- Location
- florida
If rules as written provide...
Sometimes how stuff works just have to come down to balance.
And that's fine.
A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
-
- Tags
- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
Sometimes how stuff works just have to come down to balance.
And that's fine.
- Location
- Germany
No if, that is their next fight.
They both already reached the Semifinals now.
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Vote closed.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Conversely devils and deep ones and mages and the like STILL try to use Dispel Magic on PfE items and dominate the bearer so that they can make them divest themselves of it.
This can't be an actually efficient use of spells in a fight. In fact it is extremely inefficient under most circumstances. Just physically capturing them would be better. And against an old-hat battle mage, you are asking to get killed if you pull that nonsense, since their hand is on their SoD dial.
Good PR for the institution.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Amy is going to have to work for this, given what Mel is capable of. It's going to be interesting seeing him actually pull out the stops instead of hamming it up via lol!Dragon.
- Location
- France
I don't know how to say this, but... Amrelath is a melee bruiser. I expect him to hit her really, really hard.
His current WBL shouldn't allow for the required cheese to beat her (thankfully, that level of cheese is rather insane) and he can't hope to win using dumb tricks like grappling or smoke screens (she has magic against all that).
No, I expect his strategy to have some sort of interesting trick (for both Doylist and Watsonian reasons) but to fundamentally boil down to "bite/claw/wing/tail/bash" until she dies, trusting his saves, SR and HP to see him through.
IMO Melisande is the one who will require clever tactics to stay alive. Thoros is fucked though.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
It wouldn't hurt to also get really good equipment for four of his subordinates that Amrelath wouldn't have to pay for, too.
Update in beta.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
There seems to be a (slight) majority of women compared to men who are magically awakened. And the distribution of magically powerful women is even higher, likely this is because life is harsher for women, and women with magic have it doubly harder because of persecution. So they are either persecuted to death, or the strain of their situation/people wanting to take advantage of them, or ambition for more power to get out of their situation makes them more likely to get stronger.
This is less "women are naturally more inclined to become magically powerful" it is just that the natural stressors that lead to awakened magic (trauma, desire, motivation and even circumstance) lead to more women with magic, and more magically powerful women.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
*laughs in Lya*
In fairness her gender had very little to do with what made Lya seek out magic, she was just naturally studious, curious about the past and looking for something to stand out with in life as she was making her first steps into adulthood (her approaching vows to the Moonsingers).
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Lya didn't have it easy, but it could have been harder. And having it hard wasn't what led to her getting stronger. Wanting to KNOW more was. Just pure love of knowledge.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
That wasn't the intent of my laughter. I was more using her to point out the heights to which a woman has risen. I could have gone with Dany, but that would have been too easy.
- Location
- Germany
What's so funny?
They have both reached the the Semifinals with that last fight.
Just a factual correction?
- Location
- France
Why did you laugh though?
Crake never said that women were less likely to become powerful mages. They simply said that it wasn't some inherent "women are stronger" effect.
I feel like I'm misinterpreting something somewhere.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
This basically.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
@DragonParadox, and yet again, you are forgetting to post the tally before the update.
At this point, I have few enough fucks to say it straight - I don't care about whatever you have there with updates "feeling not right" if they have a spoilered tally at their beginning, I'd prefer that over not having them at all.
And posting one before an update just doesn't seem to work out historically.
I think I'm not alone in that :/
At this point, I have few enough fucks to say it straight - I don't care about whatever you have there with updates "feeling not right" if they have a spoilered tally at their beginning, I'd prefer that over not having them at all.
And posting one before an update just doesn't seem to work out historically.
I think I'm not alone in that :/
Thanks for reminding me. Post deleted so I can do things properly.
Winning vote:
[] Ask of the history of Bear Island's werebears and in exchange we speak of our own experience meeting with a werebear of the Dawn Times beyond the Wall.
-[] Ask her if she would be willing to return to SD in the coming months as we would like to study her unique ability. The bear beyond the wall wasn't wrong that it greatly enhances the power of a warrior and we would be interested to give those willing this ability.
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Part MMDCCXXXVIII: A Ballad Half-Sung
A Ballad Half-Sung
Twenty-Ninth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
As Leona toddles past you to play elsewhere, both Alysane and the previously quiet Walter give you their full attention, the former looking a touch wary while the latter is intrigued. Likely as not they have some notion of what you are about to ask if not the scale of it. Careful to address her as she had asked you begin: "Aly, your showing in the Circle as well as the magic you have shown has been most impressive..."
"I ain't no sorceress. Can't make heads or tails of it," she interrupts. "Doesn't matter if you call it spells, prayers, or songs, it's all the same tangle to me, and I've got a singing voice like a pair of cats that got dropped together in the same bag and shaken up. He found that out the hard way trying to teach me," she motions at her husband.
"It's not that bad, my love," Walter says smiling. "You just have trouble keeping proper pitch and no patience with it, which is the greater sin when it comes to music."
"Be that as it may, there are more kinds of magic than that which is worked into spells." So saying, you take on a dragon's fangs, scales, and claws, though you leave out the wings so as to not knock over anything in the relatively narrow chamber. "No words or incantations did I speak, or even think, and yet this too is magic of a sort, old and rooted deep. I am curious where your own abilities spring from. It is not the first time I have seen such a transformation, though that was a markedly less friendly reception."
"Wildlings?" she guesses, an edge of disdain to her words though no personal anger. She is not old enough to have lived through a raid, you suspect.
"Indeed," you reply, going on to recount your experiences with the bear spirit and its savage 'solution' to the problems Winter-to-Come poses. Though you had managed to temper his depredations by the end you cannot bring yourself to count him more than one who shares a common foe. "In one thing he was not wrong, though, the power of the bear makes for mighty warriors," you finish. "I would much rather hear of its history from someone who is not trying to thin out people as one might a herd of elk."
Alysane shivers. "Aye, that sounds like a bear with nothing to hold it back, but with a man's wits to plan with. I've no wish to meet that one no matter how much he might know." She turns to her husband. "Do you want to tell the tale of what we've found out so far? You're better at stringing words together."
"Of course," the singer draws himself up in his chair. "I don't suppose you'd like to hear it as a ballad? Well, half a ballad more like."
"I have the time," you answer, curious to hear the man work his craft. You take a seat of your own with Ser Richard following suit a moment later.
The tale he tells reminds you a little of the stanzas of the Thenns sacred tales, but there is a lyrical Andal twist to, fitting the shape of the Common Tongue with only a handful of words taken from the Old Tongue when they bespeak of things the Andals had no name for, or when their names were dark and Walter counts them fair.
The way he tells it there has always been the blood of the Bear on Bear Island, even before there was a House Mormont all the way to the Days of Dawn when the world was new. The smallfolk still find the bones of ancient direbears in caves, twice as big as any beast still living and other things besides, marks in red ocher and soot showing men and bears, sometimes as rivals in the hunt and sometimes as allies. There are drawings of men riding bears, and others of bears standing upright to shed their skins to show the man underneath.
How or when the first skinchanger came to be the Mormonts do not know, but they have a good guess as to the place. Beneath this very keep, which has been built, torn down, and rebuilt more times than anyone can say, there is a cave whose every inch is marked with every manner of beast known to the North and some that are not—cats with dagger-like fangs and great lumbering one-horned beasts almost as big as mammoths. There marked not in ocher, but ancient blood that still clings to the stone, are the marks of hands besides great ursine paws.
Of that place a secret was passed down from mother to daughter and father to son, that any who are bold enough to cut their palms with a dragonglass dagger and lay their hands upon the stone will wake the bear within, and in so doing gain the power to look out from behind the eyes of their kin and those of other lesser beasts, though such a joining lies uneasy upon all of Mormont blood. Alysane went down into the cave some three years back just as her mother had before her, but when the bear woke within her it was stronger than for any in memory and tale. She had thought herself a true bear for a short time, forgetting the speech and the ways of man, though it had passed quickly. Then in another cave, this one filled with the stink of death, ruin, and the cursed bones of Ironborn raiders, she learned the truth of her power, to become a bear in flesh at need.
Walter lays down his harp. "And that is as far as the story goes so far, or as far as I'm willing to sing for company. Aly's tale goes on of course, but it's a hard thing for a humble songsmith to keep up with her deeds and I've yet to find the words."
His wife snorts, though her gaze is fond. "You were there for most of it as I remember." She is blushing faintly, likely from the admission that the ballad is supposed to be about her specifically. "Anyway, since then I've learned to use it a bit better, move my innards around so they are harder to cut into, make my claws bigger, though I'd still rather fight with a sword to be honest."
"But your daughter did not go down to the cave?" you prompt. From the way Walter had told it the process sounded like something the scions of House Mormont were not told about until their fifteenth or sixteenth nameday.
"No, she just turned into a bear and started playing with Hunter. It was surprising to be sure, but it will serve her well in the days to come," Alysane replies, though she sounds a little less confident than usual. She likely knows as well as you that skin-changers are not well seen through most of Westeros, even those who can only send their minds into beasts and not change their bodies.
"I would very much wish to see this cave, but I know that is not a privilege you can grant," you muse.
"Mother would likely be fine letting you down there so long as you promise not to change anything," she interjects. "After all, she let Walter in on the strength of him pestering her long enough."
"How exactly do you pester Lady Mormont?" Ser Richard asks, surprised out of his watchful silence.
"Very, very carefully," the singer replies, drawing laughter from all of you.
Once the mirth fades you ask plainly: "Would you be interested in returning to Sorcerer's Deep that I and those in my service may study your ability?"
"Just sit around for wizards to gawk and poke at?" Alysane asks dubiously. "That's dull enough to drive me up the walls in a fortnight."
"Not every day," you assure her. "If you wish to take a more active hand there are many places I could use a sword-arm as strong as yours."
"And what about when the war starts?" she asks darkly. "Would you have me fight my kin?"
"Of course not. In truth I very much doubt my armies will fight any Mormont, any Bear Islander. It's rather out of the way as avenues for invasion go." The deliberate understatement has the gift of restoring smiles if not the laughter of before. "I cannot promise you that I will never ask of you to fight your kin, look no further than Jorah for an example of when it might be needed. But I can swear that I will not make such a decision lightly or carelessly. A lord is responsible for his bannermen's well-being, and that means keeping them whole of heart and spirit as much as flesh."
Alysane nods thoughtfully. She glances at Walter, who unsurprisingly for one so enamored of your library, nods. Turning back to you she asks just as directly as you had done: "Is there a keep and lands to that offer once I've served enough, like you said you might give to winners of the contests back in Sorcerer's Deep?"
What do you reply?
[] Write in
OOC: Again, it would be helpful if you guys could also include what to do next, whether it is asking Maege about the cave, talking to the Thenns into doing an interview, etc...
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