Ultimatly I do hope that divination seems less viscerally scary and intrusive than mindreading or dreamvisits and we can just relativly calmly explain the facts of the new world, inculding the limits and options of divination, but I see no real way around it exept hoping she gives us any hint we can work from without revealing that.
Our way around it is to not admit to it. This actively hinders our goal here to secure her support, because instead of joining the loyalist cause she'll just be panicking about who else could figure it out. We got an explicit GM warning regarding this. Short of offering her a Mind Blank which is just not happening, she's not going to stop panicking.
Our way around it is to not admit to it. This actively hinders our goal here to secure her support, because instead of joining the loyalist cause she'll just be panicking about who else could figure it out. We got an explicit GM warning regarding this. Short of offering her a Mind Blank which is just not happening, she's not going to stop panicking.
Dude, offering her the official and legal option is the solution to that. She can relativly soon stop worrying who finds out.
Without coming up to her personal issues we have literally nothing specific, so if the general talk about Bobby B and his crew are not enough to turn her, we fail.
Dude, offering her the official and legal option is the solution to that. She can relativly soon stop worrying who finds out.
Without coming up to her personal issues we have literally nothing specific, so if the general talk about Bobby B and his crew are not enough to turn her, we fail.
It's not a solution, because she won't stop panicking. This is a secret she is desperate to keep, she's not going to take well to the fact that by chance with even non-specific divinations someone could figure it out. Her getting married quickly won't make that desperate fear magically go away.
With political issues I'm pretty sure Viserys can convince her which way the wind is blowing.
EDIT: If you don't believe me, do a minor divination to see exactly how badly dropping that bomb will go over.
It's not a solution, because she won't stop panicking. This is a secret she is desperate to keep, she's not going to take well to the fact that by chance with even non-specific divinations someone could figure it out. Her getting married quickly won't make that desperate fear magically go away.
With political issues I'm pretty sure Viserys can convince her which way the wind is blowing.
EDIT: If you don't believe me, do a minor divination to see exactly how badly dropping that bomb will go over.
[X] Divine how bad her reaction to us knowing about her private life by Divination will be
[X] Start on the usual tune, the Usurpers failings, the Lannisters various missdeeds, like mindcontrol and inefficiency against the Deep Ones
-[X] If we see any way to get to that point without revealing that you can read minds/dreams/other, for example if she makes a comment we could somehow deduce it from, offer her official marriage with her lover, including the option to make legal heirs (between the two of them with magic) or to adopt and ask us to recognise the adoptee as her heir under our reign
-[X] If no such chance offers itself, the political approach isn't working and the divination showed a reaction that we could reasonably calm down, admit that divinations can find many things, including this if the right questions are asked or you stumble over it by asking for something that includes her wishes in a broader way.
-[X] If there is no way to breach the topic of her affair without causing panic and the political tune isn't working, instead ask if you can help her in some way, there are few things magic, or a King writing new laws for a new realm, can't do
-[X] As for Shyra's mother, it might simply be best if she remains ignorant of our association for now.
Guys, please pay attention to DP repeatedly mentioning that "you should think very carefully about this" with the whole "marry whoever, adopt whoever as heir" ruling.
Because Viserys himself doesn't have to justify shit on his personal life, as has been the Targ way.
But a ruling that affects any and every one? That's a different beast entirely.
Free and easy adoption on a feudal society will raise an unholy shitstorm.
It's one thing to say "you can fuck whoever you want".
It's another to say "you can literally pick whoever to be your heir".
Because a hundred different scenarios arising from this immediately come to mind, and they are fucked up messes we have to clean because the local lord can't exactly gainsay the emperor.
Guys, please pay attention to DP repeatedly mentioning that "you should think very carefully about this" with the whole "marry whoever, adopt whoever as heir" ruling.
Because Viserys himself doesn't have to justify shit on his personal life, as has been the Targ way.
But a ruling that affects any and every one? That's a different beast entirely.
Free and easy adoption on a feudal society will raise an unholy shitstorm.
It's one thing to say "you can fuck whoever you want".
It's another to say "you can literally pick whoever to be your heir".
Because a hundred different scenarios arising from this immediately come to mind, and they are fucked up messes we have to clean because the local lord can't exactly gainsay the emperor.
Guys, please pay attention to DP repeatedly mentioning that "you should think very carefully about this" with the whole "marry whoever, adopt whoever as heir" ruling.
Because Viserys himself doesn't have to justify shit on his personal life, as has been the Targ way.
But a ruling that affects any and every one? That's a different beast entirely.
Free and easy adoption on a feudal society will raise an unholy shitstorm.
It's one thing to say "you can fuck whoever you want".
It's another to say "you can literally pick whoever to be your heir".
Because a hundred different scenarios arising from this immediately come to mind, and they are fucked up messes we have to clean because the local lord can't exactly gainsay the emperor.
Remember those lindorns? They are now great wyrm dragons?
Seriously allowing marriage and heirs between the two of them will cause a lot of unrest, but the easy adoption blatantly undermines the very substance of feudalism. That is the sort of thing I feel like I have to veto since if you are going to do that you might as well declare war on every noble House in Westeros in order to kill all of them.
Because a hundred different scenarios arising from this immediately come to mind, and they are fucked up messes we have to clean because the local lord can't exactly gainsay the emperor.
Wouldn't most of those scenarios involve the sort of idiocy from the Lord in question that demands we clean up a mess regardless? Or someone with the balls to try murder and extortion, which are highly criminal and again demand we clean them up regardless.
This really seems best solved by just using divination on everybody's succession arrangements, which is something we should do anyways just in case of a variety of possible fuck ups that may ensue.
Adoption and heir appointments are obviously emergency measures, in case of impossibility of the reigning Lord or Lady to get an heir conventionally, or insurmountable idiocy of the existing heirs. Any moron who plays stupid games with this will win stupid prices, like the land reverting to imperial administration.
Seriously allowing marriage and heirs between the two of them will cause a lot of unrest, but the easy adoption blatantly undermines the very substance of feudalism. That is the sort of thing I feel like I have to veto since if you are going to do that you might as well declare war on every noble House in Westeros in order to kill all of them.
Oh yeah, fuck feudalism. Let's go full Chaotic Evil in the name of imposing a new social order through mass murder !
EDIT : /s
Just to be clear. I don't like feudalism, but I don't actually want that kind of slaughter just yet. And letting the slaver live but killing the feudal Lords would be a little hypocritical... Both suck, but IMO the slavers are definitely worse.
But for now I have clarified that they can adopt and we, as the King, can instate a person she chooses to adopt as her legal heir and in her specific case will likely do so.
Why does this have to be complicated? Sure, it might get to that point, but we can at least start off acting like we have no idea about her lovelife.
[] Arrange a meeting with Shyra, one where we seek to gain her allegiance as has become our standard modus operandi.
-[] Leave her mother out of the equation for now.
To clarify, what I meant by using divination is we should have an entire bureau, like a House of Mirrors writ large that does nothing but check things like the character and suitability of noble heirs and how they attained the position if they weren't the firstborn.
Their whole job would be to look for secret bastards being passed as legitimate, baby replacement in general, changelings, mind control, sibling murder, and a variety of other things.
The moment she heard she heard the warning, Rhaella's thoughts turned from wary curiosity about the intention of the other ship to lurching dread. For all her ship had been built for war, for all the magics of her making and all the steam launchers arrayed below her decks, she had never been in battle. Would she fail her friends and her crew?
Before she could even finish the thought she felt water spurt between the planks of her lower deck, driven by something more than the fury of the storm, driven with a purpose. "He's telling the truth, we need to get down to the bilges, now!" she shouted.
No more needed to be said even as the dryad joined briefly with her ship, slipping through the wood of the hull with naught but a thought, while Diana became as a gust of sea breeze all around her. It would take longer for the others to catch up, Rhaella knew, but she had to save her crew as quickly as possible.
Her eyes opened onto a scene of horror—coiling spirits of dark water were wrapping around the sailors who had been working the pumps a moment before, seeming to barely touch them, but a touch was seemingly enough to infect some of them with some dreadful malady. Flesh flowed and bubbled like water off bones, screams died as even the bones below crumbled, yet the sailors' weapons could not harm the monsters. Then the minotaurs struck, giant bespelled axes sweeping in deadly arcs through whichever of the monsters were unwise enough to be within reach. Sometimes the water parted leaving the attackers unharmed, but at others the magic bit deep.
Diana swirled with a spell already on her lips, darts of golden light struck the foe worst beset by the bull-men and it gave out a hiss like a dying serpent while Rhaella whispered a song of slumber upon another. Would they even be able to find it in the sloshing water of the bilge? Eight more of them, and who knows how many more of the monsters would be slipping between her planks.
The sailors begged and screamed as their bodies fell apart into their competent elements. "We have to save them!" the dryad cried out as she tried to rush forward to offer what healing she could.
"No!" Diana shouted. "We need to kill them first, we need to stay together!"
As though drawn by the sound of their voices, two of the creatures charged them, one cast back by the crashing roar of Diana's magic, the other reaching out with deadly tendrils to rip Rhaella apart. She would not give in, she would not relent, for she was deathless fey of a kindred older than the gods and young as springtime.
The enemy had drawn close around the minotaurs, but none of the warriors wavered their blows, shaking the ship where they failed to connect to the enemy's watery forms, but where they did near tearing them in half.
Where were the Furies? Rhaella wondered. By their arts they could have been here as swiftly as she and Diana.
***
Leto had known battle was on the wind ever since the storm had rolled in without warning, for she had seen more battles than all the mortals aboard together had years of life. The only question had been what manner of foe would come against her. That something would try to come against her she also did not doubt, not unless the enemy was so foolish as to ignore the brazier she guarded, but the Fury did not wish to contemplate fighting fools.
Water dripped from the ceiling of the cabin. The mage responsible for the brazier's operation nervously got to his feet. "Maybe we should..."
"Stay behind me!" Leto snapped as a torrent of oily water snapped through the boards before rising in a faintly humanoid form with long whip-like arms, a mane of foam running down his back, a veiled assassin. She knew the creature, though she had never seen its like before. Someone must have paid a great deal for the privilege of stopping the fleet.
The wizard was dead if it so much as noticed him, the Fury knew. Leto momentarily contemplated drawing attention to him to buy a bit of time, counting upon the elemental's sadism to make his death drawn out, but she knew her lord would not approve and she knew that if she fell she would be returned to life as swiftly as he was able. In the span of a single breath three arrows spanned the space between them, then the thing was upon her amid the sound of splintering wood and crashing water, but the Fallen was swifter still, rolling away, wings snapping open to aid the jump as arrow after arrow continued to sink into the living wave.
"Hop as you will, little bird. I am not here for you but for the far-speaker," it whispered viciously as it absorbed the instrument alongside the shattered pieces of the table it had lain upon.
"How are you going to leave with that? You can't crawl back the way you came," Leto mocked as she stepped in front of the door drawing her sword. She would not be able to dodge this time.
As the foe crashed into her she struck twice, adamantine cleaving at enchanted water before it closed over her churning and tearing at flesh and armor both as it flowed onto the deck... where several thousand pounds of adamantine and steel crashed down from above to grasp it in clawed hands, ripping and tearing from the outside even as Leto continued slash from within. Distantly Leto wondered if they would be able to break the thing before it shattered her skull like a grape.
Bolts of fire and lightning began to rain down from on high as the little dragon constructs added their own weapons to the onslaught.
Time seemed to lose all meaning among the red haze of pain... there. Fingers almost shattered from the pressure, she reached out to grasp the brazier, then the Fury willed herself out of the thing's embrace.
Arrow after arrow flew until at last the spirit could endure no more, with a final pained sigh it vanished, leaving behind only a puddle of water.
"There is still fighting below," she called to the Herald, though she was not entirely sure if it could fit down the stairs in good time.
As she descended Leto saw sailors and minotaurs desperately fighting some other form of water spirit, though a quick count revealed that none of the half-dozen beastmen were dead. More concerning was the fact that the enemy seemed to be focusing on the ship spirit. The Fury was not entirely sure what would happen if she died, but she was willing to wager it would not be pleasant, particularly if the other overgrown ship concluded they were at fault.
So with renewed fury the Fallen charged, helping to pierce two more of the enemy before they finally broke and ran.
It was later discovered that they had broken directly into the spears of the alerted tritons, but for now Leto was more concerned with aiding the Hunter's Moon. The battle was only half won.
OOC: I re-fluffed the Unravellers as water elementals that rip the water out of things. Also for anyone wondering the reason Leto stayed, grappled, and got pummeled was that without her inside the assassin could have taken a form sinuous enough to escape the Herald's grapple. Finally the reason it's Leto here is because she decided to switch out for another of her sisters as she wanted a break from pretending to be human all the time.
Guys, please pay attention to DP repeatedly mentioning that "you should think very carefully about this" with the whole "marry whoever, adopt whoever as heir" ruling.
I have stepped down from the easy adoption, mostly because I kinda had a roman model in mind, where that was rather common, not the even worse and crazier feudal assholes.
Why does this have to be complicated? Sure, it might get to that point, but we can at least start off acting like we have no idea about her lovelife.
[] Arrange a meeting with Shyra, one where we seek to gain her allegiance as has become our standard modus operandi.
-[] Leave her mother out of the equation for now.
[X] Arrange a meeting with Shyra, one where we seek to gain her allegiance as has become our standard modus operandi.
-[X] Leave her mother out of the equation for now.
[X] Arrange a meeting with Shyra, one where we seek to gain her allegiance as has become our standard modus operandi.
-[X] Leave her mother out of the equation for now.
I just wanted to avoid a vote that makes this talk require two updates where one suffices.
She is one more minor lord, do you want 3 or more updates on convincing her when a slightly longer vote with a if-then condition could do it one more for a total of 2?
I just wanted to avoid a vote that makes this talk require two updates where one suffices.
She is one more minor lord, do you want 3 or more updates on convincing her when a slightly longer vote with a if-then condition could do it one more for a total of 2?
I would think that was as well, but you're adding legal precedent which will echo throughout the entire quest. If you're going to push for something this big to happen in the recruitment of a minor lady I'm perfectly happy to do this the slow way.
