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

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Azel said:
The Artisans Pride IX​
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"I still question the wisdom of this." Given that Qyburn had done so repeatedly before and during it, it came as no surprise to anyone in the group. Neither did the former Maester believe it would achieve anything, but he still felt the need to say it again. Everything was hurting, putting this wholly above what he was willing to quietly accept to indulge his companions.

Oddly enough, it was the Mold, whom they had begun dubbing Polyos to mesh with his disguise as a Quarteen sellsword, that spoke up this time. "We have fond memories of this. It is good that they desire to experience it, while we enjoy to be reminded of it. We remember proverbs about the joys of it."

On the other hand, Qyburn was remembering a sore behind from the last few occasions and this one was no different. "It would have been much more efficient to use magic for this. It is not as if you could have not indulged yourselves at another time. The king has a whole horde of Dothraki in his employ after all."

"Come on, Qyburn. Isn't this great?" Elaheh had opted to ride side-saddle and was very much giving off the impression that she was a noble lady enjoying a tour of her lands. "The Reach is such a nice place, even though it's a bit chilly. All these fields,hills and vineyards are something I never saw before. And this forest here is so much more pleasant then Sothoryos. I think we should do this again when everything is in bloom."

"May I remind you that it took magic to even make the horses tolerate our presence?" He knew that he had little chance of talking Elaheh out of this, or out of dragging him along, but his back was hurting as if someone had given him a beating, so he would do his level best to spread the misery to the responsible parties. "That is a sure sign that the likes of us are not made out for the equestrian life."

Front and center rode, to no ones surprise, Osryx and, also to no ones surprise, he was not doing terribly great at it. When he turned around to chime in on the discussion, his horse shuddered and nearly stopped, prompting some hasty wrangling with the reins before he could get it to trot along the path again. "Ah, but didn't you just suggest that magic makes things easier? Clearly we are ready for this, when we have all the spells we need to make it happen."

Before Qyburn could begin dismantling that argument, Polyos called from behind. "You should watch the road, dragon. We are clearly seeing footpads ahead of us." He pointed up ahead into the distance, where one could barely make out three figures hiding behind a leafless bush next to the road.

Immediately Osryx looked to Elaheh, who nodded her consent to the unspoken question. In return, the dragon began grinning wildly and drove his horse to a light canter towards the hiding place of the highwaymen.

Qyburn just sighed, knowing that this would likely be drawn out far more then necessary too. "You are spoiling him. You know that, right?"

Elaheh shrugged at that, her attention firmly on the Myrkdreki. "Why stop him from getting to know the world on his terms?" Nobody answered her, both the old man and the amalgam of deathless spirits well aware that there was little point in it.

Instead they kept watching the proceedings from the distance, seeing events unfold in roughly the direction they had anticipated. Instead of slowing down when he came near the robbers, Osryx gallantly jumped from his saddle, drawing his new blade while in the air and landed in a pose fit for one of the sillier plays coming out of Braavos. How close the dragon came to an actual fighting stance, his audience luckily could not judge, since none of them had any real aptitude for fencing.

Whatever the Myrkdreki was saying to the robbers seemed to not please them all that much, since he suddenly had an arrow lodged in his chest. Normally, that would have been an alarming thing to happen, but Osryx looked mostly offended, as if someone had slighted him. The footpads instead looked a bit clueless what to do, so one of them fired another arrow into the dragons chest, which lodged itself firmly into place too. At this, he finally lunged forward, easily hamstringing the leader of the three and dashing for the archer.

"I think he tried to challenge them to a duel and was turned down," Qyburn commented as they came close enough to the fight to catch some complaining about things being done improperly.

"You heard him. We are one an adventure and he is trying to make the most of it." Elaheh paused as they saw the third bandit making a run for it after seeing the archer having both his hands cut off at the wrist. "It's not as if he puts our task at peril by enjoying himself a bit."

Polyos grumbled for a moment, getting ready to chase down the fleeing one, but Osryx was faster. A dagger flew from his hand, hitting the last bandit with enough force to jam the blade into his skull up to the hilt. "We remember the songs of skalds and singers alike. Not one song was sung about a journey such as this."

"Well, are we not worthy of song? We have it all after all." Elaheh gestured to each of them in turn. "The wise old man. The stoic warrior. The fair lady. And the playful rogue. We are even on a proper quest, searching for a set of unique artifacts and all these things."

"We recall no songs in which the heroes looked for severed heads." The many-souled creature paused for a long while, apparently wracking his memories for something. "We are most unlike any group of heroes we recall to have heard about."

The Kyton just grinned in return. "Then maybe we need a few new songs. Yours are clearly lacking tales about such a most interesting fellowship as ours."

For the oddest reason, Qyburn had a feeling of intense dread at these words.


AN: Just a bit of character interaction while on the road. Please don't mind the casual murder our group of 'heroes' gets up to.
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Lack of refined swordsmanship isn't much of a hindrance when you have the BAB and physical attributes of a Very Old Dragon to fall back on.
 
Dragon Martial Arts: Where your primal instinct makes you a better sword fighter than someone who's trained their entire life and fought in military campaigns and studied entire treatises and know the difference between an "Ox Guard" and a "Mordhau".
 
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Those bandits must have been immensly lucky to never have met a Fey doing the same routine as our dragon did here.

Or Fey are less common in the Reach than I was led to believe.
 
Crake said:
Qyburn, hearing about the King's enjoyment of bards: "No minstrels."

Elaheh: "But--"

Qyburn: "I'm not agreeing to anything I know I'll regret already. No bards, no minstrels, no mummers and especially no chroniclers."

Osy: "*INHALE*"

Qyburn: "I do not care what accounts you write--"

Osy: "*exhale*"

Qyburn: "--so long as they do not include me."

Osy: "*INHALE*"
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Buttercup: "You said nothing about poets. :V"
 
Artemis1992 said:
We explicitly got the lore for traching.

Sure, we can't let others into the Faceless' pact, but teaching the lore for the classes ( including Ur-Priest) is fair game.
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That's what I said.
We aren't sharing jack shit about the Faceless themselves, and to train some Ur-priests ourselves we'd need either a willing Deity, or a volunteer uncaring enough about their life/sanity to try and fuck with an unwilling Deity we dont like.

Currently we lack both.

Marwyn asked about Faceless in particular, and that was the reason for me flaring up in warning.
 
If I was a dragon in disguise, literally all I would do is challenge bandits to duels and write dirty songs about "sword fighting" and political/social scandal.
 
[X] Crake

Well damn, so Marwyn unsurprisingly has knowledge of some good shit. I'd be worried about him or someone also cluing into Varys if they got Pycelle, but then again even in Canon everyone "knows" not to trust Varys but keep him around since they're totally sure right now he's more useful alive. Even when canonically he misses shit like the Greyjoy Rebellion.
 
DragonParadox said:
Fey powerful enough to pull that trick as the dragon did generally only come upon random bandits by chance, they tend to go for more complex amusements.
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I admit, not precisely that, but lesser Fey (say CR 5-10) still travel on these roads and would still be happy or unhappy (regardless which, bad for bandits) about being robbed on the way.

Right now street robbery has significantly more risks than it had in low-magic times, and robbing weird looking fellows who show little care for their own safety is likely the most dangerous option in that job.
A merchant with a few proper guards would be a calculated risk, a strange traveller can be anything from a begging brother, over a fey, to a divine avatar enjoying incognito-travel like Bahamut did.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I admit, not precisely that, but lesser Fey (say CR 5-10) still travel on these roads and would still be happy or unhappy (regardless which, bad for bandits) about being robbed on the way.

Right now street robbery has significantly more risks than it had in low-magic times, and robbing weird looking fellows who show little care for their own safety is likely the most dangerous option in that job.
A merchant with a few proper guards would be a calculated risk, a strange traveller can be anything from a begging brother, over a fey, to a divine avatar enjoying incognito-travel like Bahamut did.
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Well yeah but these particular bandits have played the odds and not lost so far... and then they lost big time
 
Artemis1992 said:
I admit, not precisely that, but lesser Fey (say CR 5-10) still travel on these roads and would still be happy or unhappy (regardless which, bad for bandits) about being robbed on the way.

Right now street robbery has significantly more risks than it had in low-magic times, and robbing weird looking fellows who show little care for their own safety is likely the most dangerous option in that job.
A merchant with a few proper guards would be a calculated risk, a strange traveller can be anything from a begging brother, over a fey, to a divine avatar enjoying incognito-travel like Bahamut did.
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Keep in mind that they didn't attack Osryx. Had they gotten a good look at the Most Interesting Fellowship, they would have quietly turned around and high tailed it as fast as they could.

However, the dragon was faster.
 
An idle thought I had when we were playing as Buttercup

Don't you think it funny that we were pretending to be Dandelion from the Witcher Series, yet the nearest thing in that universe comparable to our power would be Gaunter O'Dimm?
 
Tomcost said:
An idle thought I had when we were playing as Buttercup

Don't you think it funny that we were pretending to be Dandelion from the Witcher Series, yet the nearest thing in that universe comparable to our power would be Gaunter O'Dimm?
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No, we are nowhere near Gaunter O'Dimm's power level. And his modus operandi isn't really similar either. When we offer a deal, it is in the spirit of the offer, unless we planned betrayal from the start for reasons of unreliability. Good faith agreements are generally kept in good faith, though.

Gaunter is basically an Elder Evil. They can, under the right circumstances, curb stomp even the highest tier magic users in whichever respective high fantasy setting like Thanos rocking all five Infinity Stones.
 
Crake said:
No, we are nowhere near Gaunter O'Dimm's power level. And his modus operandi isn't really similar either. When we offer a deal, it is in the spirit of the offer, unless we planned betrayal from the start for reasons of unreliability. Good faith agreements are generally kept in good faith, though.

Gaunter is basically an Elder Evil. They can, under the right circumstances, curb stomp even the highest tier magic users in whichever respective high fantasy setting like Thanos rocking all five Infinity Stones.
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We do things in good faith because it benefits us... which makes us more intelligent than Master Mirror himself then?

Anyway, we have achieved the ability to time stop and cause storms. That's the highest level of magic he has shown, despite the fact that he is theorized to be able to do much, much more.
 
Tomcost said:
We do things in good faith because it benefits us... which makes us more intelligent than Master Mirror himself then?

Anyway, we have achieved the ability to time stop and cause storms. That's the highest level of magic he has shown, despite the fact that he is theorized to be able to do much, much more.
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He has demonstrably done some greater stuff, like creating a micro-solar-system, or at least freely manipulates it. He's definitely on the Divine Tier list in some respect when it comes to comparing power levels in D&D terms, which Viserys isn't anywhere near to being personally powerful as even the weakest deity.

While also not being similarly restricted, only restricted in so far as whatever contract he hammers out with whoever is way in over their head and likely not a rules lawyer like him.
 
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