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

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DragonParadox said:
Extraction of Lore from Olethrodaemon
Tainted by High Order Destructive Energies External to the Standard Model of Existence​

By Wisdom Qyburn​

Experimental Log #12

Mental Schism exposed to text developing self-destructive patterns along familiar lines, calling up associations of my youth, my travels, and other inconsequential elements of my early life. Threat deemed minimal. Compromised alter-self attempting deception poorly.

Terminated.

[...]

Experimental Log #166

Newest tainted mind-shard then seeks to persuade of 'ultimate truths' wielding fallacious arguments I would have recognized as such years, nay decades ago. Again appeal to sentiment.

Terminated.

Hypothesis: The memetic contamination is reducing the schism to even more limited functionality than its initial expression, it is growing more primitive and thus making use of primitive means.

[...]

Experimental Log #1099

Fundamental imitation of Daemonic mind confirmed by cross-referencing pages Motivation, Nightmare and Aspiration. Recurring symbols decoded using three independently verified methods. Daemons are creatures of the Spheres and thus even when freed of its limitation by an external fount of lore, 'the Void', they address those they would tempt in terms that would appeal to mortal and once-mortal minds. It could not learn from the process of twisting each mind shard converted to its way of thinking and thus produced thousands of variants on a flawed strategy, addressing Qyburn-Who-Was not Qyburn-Who-Is. One should not assume the weakness is shared by all the Void's servants.

You pause before turning to the next page and the meat of the report. If anyone else in your service had to effectively kill a part of themselves over and over again, you would be at the very least apologizing for requiring it of them and probably mandate rest. With Qyburn, however, it is the price of doing business and he is unlikely to appreciate the meddling.

The daemon's plans are wide-ranging and mostly focused on polities close to the Far North, opening the way to the invasion to come, it does not seem to have focused on the Imperium at all:

The Five Forts: Attempt to drive the commander of one of the forts into despair through the use of an ancient Yi Tish scrying mirror that can see beyond the Frozen Sea into the Ice itself. He was shown an implacable, impossible to defeat foe with the plan of revealing a 'solution' in the form of a particular form of vampirism, that would in truth place him under the daemon's control. Names of the official as well as trusted family and friends chosen for elimination by the daemon included below.

The Faceless: The daemon was attempting to track down renegade Faceless to corrupt to its service and that of its masters. The only time it managed the feat, in Nefer two months previous, the assassin chose death over abandoning her loyalty. Precise dates and location included for investigators.

Mossovy: Cultists were dispatched to several important tribes with weapons and information which could aid against the Deep Ones. As the people of Mossovy are not maritime and many consider the Deep Ones a distant and unimportant threat, the efforts have met with limited success.

What if any actions do you take following the report?

[] Send word to Yin about the possible weakness at the Five Forts

[] Discretely send inquisitors to Nefer to see about the Faceless

[] Send a trading mission of your own to Mossovy

[] Write in

OOC: Plots broad strokes because there is no sense developing these threads too much unless you guys decide to pull. Right now all of these are background rolls and brief notes. Not yet edited.
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Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.
 
Damn, Qyburn, that's brutal. Good job, though.

So apparently this particular Daemon specialized in turning its victims emo?
 
[X] Send word to Yin about the possible weakness at the Five Forts
-[X] Interrogate the Mind Flayer that was captured in the Iron Islands time travel incident, check for any new intel, update the maps on Deep Ones bases, etc

I'd like to continue with necessary interrogations all in one go before we move on.
 
Fair enough.
[X] Duesal

Would leave us with reports on the Drow and one from Darleth, the experiments with Carnivorous Crystals, and the final Westeros-preparation reports to go through.
About 3-5 days at worst, before Ymeri? Citadel's @Azel's iirc.
 
I'm pleased about the excuse to contact the Five Forts. We can hopefully lead this into lore exchanges and convincing them to let us study their wards.
 
@Duesal, add throwing questions at the corpse of the Aboleth, while CL-buffed as far as possible for it to be harder to willsave and lie.
(@Goldfish, what's out best possible set-up for CL, again?)
Have it assumed that we'll repeat the questioning several times throughout the [stretch of time] until we're reasonably sure it didn't make the save.
 
[X] Send word to Yin about the possible weakness at the Five Forts, after your agents have managed to secure the mirror
-[X] Interrogate the Mind Flayer that was captured in the Iron Islands time travel incident as well as the corpse of the Aboleth Chronomancer, check for any new intel, update the maps on Deep Ones bases, get informed of any active or passive plots, etc

@Azel @egoo is this okay? I'll try to add actual questions later but I'm trying to get my puppy to eat his breakfast.
 
Duesal said:
but I'm trying to get my puppy to eat his breakfast.
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Depending on how long you have had the pup, picking the food literally in your hand, and giving him it bit by bit could work.
Something-something, deference to you as a pack-leader figure, something-something, the way some wild dogs/wolves regurgitate food for pups if nipped at lips.

Try keeping close contact, though not by eyes maybe, and gently petting throughout? Does good for pups to feel more safe/relaxed.
Doesn't solve the underlying trouble of him maybe not getting used to eating it as a normal everyday thing, but, well...

And yeah, this vote is fine.
 
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[X] Duesal
egoo said:
@Duesal, add throwing questions at the corpse of the Aboleth, while CL-buffed as far as possible for it to be harder to willsave and lie.
(@Goldfish, what's out best possible set-up for CL, again?)
Have it assumed that we'll repeat the questioning several times throughout the [stretch of time] until we're reasonably sure it didn't make the save.
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Spell Enhancer (+2) + Wild Arcana (+2) + Encouraging Harmonic Chorus & Moment of Greatness (+6) = +10 caster level for Viserys
 
Couple things to note. The Crucible is extremely intriguing and I am wondering the shit we could come up with using that. Also this daemon was ambitious and Mossovy probably would have been an army of cultists. We may need to send in some support to deal with that. As for the vote.

[X] Duesel
 
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[X] Send word to Yin about the possible weakness at the Five Forts, after your agents have managed to secure the mirror
-[X] Interrogate the Mind Flayer that was captured in the Iron Islands time travel incident as well as the corpse of the Aboleth Chronomancer, check for any new intel, update the maps on Deep Ones bases, get informed of any active or passive plots, etc
 
I'm kind of tempted to do a third update but then I am reminded that it's not the best idea by the fact I have to do it through the microphone on my desk. Still the fact that the temptation is there is I think a sign that I am definitely getting over whatever the hell this is with my hands. A week ago today I would be wondering if 9 PM is too early to go to bed to make the pain go away.

This has been your daily round-about medical good news. :V
 
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I still lack the exact wording for what y'all want out of researching the Crucible next month.

Also, is Asha gonna be involved in the Reconquest, or we can just saddle her together with Liomond somewhere she can train in the go?
If she is, the reverse is gonna happen, I reckon.
 
egoo said:
I still lack the exact wording for what y'all want out of researching the Crucible next month.

Also, is Asha gonna be involved in the Reconquest, or we can just saddle her together with Liomond somewhere she can train in the go?
If she is, the reverse is gonna happen, I reckon.
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Bug me again when I have spare brainpower for that.
 
DragonParadox said:
He was shown an implacable impossible to defeat foe with the plan of revealing a 'solution' in the form of a particular form of vampirism, that would in truth place him under the daemon's control.
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Hm.
So, uh, do we now technically have this template, then, @DragonParadox?

I can't say it's a particularly good one as vampires go, but a template's a template.
DragonParadox said:
She is the reigning Duchess of the Iron islands, recognized by its lords. Arguably her reconquest is done.
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@Artemis1992, you mind us sending her and Liomond together to Crucible-stuff, then?

Liomond's the only non-companion melee we have of sufficient power to reasonably be present among levels of Lya, Marwyn and Gith and provide meatshield-yness.
...Asha can probably get some minor tutoring off the present Gith, too.
 
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