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

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Goldfish said:
I'm not super enthusiastic about any of the ideas we've come up with for the bonus boons. Few of them are really bad, per se, but they're just not clicking, if that makes any sense?

Possible Alternatives;
  • All Heart Trees are retroactively made Immune to Fire.
  • The Dawn Tree produces small amounts of Ambrosia each month.
  • We gain a certain number of items which, when affixed to a weapon, allow that weapon to consider beings slain by it to have been sacrificed to the OG. Like a Weapon Crystal, but made from Red Amber, like the sap from a Weirwood Tree.
  • Simply add some additional spells to the Runestaff of the Old Gods; Master Earth, Earthquake, Stone Body, etc.
  • Gain the ability to store up sacrificial power, like we've banked it with the OG, so that we can plant a Weirwood somewhere and instantly turn it into a Heart Tree without needing to perform the blood sacrifice on site.
  • Just add another effect to the Dawn Tree.
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Not seeing the appeal for the fire immunity, it's nice but it's not like we expect to face Fiery McFireson.

Ambrosia is useful.

Eh.

I like it.

Now this is nice.
Crake said:
if not the most powerful (that would clearly be Viserys)
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*cries* *laughs in Sage of Creation*
 
@chryssalideater, making Heart Trees cheaper probably isn't going to happen. The Old Gods are stubborn old goats and like being fed. More than that, their nature is such that they've been unchanging for millennia. An outright improvement like Fire Immunity they'd jump on, but we'd face a lot of resistance for essentially making discount versions of their sacred trees.
 
I wonder what the increased learning will translate in mechanics, will it be something like "Background Feat: Sorcerer Deep Native" that gives you +4 skill ranks at first level and +1 skill rank per level up as an extra, or something more direct while living there?
 
Friendly refresher for everyone:

The Tree of Lys, the one that grew the size of a Giant Redwood, had this for its sacrifices:
Advanced Vrock (10 HD; Smoky Confinement) -- True Outsider (Called): +35% -- 13.5 HD
Gibbering Abomination (13 HD; Smoky Confinement) -- Aberration: +35% -- 17.55 HD
Advanced Gibbering Mouther (13 HD; Smoky Confinement) -- Aberration: +35% -- 17.55 HD
Lich 12 HD -- Undead: +40% -- Creature Capable of casting spells (not SLAs): +25% -- Willing Sacrifice (no magical compulsions): +100% = 31.8 HD
Genius Loci Landwarden 70 HD -- Willing Sacrifice (no magical compulsions): +100% = 140 HD

Accumulated total of 220.4 HD.
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And this was the result:
DragonParadox said:
"Ready?" Lya calls, a vial filled with purplish-red mist in her hand.

At your signal she tosses it to the ground and the carrion-fiend, once a figure of terror, lies splayed upon the ground. In a fit of artistry you mold it into a ungainly vulture in truth, which Waymar grabs firmly by the throat. For all his misgivings about blood sacrifice, he would be the last to refuse casting a fiend from the world.

Dark Sister flashes in your hand carving out the demon's heart and spilling its foul ichor into the hungering earth, and this time the spirit of the blade does not object to the use near as much as the last, sensing the import of the moment even as you do. The air turns thick and still, heavy with the expectant sight, whether of watchers kindly or not you cannot say.

Then Lya casts out the second and third vials, these ones containing creatures with just enough likeness of natural life to make their oozing many-eyed countenance all the more revolting. Again spell steel digs deep ending a chorus a thousand screaming voices... Then at last the final sacrifice is at hand. You hand the strange weeping doll to the dead sorcerer, along with a dagger of spell-steel, a fitting end for a son of Valyria to end his days however they may have been lived, you must admit.

"Farewell to silence and to gloom," the final deathly whisper falls, and then the dagger plunges into the soul anchor, driven by the hand of its creator. Both to dust and ashes fall... and then the world goes mad.

The ground buckles beneath you like a maddened beast as a great many-voiced harmony beautiful in its wild joy rings out. All at once it is the rush of water and the roar of stones falling, the song of birds and the calls of beasts, and though it all the the True Tongue singing, like a thread of silver through the green.

The weirwood tree shoots up... and up and up, a pillar of white to dwarf those that adorn the temples of men. A storm of red leaves swirl around you as they grow fall then grow again until the entire courtyard is covered in a deep crimson carpet. Two-hundred feet and more, you marvel.

From the corner of your eye you see that the tree's roots had tumbled down the stones of the ruined garden before burying what is was left, though from amid the ruin rose tall black oaks, not set in any pattern by the hand of man, but simply rising where their seeds been buried beneath the grasping vines.

Yet your attention is for the tree, for your task is not yet done. With skill of sorcery born you carve into the tree the face of Lys not as it is perhaps, but as it might one day be, a gentler, kinder place that would still be true to its roots, an isle of serenity such as the long dead dragonlords imagined, yet without the horrors they have wrought.

A face fine-featured and bejeweled, such as one might find from pleasure houses to the halls of the mighty, yet the smile does not lie, it does not hide horror and pain, but simply shows a sly amusement, inviting the viewer to partake. Upon the tree strange ivy blooms and then grows laden with golden berries, blessed to heal and sustain. An air of... peace falls over the godswood.
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For the Tree of the Dawn Age we've accumulated 2187.95 HD in sacrifices. Let's let that sink in.
 
If the Tree of Lys was 200+ feet tall... assuming diminishing returns, which seems a safe bet seeing as how technically this is a unique Tier 4 tree and there's only so much that even the Gods can do with magic with raw power alone...

The world's tallest real tree today is 380.3 ft in height!


The Tree of Lys is a magic tree, so while it may not be as tall it is probably at least this thick in circumference. Maybe a little bigger. Impressive!

What degree does the scale drop off?

Well, let's peg 216 as the magnitude threshold, since that's four heartrees. Seems appropriate, four seem to be a popular number in magic. Also 7 and 9.

x4 = 200+ ft
x12 = 400+ ft
x20 = 600+ ft
x32 = 800+ ft
x48 = 1000+ ft

Seems a pretty good rule of thumb. HOWEVER, we are throwing some seriously high CR and thematic sacrifices into the bin here, including a Wight Lord of Winter with juicy Mythic Juice.

So I think we can safely assume around 1000+ ft.

That's about as tall as the Chrysler Building, my friends.
 
What if we really trick out the Staff? Not generally for direct battle, but the good ol' Druid stuff:

-> Becomes a Spellstaff, as the spell of the same name.
-> Becomes +3 Feybane Winterbane
-> Considred a Mythic item.
-> Provides Endure Elements to the wilder.
-> Runestaff capabilities upgraded with the following at 3/day:
--> Find the Path (5th), Earthquake (6th), Rain of Roses (7th), Master Earth (7th), Mythic Earthquake (8th), Undermaster (9th) (Cast as swift action for 1 use of mythic power, alternatively make it last 5 minutes with 3 uses of mythic power).
-> Hammer of the Waters 1/?? (?th) - Mythic

In case of mythic spells, we provide the power as well as the spell slot, but can, as normal, cast the unagumented version.

I put normal earthwake at 6th because it's both a lousy 8th level spell and you can use SNA VI to summon an Oread, which has it as an SLA. So Vee could summon 1d3 of these with a single 6th level slot due her ring.

What about this, @DragonParadox ?

@Goldfish suggestions? @Snowfire you that know lots of mythic stuff?
 
Damm, I wish I had been here to float this idea: The Endure Elements effect, with a focus on blocking/mitigating the effects of winter, and it can also be made to raidate from other heart trees with sacrafices, like in a "Change (aid in changing? I see this as being a DC 0 Diplo roll ;)) the OG so that they can have heart trees (with sacrafices) better Endure Winter" kind of way, that can be activated on any ritual heart tree in addition to any other spells attached"

Would have to be balanced by range and cost though.


Goldfish said:
I mainly want the Quicken effect for instant Swift Action Time Stops starting next level. Not a huge deal, though.

And I don't care if it lets us skip months of research, the Praetorian program is new enough, and complicated enough, that we should have to do it the hard way. Shortcutting a little time is also a terrible waste of sacrifice juice.
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I like the idea of quicken time stop, but as a proponent of getting Mythic Time Stop, I'm not as pushed. :)

But then again .. we won't get third rank for a while, and quickening ninth level spells is always a handy ability.

Unless it can quicken mythic spells. Then FUCK YEAH!

Spreading the fire immunity Naria developed for the Lys tree over all the other trees is appealing, (as is DR 10/Slashing ;)), but not so much if that is something we can (get someone to) do outside of this one moment. So, yeah, could someone remind me if the immunity is something we can apply to other heart trees?
 
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Again, for the proposals, suggesting things we can get with research, by leveling, or by performing acts deemed Mythical, is a waste of a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I was half-serious with suggesting relocating Casterly Rock in the Stepstones as a show of power...
Say, how about an effervescent hot spring near in King's Landing so everything can finally smell decent there :V
 
Takesis said:
Again, for the proposals, suggesting things we can get with research, by leveling, or by performing acts deemed Mythical, is a waste of a once in a lifetime opportunity.
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This is the same logic that was brought forth against getting crafters from the Sultana.

Those self-same crafters have been tremendously useful. Far more then another set of Super Special Sekrit Lore that sits around doing nothing.

So I would rather do something actually useful with this instead of wasting it on pointless dickwaving.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
What if we really trick out the Staff?
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Why though?
TotallyNotEvil said:
-> Becomes a Spellstaff, as the spell of the same name.
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We can craft an item of Spellstaff 1/day instead.
TotallyNotEvil said:
-> Becomes +3 Feybane Winterbane
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Dark Sister: "Sempai replaced me." :cry:

Seriously. This is beyond useless.
TotallyNotEvil said:
-> Runestaff capabilities upgraded with the following at 3/day:
--> Find the Path (5th), Earthquake (6th), Rain of Roses (7th), Master Earth (7th), Mythic Earthquake (8th), Undermaster (9th) (Cast as swift action for 1 use of mythic power, alternatively make it last 5 minutes with 3 uses of mythic power).
-> Hammer of the Waters 1/?? (?th) - Mythi
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Why though? What would having these spells really do for us? We got Mythic powers to cover that one strange event when they would be more useful then the spells we already have.


I would rather go with @Goldfish plan of making the staff a multi-metamagic-rod.

Preferably Piercing, Maximised and Familial.
 
DragonParadox said:
Also I'm pretty sure the extra enchantment bonuses are more or less wasted. Viserys has much better things to do in combat than hit things with a staff.
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"FLY ME CLOSER! I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY STAFF!"

"Your Majesty, please do not do this."

"I DIDN'T DEPOPULATE A CIRCLE OF HELL TO PLANT DAISIES, CARETAKER! FLY ME CLOSER!"
 
@DragonParadox, instead of outright completion of a project, how about a permanent boost to research progress of everything Fungus Forge related?

We've got tons of projects there and very few people qualified to do them.
 
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Azel said:
@DragonParadox, instead of outright completion of a project, how about a permanent boost to research progress of everything Fungus Gorge related?

We've got tons of projects there and very few people qualified to do them.
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Sure I can see that, I would fluff it as a constant low key connection between the greendream and the fungus leshies at the forge. I'm thinking a percent reduction would be best so that bigger projects don't get edged out with arguments over splitting everything. Let's say a 20% reduction so for project Praetorian that would be 8 less progress needed.
 
DragonParadox said:
Sure I can see that, I would fluff it as a constant low key connection between the greendream and the fungus leshies at the forge. I'm thinking a percent reduction would be best so that bigger projects don't get edged out with arguments over splitting everything. Let's say a 20% reduction so for project Praetorian that would be 8 less progress needed.
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I was thinking more a bonus on progress made, so that it scales with the number of people thrown at it.
TalonofAnathrax said:
Please, no. Research is already fast enough.
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Basic research is, but specialist things like the Fungus Forge and Runecrafting are massive bottlenecks that keep a bunch of people permanently on research.
 
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