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

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One Autumn Leaf said:
@zxzx24 I can't really reply point by point to yours by quote so I will do it here.

1. I know Danielle thinks it is a tragedy and I am not glossing over the mass murder that the Old Gods committed but we made a vow to the Old Gods to humble the Seven so we get the payment for them. All in all if Lucan or any other champion thinks that the invasions were justified then we aren't going to get reparations. Because they will feel they did nothing wrong and will most likely refuse to pay it. Or worse they will refuse so that the blood of the past stays in the past. Like Danielle wants to.

2. Yrael fell. And the portfolio of justifications only work with people who are willing to bend on their principle. Does Lucan seem like he will bend his principles? In this regard I agree with @Duesal. He sees Blood Sacrifice and Necromancy as evil and will stand against it. And why wouldn't he? It is evil. It is evil in service of a goal. But evil nonetheless. To put it into perspective. We have stained our hands with Evil to defeat the Greater evil.

3. And that is a counter measure to the Imperium. A lot of the things they would try to use to make our lives more difficult would be things we would remove. And they wouldn't be pleased with us doing it As for the "Order of Diplomatic Mages" well I have already pointed out how easy it is to turn vows away. Just say "These people have abandoned their humanity and are monsters" and then initiate conflict. At best they will be treated like other Clerical organizations with their libraries and spells exposed to us to learn. At worst they will refuse this and will be destroyed, their lore taken.


I am not one to pull heartstrings btw. I dont give a shit about heartstrings. I give a shit about vows and security. If they can agree to all above points then we dont have to fight them. If not...well we tried.

Edit: 4. Because they didn't de arm. They have gone into "We won't harm humans" which again is up for definition as to what a human is and they are in charge of that definition.
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Anyway let's not say Viserys can even claim full credit for causing Yrael to fall. Even without swearing fealty to the Dread Sorcerer, Yrael had to make compromises that was slowly slanting him in that direction, Viserys' assistance just a single contributing factor.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
When I say fell. I meant he went away from Good. Also that doesnt make us look better. Our actions caused a Good being to go Neutral.



You made me choke on my water.
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That wasn't our fault, as confirmed by @DragonParadox. Yrael stumbled toward Neutrality due to the circumstances and choices he was forced to make to properly govern Mantarys and to deal with all the issues that came along with it, as well as the emotional impact of confronting Hellven's current state, which has remained bleak for millennia.
 
Crake said:
Anyway let's not say Viserys can even claim full credit for causing Yrael to fall. Even without swearing fealty to the Dread Sorcerer, Yrael had to make compromises that was slowly slanting him in that direction, Viserys' assistance just a single contributing factor.
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Yeah that's fair. Still his point about Yrael was just moot because Yrael did compromise on his beliefs. I just don't see Lucan doing that.

Edit: Compromise and Hellven combination. Just the latter would have probably been enough.
 
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zxzx24 said:
If they had ever started a fight with us... Or even displayed any desire too, as anything other than an absolute last resort it would be a lot easier to take this seriously.

Also yes, not my best attempt at humor. This is about as much fun as stabbing myself with a corkscrew though.
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zxzx24 said:
Danelle at least thinks it was a tragedy.

So if you want to pull that heartstring feel free. You need to stop trying to gloss over the old gods contribution to the body pile of you want her to treat you like a sane being though. And you guys do gloss over it.


We convinced Yrael. We actually have an entire portfolio of justifications for these we have been building since day one. Showing it off would be fun.


They are presently gearing up tk oppose us in the socio economic ring. The trade laws, the order of diplomatic focused mages, ect... I'm not sure why you think they plan on fighting us.



They de armed after the conclave. Likely by our own laws we would ha e to hire temple gaurds for them.

Edit: what has formatting done?!?!?
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Other than the time they summoned one of our ancestors with a template specifically for killing us? The reason they don't want to fight us physically is because they already tried 'summon bigger fish' and failed.
They don't want to be immolated, and it benefits them to delay any conflict with us for as long as possible. They aren't stupid, and will probably wait until they think they have a silver bullet or we force the issue by invading.

We are the ones forcing the issue; if we were just violating their religious law on Essos with the other dirty heathens they wouldn't care. However, we are planning to show up one day, humiliate their gods, bind them to laws that violate their belief system and implicitly take their gods from 'only true divinity' to 'one among many'.

You have a point about the Old Gods hardly qualifying as saints unless they're allowed to declare that on their own authority; but we aren't an unbiased outsider looking in. We're in the thick of this, we can't pull out of the obligations we've taken up and won't give up on the goals we've set for ourselves. At this point we have a side and it isn't our job to advocate for the opposition.

They're our enemies because our interests cannot be resolved without one side losing something they don't want to give up; this is the kind of thing that is very difficult to resolve diplomatically because all the 'give' is gone already on both sides. Having power sometimes means fighting people who you don't want to in order to maintain (or expand) it, since not everyone who opposes a given position is going to be a monster.

Edit: Crossed out the factually wrong part.
 
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DragonParadox said:
I'm going to have ti stop you there. Lucan did not summon Baelor with that template. Baelor prayed for it when he found out what Viserys was doing. Lucan just wanted and angel with and understanding of Westerosi politics and got a lunatic instead.
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I want to ask why he thought summoning Baelor was a good idea. By every measure of the definition he was a bad politician, a terrible king, and someone who was generally seen as a weak king by the nobility. Weren't there other pious lords he could summon that didn't have those traits? I mean surely there was someone else.
 
DragonParadox said:
I'm going to have ti stop you there. Lucan did not summon Baelor with that template. Baelor prayed for it when he found out what Viserys was doing. Lucan just wanted and angel with and understanding of Westerosi politics and got a lunatic instead.
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Oh. Okay, I actually thought that was a straight up assassination attempt that got triggered early thanks for the clarification.
I think most of my point stands, but I get the feeling I've moved into beating a dead horse area on this topic.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
I want to ask why he thought summoning Baelor was a good idea. By every measure of the definition he was a bad politician, a terrible king, and someone who was generally seen as a weak king. Weren't there other pious lords he could summon that didn't have those traits? I mean surely there was someone else.
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From Lucan's POV, and what he mistakenly knew of Baelor, the man probably looked like an excellent choice. Too bad he failed his Knowledge (History) or (Royalty & Nobility) checks on that one.
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
I want to ask why he thought summoning Baelor was a good idea. By every measure of the definition he was a bad politician, a terrible king, and someone who was generally seen as a weak king by the nobility. Weren't there other pious lords he could summon that didn't have those traits? I mean surely there was someone else.
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Who else on the story of Westeros was known as THE Blessed? Baelor appealed to his likes :V

Of course, history books do lie and turns out Baelor was big oof.
 
tarrangar said:
The Old gods body count is just not all that relevant, it don't change that the Seven attacked unprovoked, at most it means, that the Old gods have already taken part of their reparations in blood.
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...*sigh*

It matters to the people we are trying to convince?
One Autumn Leaf said:
1. I know Danielle thinks it is a tragedy and I am not glossing over the mass murder that the Old Gods committed but we made a vow to the Old Gods to humble the Seven so we get the payment for them. All in all if Lucan or any other champion thinks that the invasions were justified then we aren't going to get reparations. Because they will feel they did nothing wrong and will most likely refuse to pay it. Or worse they will refuse so that the blood of the past stays in the past. Like Danielle wants to
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Revenge is an... Interesting idea isn't it? Mmm.

I believe the idea was to get the chosen or the gods themselves to assuage the old gods wrath? Where able anyway. I imagine Danelle would be on board with a plan that inconveniences her in exchange for hundreds of lives.

One of the biggest issue is Danelle would need strict terms. A promise that "yes, this is the last drop of blood were gonna spill. We're both done." Since it would be mega easy to just keep revenge killing each other forever.

One Autumn Leaf said:
2. Yrael fell. And the portfolio of justifications only work with people who are willing to bend on their principle. Does Lucan seem like he will bend his principles? In this regard I agree with @Duesal. He sees Blood Sacrifice and Necromancy as evil and will stand against it. And why wouldn't he? It is evil. It is evil in service of a goal. But evil nonetheless. To put it into perspective. We have stained our hands with Evil to defeat the Greater evil.
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Blood sacrifice and necromancy are evil. So is murder. So is dissecting corpses to get life saving medical knowledge. That's where the "lawful" part of lawful good comes in. Reasons matter. If you have enough charisma anyway.

They aren't even inherently evil energy aligned anymore! We researched that away. Hell, given the state of the afterlife this knowledge is basically necessary.

Lucan is less rigidly bound to his principals than Yrael was, by a wide margin. Mortal VS Celestial

That isn't the point, and getting him to flex on his principals isn't our goal here. He can believe whatever he wants, getting him focus 100% on shiving targets we want dead, and not us long enough to flip all the other chosen and work over his gods is. A plan that is already going swimmingly I might add.

Oh, he's absolutely a security risk as is, but he's only up shit creak without a paddle if he tries fighting us alone. Him going ham after the treaty would break up the chosen pretty well.

And honestly... Martyring him as well stands to do a lot to unite those factors against us. Even more so.

One Autumn Leaf said:
3. And that is a counter measure to the Imperium. A lot of the things they would try to use to make our lives more difficult would be things we would remove. And they wouldn't be pleased with us doing it As for the "Order of Diplomatic Mages" well I have already pointed out how easy it is to turn vows away. Just say "These people have abandoned their humanity and are monsters" and then initiate conflict. At best they will be treated like other Clerical organizations with their libraries and spells exposed to us to learn. At worst they will refuse this and will be destroyed, their lore taken.
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I am pretty genuinely confused by what your saying here. Like I'm having trouble grasping the meaning, but here's my guess?

So you don't think they are going to try and kickstart an armed conflict? Or... You think they won't, and it won't work. So they will go back to doing armed conflict once their peaceful protest plan fails?

O.k.

What is the goal of this group of again?

I have some idea, but we should look into it if you expect them to be a problem. Or ask Danelle whole she's sitting right there @Duesal ... Actually yeah, can you ask about their mage group? They are a bit of an X factor ATM.

One Autumn Leaf said:
I am not one to pull heartstrings btw. I dont give a shit about heartstrings. I give a shit about vows and security. If they can agree to all above points then we dont have to fight them. If not...well we tried.
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Do you expect them to keep their vows or discard them immediately? You said here you wanted vows from them, but right above said they would discard them immediately.

Once again. People have feelings. Feelings motivate them. You need to understand how feelings make people act to influence them.

As for all of the above... Coming to Danelle with solutions, rather than demands for the blood feud would probably go over a lot better. Even if the solutions suck for her.

I'm also still of the opinion most clerical lore is... Kind of useless? Like holy symbols don't do stuff on their own usually. usually.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Other than the time they summoned one of our ancestors with a template specifically for killing us? The reason they don't want to fight us physically is because they already tried 'summon bigger fish' and failed.
They don't want to be immolated, and it benefits them to delay any conflict with us for as long as possible. They aren't stupid, and will probably wait until they think they have a silver bullet or we force the issue by invading.

We are the ones forcing the issue; if we were just violating their religious law on Essos with the other dirty heathens they wouldn't care. However, we are planning to show up one day, humiliate their gods, bind them to laws that violate their belief system and implicitly take their gods from 'only true divinity' to 'one among many'.

You have a point about the Old Gods hardly qualifying as saints unless they're allowed to declare that on their own authority; but we aren't an unbiased outsider looking in. We're in the thick of this, we can't pull out of the obligations we've taken up and won't give up on the goals we've set for ourselves. At this point we have a side and it isn't our job to advocate for the opposition.

They're our enemies because our interests cannot be resolved without one side losing something they don't want to give up; this is the kind of thing that is very difficult to resolve diplomatically because all the 'give' is gone already on both sides. Having power sometimes means fighting people who you don't want to in order to maintain (or expand) it, since not everyone who opposes a given position is going to be a monster.

Edit: Crossed out the factually wrong part.
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I... Disagree I guess?

I think Danelle is pretty receptive to "give" and we (and Bloodraven) on working to try and lower the demands the Old gods will make when we actually go to the table. Because we will have to eventually. Just like every other war.

And... I think we've made a lot of progress on that front. The Old Gods are well on their way to putting all of their focus back on winter because...

Well we won. Between the pounding blood raven has given them, and our own strangling influence on westeros and essos...

It would be costly to wipe out the 7. Not hard, not risky, not impossible.

We would have to allocate resources from dealing with the real threats.

We know it.
The seven know it.
The Old Gods know it.

And as far as magic bullets go...

Killing Viserys doesn't end the Quest. It just ensures Empress Dany will annihilate the seven and any trace o their existence, screw the existential threats.
 
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