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

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egoo said:
@DragonParadox, also, what about the Asurendas?
You promised to give an account of those who would be willing to turn to us - from the numbers we summoned (from CoB) and captured? 1 Hishandura and those 8 Vayuphak being specifically of interest to us.
These are important to this vote because we'd sacrifice them otherwise.
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*rolls for it*

The Hishandura is violently insane and not to be trusted around any pious mortals, four of the eight Vayuphak were discovered though divinations to have attempted to swear false oaths and work with Asmodeous. The other four are sincere in their desire to serve under the same terms as the other asure you guys got.
 
DragonParadox said:
Also nat 20 on a bluff so Melisandre would not realize what you guessed about her reasoning, after a 16 for the Sense Motive check itself. Viserys does not often need those sorts of rolls in social situations, but he did so here.
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It must be really odd for her to be around Viserys, when she's not even sure she can hide little details like that from him and she's definitely used to being nothing more than a mirror of R'hllor's will when interacting with people (because revealing anything else would also be showing that she's struggling with the weight of her own faith which is bad for her own purposes).

Such a 'fun' dichotomy.
 
DragonParadox said:
The final matter is both the most costly and complex, dragon stabling. One of those gathered doubts is the need, not after learning that even Balerion had likely perished to poison, not age or battle, but the mechanics of it are more complex. How to bring food and from where, what guards can be trusted around a dragon, both not to be subverted by enemies of the realm and not to antagonize the beasts themselves which are notoriously unpredictable around anyone besides their riders.
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How the heck did they poison a dragons food? I don't think there exist a mundane poison a dragon can't safely eat, and even most magical poisons fail against a dragons stomach, so how did they poison Balerion though food?

Poison gas or injecting Balerion with poison would make sense, but dragons are extreme omnivores, there's nearly nothing they can't safely digest.
 
tarrangar said:
How the heck did they poison a dragons food? I don't think there exist a mundane poison a dragon can't safely eat, and even most magical poisons fail against a dragons stomach, so how did they poison Balerion though food?

Poison gas or injecting Balerion with poison would make sense, but dragons are extreme omnivores, there's nearly nothing they can't safely digest.
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Viserys does not know IC, but poison does seem like the best explanation for the rapid decline and death of otherwise healthy dragons.
 
tarrangar said:
How the heck did they poison a dragons food? I don't think there exist a mundane poison a dragon can't safely eat, and even most magical poisons fail against a dragons stomach, so how did they poison Balerion though food?

Poison gas or injecting Balerion with poison would make sense, but dragons are extreme omnivores, there's nearly nothing they can't safely digest.
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The answer is, they tried, and it worked very poorly. Because he just refused to die until after he'd already suffered some serious wounds from his trip into Valyria.

Eventually though, if you keep feeding stuff that isn't healthy to a decrepit animal, even the minor but constant stress of indigestion and food poisoning will weaken it until it dies.
 
egoo said:
Ideally - it will be filled up with whatever power we manage to cut off from Tiamat via the Worm (for whom we've yet to see the results of RA).

From there - who knows.

We can likely use such blob of power to Divine all the servants of Tiamat, or those otherwise empowered by her.
Like those Red Dragons she Mindblanked.
Coincidentally, us capturing them wold equal forever ripping away several Permanent Mindblank's worth of power from her (an insult to an injury I'm very much hoping for).

We can use it up to jumpstart the Imperial Dream, when the time comes.
Or to outright have all the gods who participated get a significant power-up - she's a Major Deity, after all.
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Yes, but after we do that will the amulet just explode or will the physical shell survive being discharged?

It'd be kind of funny to wear the now entirely mundane amulet around after we're done with it; purely to mess with people who make their knowledge checks when interacting with Viserys . :V
 
tarrangar said:
How the heck did they poison a dragons food? I don't think there exist a mundane poison a dragon can't safely eat, and even most magical poisons fail against a dragons stomach, so how did they poison Balerion though food?

Poison gas or injecting Balerion with poison would make sense, but dragons are extreme omnivores, there's nearly nothing they can't safely digest.
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Probably an effect of the Valyrian's Fleshforging the Feral Dragons out of their Red Dragon ancestors. Retarding their innate magical powers also removed some supernatural aspect of their metabolism, rendering it more mundane and unable to digest the poison as a normal Dragon would have.

It might even have been a deliberate modification in order to render the resulting Valyrian Dragons more controllable through food. Not only do you gain the ability to drug them, but they also lose their ability to feed on basically anything they can fit in their mouths, becoming reliant on being fed only flesh and blood fodder.
 
DragonParadox said:
Viserys does not know IC, but poison does seem like the best explanation for the rapid decline and death of otherwise healthy dragons.
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My best guess and the best Viserys could make is that like the Alchemists, there were still people experimenting in the "forbidden arts" of magic even back then, and they experimented a lot, tried poisons that would mean "instant death" for humans, found they didn't work, and kept upping the ante until they found something that worked. Other dragons only got killed by poison after Balerion and the Dance, right? So they must have found something that worked eventually.
 
Crake said:
The answer is, they tried, and it worked very poorly. Because he just refused to die until after he'd already suffered some serious wounds from his trip into Valyria.

Eventually though, if you keep feeding stuff that isn't healthy to a decrepit animal, even the minor but constant stress of indigestion and food poisoning will weaken it until it dies.
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And there is a decent chance they were feeding him some really vile shit, like Bilestone or byproducts of failed Alchemical experiments.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Yes, but after we do that will the amulet just explode or will the physical shell survive being discharged?

It'd be kind of funny to wear the now entirely mundane amulet around after we're done with it; purely to mess with people who make their knowledge checks when interacting with Viserys . :V
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Even fully depleted, that thing should have a significant amount of LEGEND associated with it. What better to serve as a receptacle for Lya to craft into a Mythic Artifact?
 
DragonParadox said:
Viserys does not know IC, but poison does seem like the best explanation for the rapid decline and death of otherwise healthy dragons.
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Poison seems likely, I just doubt it was in his food, it's far more likely they got access to something that burn with poison fumes, or injected poison into him, dragons don't really have things they can't eat, it's a well known fact, that a dragon can survive decades of having to eat stone only.
Crake said:
The answer is, they tried, and it worked very poorly. Because he just refused to die until after he'd already suffered some serious wounds from his trip into Valyria.

Eventually though, if you keep feeding stuff that isn't healthy to a decrepit animal, even the minor but constant stress of indigestion and food poisoning will weaken it until it dies.
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The problem is I don't think dragons even have a concept of unhealthy food, or if they have then that concept is not normal poison, it's things like living solely on eating inorganic things, and even that take decades if not centuries to become a problem.

You can poison a dragon, but doing it though their drink or food don't work, you want contact poisons, poisons that can be injected, or poison gas, because if it get in a dragons stomach, and isn't some extra vile magical shit, then it's food not poison.
 
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tarrangar said:
How the heck did they poison a dragons food? I don't think there exist a mundane poison a dragon can't safely eat, and even most magical poisons fail against a dragons stomach, so how did they poison Balerion though food?

Poison gas or injecting Balerion with poison would make sense, but dragons are extreme omnivores, there's nearly nothing they can't safely digest.
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We can ask the Maesters after we rip out their library from beneath them.
 
So the Larder shows that we have plenty of available sacrificial HD. I say we go all the way to the soft cap of 1080 HD.

But what we should feed the OG from the Larder is the question, @egoo, @Duesal. What do ya'll think?
 
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Crake said:
My best guess and the best Viserys could make is that like the Alchemists, there were still people experimenting in the "forbidden arts" of magic even back then, and they experimented a lot, tried poisons that would mean "instant death" for humans, found they didn't work, and kept upping the ante until they found something that worked. Other dragons only got killed by poison after Balerion and the Dance, right? So they must have found something that worked eventually.
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The statistically suspicious die-off only occurred after the Dance yes, Balerion only aroused suspicion not though the time of his death but since he supposedly died of 'old age' when he was not actually that old.
 
Goldfish said:
I'd have to go with option #1. It at least has the possibility of success and the ability to grow in power, if with time more than effort. Being a full caster would obviously be better than a Martial class, but it's better than NPC-hood. Lay low, rely on the Mind Blank to most of the heavy lifting, and just work on learning how to fight properly in order to retrain as quickly as possible.
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Yes, scenario 1 isn't a bad one. If you invest in Disguise and do nothing as you enter a world full of horrible Planetosi worldbuilding that you could fix with your fists (free the slaves!), you do indeed have a decent shot at passing unnoticed.
Well, until you meet a Fey who can sense you use Mythic Power to reroll stubbing your toe or something, but there's no real way to avoid bad luck :D

Goldfish said:
Option #3 is interesting and a properly geared Mountebank could be a lot of fun, except for the part where Dispater has our soul and the only halfway reasonable chance of getting it back is to gank him, which isn't really reasonable at all, since Mountebanks are shit combatants and the chances of assembling a group of people to take on Dispater is about as likely as him just deciding to commit suicide.
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Someone needs to read more Dresden Files. Putting mighty, superhuman entities in catch-22s or internecine fights and getting what you want while they scream impotently is a long mortal tradition!
So is dying, though, so take my "advice" with a grain of salt :D

Goldfish said:
These four are the ones I would focus on for the next issue. 1) Never hurts to further muddy the Lannister reputation, 2) the Earth Mother needs more worshipers and this is a great way to go about getting that effort started, 3) the further adventures of the Companions, the Headmistress of the Scholarium and the Master of the Mysterium and Governor of Volantis, spreading their fame while being a nice propaganda victory over inhuman forces, and 4) good propaganda for the various Sevenites in Westeros.
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Wait, do we even want good PR for Sevenites? I meant that as good PR for us in Westeros. But if you think we're doing the Seven a favor, I'm reconsidering saying that...

Crake said:
The thing that always gets me about these Isekai scenarios is when the person, in a effort to eschew the "power fantasy" aspect of the genre, present the challenge as basically impossible to accomplish. I get trying to make the experience novel instead of basically an amusement park ride, as getting dropped on a death world in a dark fantasy setting like ASOIAF with D&D tacked-on and played straight in terms of nightmare fuel with a side helping of Elderitch OCP thrown in ain't a walk in the park already.

But that's... just it. It's already not a walk in the park for a Tier 2 class with a custom PRC. Viserys and co. had the carve out a little slice of "not a medieval shitheap constantly preyed on by fiends" by virtue of being a gigantic party of Player Characters, furthermore preparing a military industrial complex to make killing low-to-mid tier gribblies more efficient and have less collateral.

Therefore an actual challenge would be a Tier 3 class (and I'd likely throw in some goodies like a custom PRC to help bridge to the end game and make it possible to compete by gathering your own group of True Companions).
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You have a good point, but you've got my intentions wrong. I'm not trying to avoid the power fantasy aspects of the genre, I'm trying to avoid the obvious "I rush towards Viserys and hug the party like a limpet".
For example the scenarios I set here are deliberately impossible alone. You have to gather allies somehow, convince them to do something so utterly insane, and then pick proper targets and/or plans.
So "I rush towards Viserys and hug the party like a limpet" is still a valid strategy, but it'll have to come with a little bit more response :D

Although your post did inspire me for another... I might post it tomorrow, we'll see.

BronzeTongue said:
So is the Well going to survive this operation? What will we even do with it if it does?
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DragonParadox said:
*rolls for it*

The Hishandura is violently insane and not to be trusted around any pious mortals, four of the eight Vayuphak were discovered though divinations to have attempted to swear false oaths and work with Asmodeous. The other four are sincere in their desire to serve under the same terms as the other asure you guys got.
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This feels like something to mention IC. On-screen we've almost only seen successful looting of minions - we need a little counterpoint, such as this case where over 50% of them were useless to us.
 
tarrangar said:
Poison seems likely, I just doubt it was in his food, it's far more likely they got access to something that burn with poison fumes, or injected poison into him, dragons don't really have things they can't eat, it's a well known fact, that a dragon can survive decades of having to eat stone only.

The problem is I don't think dragons even have a concept of unhealthy food, or if they have then that concept is not normal poison, it's things like living solely on eating inorganic things, and even that take decades if not centuries to become a problem.
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What if it's not food but magical byproducts? Bilestone and wildmagic effected waste for example in the loosest definition wouldn't poison you, it might just mutate you.

I'm pretty sure at the core though you could make a magic poison that worked through immunity. And ingesting a poison isn't some magical proof against illness just because you can eat rock. If blood injection or inhalation would kill something eating it isn't going to be less deadly.
 
tarrangar said:
Poison seems likely, I just doubt it was in his food, it's far more likely they got access to something that burn with poison fumes, or injected poison into him, dragons don't really have things they can't eat, it's a well known fact, that a dragon can survive decades of having to eat stone only.

The problem is I don't think dragons even have a concept of unhealthy food, or if they have then that concept is not normal poison, it's things like living solely on eating inorganic things, and even that take decades if not centuries to become a problem.

You can poison a dragon, but doing it though their drink or food don't work, you want contact poisons, poisons that can be injected, or poison gas, because if it get in a dragons stomach, and isn't some extra vile magical shit, then it's food not poison.
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If they were willing to go as far as they evidently did its possible they invented something like a Bane enchantment for poisons instead of just trying ludicrous doses of more "normal" stuff or breaking out hard to acquire magical weapons.
 
DragonParadox said:
The statistically suspicious die-off only occurred after the Dance yes, Balerion only aroused suspicion not though the time of his death but since he supposedly died of 'old age' when he was not actually that old.
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I'm going to guess that they found something that release a harmful gas when burned, and had large amounts of that burned in the dragonpit.
 
BronzeTongue said:
If they were willing to go as far as they evidently did its possible they invented something like a Bane enchantment for poisons instead of just trying ludicrous doses of more "normal" stuff or breaking out hard to acquire magical weapons.
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...I would be impressed. I would be grudgingly impressed if that is something they came up with. In all honesty that seems brilliant.
 
DragonParadox said:
The Hishandura is violently insane and not to be trusted around any pious mortals, four of the eight Vayuphak were discovered though divinations to have attempted to swear false oaths and work with Asmodeous. The other four are sincere in their desire to serve under the same terms as the other asure you guys got.
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Eeesh. @Artemis1992, you get some of what you wanted, I guess :V
Condolences to @Duesal.

Here's my vote, @everyone.
I'm of the opinion that we should overfeed OG's here even in spite of diminishing returns -
Worst case, they'll get a buffer before them and Tiamat, when they'll be fighting her on all the fronts.

[X] Plan: "We Drink Your Blood!"
-[X] 62 Imps, HD: 251.1
-[X] 7 Green Abishai, HD: 56.7
-[X] 11 Black Abishai, HD: 74.25
-[X] 1 Imp (Sorcerer 4), HD: 11.2
-[X] 1 Unraveller, HD: 10.8
-[X] 1 Shadow Demon, HD: 9.45
-[X] 2 Incubus Demons, HD: 21.6
-[X] 12 Vermleks, HD: 64.8
-[X] 1 Mighty Ghonhatine, HD: 16.2
-[X] 3 Ghonhatines, HD: 48.6
-[X] 6 Zebubs, HD: 32.4
-[X] 9 Quasits, HD: 36.45
-[X] 6 Schir, HD: 40.5
-[X] 3 Orthons, HD: 28.35
-[X] 5 Ice Devils (sworn to Asmodeus), HD: 94.5
-[X] 28 Erinyes (sworn to Asmodeus), HD: 340.2
-[X] 5 Lesser Host Devils (sworn to Asmodeus), HD: 27
-[X] 2 Bearded Devils (sworn to Asmodeus), HD: 16.2
-[X] 12 Imps (sworn to Mammon), HD: 48.6
-[X] 21 Tripurasura, HD: 85.05
-[X] 4 Vayuphak, HD: 43.2
-[X] 7 Aghasura, HD: 132.3
-[X] 1 Hishandura, HD: 24.3
-[X] 1 Venedaemon, hD: 8.1 HD
-[X] 3 Cacodaemons, HD: 12.15
-[X] 2 Handmaiden Devils (sworn to Belial), HD: 16.2
-[X] 1 Judgement Devil (sworn to Asmodeous), HD: 16.2
-[X] 3 Sire Devils (sworn to Baalzebub), HD: 32.4
-[X] 3 Sire Devils (sworn to Mephistopheles), HD: 32.4
-[X] 15 Accomplice Devils (sworn to Mephistopheles), HD: 121.5
-[X] 18 Accomplice Devils (sworn to Asmodeous), HD: 145.8)
-[X] Total HD: 1898.5 HD
 
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