A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
-
- Tags
- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
At this point I feel like keeping track is meaningless.
Just say we do make more to keep the population working, same for Children of Forest, and be done.
We had enough discussions and Minor Actions written up and end up going nowhere really, on the subject.
Now that we have the Forges it's all backgroundable, thankfully.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I think it should be a fairly low number. We should first survey our current Minotaurs to find out how many are willing to take responsibility for Minotaur infants, and how many they wish to care for. We should also consider financial incentives for those Minotaurs willing to take on one or more infants.
There isn't a rush for this, so we can afford to take it slowly and allow the Minotaurs to grow as a species until they have sufficient genetic diversity to for long-term viability.
Did we ever get a timeframe for Minotaur maturation?
As @egoo said, I agree that all of this could be accomplished in the background with a few rolls made by DP. That said, I wouldn't mind at least one interlude dealing with the matter.
- Location
- France
I'm pretty sure that our large-scale Evil-juice extraction scheme somehow involves summoning and torturing "enemy combatants", doesn't it? That's technically a war crime. Unless you're not counting that as part of our regular crafting for some reason?
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
No torture was involved, just relatively humane sacrifice of Summoned Demons. They were even kept comfortably Petrified rather than being forced I to live in pens or dungeons.
Or are you talking about the Mammon Machine? That one doesn't use any sort of living beings at all.
Winning vote
Part MMMDCC: Of Elder Law
Of Elder Law
Twentieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
After taking counsel with one another as much as you could with a battle raging above, it is decided that you would be better served being late to a gathering that you knew of than early to one you knew nothing of. The myrkdreki rise like shades of flesh and blood to touch the rune circle, tracing the lines with a third claw wrought of spirit instead of flesh. At the edge of your senses you can feel Qyburn doing something to aid them in their search, like withered fingers upon some universal cord you can only guess at. For her part Lya spins fourth an echo of her whole body, not merely her hand, on whatever power lurks about, and only Aife makes no outward sign of seeking lore, merely closing her gem-bright eyes that she might speak with her patron in the stillness of her mind.
You look first to Ser Richard then to the cavern all around you and finally to Qybrun's new pet, still for now but with the green of malice still visible deep in its many eyes. You nod to the knight. Best to keep a lookout while the others are distracted.
Like sparks on the edge of a campfire, like phantom points at the edge of a tired sentinel's sight, you glimpse them, but you are not tired and there is no fire in this tunnel carved by a monster bound to the flesh-smith's will. Something is watching you. As long as its content to keep watching you will let it do so, perhaps when the enemy gives itself away you might learn something just as useful as what your companions are seeking. Maybe it's not even a foe.
You stifle a bitter laugh at the thought.
The twins start awake first, one shaking his head hard enough his horns whistle through the air, trying to beat back some unseen pain, but the other with a triumphant look in his eye. "The runes are like those the Lady is rediscovering, of the First Men, but older and cruder, from a time before Bran the Builder. They are meant to bind creatures like is that..." the myrkdreki motions to the shoggoth away from the holy places of men. "I think that if we broke it we would be letting this place into whatever and whenever lies above."
"It's a meeting ground, I think," Lya answers. "They call it Landing, the first place men came to the Iron Islands, in what would some day become southern Harlaw... The island's name is a corruption of 'Far-Law', that is the law over the water. I'm not sure what they're fighting about."
"My lord does not know what these men are fighting over," Aife replies suddenly. For the first time ever, since you have known the Herald, she sounds shaken. "But he knows he should know, something has torn the memory from him."
For a moment somber silence stretches out between you as as you consider what manner of power and hideous skill might be needed to violate the mind of a god.
"Well, if we cannot divine the answer perhaps we should reason it out," you say after a moment. "We are looking for the time and the place where the Ironborn swore themselves to the Drowned God, and we find the place where their ancestors first settled, warded against such has made Him, in the midst of battle..."
"You think we leafed through one page too many," Qyburn catches your thought. "That what lies above us is the battle, the bloodletting that preceded the act and then by opening the way we might interfere with history?" The words end on a far less firm and more questioning tone then they had begun. Not that you can blame him. The very idea that you could twist the thread that far is mind-boggling. A single coin cast on a bloody deck is one thing, this is... Even the gods could not work such a feat. And yet hearing proof that the Ferryman's memory has been tampered with, your swiftest and most reliable source of information...
"We have to do something," Lya interjects. "We are here to meddle after all..."
"Not with the Ironborn being stupid enough to worship squids," Ser Richard cuts her off. "We just need to keep whatever power they called from rippling forward in time."
What do you do?
[] Try to meddle in the battle above
-[] Write in how
[] Wait for the oathtaking (may take days or even weeks of subjective time)
-[] Write in how you wish to keep guard
[] Write in
OOC: And here we are, almost to the final confrontation, one way or the other.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
I've said barely any, not none.
- Location
- France
Why?
I mean, which minorities are you even thinking of?
- Serpentfolk have their own city in which no humans live, so that should take care of itself. They've also done an amazing job of preserving their culture through the repeated extinction of their species, so I'm sure they'll manage.
- Essarians? We wrecked their culture when we revealed that their "Gods" were fake. I also think that their significant size difference from the rest of the population + their tendency to live together (IIRC some are completely mixed into SD, but a whole bunch aren't) will help there.
- Minotaurs? Do they even have a specific culture? Every adult minotaur was a human being ten years ago, and the rest are babies. A specific culture might form in due time, although seeing as they mostly live in human cities it'll most likely be a bunch of subcultures of whatever regional cultures they grow up in.
On another note, we already have a university and art patronage to preserve and fund things like specific art styles and histories and whatnot. Do you want to develop those further?
- Location
- France
My best guess is that this is some sort of stable time loop bullshit. The Ferryman probably removed that memory from himself!
It's more likely than something being able to mindrape a God, after all. Unless the Ferryman took some crazy risk and put himself in danger, and then forgot it when he lost and had his mind tampered with...
F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
Don't forget the ratfolk.
- Location
- France
They're fucked. They live in an unsafe sewer system that we're going to be completely rebuilding, because "make a major city live without proper sanitation to protect the culture of a small number of ratfolk" is just insane. King's Landing is either getting leveled or getting massive infrastructure boosts - or both.
And I also doubt that the ratfolk have existed for long enough to have an established culture. My bet is that they're a newly emerged "wild magic" species like the Pegasi up North. How could the ratfolk be a reemerging group when the city and sewers they live in weren't even around last time magic was a thing?
Last edited:
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP. I highlighted a few words that need more attention. Not sure exactly what they were supposed to say.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
We've already poached most of the Ratfolk, IIRC. They now make their homes beneath Sorcerer's Deep, and not in the sewers of King's Landing.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I don't think the question is how far we are willing to twist causality, but how far we can.
For example, could we make such an impact that the Ironborn never come to worship the Drowned God at all? And if so, what does that do to our timeline and the people we left behind in it?
- Location
- Germany
I don't know how much we can change, but there is definitly a "too much" in here.
Even just looking at the last few centuries it would have a massive impact.
Part of the reason why Aegon's rule worked out decently was in fact that he displaced Harren Hoare from the area all around the Riverlands. Without the popularity-boost from displacing the most hated figure in recent history for middle-Westeros he would have likely faced even more opposition to his conquest than he did in the original timeline.
That might have lead to him failing, or to him burning a lot more people with dragonfire, no idea which one exactly, but it would definitly have altered Targaryen reign for the times to come.
And that is just one small example from barely 300 years ago, changing millenia more must have bigger issues.
In theory a lot.
Even just looking at the last few centuries it would have a massive impact.
Part of the reason why Aegon's rule worked out decently was in fact that he displaced Harren Hoare from the area all around the Riverlands. Without the popularity-boost from displacing the most hated figure in recent history for middle-Westeros he would have likely faced even more opposition to his conquest than he did in the original timeline.
That might have lead to him failing, or to him burning a lot more people with dragonfire, no idea which one exactly, but it would definitly have altered Targaryen reign for the times to come.
And that is just one small example from barely 300 years ago, changing millenia more must have bigger issues.
- Location
- Germany
It would completely wreck the timeline. Whatever we do has to be subtle poison.
Like adding some runework to syphon power from the Drowned God. Or to leave Qyburn behind to become Squid Pope and spend the next 10,000 years sabotaging everything.
Something that doesn't change who the Iron Born were, just what the results will be.
- Location
- France
[Immediately starts brainstorming ways to avert the Doom of Valyria]
Hey, hopefully we're before the creation of Valyria! We could stay in the past and switch the campaign goal to "help the Fifteen overthrow the Dragon Empire, this time without fucking up and creating the Fifteenth and the eventual Doom!".
Last edited:
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
But I have a feeling we will need to destroy the rune circle to complete the time loop, which will thereby allow the Deep Ones access to the past. They can't interfere with us too much or we never reach this point, but neither can we choose not to let them in, else we never exist and as you pointed out, the entire course of Planetosi history is rewritten.
- Location
- Germany
Pretty much. Which is why I'm thinking about how we can add a poison pill to the whole Drowned God shite to steal a bunch of power or go as far as granting us root access to the endeavour.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
How do you think we should go about doing that? Buff Lya to the maximum extent possible and turn her loose on the rune circle?