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

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TalonofAnathrax said:
I don't have all the details of their Template in mind right now, so I won't dive into the many ways of controlling or avoiding undead that 3.5 is full of. I'd appreciate a link to the Template, if I'm wrong about this.

These undead don't rampage at the drop of a hat, but they're still undead. When a worst-case scenario happens (their creator dies, someone tries to mess with their heads and fails in an unlucky way, their control system is interfered with, etc), their basic programming isn't "be a sentient being who is confused" it's "KILL KILL KILL".
That's bad. It's like having a cunningly bound Devil or Demon: clever in the short run, but it'll last forever and will eventually turn on you horribly. And we can't recruit and manage these undead with we do our Devils, because they're not sentient.

As for the smell... Look, embalming fluids exist, but anyone who has done dissections will tell you that corpses always smell. A genuinely odourless corpse doesn't exist, especially if it spends its time outside of a hermetically sealed area with all pests kept out.

It's also a terrible PR move regarding our vassals like Monford and whatnot, and that's my main concern. The previous points are honestly all nitpicks compared to that.
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We can offer VIPs Undead guards, along with some simple magic to disguise them, if that's an issue. Those who don't accept them can get alternative guards, like Advanced Jesulan Plant creatures.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I don't have all the details of their Template in mind right now, so I won't dive into the many ways of controlling or avoiding undead that 3.5 is full of. I'd appreciate a link to the Template, if I'm wrong about this.

These undead don't rampage at the drop of a hat, but they're still undead. When a worst-case scenario happens (their creator dies, someone tries to mess with their heads and fails in an unlucky way, their control system is interfered with, etc), their basic programming isn't "be a sentient being who is confused" it's "KILL KILL KILL".
That's bad. It's like having a cunningly bound Devil or Demon: clever in the short run, but it'll last forever and will eventually turn on you horribly. And we can't recruit and manage these undead with we do our Devils, because they're not sentient.

As for the smell... Look, embalming fluids exist, but anyone who has done dissections will tell you that corpses always smell. A genuinely odourless corpse doesn't exist, especially if it spends its time outside of a hermetically sealed area with all pests kept out.

It's also a terrible PR move regarding our vassals like Monford and whatnot, and that's my main concern. The previous points are honestly all nitpicks compared to that.
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The template grants them Turning Resistance equal to their HD and for everything else, there is the good old PfE.

The death of the creator or handler is irrelevant to these Undead. They act like mindless constructs. They would go inert, not berserk.

Comparison to real-life corpses and mentions of vermin are missing the point. These are not dead bodies laying around. They are functional, "living" creatures, animated by negative energy. I sincerely doubt that any vermin or bacteria will find them good eating. Also, it was never IC mentioned that they smell. At all.


However, you apparently only care about the last, and to this I say.
Why exactly? What makes this somehow worse then the myriad other offensive things Viserys does every day? Shouldn't people be just as creeped out by the sentient plant monsters that he keeps pulling up from somewhere?

Rodrik the Reader didn't care and he has far less reason to trust Viserys then anyone on the list @egoo made.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
So we'll be lying to our vassals about what we're asking them to keep in their castles, following them around as bodyguards?
These are super creepy too, so they definitely will be asking themselves questions.
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Would you kindly stop the fearmongering smear campaign?

Nobody said anything about lying to them. You are just inventing things to be offended about and make the other side look bad.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Pol Ning has family and friends here, and is loyal to this Emperor. I don't expect her to want to abandon her life here if there's any other option.
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You are suggesting a third option on a list that was not offered. Xue is TRYING, I.E WANTS to exile Pol Ning. Her brother is equally concerned, or at least open enough to the idea of shuffling her off somewhere she won't cause trouble, and maybe getting some kind of political gains out of it. Whatever social capital she has is apparently null and void now.

I say we lay out the facts before her. Her brother doesn't care about her feelings, Xue sees her as a rival she doesn't want to kill to get rid of and has everything she needs to ensure that happens.

She can stay and marry some hasbeen, we can arrange a betrothal to someone in our extended family, or we can offer her a place in our court.
 
Azel said:
Comparison to real-life corpses and mentions of vermin are missing the point. These are not dead bodies laying around. They are functional, "living" creatures, animated by negative energy. I sincerely doubt that any vermin or bacteria will find them good eating. Also, it was never IC mentioned that they smell. At all.
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I can conform this, after a few unfortunate early experiments Qyburn has been raising corpses that most bacteria can't live in, certainly not enough to cause meaningful smell.

These are not Amateur McCorpse-Raiser's starter zombies.
 
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Azel said:
However, you apparently only care about the last, and to this I say.
Why exactly? What makes this somehow worse then the myriad other offensive things Viserys does every day? Shouldn't people be just as creeped out by the sentient plant monsters that he keeps pulling up from somewhere?
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This is ridiculous. Our usual Plant-minions have religious backing and individual Diplomacy abilities. There's a HUGE difference between that and creepy faceless undead.

Azel said:
Would you kindly stop the fearmongering smear campaign?

Nobody said anything about lying to them. You are just inventing things to be offended about and make the other side look bad.
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That's good to hear!
I assumed we'd be lying rather than telling people to keep undead around despite their own misgivings, but clearly I'm wrong.
 
Crake said:
You are suggesting a third option on a list that was not offered. Xue is TRYING, I.E WANTS to exile Pol Ning. Her brother is equally concerned, or at least open enough to the idea of shuffling her off somewhere she won't cause trouble, and maybe getting some kind of political gains out of it. Whatever social capital she has is apparently null and void now.

I say we lay out the facts before her. Her brother doesn't care about her feelings, Xue sees her as a rival she doesn't want to kill to get rid of and has everything she needs to ensure that happens.

She can stay and marry some hasbeen, we can arrange a betrothal to someone in our extended family, or we can offer her a place in our court.
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Xue wants to exile Pol Ning, but I suspect that if we dangle diplomatic contacts with us ("keep Pol Ning around and she'll be our point of contact") she'll seize that opportunity instead of getting rid of Pol Ning.
If she does get rid of Pol Ning anyway, we can just act then. There's nothing stopping us from just doing that later.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Xue wants to exile Pol Ning, but I suspect that if we dangle diplomatic contacts with us ("keep Pol Ning around and she'll be our point of contact") she'll seize that opportunity instead of getting rid of Pol Ning.
If she does get rid of Pol Ning anyway, we can just act then. There's nothing stopping us from just doing that later.
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That might raise the question in Xue and perhaps Pol Que's mind as to why Viserys wants to keep someone who has been disgraced as his point of contact with the court.
 
[X] Crake

/just changed his radio station because a crappy rap song came on, then realized it was a crappy rap song commercial for toilet paper

/never had to deal with such nonsense in the Far Realm
 
DragonParadox said:
I can conform this, after a few unfortunate early experiments Qyburn has been raising corpses that must bacteria can't live in, certainly not enough to cause meaningful smell.

These are not Amateur McCorpse-Raiser's starter zombies.
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I mean... how would a Necrocraft even work if it would be actively decomposing? A zombie slowly rotting away into a skeleton is one thing, but these things are made of a lot more squishy parts. Functional squishy parts to be precise, like wings and tentacles.
TalonofAnathrax said:
This is ridiculous. Our usual Plant-minions have religious backing and individual Diplomacy abilities. There's a HUGE difference between that and creepy faceless undead.
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I don't recall the Seven ever endorsing the equally creepy plant thingies. Only those bloodthirsty Old Gods.
Also, why should a lord trust a plant that is serving some heathen gods with their life when the alternative is a perfectly obedient minion that has all the personality of furniture?

You somehow expect people to immediately trust otherwordly plant creatures just on Viserys word, but for undead that's a huge problem?

There is little difference between the two things from a lords IC perspective. Both situations require them to trust a unknown magical monster. It's just that you like plants and hate undead, so you are inventing problems why the latter must not be used in any way or form.
TalonofAnathrax said:
That's good to hear!
I assumed we'd be lying rather than telling people to keep undead around despite their own misgivings, but clearly I'm wrong.
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This is what I mean with inventing problems. You are going into this with a fixed opinion and are trying to find facts that support it, going all the way to laying things into my mouth to justify yourself.

And you have repeatedly done this on this very topic, which is why I'm feeling the urgent need to call you on this.
 
DragonParadox said:
I can conform this, after a few unfortunate early experiments Qyburn has been raising corpses that most bacteria can't live in, certainly not enough to cause meaningful smell.

These are not Amateur McCorpse-Raiser's starter zombies.
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Makes sense, I always loved the whole studio ghibli aesthetic myself. But... well.



That level of wear and tear just aint practical.
 
Azel said:
I don't recall the Seven ever endorsing the equally creepy plant thingies. Only those bloodthirsty Old Gods.
Also, why should a lord trust a plant that is serving some heathen gods with their life when the alternative is a perfectly obedient minion that has all the personality of furniture?

You somehow expect people to immediately trust otherwordly plant creatures just on Viserys word, but for undead that's a huge problem?
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Please. Our Plant-minions are generally humanoid-ish, look decent (most Leshies are downright cute), have social skills and healing abilities, and are tied to the Old Gods, a largely harmless faith widespread across a huge swathe of the Seven Kingdoms.
That's very different from asking our vassals to keep a "well-equipped zombie" around.
Furthermore, most people have already heard horrible stories about undead and start with negative preconceptions regarding them. That's part of why I just assumed we'd be doing what Roose and Qyburn usually do, and not telling people exactly what sort of magical bodyguard lies beneath that full plate. Clearly this was a wrong assumption. Do we plan on going around and personally Diplomancing the people who are less likely to outright accept ourselves, or will an underling handle the undead deliveries and associated talks?
I expect some of the more pragmatic of knowledgeable people will have no issues (Pondmaster! Alinor!) but don't think everyone will be hyped by this situation.
Well, Monford may accept Black Knights (he accepted the Erinye, so clearly he trusts our word quite far) but I fear that others on our list may not be so happy to have to choose between saying no to the King and having an undead in their home following them around as a bodyguard.

EDIT: Regarding my "fixed opinions" : sue me for not memorising every detail of your homebrewed Template that wasn't linked in the post. And assuming that we would handle the Black Knight introductions the way they have previously been done on-screen (in your own omakes, no less) was indeed an assumption, but wasn't exactly a crazy one.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
Please. Our Plant-minions are generally humanoid-ish, look decent (most Leshies are downright cute), have social skills and healing abilities, and are tied to the Old Gods, a largely harmless faith widespread across a huge swathe of the Seven Kingdoms.
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This part is pretty inaccurate. The Old Gods aren't viewed as a "largely harmless faith" in no small part thanks to us and our highly public blood sacrifices to grow more magic trees. Westeros is pretty damn leery of the religion as a whole. Hell, even Eddard Stark is a bit nervous thanks to how clearly the Old Gods favor us. Westerosi lords won't necessarily look kindly on plant constructs.

Also, on a far more practical note, anyone with even a passing familiarity of the Deep Ones is going to want a few undead guards.
 
My first instinct is to met the Emperor and tell him in person that he's being an idiot, because he is being an idiot (as usual, one may note). You don't throw away your actually loyal caster in exchange for the favor of some old style magic user who could and would break your freaking face the second she disagrees with your decisions. But I do not think he'll actually understand this, so we might as well steal the girl.

I'm thinking we convince them about the whole marriage bullshit and once we're home we just tell her she doesn't actually have to marry anyone since it's not like the Idiot will ever know either way. Even if the old woman bothers to divine it, what will she do, come all the way to SD in a boat to lodge a diplomatic protest on behalf of a guy who'll have lost the war by the time she makes it back?
 
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Duesal said:
This part is pretty inaccurate. The Old Gods aren't viewed as a "largely harmless faith" in no small part thanks to us and our highly public blood sacrifices to grow more magic trees. Westeros is pretty damn leery of the religion as a whole. Hell, even Eddard Stark is a bit nervous thanks to how clearly the Old Gods favor us. Westerosi lords won't necessarily look kindly on plant constructs.
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Eddard wasn't scared of the bloodthirsty OG, he was understandably shocked and wary of ending up on the side his own Gods are against.
Regarding our own use of blood sacrifice... Yeah, that did make things worse (probably not for our vassals though), but didn't we spread bards and get one of the Chosen to back the message that the OG were generally chill and could be allied with against the monsters?
I could be wrong about the Chosen, I avoid rereading their parts due to all the salt and the narrative weirdness around them (and also because of our own significant mistakes).

Duesal said:
Also, on a far more practical note, anyone with even a passing familiarity of the Deep Ones is going to want a few undead guards.
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That is a very good point and I should probably have thought of it.
 
065tdsa said:
I'm thinking we convince them about the whole marriage bullshit and once we're home we just tell her she doesn't actually have to marry anyone since it's not like the Idiot will ever know either way. Even if the old woman bothers to divine it, what will she do, come all the way to SD in a boat to lodge a diplomatic protest on behalf of a guy who'll have lost the war by the time she makes it back?
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Or just arrange the betrothal since Quentyn isn't a bad guy, and it would allow her to not completely alienate her brother. She'll have access to teleportation, if she wants to return home at least to visit, that should be more possible in a High Fantasy setting than in Low Fantasy ASOIAF where being married off meant never seeing it again.

Or, just vote for me, and we can wash our hands of these two and try to salvage the only somewhat decent person we've encountered throughout this arc, since apparently everyone has some kind of scheme to undercut everybody else, or betray them utterly.
 
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