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

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Crake said:
Just to chime in, but Jaime's not going to be found at any brothels. His entire arc is "look at what being blindly and absolutely faithful to Cersei got you" all while suspicions of her sleeping around with half of King's Landing haunt him in the night.
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That is okay because I am pretty sure Varys knows about the debacle. We get him we get the information.
 
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Part MMDLXXVIII: Of Faith and Foes
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    • Of Faith and Foes ​

    Thirteenth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

    As Chataya realizes that the conversation will likely run well into the night to share all that you want to know, she invites all of you on a short and unexpected journey down a long hall paneled in simple oak rather than the ornate carvings of the entrance hall and up another narrow stairway to a lone door which opens to the turret room. Within is a great canopied bed decked in silk, but your host leads you further, opening the wardrobe to reveal a false back, and beyond that a metal ladder that descends well below street level. "I'm afraid this will not be the most comfortable of circumstances, but I felt it would be best to carry on this discussion where we cannot be interrupted. My girls are too good to do that of course, but sometimes the patrons are not." There is a mountain of unspoken frustration behind that single syllable.

    "A sound plan," you say, looking down the stairs. "Though perhaps I can spare everyone the climb down." You offer a hand to Dany and she to your mother and from there on until Chataya hesitates on taking Nuri's hand. Not so much frightened of unfamiliar sorcery as rightly understanding how much trust she is putting in your hand, you suspect. A moment later she relents and does so, reasoning that she is 'too far down the fox's hole to worry about it' as the saying goes.

    The tunnel must be about forty feet below street level, close enough that you can hear the sounds of the night above through the earthen walls. From the looks of things it is also old... or at least most of it is. In about two-hundred yards it widens into a proper chamber with doors on either side, clearly dug with magic from the way the earth had been evenly pushed aside like dough cut with a knife. Inside is a rough wooden table surrounded by twelve seats, and in the center lies a simple mage lantern of the sort your friends took with them on their journey. Still, the chamber certainly had not been made with their aid, much less the tunnel.

    "Who built this and for what purpose?" you ask curiously. You can certainly imagine why any prudent business that works closely with the court would wish to have a quick way out, but you suspect the story is more interesting.

    "Harwyn Half-hand widened it. He is an alchemist, one of the lucky ones who ended up in Lord Stannis Baratheon's employ after their guild was... destroyed." Here she gives you a measuring look, whether suspecting some measure of the truth or simply wishing to gauge your reaction you cannot say. "As for who built it in the first place..."

    "Tywin Lannister, so he could visit the brothel without being seen," your mother interjects. "One would not think it would be possible to be anymore disgusted with the man than I already was, but it seems I had underestimated him. He cheated on his wife and likely the best thing he ever had in his miserable life..." She draws in a steadying breath. You faintly remember your mother being friends with Lady Joanna Lannister years before your birth, though by the time you were out of the nursery few of the servants dared to speak of it lest the reminder of familial closeness irk your father who was growing ever more distant from the Lord of Casterly Rock.

    To your surprise the madame looks genuinely upset. "I am sorry for taking you down here again, but it is the safest place to have a discussion as in depth as this one needs to be. "

    "He cheated on his wife?" Waymar asked, shocked. "I can't even imagine..." he trails off. "Sorry, it doesn't matter."

    "For what it's worth he only availed himself to my services when his wife was indisposed, and he insisted on bedding maidens who would then be kept for him alone," Chataya said, her mouth tightening slightly. "He was resentful of his weaknesses of the flesh." You can guess the rest though Waymar might not be able to. A man who sees his own whoring as demeaning could well take it out on the women he was laying with, and not even one as well placed as Chataya could protest the actions of the Hand of the King.

    Maelor speaks up, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "So who has the old goat been tumbling with recently?"

    The question earns a giggle from Dany and a handful of smiles.

    Chataya simply answers: "I would not know about him, but there are certainly enough other high lords who have been caught in ill-advised situations, especially with the Faith growing teeth..."

    "Growing teeth?" Dany asks, intrigued. "I thought you said they didn't have any miracle workers in the city?"

    "There is more than one sort of power a priest can use, and they have been getting the usual sort." There is an edge of frustration in her voice, almost of anger. You imagine for one raised in the Summers Islands the dictates of the Faith regarding the ways of love and passion must seem madness.

    You thus learn of how the Faith has been slowly gaining influence in King's Landing in part by feeding off fears of magic and monsters, but also riding the surge of dark rumors and slander the Lannisters have been orchestrating against you. Easy enough to jump from 'the sorcerer king is wicked' to 'sorcery itself is wicked', which is the soundest theological position in any case.

    Though the High Septon is most notable among the common folk for being the one to disperse mobs that might form against royal writ or Lannister effort, he is also slowly replacing some of the more venal and thus easily swayed members of the Most Devout with men of greater piety. So far no one has suffered any worse than being exiled to a septry, though in the chaos following the 'Judgement of Fire', as the destruction of the Alchemist's Guildhall is called, things came perilously close to killing. Septon Ollidor was confronted with a mob of fanatics at the door of a known herbalist and suspected witch. Chataya suspects his presence there had less to do with sorcery and more with his somewhat infamous issues between the sheets.

    "Can't really blame them," Nuri quips. "He was not a very good septon either way, was he?"

    To that you have to agree, but it is not the Faith's concern with clearing out its own ranks that troubles you the most. The court has seen almost a dozen lesser lords and ladies quietly leave when their conduct was deemed 'unseemly' for one reason or another. Generally this had to do with supposed use of 'exempted sorcery' though the unfortunate Ser Dontos Hollard, the only survivor of your father's butchery in the wake of the Defiance at Duskendale, was sent away from the court for being found drunk and naked on the training field one morning.

    "Poor man, he had a far better reason to be drunk than the fool on the Iron Throne," Dany interjects. "We should find him and offer some small recompense for all he's suffered."

    Speaking of the Usurper himself, he may not have been doing much ruling, but he has been using his training field for its intended purpose. The more news of your growing power in the east had emerged the longer the hunts and spars and the shorter the feasts. Where before the Greyjoy Rebellion some had begun to quietly comment on Robert Baratheon's expanding girth, now he is almost as fit as the rebel lord who had gained his blood-stained crown with a hammer. Supposedly the spells he most appreciates are the ones that let him get drunk without suffering a hangover and the healing spells that let him train with his hammer as if he were going to war.

    "There's nothing he would like more than fighting you, Your Grace, that much I've heard from so many quarters it's impossible to doubt," Chataya continues. "I have it from my daughter, who has it from him when he was... in the mood to be boasting let's say, that he's waiting for the Lannisters to come up with some sort of dragon-killing weapon, or at least something that can drag a dragon to the ground so he can fight you with a hammer. There was also a story of the alchemists cooking something else up for him, but they are dead and broken."

    "Would the Lannisters be looking to make this weapon or buy it?" you ask. While you are confident Lannister artificers are unlikely to make such a thing, you are not so arrogant as to think there is nothing in the vastness of the Spheres that could wound or cripple you.

    Alas, to that Chataya cannot answer. Even Robert Baratheon will only spill so many secrets between the sheets.

    Do you have any further questions on this topic?

    [] Yes
    -[] Write in

    [] No move on to the next topic (Arrangement of the High Council and reactions to unrest)

    OOC: If you guys were to make a big list of questions like with Bloodraven you can just put it all in there.
     
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    • DragonParadox said:
    "Would the Lannisters be looking to make this weapon or buy it?" you ask. While you are confident Lannister artificers are unlikely to make such a thing you are not so arogant as to thing there is nothing in the vastness of the Spheres that could wound or cripple you.
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    A Wingind spell of sufficient power is all it takes to get us in range.
    Then it all depends on Robert's build, any decent magic weapon will do.
     
    So ... artifacts function inside an antimagic field, right? Which of our gear counts as artifact?
     
    MTB said:
    So ... artifacts function inside an antimagic field, right? Which of our gear counts as artifact?
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    Worst case?
    We use Yss' aging ability imbued into curse-staff and fuck up Robert inside AMF.
    We are going to survive that in either of our forms, unlike him :drevil:
     
    065tdsa said:
    And Dark Sister?
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    Non. Sentient magic weapon, yes. Divine magic item... nope.

    The only thing we have that will still function in a AMF is our cloak.

    Though speaking of what Snowfire pointed out, how many of you want to bet that the Lannisters think our turning into a dragon is some kind of spell ala Form of the Dragon and not us literally being a dragon?

    Their plan could actually be finding a way to get us in range of one.

    That would... not quite go as planned.

    Also, I thought our Freedom of Movement on our Crown countered Wingbind, @Artemis1992?
     
    I would rather not duel Robert. Sure, we can do it, but why should we? Let's just pick him apart with magic to show him how little we think of his brawn and hammer-wielding skills?

    "Oh, you want to duel? How cute! Amber Sarcophagus!"
     
    Goldfish said:
    I would rather not duel Robert. Sure, we can do it, but why should we? Let's just pick him apart with magic to show him how little we think of his brawn and hammer-wielding skills?

    "Oh, you want to duel? How cute! Amber Sarcophagus!"
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    Honestly if we dueled him it'd be for the PR, mostly. If we got several well-regarded witnesses who told we beat him without magic, that'd give us a load of points with the Westerosi. Which we may need with all the propaganda against us.

    It'd also make Dark Sister happy.
     
    [X] Questions
    -[X] Rumors of Robert
    --[X] If he has any famous gear, the kinds of things he's been doing, anything else we'd be interested in, etc.
    -[X] Rumors of Cersei
    --[X] She apparently managed to slay Meryn Trant, we want to follow that thread. We also want to know what else she's been up to, as well as following the old thread of her having secured a Valyrian Dragon Egg for Joffrey which she'd intended to hatch using Valaena.
    -[X] Small Council Politics
    --[X] Unpack everything, with special focus on Varys, but not neglecting the other members. We want to know any major projects, proclamations, habits, etc. And with Varys, we want everything we need to hunt him down.
    -[X] Fleabottom Rumors
    --[X] What exactly happened in Fleabottom?
    -[X] Rumors of the Faith
    --[X] Anything else that might be worth noting, any important figures, any particularly violent mobs, if she's heard anything about this "Lucan", etc.
    -[X] Recent rumblings in the court (any important news that's come through, any petitioners worth noting, etc)
    --[X] Basically news from the other parts of the Seven Kingdoms, as well as the Westerosi slant to news from Essos
    ---[X] Any notable monsters, recent disasters, emerging heroes, etc.
    --[X] Reaction to us supporting the Night's Watch and giving them Valyrian Steel (especially them rebuffing the Iron Throne and us giving them 50,000 IM in exchange)
    --[X] Rumors of Ned Stark treating with us at the Wall, since apparently everyone seems to know about that
    --[X] Rumors of the Grand Tourney we're holding and the Valyrian Steel and magic item prizes
    --[X] Rumors of the sept that we're building to outdoing the Great Sept of Baelor, and the 7 Valyrian Steel Greatswords set to guard it.
    --[X] Most important of all, the Westerosi reaction to the Imperium and our conquest of Lys and annexation of Myr in the same month
     
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