile?) set up in territory controlled by our allies which has a 50% fee. The Harvesting Center would have better facilities, more guards, and increased defenses, along with accommodations for several pods simultaneously. It could become a regular gathering point for the Fire Whales, facilitating social interaction and serving as a seed from which a more complex society may form.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I edited my post. What do you think of the addition?
 
Goldfish said:
What about we go with two different levels of billable service?

We charge a lesser amount, something like 10-20% to provide mobile harvesters, complete with a decent protective detail to accompany them, who will come to the Fire Whales out in the wilds, but also maintain a large Fire Whale Harvesting Center in a semi-permanent location (perhaps mobile?) set up in territory controlled by our allies which has a 50% fee. The Harvesting Center would have better facilities, more guards, and increased defenses, along with accommodations for several pods simultaneously. It could become a regular gathering point for the Fire Whales, facilitating social interaction and serving as a seed from which a more complex society may form.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Needlessly dangerous and inherently attracts the cheap and "free spirited" (read: most likely to be followed etc.) for no gain, if anything the mobile version should be more expensive for danger pay, they may very well have to die to protect the equipment and process.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top