@DragonParadox could you tell us what condition the Dorne road network is in?
It was just that major road construction took place under the Jaehaerys, that is, before joining to Seven Kingdoms, which remained Dorne with the road network that he had earlier. Having or not being expensive across the desert can mean anything when planning to take over Westeros.

And could you answer the question asked earlier?
Just to toss in my two cents on the crown thing; I don't think it's a good idea even if DP says it's possible.

Even if we pull it off doing so would empower and antagonize a unified faction within the Imperium, which is a headache and a half at best. At worst it's a critical weakness in that we can't be sure the fey will stay pinned to the story we tell forever, and when they got loose they'd make a huge mess of things.

There's also the practical side of actually pulling it off. The guy can't even move himself, so we'd need to break into the heart of their power in the feywild of all places to do it. This is both incredibly dangerous and a vector for them to mess with us.

Even if it's a relatively simple set of actions, crowning the guy would still effectively be an act of powerful ritual magic if it had any binding properties at all. Performing that kind of ritual at a site prepared by people who want you to die in a fire is a horrible idea, especially when they can bend the local laws of physics against you at inopportune times.

Frankly, we can't safely do something like this unless we're already in a position to dictate any terms we like. In my opinion it's a better idea to use our resources now to advance our goals instead of hoarding them in pursuit of something we might come to regret.
 
It's not as if a one-time cash infusion will do all that much for them. Slaves Bay is economically dead and even after the area joins the Imperium, that won't change. Their two claims to fame have always been rampant raiding for and breeding of slaves and that they were a useful stop-over in the spice trade. The first industry is deader then Qyburns conscience and the latter will never revitalize to a fraction of the level of before.

New Ghis and Mereen will likely see some degree of spice trade returning, but they will still have to compete with the southern route over the Basilisk Isles and the northern one through the New Sarnor region. And that assumes that we don't just plop down a Terminus in Yi-Ti and kill long-range sea trade entirely. Astapor and Yunkai will likely shrink into complete irrelevancy once slavery ends and people can actually leave, while Mereen wil likewise bleed people but retain some local significance. It might actually grow again later on, when we start exploiting minerals from the Ghiscari mountains, but the city that will grow from that industry will only bear a passing resemblance of the Mereen from 10 years ago.

So. Give it a few years and the Sons of the Harpye will be mostly a reactionary remnant that will dream of returning to some glorious past, with little political relevance and a lot of Inquisition attention.
Honestly, right now any Magister with half a brain could be setting up to make their family quite successful within our Empire. Sell the souls of mountains of slaves for magic from the devils, use said magic to invest in your lands (for example, make it fertile and good for growing something with high added-value - I'd say chocolate, but there's probably something else that fits the climate better. Opium maybe?). Then inevitably die when Viserys invades and kills the devil-cultists, or run away with magic to somewhere "safe" where you'll be tortured by devils now that you're useless. Leave your sons in a good position to avoid becoming as dead and destitute as everyone else around you.

I don't actually expect this to happen, of course. At best I'd expect one or two to try to make economic ties with their Braavosi counterparts, only to get killed as traitors by their fellows.
 
Honestly, right now any Magister with half a brain could be setting up to make their family quite successful within our Empire. Sell the souls of mountains of slaves for magic from the devils, use said magic to invest in your lands (for example, make it fertile and good for growing something with high added-value - I'd say chocolate, but there's probably something else that fits the climate better. Opium maybe?). Then inevitably die when Viserys invades and kills the devil-cultists, or run away with magic to somewhere "safe" where you'll be tortured by devils now that you're useless. Leave your sons in a good position to avoid becoming as dead and destitute as everyone else around you.

I don't actually expect this to happen, of course. At best I'd expect one or two to try to make economic ties with their Braavosi counterparts, only to get killed as traitors by their fellows.
Opium would be it, yes. Closer to Afghanistan than Colombia.
 
We've even set up our own poppy farms in the Disputed Lands for the sole purpose of making mundane painkillers from them, so there's precedent for that.
Other things they could be, and which we will be, growing is almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, apricots, apples and many other fruits.
 
@TalonofAnathrax Asmsodeus' guys are way too competent to let a ego or hubris get entirely in the way of keeping operations smoothly running (subtlety kinda precludes crippling inability to express subtlety) but I expect the vast majority aren't selling all their slaves to fiends because of a combination of the following factors:

1) Hard to hide, not everyone in Slaver's Bay wants to work with devils, even the rich and powerful, maybe even especially.

2) Once word gets out and it has any hint of credibility, even the fig's leaf of reasons for slaves not to revolt and go on full tilt murder sprees is because death isn't the worst fate possible. If you jump straight to the other end of the spectrum and give as close to a fate worse than death as can be managed, robbing them even of their very soul's sovereignty, you've got instant rebellions.

3) Devils don't need to overplay their hand in regards to the souls here, long-term, that's all theirs anyway. They're more about sustainability than instant coups. Long term planners.

4) Tiger fiends some of the magisters have been doing minor business with aren't liable to be welcome by the local devils.

Basically, selling souls isn't easy for mortals. If it was easy, most of the world would be depopulated.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Goldfish on Aug 15, 2020 at 9:31 PM, finished with 26 posts and 3 votes.

  • [X] The Great Houses, as it might help you accomplish the task of killing two birds with one stone once you have interrogated and studied the slave soldier in question. The reason being that they are the mostly likely to have some besides the garrison itself, and competing interests could allow you to mask the disappearance as pre-existing internal divisions (Sons of the Harpy, Spicers, et al). And the Peacekeepers likely don't need enhanced soldiers to deal with brigandage, nor are the merchants liable to have what you're looking for.
 
@Crake, here's a level up for Waymar you can add to your vote. He's finally getting access to 5th level spells. Chain Lightning is a very nice addition to his arsenal, giving him Long-range and good AoE capacity to go along with his amazing single target damage.

[] Waymar Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Duskblade
-[] Skills (5 points): +1 Craft (Alchemy), +2 Knowledge (Arcana), +2 Knowledge (The Planes)
-[] Spells:
--[] 2nd Level:
---[] Retrained: Escalating Enfeeblement >>> Sure Strike
--[] 5th Level:
Chain Lightning
 
@Crake, here's a level up for Waymar you can add to your vote. He's finally getting access to 5th level spells. Chain Lightning is a very nice addition to his arsenal, giving him Long-range and good AoE capacity to go along with his amazing single target damage.

[] Waymar Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Duskblade
-[] Skills (5 points): +1 Craft (Alchemy), +2 Knowledge (Arcana), +2 Knowledge (The Planes)
-[] Spells:
--[] 2nd Level:
---[] Retrained: Escalating Enfeeblement >>> Sure Strike
--[] 5th Level:
Chain Lightning
Are we doing an equipment update for the PCs who are leveling up as well? Waymar could benefit from a Thunder Strap (mostly for call lightning storm, but the control weather is also very nice), and definitely from an Electro-Temporal Bracer.

The ETB has three minutes of charge a day, which may be used in one minute blocks. While it is active the user may Choi's one of three effects to attach to all of their electricity descriptor spells; dazzle all targets hit for one round , stagger one target hit for one round, or haste one target hit for one round. This applies to anyone who takes electricity damage from the spells cast without a save. If you don't take damage you're safe, but otherwise your saves don't matter. The target also gets a free time stop if they take 50 points of electricity damage, but that's pretty situational and shuts off the time for a month afterwards.

If we have the extra time, an item for Enlightened Step could also be useful.

[X] Crake
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Crake on Aug 16, 2020 at 2:01 AM, finished with 40 posts and 9 votes.

  • [X] The Great Houses, as it might help you accomplish the task of killing two birds with one stone once you have interrogated and studied the slave soldier in question. The reason being that they are the mostly likely to have some besides the garrison itself, and competing interests could allow you to mask the disappearance as pre-existing internal divisions (Sons of the Harpy, Spicers, et al). And the Peacekeepers likely don't need enhanced soldiers to deal with brigandage, nor are the merchants liable to have what you're looking for.
    [X] Waymar Level Up
    -[X] Class: +1 Duskblade
    -[X] Skills (5 points): +1 Craft (Alchemy), +2 Knowledge (Arcana), +2 Knowledge (The Planes)
    -[X] Spells:
    --[X] 2nd Level:
    ---[X] Retrained: Escalating Enfeeblement >>> Sure Strike
    --[X] 5th Level: Chain Lightning
 
@DragonParadox could you tell us what condition the Dorne road network is in?
It was just that major road construction took place under the Jaehaerys, that is, before joining to Seven Kingdoms, which remained Dorne with the road network that he had earlier. Having or not being expensive across the desert can mean anything when planning to take over Westeros.

And could you answer the question asked earlier?
  1. Dorne's road network is about average for a medieval infrastructure, the major roads are well maintained by the Prince, the rest depends on how the local lords feel about it
  2. Putting the crown on the king's head would be very risky. He has a lot more affinity to it than Viserys does.
 
  1. Dorne's road network is about average for a medieval infrastructure, the major roads are well maintained by the Prince, the rest depends on how the local lords feel about it
  2. Putting the crown on the king's head would be very risky. He has a lot more affinity to it than Viserys does.

I would feel more comfortable winding one big fey around our finger than trying to do the same with three.

We should kill the more annoying of the three lords of the Star Court and subjugate the other one and maybe turn the sleeping one into something useful but equally quiescent.
 
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