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

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People, are the student numbers and levels on the front page accurate? Are magelings who're now working elsewhere (Alchemical Works, Inquisition) counted there or not?
 
Diplomacy is no exact science, people. Just getting that out ahead of the pack.

In Omber for example all the "princes" and "lords" who hold sway there are little more powerful than minor landed knights at best, barring a few standouts, but all would expect roughly equal treatment and accorded respect because of traditional jockeying for position and society being roughly balanced along different lines.
 
With the diplo Corp what it comes down to is greater stability. Yes our diplo actions are conquest, diplo annex or trade but the problem is that even if the strong leadership and their direct subordinates join that doesn't mean that the subordinates of those subordinates will be okay with it. After all we came in and ripped apart the way things work. So what they will be used for is to calm the minor lords with gifts, vague promises and other minor incentives. That way it looks like we care about their grievances and then they can stop being discontent.

Edit: Also a list of people who can't be trusted/ are unable to join us.
 
I'm going to table thinking to hard about the Diplo core until people are more interested in it.

That being said I agree that our deep one prep is laughably underdone.

I wanted to send Relath on a fishing trip myself. As much as I dislike mercenaries we would feet on the ground underwater.
 
Nickan said:
It would essentially be an abstract thing propping up the realm, then? RE: Diplomacy.
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It could probably work for those realms developed enough to actually have functionaries for airing out the government's position on different matters, but it doesn't work vs. feudal society. They expect, at minimum, someone they know serves you not in the abstract and for money, but because they themselves are one of the more important people with power or influence. Which is often why someone on the Small Council will be sent to negotiate with another Lord or something along those lines, or a trusted vassal, or a famous and respected Knight.

Not just "some dude".

@DragonParadox So in Essos they could flex their muscles and help smooth things over, roughly being worth one Diplomacy Action by itself I would say, but it can't be used unless the Administration of the overlord's province has, say Administration above 15.
 
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Back from lunch. Sorry for the delay.
A_Somebody said:
Okay, so we have any actions we can do to prepare for war with the Deep Ones? I'm starting to get antsy on that front. Do we have a way to mass produce scrolls of Cerulean Seal? Or what about followup on our Gith outreach?
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We are preparing for the Deep Ones. We're building three more Wyverns, three more Heralds, 100 more Beetle Bombs, finishing the Moonchaser, building another Steam Cannon Battery to defend SD, researching more stuff related to creating living symbiotic weaponry, etc.

We're also upgrading our most powerful units' gear to be more effective against Deep One champions.
Nickan said:
@Somebody Cerulean *Sign is as powerful as the mage using such. The very worse effect of such is Stun and random scrolls would not give us that.

Spell is meant for ambush and preparing a location with battle in mind. Does not actually accomplish anything on its own.

As for the Gith.. they got sent a letter. Perhaps some more effort is necessary.
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Yeah, Cerulean Sign is good if a decent level caster is using it. Otherwise, it's not all that impressive.

I agree that we need to reach out to the Gith, though.
 
@DragonParadox

1. Will we be in a position to smoothly respond to Yrten and Siduri's call to arms when they spot the ship? It's a matter of strategic importance to make sure the Brazen Throne doesn't get those special reagents.

2. Can Wyla be considered a researcher? She's a wizard who has done her own research and developed her own rituals before, one of which was to partially reverse her vampirism, which is immediately relevant to Laenor Targaryen being brought back to life.

EDIT: It appears 2 has been addressed.
 
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Canon Omake: The story of Falabix the golden dragon, Part III
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    • The story of Falabix the golden dragon

    chapter 3.

    Falabix woke up to darkness. He was sore, and his left wing felt like half his blood was pumping though it. A great weight was preventing him from moving, and even with open eyes all he could see was black.

    Remembering that he could now breathe fire, Falabix decided to do so in order to see where he was. What he saw was devastation.

    Great trunks of wood that had been burned and broken to cinders blocked any path he could think to take. When he craned his neck he saw yet more of them pressing down on him.

    After spending some time gathering his strength he tried to get one of his front legs free. It took him quite a bit of effort, but he succeeded. The effort however exhausted him, and he fell asleep once again.

    When he woke up the second time he felt a bit better. He was still sore and his wing was throbbing, but it was not quite as bad as earlier.

    Using a claw he had wiggled free, he began to dig under his other front leg. With some effort he dug enough down under this leg to free it, and from there he began to work on freeing the rest of his body.

    After hours of exhausting work Falabix managed to dig in such a way that he could escape the debris weighting him down. Finally he began to work on digging himself out of the anthill. He had to rest a few times during the work, but at last he broke though to the outside.

    Falabix immediately tried to fly up and see how much damage the fire had done, but as he flapped his wings, his left wing sent an agonizing wave of pain though him.

    Falabix immediately stopped trying to fly, and began to inspect his wing. Luckily he could see nothing broken on it, but the joints were swollen and it didn't look like it would be able to support him for some time to come.

    Falabix took a moment to curse at the fact that he was ground bound. A fate no dragon should experience even temporarily. Then he began to climb down the anthill. He was hungry, and for all that he was sure there was plenty of meals in the anthill he doubted any of them would be to his taste.

    Falabix soon got down from the anthill, and he could see the fire hadn't spread far. The nearby grass still being a vibrant green. He walked until he reached the grass, and then turned around to see what had happened to the anthill.

    It was surprisingly intact. It was burned of course, but it looked like only some of the tunnels had caved in. It certainly hadn't turned into just a pile of burned out rubble.

    Falabix thought that he could work with that. With time and effort the burned anthill could become a good trap, and he felt it was fitting to kill the great beast that dared inhabit his den at the place where he had almost died, before he could claim his rightful den from it.

    But first he had to get food and recover. So Falabix walked into the grass where he soon spotted a larva about a third his own size. Normally he would prefer slightly more challenging prey, but he was too hurt and hungry to be picky. So Falabix quickly pounced on the Larva and began to eat.

    Having eaten his fill Falabix returned to the anthill. Planning to sleep in the tunnel he had excavated when he dug himself out earlier.
     
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    • For starting a Diplomatic Corps, I think Rhaella, Hermetia, and Kira, with logistical support from Alinor, would serve as a strong base to work from.
     
    @DragonParadox, can you please explain the system you used to make our magelings level-up previously?
    Clearly you weren't following my one (unless you made 1 roll per 100 students per PC class instead of simply per 100 students and allocating the levelups between PC classes), or else something weird happened to make our magelings level super fast -was it the war?). The current numbers can't be explained otherwise.

    People, how fast should a mageling level while at school?
    I think that it should take several years to get to level 5, unless they go on combat missions or something.
    Therefore I'm thinking of making leveling work according to a formula that would go like this:
    • Each mageling's chance of leveling every month is 0.1 / [their current level]
      • The would mean that each level 1 mageling would have a 10% chance of getting to level 2 each month. That's a 71% chance of getting to level 2 within a year.
      • A level 3 mageling would have a 3% chance of getting to level 4 each month. That's a 33% chance of getting to level 4 within a year.
      • A level 5 Sorcerer/Mystic/Hedge Mage would have around 22% chance of getting to level 6 within a year.
    • Any fighting will require GM decision on how many level.

    Thoughts? Too fast? Too slow?
    This system will probably slow our current growth rate, and will certainly worsen the "enormous classes of first and second-years" problem. However it seems to make more sense within the lore, no?

    Alternative proposal :
    From now on, leveling will be linked to teacher and student numbers, not time spent studying or even amount of combat faced. It'll be a big Excel sheet, following this formula:
    • Number of Lv X Magelings = Number of Lv (X-1) magelings * 0.5
    This would allow DP to simply input new mageling awakening numbers, and have everything update automatically. Some classes (Concept Cleric of Law, Black Brother mages, Hunter...) that don't fit into the "automatically awaken new magelings" box will still require GM adjudication, but it should be far faster this way!


    Any other suggestions?
     
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    Interlude D: Beneath the Mask
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    • Beneath the Mask​

    First Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

    Rain dripped slowly from the laden clouds as the rider passed under the iron portcullis, just enough to slip cold streams past his cloak and under the collar of his doublet, sending a shiver down his spine. He told himself the reason he kept his head down was to ward off the rain. He was lying to himself. He was too good a liar.

    It hurt to leave the keep one last time, it hurt remembering the relief in Stannis' eyes at their last parting, to know that for him today marked nothing more than an end to months' long mummery. Head still bowed, the young man glimpsed his reflection in a puddle before his horse trod upon it, the face of Renly Baratheon, to which he had no right.


    Yet he remembered running through the bailey as a boy, the taste of spring peaches straight from the tree, and falling asleep lulled by the sound of the wind over the battlements. He remembered the siege and how terrified he had been of starvation or treachery, and the comfort he had taken in Stannis' unyielding presence. Those were not his memories, and he had no more right to them than he did to the keep growing ever more distant behind him as a trot became a canter and then a gallop, as though the horse could sense that he wanted to be somewhere far, far away.

    "Shh... Silver, it's alright," the changeling said in his stolen voice, quieting the horse that like him was no truly mortal creature. For one irrational moment he hated Silver Mane for knowing his place where 'Renly' knew nothing, not even his name. Should he choose another he wondered, layer another mask of his own choosing over this lie?

    And what if this had been of my own choosing? the young man wondered, horrified. Was all his anguish, all his pain nothing more than a fleeting interlude in the plots of some incomprehensible faerie mind that would come upon him at any moment, erasing him like dew before the noonday light? More than that he resented the face he bore, he feared what might lay under it.

    The lights of a tavern shone up ahead, warm and inviting in the ever heavier rain, but the changeling could not bring himself to turn off the path. What business did he have in the halls of men, presuming upon honors not his own? Then he would ride on and on to Weeping Town, from there he would take ship to Sorcerer's Deep to speak to the Dragon, and from there...


    Abruptly he heard the sound of glass breaking in one of the inn's upper windows. Two figures were struggling, silhouetted against the candlelight within, and the sound of angry curses and desperate pleading carried through. One was a man while the other was clearly a child, smashed against the broken glass, bleeding.

    How he got under the widow Renly would never know, though he was faintly aware that he moved swifter than he aught to have. "Jump!" he called up to the boy. Whether from desperation or simply knowing that he would end up over the edge anyway the boy did just that.

    He seemed to take a long time to fall, like a leaf on the wind, giving the false knight all the time in the world to reach out and brace himself. The world sped up again. "Oof..." The bleeding child shivered in his arms.

    "Can you stand?" the changeling asked. He did not have much experience with children other than remembering being one, but he figured it was always better to stand on one's own than leaning on another.

    "I... yes. My uncle, he didn't mean to..."

    As he set the auburn-haired boy down, the being who bore the face of Renly Baratheon realized he had not been recognized. No 'milord', no bowing and scraping, yet if he had not been here the child would be hurt, mayhap even dead if he fell badly. That had to be worth something, surely.

    OOC: I was tempted to make this some kind of supernatural tangle, but I stopped myself because I remembered Azel's complaint about making everyone a bold hero standing up to otherworldly monsters. So this was just a garden variety drunk asshole tossing a kid out a window in a rage.
     
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    • @DragonParadox @Goldfish @TalonofAnathrax @egoo

    Okay! So ordinarily this would wait until we had actually absorbed Volantis, but the circumstances behind this annexation is somewhat predicated on the promise that their large military would not be downsized and thus put many slaves out of work, and as you can imagine the industries making profits off supplying these people would have interests in that not happening too.

    So after some brief discussion with Zherys, its x15 Training actions will be put towards retraining its many blooded troops into more "elites" which seems "oddly" and specifically good at organizing encampments in certain ways, organizing in roughly routine manner, and with drills that can be easily adjusted and are more than serviceable by the neighboring superpower's very strict standards.

    AKA they will whip up another 6,000 Legionnaires. 10,000 Legionnaires are already ready to be reorganized into the 4th Legion at the start of the 11th Month, and they will have some more men to contribute to the 5th and 6th.

    Westhaven will produce another 6,000 Legionnaires.

    Tolos will produce another 1,500 Legionnaires.

    Braavos will produce 2,400 Legionnaires.

    The scattered amount in the remaining provinces will produce some MAA to make up for any possible shortfall of skilled troops for lighter duties.

    At the start of the 11th Month we will have gained another 25,300 elite troops organized under Legion doctrines, or roughly two additional Legion's worth of men with non-insignificant progress on another third.

    We will have essentially, given the progress already done on that last one, five combat capable Legions after this upcoming month.

    For ship actions, erect the largest single ship per province that the shipyards present are capable of producing.

    This means roughly 7 Medium Galleons from the Provinces with x2 Shipyards, 5 Large Galleons from ones with x3 Shipyard throughput (counting Arsenal of Braavos), and 6 Small Galleons from the remainder.
     
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    Crake said:
    @DragonParadox @Goldfish @TalonofAnathrax @egoo

    Okay! So ordinarily this would wait until we had actually absorbed Volantis, but the circumstances behind this annexation is somewhat predicated on the promise that their large military would not be downsized and thus put many slaves out of work, and as you can imagine the industries making profits off supplying these people would have interests in that not happening to.

    So after some brief discussion with Zherys, its x15 Training actions will be put towards retraining its many blooded troops into more "elites" which seems "oddly" and specifically good at organizing encampments in certain ways, organizing in roughly routine manner, and with drills that can be easily adjusted and are more than serviceable by the neighbor's superpower's very strict standards.

    AKA they will whip up another 6,000 Legionnaires. 10,000 Legionnaires are already ready to be reorganized into the 4th Legion at the start of the 11th Month, and they will have some more men to contribute to the 5th and 6th.

    Westhaven will produce another 6,000 Legionnaires.

    Tolos will produce another 1,500 Legionnaires.

    Braavos will produce 2,400 Legionnaires.

    The scattered amount in the remaining provinces will produce some MAA to make up for any possible shortfall of skilled troops for lighter duties.

    At the start of the 11th Month we will have gained another 25,300 elite troops organized under Legion doctrines, or roughly two additional Legion's worth of men with non-insignificant progress on another third.

    We will have essentially, given the progress already done on that last one, five combat capable Legions after this upcoming month.

    For ship actions, erect the largest single ship per province that the shipyards present are capable of producing.

    This means roughly 7 Medium Galleons from the Provinces with x2 Shipyards, 5 Large Galleons from ones with x3 Shipyard throughput (counting Arsenal of Braavos), and 6 Small Galleons from the remainder.
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    Awesome!

    Can you translate that to whatever notations need to be made on the turn plan template I've been filling out? I'm too unfamiliar with that aspect of the system to be much help at this point.

    I've been adding people to it as necessary and I think I've about got it ready, at least a character allocation standpoint.
     
    egoo said:
    @Goldfish, mind adding this to "Events"?

    :confused:
    I'm less uncomfortable leaving this lie than Vizier's convoy or the Mine, but at least we dictate when and whare hunters will try to attack Char-snek.
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    I know you've wanted to do this for a while, and I'm not opposed to it, but once we break Crispy-Snek's protection against Divination, there's no going back.

    What is the benefit from finding it right now? It's non-sentient, IIRC, so we can't really talk with it.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Yes, I'm firmly for the first then.
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    ...To be honest, I am agaisnt the slowdown, @TalonofAnathrax, @DragonParadox.
    With DP returning back the good old "XP is granted for non-combat tasks" it even makes sense for scholarum students to level.

    Them all suddenly (all but) stopping levelling would feel... weird, and unnatural, compared to how it was before - and that's with less teachers (who had less experience).

    And that's before we start looking at how important levelling mages became to our Empire's crafting :/

    Second excel sheet sounds best, tbh.

    Goldfish said:
    It's non-sentient, IIRC, so we can't really talk with it.
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    Huh? I was pretty sure it is? @DragonParadox?
    And the benefit is, well, it's being hunted, and we want it to stay alive - and we have Devisl aplenty to feed to it... and have it make more of itself.

    Effectively, I want to worsen the distraction it is being for Efreeti.
    If it is sentient, we can also make it an ally, probably.
     
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