Ahhh, it is so funny to hear Harry Lloyd's dulcet tones speak false truths to me in that self important voice of his.

I can totally imagine our Viserys sounding that smugly superior while tearing down all the falsehoods this Viserys is spewing.
 
...would Rhaella's DragonFire Inspiration, further improved by Jenny's Fiddle (doubles the bonus of positive effects, halves the negative ones), affect the alchemical weaponry when utilized by Darkenbeasts?
Speaking of DFI, I really want some Bards banging on Kettledrums for the Legion. Some big drums can be heard for miles, and giving everyone in a formation +3d6 fire damage per attack would make the legion even more fantastically deadly.
 
Do love hearing about Viserys work by the people of Westeros. Would love it even more if we heard it from the main players like Robert, Tywin, Jon and Stannis. Just hearing of Viserys conquering the Stepstones and the Three Daughters. If nothing else they need to say Viserys is a dangerous opponent. Of his knowledge of war, politics and intrigue. A bigger threat then Rhaegar was.
 
A Storm of Swords, Chapter 37, Jaime V.

We learn here apparently that Varys counseled against opening the gates to Tywin. Though considering it is coming from a source who in the books never would have had cause to bring it up, you're saying Alliser was either mistaken in his apprehension here, or had better information.

And honestly going by the ambiguity of the books and your going with the stated "Varys is a Blackfyre supporter" theory, you might have just changed things so as to make things clearer in hindsight rather than making Varys' motives even more confusing and nonsensical than they already are.

DP confirmed that Alliser taught Viserys based off of his own assumptions. The way he answered the question suggests that the canon events occurred, but I don't perfectly remember his response in regards to absolute confirmation one way or another.
 
Do love hearing about Viserys work by the people of Westeros. Would love it even more if we heard it from the main players like Robert, Tywin, Jon and Stannis. Just hearing of Viserys conquering the Stepstones and the Three Daughters. If nothing else they need to say Viserys is a dangerous opponent. Of his knowledge of war, politics and intrigue. A bigger threat then Rhaegar was.
The last part is obvious by any metric.

Rhaegar was a brilliant musician, a deft hand at the lance on a good day, and a skilled swordsman, and courteous and if distantly kind while polticking.

Robert was a demon on the battlefield with a hammer, and knew how to turn enemies into allies (so long as they were also very concerned with machismo).

Viserys Targaryen can bend reality to his will, sink ships, burn armies, build castles with his mind, make crops grow and wombs quicken with a word, heal a man from the brink of death from disease or gaping wounds, plan a military conquest and then a prompt reconstruction, chart a route through a storm of politics and build a fortune practically overnight, and has reportedly slain monsters who fight with blades of fear and dread that would shatter the wills of lesser men merely to look upon them. He is the light of a torch in the night, the beacon to those lost in the dark, he is the Dragon Reborn.

^ Viserys is the settings first Chuck Norris and the first attributed to Navy Seals quote analogue.

He's more of a threat that the comparison becomes absurdist and you look silly, even the most un-selfaware lord of Westeros would realize this.

They instead choose not to talk about it rather than gush about how powerful Viserys is, because it isn't good to point out your support of Robert may be a polite fiction at best.
 
He's more of a threat that the comparison becomes absurdist and you look silly, even the most un-selfaware lord of Westeros would realize this.

They instead choose not to talk about it rather than gush about how powerful Viserys is, because it isn't good to point out your support of Robert may be a polite fiction at best.

"Security through absurdity" should really be a tag line by this point.

Maybe we can open up our own propaganda department to help spread the literal actual truth of things.
 
I'd love a magic item that could provide mass showings of Viscerys feats. Provide mass showings in cities.
 
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Robert would talk about Viserys military more then his other stuff. Bloodied sailors with lots of ships and a trained military force that is bloodied and won a great victory.

Jon about Viserys political abilities. Got to take the cities without any real trouble from the nobles and citizens.

Tywin will talk about Viserys intrigue and show of power. Like killing rebel noblemen in a certain way and just destroying noble families. Show that Viserys can and will get you if you cross him.

Would love to hear their real take on Viserys. Not what they tell the public .
 
By the way, we might have a serious problem if it turns out that Varys has been adventuring east of the Bone Mountains and is in the middle of the Golden Company's encampment, surrounded by Tiamat clerics and Illyrio's wizards.
 
I don't really care to hear canon Westerosi characters discussing Viserys' power or accomplishments. Instead, I would rather see them dealing with the consequences of our actions.

We've set a lot of stuff into motion which should be having really far reaching effects by now.
 
By the way, we might have a serious problem if it turns out that Varys has been adventuring east of the Bone Mountains and is in the middle of the Golden Company's encampment, surrounded by Tiamat clerics and Illyrio's wizards.

What would be our call then? I imagine we aren't going to go in with SOTD. Well it could work all things considered. Like would we cancel our attack if that were the case?
 
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By the way, we might have a serious problem if it turns out that Varys has been adventuring east of the Bone Mountains and is in the middle of the Golden Company's encampment, surrounded by Tiamat clerics and Illyrio's wizards.
Not really. Then we'll have an exact location for them.

You know how much damage Viserys could do to an army while under the effects of Superior Invisibility and from so far away in the middle of the night that no one could see him?

Viserys' caster level for Fire spells is 21 in a resting state. One casting of Shadow of the Doom could affect over 8000 square feet. Four or five of those dropped into them, with a Forbiddance layered across the area simultaneously by Dany, would fit them. Then we spend a minute tossing Fireballs at the stragglers. All of this while Mind Blanked, Invisible, and in the middle of the night.

The Golden Company would cease to be.

More likely, though, he'll be somewhere where he can pull the strings of power from behind the scenes.
 
What would be our call then? I imagine we aren't going to go in with SOTD. Well it could work all things considered.
I honestly don't know.

I'd prefer to kill him, but we're talking about one of the few major powers that can legitimately kill us in open warfare. We didn't want to go after them without every last preparation in place for good reason. We wanted all the dragons, all the mages, every PC, every devil, every archon, etc, geared up and ready to go before we went east to them.

If Varys is with them, then... we'll just have to figure it out.
 
Robert would talk about Viserys military more then his other stuff. Bloodied sailors with lots of ships and a trained military force that is bloodied and won a great victory.

Jon about Viserys political abilities. Got to take the cities without any real trouble from the nobles and citizens.

Tywin will talk about Viserys intrigue and show of power. Like killing rebel noblemen in a certain way and just destroying noble families. Show that Viserys can and will get you if you cross him.

Would love to hear their real take on Viserys. Not what they tell the public .
The problem here is I can see Robert viewing the Legion as a worthy foe, but he's too blinded by hatred to pay Viserys much mind as anything other than a beast to put down.

Jon is too contemptuous of things like actually administering, much less economics and trade, so I can't see him being able to see past the surface level of Viserys being a sorcerer.

Tywin is actually... probably fairly moderate in his views when trying to actually get someone to see how Viserys shouldn't be underestimated, though his view is likely still dim.

The kind of perspectives y'all really want if you want an objective view not mired by loyalist or royalist tendencies, is from people like...

1) Randyll Tarly
2) Wyman Manderly
3) Varys (if only because he's so outside either circle)
4) Olenna Tyrell
5) Stannis Baratheon (he forces himself to be objective)
6) Roose Bolton
7) Paxter Redwyne

All of these would make good "Viserys Targaryen" interlude fodder. We basically got a peak at Randyll, straight forward "how do I guide my House through inevitable war". That's all he's largely concerned with. The man's a battleaxe.

Wyman seems to respect our chops, but he's shown he's largely concerned with protecting his liege.

Varys is largely the most well informed "Westeros" character, and he was likely the one to realize we had gone from "pawn" to "existential threat" first before all.

Olenna is shrewd and likes to lay things out as close to how she thinks they really are as possible, so any bias is more to do with apparent wisdom than anything else. Having one woman of great influence giving her thoughts also stands out more.

Stannis is bound to be loyal not out of love but duty, and has had personal one on one interaction with Viserys and seen much of how he operates on a political level, so he's bound to have some insight on some of his moves overseas and in Westeros.

Roose for that sticky vile take and a bit of insight from his perspective on our courting of the North. He's a schemer and there's really few Lords who both wield military power and plot regularly out there.

Paxter because he's met us before, and he's gotten a first look of how we really are. I don't mean how we paint ourselves when parleying with Westerosi lords, or how we go around with the common people who's own perspectives blind them to certain realities. Viserys, who fills an entire room with his presence like another man lives and breathes, and the visceral reminder that an almost-polite conversation between him and a dangerous fey noble could have ended in fire and death, with all the honorable knights and a high lord of the Reach being ignored as they dueled with words as much as minds, were it not for the fact that Viserys was surrounded by swords twenty or thirty feet away at most at all times and utterly in control.

Really, Paxter has had the most opportunity to see us in a not explicitly "he's my enemy/he's my ally" type situation for an extended period of time. He'd make a good interlude.
 
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Not really. Then we'll have an exact location for them.

You know how much damage Viserys could do to an army while under the effects of Superior Invisibility and from so far away in the middle of the night that no one could see him?

Viserys' caster level for Fire spells is 21 in a resting state. One casting of Shadow of the Doom could affect over 8000 square feet. Four or five of those dropped into them, with a Forbiddance layered across the area simultaneously by Dany, would fit them. Then we spend a minute tossing Fireballs at the stragglers. All of this while Mind Blanked, Invisible, and in the middle of the night.

The Golden Company would cease to be.

More likely, though, he'll be somewhere where he can pull the strings of power from behind the scenes.
I'm not worried about the Golden Company themselves. I'm worried about the unknown number of clerics, wizards, wyverns, and the Red Dragon that they've probably artificially aged by now. They've got quite the collection of PCs.
 
By the way, we might have a serious problem if it turns out that Varys has been adventuring east of the Bone Mountains and is in the middle of the Golden Company's encampment, surrounded by Tiamat clerics and Illyrio's wizards.

Is it Teleport Object: Bouncy Ball Of Doom time? Should we send it before or after the crate of active explosives?
 
> "Arcane links"
Wut

That is not how magic works.
Okay, look - I wrote that whilst doing a whole bunch of other shit, so take it less literally, more prosaically; if there is some way in which one can use a spell to determine if shit you messed with is still messed with by you, it stands to reason that a paranoid sadistic evil sorcerer would do such a thing. Anyway - still doesn't matter, I was speculating.
 
I'm not worried about the Golden Company themselves. I'm worried about the unknown number of clerics, wizards, wyverns, and the Red Dragon that they've probably artificially aged by now. They've got quite the collection of PCs.
I still don't believe that works by the way.
I mean aging up a True Dragon.

At best that would raise the physical stats and size, while leaving everything magical about him down to normal (including stuff like Breath, SR, DR and SLAs, not just casting).

If you want to age up stuff take the Valyrian Dragons. Also, the Company has some mindless dragons blessed by Tiamat to breath Prismatic Spray, right? Those look like hell to fight.
 
I still don't believe that works by the way.
I mean aging up a True Dragon.

At best that would raise the physical stats and size, while leaving everything magical about him down to normal (including stuff like Breath, SR, DR and SLAs, not just casting).

If you want to age up stuff take the Valyrian Dragons. Also, the Company has some mindless dragons blessed by Tiamat to breath Prismatic Spray, right? Those look like hell to fight.

I disagree, I think it would force the magical aspects to get more powerful as well. They intended to sacrifice genuine artifacts to achieve this, and this dragon was intended to be Tiamat's Champion in Prime Material. She wouldn't half-ass this.
 
Eww, assisted ego-stroking. Hate that in fanfics.
The size of a planet!

And it only seems to stand out around here because the narrator is the exact opposite of self-congratulatory, and most interludes seem very concerned with people trying not to shit the bed with fey or demons and devils running loose.

If we got ego-stroking on the regular, we would probably be quicker to say "give it a rest already, we know we're great!"

It also helps that we get it enough from our own subordinates, though filtered through Viserys' oblivious "I don't want them to think I'm scared or anything..." while he casually vivisects a giant monster as a science experiment in front of them.
 
So having read though the concerns raised overnight about the thread moving too fast and this being a strain to keep up with and/or losing the emotional weight of big moments I have to ask do you guys think that is the case?

I ask because I know that is one of the problems I would not naturally pick up on because it often feels like we are moving too slow especially in the midst of complex intrigue actions like this, like I'm narrowing down the focus of the thread away from the rest of the world.

Should I slow down, take the time to write more interludes, or just move though the arc to keep the narrative as cohesive as posibile, or should I do something else different?

All suggestions are welcome.
 
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