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

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It's so easy to talk about the "evils of the past" and "how they shouldn't be repeated " when you aren't the wronged party. It's so fucking easy to talk about peace and goodness when it wasn't your ancestors who were attacked, killed and forced to convert and turn on their fellow men or die. It's so fucking easy isn't it? "Do not shed blood in vengeance" says the man who benefited from the deaths of thousands of First Men and the cutting of the Weirwoods.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
It's so easy to talk about the "evils of the past" and "how they shouldn't be repeated " when you aren't the wronged party. It's so fucking easy to talk about peace and goodness when it wasn't your ancestors who were attacked, killed and forced to convert and turn on their fellow men or die. It's so fucking easy isn't it? "Do not shed blood in vengeance" says the man who benefited from the deaths of thousands of First Men and the cutting of the Weirwoods.
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To be fair, he might be a refugee from the Valyrian expansion, or a victim of the Hungry Wolf's genocide.

Not like Andal history has always been an easy cruise.
 
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One Autumn Leaf said:
It's so easy to talk about the "evils of the past" and "how they shouldn't be repeated " when you aren't the wronged party. It's so fucking easy to talk about peace and goodness when it wasn't your ancestors who were attacked, killed and forced to convert and turn on their fellow men or die. It's so fucking easy isn't it? "Do not shed blood in vengeance" says the man who benefited from the deaths of thousands of First Men and the cutting of the Weirwoods.
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Read back again. This being clearly saw at least some of the failing of the Dawn Age, and the Fall of the Empire of Dawn into the shadow it has now become.

I would suggest that you take that into account before you throw stones around the glasshouse.
 
Old wounds salved and a people to be homed and he names these sins?

We're not gonna let the Old Gods dictate to use how to do our jobs we're just re-balancing the scales and we've already told the clans they'll get a land to call their own but they'll be civilised one way or another. Somehow I doubt Lucan will be quite so forgiving to them.
 
Knack said:
Old wounds salved and a people to be homed and he names these sins?

We're not gonna let the Old Gods dictate to use how to do our jobs we're just re-balancing the scales and we've already told the clans they'll get a land to call their own but they'll be civilised one way or another. Somehow I doubt Lucan will be quite so forgiving to them.
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And how is Roland meant to know this? Words are cheap, actions speak far louder. And so far we've fed the trees a great deal. That makes the Old God's stronger and also cements our power in that we're the one bringing the Heart Trees. That we say we do so to protect and defend the peoples of the settlement is honestly irrelevant from an outside perspective. It makes the personal and temporal power of Viserys Targaryen greater.

And let's not whitewash. We've committed our fair share of atrocities.
 
Back to the practical issue though.

We will conquer Westeros. That is not something Lucan can change, only make bloodier.

Would the faithfull not be safer under our protection than as our enemy?
 
Oh boy, there's someone very much used to obeying, not thinking.

Will take a while before I can write a vote, but we have this.
 
Snowfire said:
Read back again. This being clearly saw at least some of the failing of the Dawn Age, and the Fall of the Empire of Dawn into the shadow it has now become.

I would suggest that you take that into account before you throw stones around the glasshouse.
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That isn't what I am addressing. I am addressing the fact that he is talking about not repeating past atrocities in response to the vengeance of the Old Gods when his faction was the one committing those atrocities. As for the fall of the Dawn Age, well it is kinda like looking at a steel sword and saying that making steel was a mistake as it can only be use for violence. He had bad experiences with magic but considering that so do many other people and they aren't supporting suppression of freedoms.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Back to the practical issue though.

We will conquer Westeros. That is not something Lucan can change, only make bloodier.

Would the faithfull not be safer under our protection than as our enemy?
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Faith draws martyrs for a reason.

These idiots will be more than happy to die for their cause. (Personally I wouldn't lose much sleep over it. Hell I'd be for burning these idiots to the ground to prune the more crazy weeds but that's just my lack of morals and patience talking again.)

Sadly "I can and will win," is not much of an argument against someone ready and willing to fight "Hell" as they see it.
 
So how does angels falling work exactly? Like do angels fall when their beliefs change in comparison to their god or is it some other process? What I am asking is how do angels fall? What criteria needs to be met for such a thing? @DragonParadox
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
So how does angels falling work exactly? Like do angels fall when their beliefs change in comparison to their god or is it some other process? What I am asking is how do angels fall? What criteria needs to be met for such a thing? @DragonParadox
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Angels Fall when they consciously and knowingly sacrifice their morals, usually in the name of some 'higher cause'. Shifting allegiance from a god is not on its own enough to make it happen.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
That isn't what I am addressing. I am addressing the fact that he is talking about not repeating past atrocities in response to the vengeance of the Old Gods when his faction was the one committing those atrocities. As for the fall of the Dawn Age, well it is kinda like looking at a steel sword and saying that making steel was a mistake as it can only be use for violence. He had bad experiences with magic but considering that so do many other people and they aren't supporting suppression of freedoms.
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"He hit me first!" Didn't work in elementary school, it won't work in real life.
 
Preliminary plan. Thoughts and suggestions?

[X] "You speak of the evils of the past being repeated in the future if the present is not shaped to the liking of your Divine patron, but ignore the all too real possibility that there will be no future for mortal life on this world if Lucan and the Father have their way."
-[X] "There are evils aplenty afoot in the world as we speak, some great and some small, with ambitions ranging from the petty to the horrific. You and your ilk would spend your strength, and the lives of innocents, combating the least perilous of foes, those who might one day, in the fullness of time, commit an unforgivable sin, or more likely spawn an heir generations hence who will do the deed." Viserys shakes his head with a frown turning into a disgusted grimace.
--[X] "I can hardly comprehend such disregard for the realities of the world in which we must live, for the true foe we will surely face. The Others gather their unholy strength in the far North and plan nothing less than the extermination of all life, yet you would persecute petty mages who could instead be raised up, taught to harness their magics, and made into weapons against the relentless dead."
---[X] "Is the Father really so callous that he would rather doom the descendents of Andalos to misery and death, victims of a pointless holy war or worse, the depredation of the Others, rather than allow dissenters to have a chance to live outside his unwanted guidance?"
 
zxzx24 said:
"He hit me first!" Didn't work in elementary school, it won't work in real life.
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I am saying it pisses me off and I find it fucking infuriating that the person who is saying to let it go are part of the faction who caused all this in the first place. I am saying I find it a bit disingenuous for him say what he is say. I am not saying "hey let's hurt them because they hurt us". All I am saying is that it seems rich coming from that faction to not repeat past atrocities which they committed. I am not calling for screams of blood here. I am saying it feels disingenuous.

You know what no point in this I am letting this shit go. It is part of a game and frankly not worth arguing over.
 
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DragonParadox said:
"Scores hundreds of 'witches' true and false have already suffered, died at the hands of mobs. How many of those ho follow Lucan do so because they fear the same fate?"

"Faith is born in the performing of good words, in the aid they have given against the horrors of the sea and the Otherworlds. Some have found it, others have chosen instead to lay aside the temptations of magic and return to their ordinary lives..."
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So they are still following a recruit or die policy? They are following a recruit or die policy around angels of all beings?

Well at least it's not Azatas, we probably would have heard the screaming from SD.

DragonParadox said:
"As it improved Valyria?"
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No, the people who controlled magic in Valyria were dicks.

Just like the people in essos were still dicks.

DragonParadox said:
"Magic ate at their hearts and blood was their only succor, as they made beasts of men and consorted with ever darker horrors, unbound by the laws of gods and men until their blasphemies consumed them. You wish to usher in an age of marvels, blind to the horrors that walk ever in their Shadow. So it was in the Days of Dawn, whose Greatest Sin yet scars the lands east of Assahi, so it was with the 'Freehold' that shackled all under its shadow. You think me blind for naming sorcery perilous but the past does not lie."
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"If all magic fair and foul were worked and invoked by the hands of men I would less eager to grasp power at cost."

"Not all magic is wicked. Some is wicked, some is good as I must remind myself, and the vast majority simply is."

DragonParadox said:
"That is not for me to judge but those wiser by far, those who see further, Do you truly think that good can come of opening the gates of Hell that you may spill their blood upon the pale altars of savage gods?" Roland asks unmoved.
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OOC I 100% agree with him. Summoning devil's from hell is a terrible idea.

"Wise, do you think Lucan wise?"

"It wasn't an easy decision for me to make either."

DragonParadox said:
For the first time your words seem to resonate. The angel hesitates. "The evils of the past do not deserve to be echoed yet that is what they will do, the Gods of the north and of the howling clansmen. These are the allies you have chosen for yourself."
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"As your gods have also chosen. As we are both sworn in oath to do so."

"With neither of us, but thousands of innocent people with little to no stake paying the ultimate cost."

"And it's still probably better than them fighting directly."
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
I am saying it pisses me off and I find it fucking infuriating that the person who is saying to let it go are part of the faction who caused all this in the first place. I am saying I find it a bit disingenuous for him say what he is say. I am not saying "hey let's hurt them because they hurt us". All I am saying is that it seems rich coming from that faction to not repeat past atrocities which they committed. I am not calling for screams of blood here. I am saying it feels disingenuous.

You know what no point in this I am letting this shit go. It is part of a game and frankly not worth arguing over.
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Ah, I need to apologize for misinterpreting your argument then. Sorry.

The old gods deserve recompense.

It's just. Hm. Its far too easy to use past evils to justify future evils, and I didn't realize what your angle was. Once again sorry.
 
zxzx24 said:
Ah, I need to apologize for misinterpreting your argument then. Sorry.

The old gods deserve recompense.

It's just. Hm. Its far too easy to use past evils to justify future evils, and I didn't realize what your angle was. Once again sorry.
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I think this is more my fault. I say one thing and another thing gets interpreted and it happens a lot more than it should. I don't really know how to be clearer with my words though. Any advice there?
 
Duesal said:
With all the horrors walking around in the world, that basically equates to the recruit or die scenario. The angels are taking away the people's greatest tool to defend themselves.
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Not if they intend to take the place of those tools. I think the long game here is an order of Paladins, godsworn mages and clerics, with a hefty dose of extraplanar support in the form of summoned angels.
 
zxzx24 said:
OOC I 100% agree with him. Summoning devil's from hell is a terrible idea.
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And I still think you're being overly paranoid with this.

Allow me to explain...
You have said, that to you this feels too easy.
zxzx24 said:
It's too easy? And too profitable?

That makes me distrust it.

Also devil's.
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But is it really?

In DnD-terms we have a fuckload of advantages that allow us to summon devils as we do.
We have True Names, which are really hard to get unless you have mind-breaking magics we have access to, or such a devil as Uniila (who learned over a hundred names throughout millenia of service).
Any other mage? Would have serious trouble summoning as selectively as we do.

And then there's the summoning itself.
We get to call onto an Outsider... but they get to have a willsave.
And again, for almost all mages without Viserys' WBL, overcoming that willsave will be a challenge.

Then there's also the fact we're applying every single measure sensible (and some not) to ensure the safety of the process and that noone escapes.
That single case where the Snare got outsmarted? That's thanks to a PC-quality Artificer-devil being really agry at us, and spending a boatload of money and time to make something specifically to overcome our defenses.
Which still wasn't enough, and we upgraded the place even further after that.

...Speaking of that, @Goldfish, any chance of us applying the Spellbane (and the ususal "No Disjunction, other Spellbane, or AMF"-setup) to the Snare? :V

Ahem.
My point is, @zxzx24, that it is only "profitable" because Viserys is not your usual run-of-the-mill mage, because it'd cost Mammon too much to shield every servant of his in the way that Brachina was, and because we can summon in stupid amounts thanks to Bloodwish and Mythic power. Also Lya.
And it's only "easy" because we (specifically Goldfish) have spent a fuckload of time designing the kind of trap almost no devil will ever be able to leave, and then layering defenses on top of that, and doing all summoning via characters that force almost impossible willsaves onto the Devils they summon.

As for distrusting devils... Hey, I agree with you wholeheartedly :V
I'm just preferring to larder/diplomance Mammon's servants to slow down various operations of his to allowing him act against us later.
 
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DragonParadox said:
He speaks of the Lost God and its influence as one who has seen it with his own eyes, you realize. Though he knows not the beast only its shadow. It is then you realize that the way his words lie is not of the Vale, though that is the closest comparison, it reminds you of how Azema at times uses the Common Tongue in the manner of Andalos. Who had he been in the life that came before being given the grace of his god, a warrior, a septon, a simple pious soul lost in the desperate battles of those days?
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@DragonParadox, random theory -- this was someone Azema knew. Perhaps even a relative of hers.
Snowfire said:
Not if they intend to take the place of those tools. I think the long game here is an order of Paladins, godsworn mages and clerics, with a hefty dose of extraplanar support in the form of summoned angels.
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Oh I know what they plan. The big problem, though, is that they majorly stifle magic and thus strangle the very army they planned on building. What could have been greater through simple alliances is now limited to whoever decides to bow to the Seven.
 
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