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

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Winning Vote
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Nov 5, 2020 at 6:58 AM, finished with 108 posts and 10 votes.
  • [X] Plan Pro-Gamer Move
    -[X]

    -[X] Instead of using a Demiplane to seal away the Oozes, instead use it to create a Gate that can then be redirected with Portal to Portal Redirect to act as an entrance to the same desination as the Ooze Gate.
    -[X] Viserys and Lya will use the time freed up by cutting a day of summoning to do this operation. If Lya considers it safe to fully redirect the portal then to only do so temporarily, do so.
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Interlude CMXXXVIII: Long Odds
  • Threadmarks
    • Long Odds ​

    Twenty Fifth Day of the Third Month 294 AC

    For all his colleagues liked to present him as a drunk, a whoremonger and other less flattering things given the company he kept, Marwyn the Mage was a man of great self discipline and rigor. It could hardly be otherwise given the forces he sought to master. A smudged line practicing astrology would give you a slightly off center constellation, the same smudged line practicing the Higher Mysteries might lead to death or fates darker still.. So after observing what he could of the strange creatures he choose to withdraw to the library back in Sorcerer's Deep and the company of arcane tomes.

    Harmonizing portals... the calculations were daunting, all the more so for being written in the elder tongue of earth which he did not speak, but Marwyn knew that the King, the Princess and the Queen-to-be had all mastered more free-flowing magic. He swallowed a flash of envy at children proving more adept than he at his life's work, one of them an actual child. Caution had its place, but then so too did daring.

    So it was that when Marwyn realized that the arcane process of 'echoing' the embedded gate to aid in an invasion could have dangerous and unpredictable effects he weighed the options and decided the risks were low enough to propose it regardless, with mention of the risks of course. While he had never served as a maester to any lord, preferring to focus on his studies, he still recalled the most important piece of advice he had been given in his youth. 'Never promise success when you cannot guarantee it'.

    The King looked over his calculations, his gaze a touch slightly distant, recalling memories not wholly his own Marwyn assumed. "Looks solid enough. Lya, what do you think?"

    "I think there is one more entranceway we know of, even if it seems to be held by a Lannister ally, and a third projected path out there. We can afford to take a chance on this one."

    Marwyn struggled to keep the surprise off his face for a moment. He had never heard Wisdom Lya concern herself with politics or strategy in such a matter-of-fact way. Perhaps I have been confusing preference for the arcane with a lack of competence elsewhere. The young woman was fiercely clever and in her own way as ambitious as King Viserys.

    If the King noticed his slip he did not comment, instead taking Marwyn's arm to return to the Cavern of Sapphires. The gate was called forth, a ripple in the air. Then after everyone besides the King, his Companions and Marwyn himself had retreated to a safer distance the King stepped up within the Crystal King's reach and let it envelop him that he might know the path for the spell to come.

    "Good thing Ser Richard isn't here to see this, eh?" the golden haired Sand Snake laughed softly.

    "We'll just have to tell him about it then," the High Inquisitor offered in like tone and for just a moment his countenance, marked by death and shadows, the terror of thousands across the realm, seemed absurdly young.

    Before any of the others could reply the King extricated himself from the crystalline creature and simply veiled himself right in front of it, thus getting definitive proof that, whatever other changes it had suffered from the portal embedded in its form, acquiring a functional mind was not one of them. Turning to the demiplane portal the King began to chant softly under his breath...

    For a moment it seemed as though all was proceeding as expected, the portal taking on a sapphire glow behind which one could see a far more mundane cavern, presumably beneath the Rock, but before Marwyn could breathe a sigh of relief arcs of scintillating light connected that portal to the one still inside the ooze, seeming to sap it. With a strange gurgling sound the creature died... and then the magic exploded outwards in a wall of blazing blue.

    ***​

    The next thing Marwyn knew, though he had hardly blinked, all of them had been pulled back to the camp, though he certainly had not heard a spell of translocation. Some sort of temporal spell..."My apologies, Your Grace it seems my calculations were in error," the former maester hastened to say, doing his best to ignore the smirk on Vargo's face. He had thought the whole thing mad from the start.

    Rather than look upset the King waved the apology off. "The risks were what they were, Lya and I both concurred with your opinion. Taking chances do not always pay off, even when the odds are stacked in one's favor. Now let us see what remains of the cavern..."

    Apart from the portal, which was quite gone, about a third of the shambling crystalline creatures had been reduced to dust by the explosion, dust that was even now being consumed by their surviving brethren in their blind meanderings. All things told a wave of destructive force was a rather pedestrian effect of such a discharge. Marwyn was almost disappointed... almost. He knew the dangers too well to let his curiosity get wholly ahead of him.

    "I guess you'll have to find that third way then," Young Waymar Royce said to the High Inquisitor.

    "I live to serve," the latter replied dryly. After a moment he added. "You get to sweep up the remaining crystal beasts."

    Captured 193 Carnivorous Crystals

    OOC: No vote this time since there isn't one I can think of, though this feels like a good break point. The rolls that caused the ooze to die and the portal to collapse are here and here. The resulting Wild Magic surge roll was unfortunately not on the interesting side of the table I made... then again it wasn't another 1 either. That would have been... complicated.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • DragonParadox said:
    Long Odds ​

    Twenty Fifth Day of the Third Month 294 AC

    For all that his colleagues liked to present him as a drunk, a whoremonger, and other less flattering things given the company he kept, Marwyn the Mage was a man of great self discipline and rigor. It could hardly be otherwise, given the forces he sought to master. A smudged line practicing astrology would give you a slightly off-center constellation, while the same smudged line practicing the Higher Mysteries might lead to death or fates darker still. So after observing what he could of the strange creatures, he chose to withdraw to the library back in Sorcerer's Deep and the company of arcane tomes.

    Harmonizing portals... the calculations were daunting, all the more so for being written in the elder tongue of earth which he did not speak, but Marwyn knew that the king, the princess, and the queen-to-be had all mastered more free-flowing magic. He swallowed a flash of envy at children proving more adept than he at his life's work, one of them an actual child. Caution had its place, but then so too did daring.

    So it was that when Marwyn realized that the arcane process of 'echoing' the embedded gate to aid in an invasion could have dangerous and unpredictable effects, he weighed the options and decided the risks were low enough to propose it regardless, with mention of the risks, of course. While he had never served as a maester to any lord, preferring to focus on his studies, he still recalled the most important piece of advice he had been given in his youth. 'Never promise success when you cannot guarantee it'.

    The king looked over his calculations, his gaze a touch distant, recalling memories not wholly his own, Marwyn thought. "Looks solid enough. Lya, what do you think?"

    "I think there is one more entrance way we know of, even if it seems to be held by a Lannister ally, and a third projected path out there. We can afford to take a chance on this one."

    Marwyn struggled to keep the surprise off his face for a moment. He had never heard Wisdom Lya concern herself with politics or strategy in such a matter-of-fact way. Perhaps I have been confusing preference for the arcane with a lack of competence elsewhere. The young woman was fiercely clever, and in her own way as ambitious as King Viserys.

    If the king noticed his slip, he did not comment, instead taking Marwyn's arm to return to the Cavern of Sapphires. The gate was called forth, a ripple in the air. Then after everyone besides the king, his Companions, and Marwyn himself had retreated to a safer distance, the king stepped up to the Crystal King's perch and let it envelop him so that he might know the path for the spell to come.

    "Good thing Ser Richard isn't here to see this, eh?" the golden haired Sand Snake laughed softly.

    "We'll just have to tell him about it then," the High Inquisitor offered in like tone, and for just a moment his countenance, marked by death and shadows, the terror of thousands across the realm, seemed absurdly young.

    Before any of the others could reply, the king extricated himself from the crystalline creature and simply veiled himself right in front of it, thus getting definitive proof that, whatever other changes it had suffered from the portal embedded in its form, acquiring a functional mind was not one of them. Turning to the demiplane portal, the king began to chant softly under his breath...

    For a moment it seemed as though all was proceeding as expected, the portal taking on a sapphire glow behind which one could see a far more mundane cavern, presumably beneath the Rock, but before Marwyn could breathe a sigh of relief, arcs of scintillating light connected that portal to the one still inside the ooze, seeming to sap it. With a strange gurgling sound the creature died... and then the magic exploded outwards in a wall of blazing blue.

    ***​

    The next thing Marwyn knew, though he had hardly blinked, all of them had been pulled back to to the camp, but he certainly had not heard a spell of translocation. Some sort of temporal spell..."My apologies, Your Grace, it seems my calculations were in error," the former maester hastened to say, doing his best to ignore the smirk on Vargo's face. He had thought the whole thing mad from the start.

    Rather than look upset, the king waved the apology off. "The risks were what they were, Lya and I both agreed with your opinion. Taking chances do not always pay off, even when the odds are stacked in one's favor. Now let us see what remains of the cavern..."

    Apart from the portal which was quite gone about a third of the shambling crystalline creatures had been reduced to dust by the explosion, dust that was even now being consumed by their surviving brethren in their blind meanderings. All things told, a wave of destructive force was a rather pedestrian effect of such a discharge. Marwyn was almost disappointed...almost. He knew the dangers too well to let his curiosity get wholly ahead of him.

    "I guess you'll have to find that third way then," Young Waymar Royce said to the High Inquisitor.

    "I live to serve," the latter replied dryly. After a moment, he added, "You get to sweep up the remaining crystal beasts."

    Captured 193 Carnivorous Crystals

    OOC: No vote this time since there isn't one I can think of though this feels like a good break point. The rolls that caused the ooze to die and the portal to collapse are here and here. The resulting Wild Magic surge roll was unfortunately not on the interesting side of the table I made... not then again it wasn't another 1 either. That would have been... complicated. Not yet edited.
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    Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.

    Oh well, it was worth a shot. We still got a nice Marwyn POV chapter and a buttload of Crystalline Oozes, so it was hardly a total loss.
     
    TIME TO FOR THE PARTY!!!!!!!!

    we can deal with the cleanup later (and there will be a cleanup this ritual SCREAMS This Action Will Have Consequences )
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Marwyn struggled to keep the surprise off his face for a moment. He had never heard Wisdom Lya concern herself with politics or strategy in such a matter-of-fact way. Perhaps I have been confusing preference for the arcane with a lack of competence elsewhere. The young woman was fiercely clever and in her own way as ambitious as King Viserys.
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    Lya grasps for, and holds onto, the power of the Gods themselves... and anyone is surprised that her omnidisciplinarian expertise and towering intellect finds it hard to grasp basic strategy?

    Maybe it was the casual manner she spoke of it, rather than textbook recital. I mean she's agreed to become a monarch, one would think she takes that role just as seriously as Viserys does in her own way.
     
    Okay, by my guess the Fey should likely try to stop us and have at least some troops ready for the attempt in time.

    Let's say around the beginning of this month one of those mythic Diviners they have should have noticed that something will be wrong, even if they can't see what due to Mindblank. An attempt at genocide like that will propably echo through fate not matter what we do to hide it.

    Then they had to find out what will happen and from where it will come. As far as we know the Deep Ones are quiet and there is no concentration of Fiends in Westeros strong enough to pull something like this off, so they will have eyes on us as much as possible.

    Our big military movement and general alarm happened at the 18th of the month. Of course we had reasons for it, with the demons and all, but with the Fey already on high alert they will have looked deeper anyway. At that point, if anyone without Mindblank knew that we were mass-summoning demons for a ritual or sacrifice (which some people did, likely even hostile demons) the CoS diviners and spymasters will propably have connected the dots.
    Admittedly, we are throwing some metaphorical smokebombs around by making this about Burny's war against Ymeri, but if they know something big will happen and they know we are preparing for something big, no amount of missdirection will stop them from assuming that there is at least a chance that those two things are one and the same.

    So, they had a good week to prepare with the assumtion that whatever we are planning with our masses of demons is intended to harm them and gather assets to interrupt us.
    @Azel unless I made some obvious mistake in there?
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    Okay, by my guess the Fey should likely try to stop us and have at least some troops ready for the attempt in time.

    Let's say around the beginning of this month one of those mythic Diviners they have should have noticed that something will be wrong, even if they can't see what due to Mindblank. An attempt at genocide like that will propably echo through fate not matter what we do to hide it.

    Then they had to find out what will happen and from where it will come. As far as we know the Deep Ones are quiet and there is no concentration of Fiends in Westeros strong enough to pull something like this off, so they will have eyes on us as much as possible.

    Our big military movement and general alarm happened at the 18th of the month. Of course we had reasons for it, with the demons and all, but with the Fey already on high alert they will have looked deeper anyway. At that point, if anyone without Mindblank knew that we were mass-summoning demons for a ritual or sacrifice (which some people did, likely even hostile demons) the CoS diviners and spymasters will propably have connected the dots.
    Admittedly, we are throwing some metaphorical smokebombs around by making this about Burny's war against Ymeri, but if they know something big will happen and they know we are preparing for something big, no amount of missdirection will stop them from assuming that there is at least a chance that those two things are one and the same.

    So, they had a good week to prepare with the assumtion that whatever we are planning with our masses of demons is intended to harm them and gather assets to interrupt us.
    @Azel unless I made some obvious mistake in there?
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    I think having to deal with yet more Big Stompyness was always in the cards. No one here assumed otherwise.

    We just wanted to force them to have to wade through a metric fucktonne of stuff before they could even begin to take a swing at us, which incidentally works in our favor, if our goal was to cut down on the leftover dissidents we had to deal with in the aftermath of our decapitation strike.
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    Okay, by my guess the Fey should likely try to stop us and have at least some troops ready for the attempt in time.

    Let's say around the beginning of this month one of those mythic Diviners they have should have noticed that something will be wrong, even if they can't see what due to Mindblank. An attempt at genocide like that will propably echo through fate not matter what we do to hide it.

    Then they had to find out what will happen and from where it will come. As far as we know the Deep Ones are quiet and there is no concentration of Fiends in Westeros strong enough to pull something like this off, so they will have eyes on us as much as possible.

    Our big military movement and general alarm happened at the 18th of the month. Of course we had reasons for it, with the demons and all, but with the Fey already on high alert they will have looked deeper anyway. At that point, if anyone without Mindblank knew that we were mass-summoning demons for a ritual or sacrifice (which some people did, likely even hostile demons) the CoS diviners and spymasters will propably have connected the dots.
    Admittedly, we are throwing some metaphorical smokebombs around by making this about Burny's war against Ymeri, but if they know something big will happen and they know we are preparing for something big, no amount of missdirection will stop them from assuming that there is at least a chance that those two things are one and the same.

    So, they had a good week to prepare with the assumtion that whatever we are planning with our masses of demons is intended to harm them and gather assets to interrupt us.
    @Azel unless I made some obvious mistake in there?
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    No, this looks mostly accurate. The big variables here are how well the CoS is informed about these events and our movements, and the characters of the people making the decisions. The queen might dismiss reports that speculate about an attack on the CoS on grounds of them being very powerful and us not making any obvious military moves at them. As is, the far likelier explanation for our actions is still that we want to focus on Ymeri. We are basically starting a two-front war by attacking the CoS right now and that would strike most as unlikely, as we tend to be pretty cautious.

    What they definitely can't gauge is the scale of what we did, so the question is if they suspect we got a few hundred or tens of thousands of Demon HD for this. If they believe the former, they will definitely assume we want to throw some support to R'hllor, as such a measly amount would not be enough to seriously harm them. If they assume the latter, they are more likely to suspect that we might try a surprise attack on them with the goal to knock them out in one strike.

    So... it could go every which way.

    I'm not overly worried though, since attacking the ritual site where we will have three gods in spirit and one in the flesh is not going to go well for them.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    OOC: No vote this time since there isn't one I can think of though this feels like a good break point. The rolls that caused the ooze to die and the portal to collapse are here and here. The resulting Wild Magic surge roll was unfortunately not on the interesting side of the table I made... but then again it wasn't another 1 either. That would have been... complicated. Not yet edited.
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    Oh wow. o_O Well, at least it didn't blow up in our faces.
     
    Azel said:
    Look. If you keep this up and this ends up with the Garth the Green party trying to foil our dastardly plans, then I'm going to blame you for it.
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    I fully expect to fight them during or after this whole thing. Garth the Green being a feysworn paladin bound to the Court of Stars, and Arysa the Pixie being a member of the Court? Yeah. We're definitely fighting them.
     
    Duesal said:
    I fully expect to fight them during or after this whole thing. Garth the Green being a feysworn paladin bound to the Court of Stars, and Arysa the Pixie being a member of the Court? Yeah. We're definitely fighting them.
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    Aren't they in the Feywild right now trying to bring peace between the Seven and the Old Gods? I know the Ice Fey lord that they traveled with is still around but I think they went with the Chosen of the Maiden.
     
    We're still assigning all of the free forces we have, to guard around the ritual site, yes?

    And having... pretty much every companion be present, since everyone's actions are done by now?

    Also, am sad we've lost the portal and the king ooze :c
    We haven'tade good progress on Lannisters this month, and lost the best thing that we'd have tried splicing on.
     
    We are using the main Snare as the ritual site, right?
    Imma write up a suggestion on the defenses' composition if so.
     
    egoo said:
    We are using the main Snare as the ritual site, right?
    Imma write up a suggestion on the defenses' composition if so.
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    Okay, but like, don't just throw every random thing we've grown on that list? Like for one thing, why two darken beast companies? Those are just going to get in the way of breath weapons.

    Also, the Thorny rhinos have no room to maneuver. Same with the Cataphracts using genie horses.
     
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    Crake said:
    Okay, but like, don't just throw every random thing we've grown on that list? Like for one thing, why two darken beast companies? Those are just going to get in the way of breath weapons.

    Also, the Thorny rhinos have no room to maneuver. Same with the Cataphracts using genie horses.
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    Ya think too low of me :/
     
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