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

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@Duesal , pinging you because you are the one who keeps track of a lot of stuff.

Are we interrogating our summoned outsiders thoroughly for other true names and stuff before we sacrifice them?
 
Tomcost said:
@Duesal , pinging you because you are the one who keeps track of a lot of stuff.

Are we interrogating our summoned outsiders thoroughly for other true names and stuff before we sacrifice them?
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Yep.

That's how we've learned the names of a lot of our Summoned Larder bait. Unfortunately, we've started to run into issues with the Devils compartmentalizing their operations, and using false names among themselves, to prevent us from completely ruining all of their Planetosi plots.
 
Goldfish said:
Yep.

That's how we've learned the names of a lot of our Summoned Larder bait. Unfortunately, we've started to run into issues with the Devils compartmentalizing their operations, and using false names among themselves, to prevent us from completely ruining all of their Planetosi plots.
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Click to shrink...

Well, thanks then.

I wonder how many Mammon plots are still running while we are unaware of them.
 
The thing is, Devils need mortal agents to be able to summon them, meaning the ones most likely to know their True Names are the mortal conspirators of the Devil plot-chain.

If you catch the Varys' of Mammon's various ploys, they will be the root which has the goodie bag of Devil names.

Granted that just means further diversification of the pawns at play, but it's a damn huge inconvenience to regular operations and allows for essentially zero coordination between cells.

Edit: Just to chime in on the matter of Pycelle.

Like was mentioned, I find nothing objectionable about executing Pycelle whatsoever. He is a traitor.

But sacrificing him is messed up.

At the moment though it might be more prudent to keep him bottled. A few public executions post conquest wouldn't be amiss and having the opportunity to add Pycelle to that spectacle is useful in some ways.
 
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Tomcost said:
@Duesal , pinging you because you are the one who keeps track of a lot of stuff.

Are we interrogating our summoned outsiders thoroughly for other true names and stuff before we sacrifice them?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We certainly should be.

The devils especially should be coughing up all the True Names. We should have a treasure trove of True Names of Erinyes currently serving under Mammon, along with a whole bunch of names of the various devils mucking around Prime Material.
 
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Part MMDXCVIII: Of Truth in Tales Told
  • Threadmarks
    • Of Truth in Tales Told ​

    Thirteenth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

    On the matter of the fey Bloodraven first admits himself conflicted. For on the one hand their pacts and games spread disorder and misery aplenty even when that is not their intent, but on the other of all be beings who dwell within the world or beside it they most easily hear his voice and do his bidding when the wings of ravens and the whisper of dreams cannot carry them far enough. "The fey are like the weather now, Your Grace. You cannot cast them out, for there is need of them just as there is of summer rains to water the crops and winds to bear the clouds aloft."

    "And yet they change too swiftly to peril like hail or dry lightning to set the fields alight," Dany finishes darkly. "I have only profited from the bargains I have made, so mayhap the Court of Stars could in time come to pledge its oath to a mortal king, at least so far as they would walk on mortal soil."

    For a long moment Bloodraven is silent. "A hard bargain to make that, though for the crown you keep mayhap they would take it..."

    "Is the knowledge of its place common or only something you have heard from the royal fey you have pacted with?" you ask, worried that bold fey by the scores and hundreds might step into your realm and work their wiles in some mad plan to wrest the crown from you.

    "The latter, though sadly gossip flies no less among their ranks than among those of men, and in that mirroring lies your greatest challenge with regards to the courts of the faerie, more than the moods of the court, more than oaths of lordship or titles of knighthood—the tales of the land shape they fey," Bloodraven's words grow slow as though he searches for each one in a half-forgotten memory. "In the Dawn Age when only the Children, the Giants, and other elder folk walked the world their tales were few and slow to grow like rings around a tree, but mortal men oh so love their tales and deeply do they live them. Like heady wine it is unto the fey, the pages of the play flashing before their eyes almost before they can play it out..."

    "You speak of the Court of Stars?" you interject softly so as not to jar him from whatever half-dream he has slipped into.

    "I speak of all of them," the Last Greenseer says. "The ones I set near Harroway, the cunning stone-folk who I offered passage into the Red Mountains lest the ever-snowy peeks fall under Winter's sway, even of their darker kindred—Redcaps, Rusalka, and Spriggan who rise from the blood-soaked soil of the Vale of Arryn—they are all drunk on mortal dreams or nightmares." He takes a deep rattling breath, the crimson eye once more looking fully upon the world of flesh. "As with all drunks that presents an opportunity to bargain from advantage."

    "I already have the crown," you point out. "Surely they must desire it enough to at least come to the table to bargain."

    "That far it will take you yes, but I fear no further. If you are to bind the fey with oaths you must look to those affinities which in story and song bind the tightest," the old sorcerer continues.

    "Not merely oaths, then..." Dany trails off, her eyes widening in realization. "Kinship, you mean to bind them by blood to mortal Houses."

    "Not merely so, though that is a good beginning. Smallfolk might do with fey blood for the blessings it brings. To bind the fey fully to mortal laws you must first bind them to the world, that they may not simply slip away from the curses of men into the Feywild as easily as walking from sunlight into shadow."

    "I could follow them on those paths," you point out grimly. Not without a measure of trepidation for what you might lose of course, but to protect your subjects you would do so and your friends beside you, of that you are certain.

    "So you might," Bloodraven allows. "So do I believe you would succeed in punishing any one interloper, but there might be very many, and kings have grander plans to occupy their time than this. Would your mages walk with as much confidence into the hidden realm?"

    "No, not always," you admit. "But would the lords truly be beholden to the laws of the realm and not use the path opened for them to advance their own amusements at the expense of mortals high and low?" You briefly try to imagine Moonsong or Glyra with a knight's grant, the very picture of chaos presenting itself before your mind's eye. "To give leave to a company of immortals to rule over those who still must die would seem to breed resentments besides." Troubling enough to consider that the rich and powerful might be reborn again and again without the alien reasoning of the fey.

    To your surprise Bloodraven does not have an instant rejoinder. He sighs. "A fairly made point, Your Grace. Perhaps I have grown too used to looking backwards to the beginning and forward only to the first snows. Yet you cannot forbid the fey to meddle in mortal affairs without risking war, and that is one we can all ill afford. You cannot bar their ways in every passage, for there are even now four score and three paths from the Feywild into the world of form that I know of, and they shift with every moment, with the movement of the stars and the tales men tell. Were you to strike all bards and tale-tellers mute and burn every grove you find, still others will open in time..."

    "What if they were allowed to mingle their blood with that of mortals, but not rule over them in truth?" Dany asks. "A sort of honorary patronage. Might that be enough to entice them to negotiate?" Dany offers.

    "To that, Highness, I cannot answer," Bloodraven replies. "What I can offer is the gates to those courts which are in debt to the Old Gods for offering them passage when they might have become lost and the names of those lords and ladies of the Court of Stars who I judge would be most open to bargaining as equals..."

    "Equals?" Vee snorts. "The point's to get 'em to swear oaths, ain't it?"

    "Indeed," Brynden Rivers replies. "However, you will never meet a fey lord or lady who would be willing to begin to bargain from a position of inferiority."

    The golden false wyrm scribbles on, a map under its ministrations taking shape, as from the nest of roots emerge tokens of passage heavy with strange magics—a shard of amber glowing like fire, a single rose, its petals dark as the evening sky at dusk, and last of all what seems at first to be pearl but proves to be a dewdrop frozen in time.

    Gained Tokens of Passage for Old Gods friendly courts near Harroway and Starfall, as well as one to the Court of Stars

    Gained Location information on the Darker Vale Wyldfae

    "How did Garth the Green claim the Crown of Flowers from the fey?" you ask after a brief while. Perhaps herein lies the answer to how you will ensure that the fey follow the law, that men can live their lives in peace.

    Again Bloodraven's eye closes, though this time the silence is far longer. Finally he speaks: "He wagered that he could spin a tale so strange and wondrous with voice and harp alone, that all the arts of faerie could not match it. The fey did not then understand how far the human heart and mind could dare imagine, and so the king took the bargain. He lost his crown to Garth and his line, but took the tale so that none but him remember it."

    "Would any of 'em try to steal back the crown?" Vee asks, practical as ever.

    The Last Greenseer eyes your cloak with perhaps a glint of satisfaction in his eye. "Not from that, not lightly. They will sooner try to tempt you into giving it back with blandishments than try to win it back with stealth."

    What do you do next?

    [] Ask more questions of Bloodraven
    -[] Write in

    [] Question the Grand Maester
    -[] Write in

    OOC: Here you go, the great weakness of the fey and it's not cold iron or even that they must tell the truth, but simply that they must play along to the parts of the play and mortals are the storytellers, that is what you have to leverage if you want to bind them thoroughly.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Westeros Intel 5.0
    -[X] Ask of great secrets among the Westerosi that Varys is aware of (like the "royal" children's true parentage, but it doesn't need to be of the same importance)
    -[X] Get a full update on everything he knows that's going on in King's Landing
    -[X] OFFER ASSISTANCE TO BLOODRAVEN
    --[X] Ask what Bloodraven has been up to.
    ---[X] To start, does he have any plans he'd like help on? We've already got two of his stronger assets -- Danar Crowl and Alyssa Grafton -- as permanent residents of Sorcerer's Deep. We can provide teleportation and firepower if the mission is important enough.
    ---[X] Ask for the names and locations of the various septons Bloodraven has been cultivating so that you can possibly plan for them later on.
    --[X] We are allies with the Shaitan and the Djinn now, so if there's ever a magic item that Bloodraven needs for his operations he can ask us so long as it's not cripplingly expensive (tens or even hundreds of thousands of IM is fine if the purpose is important enough, though a million would be too expensive)
    --[X] Ask if Bloodraven would like any more plant-creatures crafted to serve his purposes
    --[X] We will gladly work as a go-between if he wants to leverage our Westerosi allies, Doran, Brune, Monford and the Royces, for something. Or the Inquisition resources we are starting to build up.
    --[X] Ask him where he thinks Inquisition bases would be the most useful for our shared goals. Our current bucket list is Darry (friendly lord, major crossroad), Oldtown (focal point of various other factions), Whiteharbor (best connected area in the North), and the Dornish March (important crossroad in Reach, Stormlands and Dorne politics, giving us some insights in their movements and we want to be greatly entrenched there in preparation for the invasion). 2-3 bases in the Westerlands would be great. Crackclaw Point and Dragonstone would be other good targets, though mostly for invasion prep. Maybe Runestone if the intrigue attacks on the Royces keep up.
    -[X] THE DEEP ONES
    --[X] Ask where Varys and Bloodraven know they've been operating, who they've been fighting, who they've subverted, what their goals are perceived to be, etc.
    --[X] Update Bloodraven on your contact with the Lantern-Bearers and their new conflict with the Citadel
    --[X] Does Bloodraven or Varys know the locations of any relics or champions of the Deep Ones? The Sistermen, for example, concerningly are said to have webbed fingers.
    --[X] Update Bloodraven on the fact that Rodrick the Reader has unofficially sworn fealty to you and will be working with you against the Deep Ones
    -[X] THE OTHERS
    --[X] Ask if Bloodraven or Varys have managed to discover any nests of the Others or the Winterborn south of the Wall
    --[X] Ask if they know the locations of any relics or champions
    --[X] Ask for updated intel from Beyond the Wall -- are the giants ready to be approached yet? Also, you heard very concerning news about wildlings in Hardhome. What's going on there?
    -[X] LOOT AND MAPS
    --[X] In short, any and all intel of Westeros which we would consider useful should be gathered here
    ---[X] Especially loot, tell us all about the loot we'd want to know about
    ----[X] How many Valyrian Dragon eggs in Westeros is Varys aware of, and where are they?
    ----[X] Does he know where the Royce ancestral Valyrian Steel blade is?
    --[X] Take your Map of Westeros, as well as the individual maps of each of the Seven Kingdoms (Map of the North, Map of the Vale, Map of the Riverlands, Map of the Stormlands, Map of the Westerlands, Map of the Iron Islands, Map of the Crownlands, Map of the Reach, Map of Dorne), and have Bloodraven scan through Varys' mind, then update the maps to include the locations of supernatural creatures that Varys is aware of, like fey courts, local monstrous humanoids, openings to the Underdark, lairs of Winterborn servants, etc., everything that Varys has heard about and kept track of, along with updating them with whatever intel Bloodraven may be willing to share.
    --[X] Ask Bloodraven to scan Varys' mind and make you a full Map of the Red Keep, complete with secret tunnels, hidden chambers, etc.
    --[X] Ask Bloodraven to make a Map of King's Landing using Varys' intelligence.
    ---[X] If he is worried about the information being divined, these particular maps will always be under our Mind Blank and will be stored in our cloak unless we're personally using them.
    --[X] Ask Bloodraven to update your Legendary Map of the Far North
    --[X] Can Bloodraven do us a favor and point us to the adamantine mine wherever it may be near Dyre Den? If we're told where it is we can tell Lord Brune where to start mining and help him diversify his income.

    Well, we've now got a gameplan for the fey... even if it means marriages between them and mortals.
     
    Anyone else thinking we just need to destroy the Feywild? Or maybe sever it from the Material Plane?

    [X] Duesal
     
    Wait a minute. So our GLORIOUS STATE PROPAGANDA can literally reshape their minds?
    Holy shit, that's awesome. The very threat of that makes for an amazing bargaining tool!

    And the Seven must have been trying that, what with their "all spirits are evil and must be killed, and they come from other worlds". Make Fey evil, make them stand out, make everyone hate them more and more until it becomes self-sustaining. Try to get Fey out of this world by making the stories all about "them being from hell" and by making humans inhospitable to Fey.
     
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