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

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I'm not really knocking on the whole "get some use out of these wastes of spell slots", I'm just saying it's massively inefficient. Feeding them to drakes? And magic items??
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
@Goldfish, they're not burning throughout their own mages. They're burning through everyone else's, and the rejects they would have executed anyway.
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Well now that's just rude, we could have used those.

Honestly, world's going to shit twelve different ways and these pricks go "I know I'll sacrifice the very useful and rare magical people who may have spells and techniques unknown to me to keep some stupid overgrown flying lizards alive because my boss was an idiot and didn't grow them in a way that they could survive off a ring of sustenance or a couple of cows every few days."

This is Beast taming 101, you have a giant beast that's rare and hard to feed? If you like it then put a goddamn ring on it.
 
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Why are you all assuming the GC are stupid? They certainly interrogate these pages before killing them, extracting as much more and spells as possible. I expect this to basically be like Heart Trees are for us, except that they are far more likely to sacrifice anything that moves than we are.
 
The Golden Company aren't necessarily stupid, they're just a hell of a lot eviller than we are. They bought up and sacrificed a bunch of innocent slaves to awaken the four (three :evil:) Wyrmling Red Dragons that we know about. Them sacrificing their reject mages to the Tiamat Drakes isn't surprising.
 
Evaunit02mark1 said:
Well now that's just rude, we could have used those.

Honestly, world's going to shit twelve different ways and these pricks go "I know I'll sacrifice the very useful and rare magical people who may have spells and techniques unknown to me to keep some stupid overgrown flying lizards alive because my boss was an idiot and didn't grow them in a way that they could survive off a ring of sustenance or a couple of cows every few days."

This is Beast taming 101, you have a giant beast that's rare and hard to feed? If you like it then put a goddamn ring on it.
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Not everyone has our resources to be fair...

Maybe we are kinda critical of others and arrogant to a fault? :V

Though, just to say, sorry not sorry. I like roasting our enemies too much to give it up...
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Why are you all assuming the GC are stupid? They certainly interrogate these pages before killing them, extracting as much more and spells as possible. I expect this to basically be like Heart Trees are for us, except that they are far more likely to sacrifice anything that moves than we are.
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It's not stupid so much as wasteful. Yes you can interrogate the witch, even burn a few spells in order to be sure you got all of her secrets, and then sacrifice her to the dragons.

Or, you can hire the lady, help her growth, reap the rewards of the new ways she finds to fuck shit up, and use her spells to find other ways to feed your dragons.

Their way only gives them a short term gain, feeds their beasts once, and costs them a magic user and whatever spells that day they needed to use to be sure they extracted the maximum amount of knowledge from said schmuck (if they could even be bothered to do that much).

They're worse than stupid, as @Crake pointed out, they're inefficient, which is a far graver sin.

I bet they don't even use the soul, just toss it out like barbarians.
 
Evaunit02mark1 said:
It's not stupid so much as wasteful. Yes you can interrogate the witch, even burn a few spells in order to be sure you got all of her secrets, and then sacrifice her to the dragons.

Or, you can hire the lady, help her growth, reap the rewards of the new ways she finds to fuck shit up, and use her spells to find other ways to feed your dragons.

Their way only gives them a short term gain, feeds their beasts once, and costs them a magic user and whatever spells that day they needed to use to be sure they extracted the maximum amount of knowledge from said schmuck (if they could even be bothered to do that much).

They're worse than stupid, as @Crake pointed out, they're inefficient, which is a far graver sin.

I bet they don't even use the soul, just toss it out like barbarians.
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Granted, none of us expect Tiamat to be even remotely close to a good boss. This is perfectly IC for her.
 
DragonParadox said:
One of the first bits of news the umbral spies had passed from their unwitting hosts was that the drakes were not entirely creatures of this world once they matured. Flesh and blood alone could not contain the power Tiamat had poured into their forms, making them ethereal as wraiths or perhaps more precisely shadow demons, for like that most insidious breed of Tanar'ri their claws and teeth were all too real as were the points of their riders' lances. But such a bright flame could not be sustained on flesh alone either. The dragon-kin were fed upon a steady diet of magic items and, when they could get them, mages.
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Okay. So the young ones appear to be relatively "normal" while the older ones are rocking this:

Incorporeal Subtype: A shadow demon can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, +1 or better magic weapons, spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. The creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source, except for force effects or attacks made with ghost touch weapons. A shadow demon can pass through solid objects, but not force effects, at will. Its attacks ignore natural armor, armor, and shields, but deflection bonuses and force effects work normally against them. A shadow demon always moves silently and cannot be heard with listen checks if it doesn't wish to be.

@DragonParadox, can we get updated numbers for the Golden Company? Back when we ganked Varys these were the numbers we were looking at:
Wizards:
1 Wizard of the Fifth Circle
3 Wizards of the Fourth Circle
1 Wizard of the Third Circle
4 Wizards of the Second Circle
6 Wizards of the First Circle

Clerics:
1 Aegon 'Young Griff' Chosen of Tiamat, mage of the Sixth Circle
1 Tiamat Cleric of the Fifth Circle
1 Tiamat Cleric of the Fourth Circle
2 Tiamat Clerics of the Third Circle
4 Tiamat Clerics of the First Circle

Dragons:
1 Very Young Red Dragon with Mind Blank
23 Drakes with Prismatic Breathweapons

Cavalry:
5 Elephants
2,300 Heavy cavalry
1,400 Light cavalry

Infantry:
6000 Heavy infantry
5000 Light infantry (mostly new recruits)
1. Were any other dragons of any kind awakened? If yes, how many, and what kind?
2. What fiends are we aware of among the Golden Company?
3. How many more clerics are there, and how strong are they? How much stronger are the pre-existing clerics?
4. How many drakes are there currently? Do they breed with each other or are more just summoned?
 
Duesal said:
Okay. So the young ones appear to be relatively "normal" while the older ones are rocking this:

Incorporeal Subtype: A shadow demon can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, +1 or better magic weapons, spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. The creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source, except for force effects or attacks made with ghost touch weapons. A shadow demon can pass through solid objects, but not force effects, at will. Its attacks ignore natural armor, armor, and shields, but deflection bonuses and force effects work normally against them. A shadow demon always moves silently and cannot be heard with listen checks if it doesn't wish to be.

@DragonParadox, can we get updated numbers for the Golden Company? Back when we ganked Varys these were the numbers we were looking at:
Wizards:
1 Wizard of the Fifth Circle
3 Wizards of the Fourth Circle
1 Wizard of the Third Circle
4 Wizards of the Second Circle
6 Wizards of the First Circle

Clerics:
1 Aegon 'Young Griff' Chosen of Tiamat, mage of the Sixth Circle
1 Tiamat Cleric of the Fifth Circle
1 Tiamat Cleric of the Fourth Circle
2 Tiamat Clerics of the Third Circle
4 Tiamat Clerics of the First Circle

Dragons:
1 Very Young Red Dragon with Mind Blank
23 Drakes with Prismatic Breathweapons

Cavalry:
5 Elephants
2,300 Heavy cavalry
1,400 Light cavalry

Infantry:
6000 Heavy infantry
5000 Light infantry (mostly new recruits)
1. Were any other dragons of any kind awakened? If yes, how many, and what kind?
2. What fiends are we aware of among the Golden Company?
3. How many more clerics are there, and how strong are they? How much stronger are the pre-existing clerics?
4. How many drakes are there currently? Do they breed with each other or are more just summoned?
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You guys get all this by the time you atatck, but I want to introduce everything gradually so they will feel like a proper part of the world, not an excessively large Skyrim bandit camp.
 
Crake said:
Is this because she's deliberating enticing them to feed her mage souls and items to keep their toys?
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I think it's more along the lines of her being one of those minmaxing assholes. Like that prick who makes a character blind, deaf, dumb, missing both arms and allergic to shellfish just to get +2 across the board.

"Yes it'll be horrendous in upkeep, require countless valuable artifacts to maintain, and force you to sacrifice mages instead of employing them to empower your troops against my enemies, but they'll be slightly more annoying to kill, which of course makes it worth it."
 
Crake said:
Is this because she's deliberating enticing them to feed her mage souls and items to keep their toys?
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Let me speculate how it went:

GC Mage: "Oh Great And Mighty And Most Magnificent Tiamat! Mother Of All Dragons And Vanquisher Of Uppity Grandchildren!"
Tiamat: "Not enough CAPS in it. What do you want?"
GC Mage: "We have gathered here things and people of great might your divine majesty, humbly asking for you to send more servants of your so that we may bask in your radiance reflected in them!"
Tiamat: "Neat. For all if this... you get... one Drake."
GC Mage: "That is... most generous of you, your draconic majesty."
Tiamat: "Indeed. Here it is. Coin slot is here. Don't be late in payment."
GC Mage: "Coin... slot?"
Tiamat: "Yes. It's where you put in money and treasure. If you don't, it will get some on it's own if you catch my drift."
GC Mage: "..."
Tiamat: "It also runs fine on mages, you know?"
GC Mage: *with a forced smile* "Truly your craftdragonship is unsurpassed to create such a versatile servant."
Tiamat: "See? That wasn't hard. Now feed my baby, monkey. One way or another."
 
Azel said:
Yeah, but we don't know how much they had to pay for them.

They probably got ripped off and merely managed to get enough stuff to keep making a bad deal.
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Tiamat, people! Mother of Dragons! Pulls the used car salesmen act on her own worshipers who are up against the Henry Ford of Magical Economics and Albert Einstein of Magitech for a neat combination of nascent military industrial complex.
 
Duesal said:
I wonder how many slaves were slaughtered to pay for that.

Do you think Tiamat cares more about HD or CR? I'm thinking HD.
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I suspect CR.

Of course Dragon fills his hoard with gold and silver as a base, but he will usually prefer artworks and magic items over raw materials if he has the choice.
If she has the same mindset, she will prefer singular high-CR souls, like the Nightmare Dragon back then, over massed low-CR sacrifices.
But both are good, better things belong to her than not after all.
 
Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jan 22, 2020 at 3:37 PM, finished with 55 posts and 16 votes.
  • [X] "All who come in peace are welcome in my Realm." Intrigues are known to you, but enemies aplenty also. So long as they stand within the lines you have demarcated long before they knew of the opportunity such exchanges presented, you will arbitrate without domineering or steering them one direction or another. If they both bring themselves to battle within your realm where others might be caught in the crossfire however, sanctions will be levied.
    -[X] "Truly speaking, what gives anyone the impression that my mere leave will stop or start such conflict from crossing over into my borders, when both of you would be equally impressed with my offers and equally hold worries of the other benefiting without further involvement from yourselves? My silence only guarantees none shall benefit at all."
    -[X] "On the other hand, by engaging in open and honest dialogue, both sides might know where they stand," and what they stand to lose.
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Artemis1992 said:
I give it 50/50.

Maybe Granny ripped them off, maybe she was so angry at us that she gave a special "Fucking kill Dany&Viserys with these"-discount.
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Somehow I don't see a goddess with a fullbown Greed domain handing out discounts for anything.
Artemis1992 said:
I suspect CR.

Of course Dragon fills his hoard with gold and silver as a base, but he will usually prefer artworks and magic items over raw materials if he has the choice.
If she has the same mindset, she will prefer singular high-CR souls, like the Nightmare Dragon back then, over massed low-CR sacrifices.
But both are good, better things belong to her than not after all.
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If she does operate by CR they must have had to do thousands of slaves to get a decent showing for the drakes.
 
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