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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:
Of Two Minds ​

Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Tygett Lannister knew that the fight was hopeless the moment he heard the Voice. The weight of it had woken him from a sound sleep like the roar of a great fire, like the footsteps of doom reaching closer with each syllable, yet it mattered not at all. He rose smoothly from his bed and reached out for the sending talisman that would alert Captain Bryl and the Red Cloaks before methodically donning armor and weapons, untroubled by the darkness lit only by distant stars. Then there is Wisdom Taerius...

He pondered for a moment if he should allow the alchemist to make the call on when to set off the mines as he had asked to. The man seemed all too willing to kindle flames, literal as well as metaphorical, as long as the Dragon came to harm from it. "Might as well, it's not like he can make things worse." There was an edge of defeat to the softly spoken words that did not match the confident stride with which he left his chamber and walked out to meet his fate.

As went the lord, so went the House.

He watched in the scrying mirror as Viserys Targaryen descended from one of his sky ships like some heathen god from his gilded sky chariot. Even beneath the glaze of enchantment, the the diviner's eyes widened in terror at the sight. Poor boy, he was too young for this posting, but that was all that could be spared away from the Rock.

He listened as the High Septon, spineless bastard that he had always known he would be, made Aegon's Bargain all over again, except this time it would be less a bargain and more a foreign conqueror buying the Faith like a cheap whore in Fleabottom to use or discard as he chose. "So the bastard wants us all to believe he cares about Joffrey, after keeping him from his family for days..."

Although the old knight's eyes did not move nor his expression change, his voice was heavy with venom. If either the enchanted diviner or the two Red Cloaks standing by the door noticed, they did not comment upon it.

While Tygett could not see or hear the young Dragon, he could still deduce the thrust of his words from the High Septon's response, some assurance that the 'bastard' would not be harmed.

Was Joffrey a bastard? he wondered distantly. He looked every inch the Lannister, and neither hide nor hair like Robert. In the end it did not matter. He had been commanded by his elder brother and the head of House to treat the boy as king, and so a king he would be as long as he had breath in his body.

As went the lord so went the House.

"Get your men ready, captain. It is about to start," he said firmly. "I will personally lead the defense of the throne." Tygett looked at the young mage with something approaching pity. "Keep an eye on the attack. You will be needed at the Rock to give counsel about their methods."

It had in truth already started, though the first officer to lay eyes on the attackers had perished before he could send the arcane message.

As he swept from the room in the wake of his guards, the old knight ran his tongue over the new golden tooth, still tender. He would never have a chance to get used to it at this rate. Bite down while willing to it break and it would all be over. They said the poison was sweet on the tongue, though you barely had a chance to taste it. Better that than capture, of course. The thought of surrender never even crossed his mind.

It was quiet in the scrying chamber as the Lannister lord left. He could almost pretend the weeping of the young mage was nothing but the creak of unoiled hinges... Almost.

As went the lord so went the House.

OOC: Since I know this will likely be the first conclusion, I can confirm that this is not bog standard enchantment, which he sees and recognizes in the mage.
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Made some additional edits to the chapter, DP.
 
Azel said:
I've been thinking about the bread dole. What would that look like?

We probably serve not just pure grain bread, but something a bit... odd... maybe called King's Bread or soon Imperial Bread. The exact ingredients vary by region and availability, but the basic makeup would be:
- grain or rice flour as the base
- a good amount of ground legumes like lentils, chick peas, peas or beans
- some fat source, like butter, milk, nuts, oil seeds or olives
- some ground vegetables like kale, cabbage, raddish or similar
- fruits, fruit juice or preferably pomace of apples, pomegranates, citrus and similar
- vinegar, soda and other cheap seasonings to balance the taste a bit

It wouldn't taste great, but not really unpleasant or bland. Just pretty hearty with some hint of sourness that masks the more bitter ingredients. It would provide most of the necessary nutrition for a person though, preventing widespread malnutrition or outbreaks of sickness caused by it.

Lawful Neutral Nutraloaf if you will.
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I expect the bread dole to significantly vary regionally, actually. We don't (yet) have effectively insignificant transport costs for cheap bulk goods, after all.
For example the fat source could be a problem in some areas (butter is relatively expensive) but a non-issue in others (anywhere that olives grow, there are cheap low-grade ones for sale in stupid amounts). Same for the fruit, of course.

In any case, massively standardized meals across two continents runs into immediate issues, like:
  1. Locals will have different tastes
  2. Locals will have specific cooking skills (after all, ingredients will be new to them!), making hiring difficult if you're looking for enough bakers to feed half of Flea Bottom with olive bread
  3. In some cases, locals may be used to their food being a completely different shape/texture, and coming in completely different servings/times
Obviously the starving will take what they'll get, but there's really no reason to suffer all these problems when you can just embrace the regional supply chains and have major cities handle it locally.
 
To me it reads as if Tywin went full tilt and put a bloodline curse on his own family for them to slavishly obey their head of house.

Once we catch wind of that IC, we should ask the High Septon if Joffrey is acting weird. Like, trying to charge out of the sept and killing us with a dagger weird.
 
Yeah it was really the name that earned the ha-ha. Its a great idea and mini-mages will make a killing making it taste good, expanding low level monetary velocity even further so I'm not seeing an issue here.
 
Azel said:
To me it reads as if Tywin went full tilt and put a bloodline curse on his own family for them to slavishly obey their head of house.

Once we catch wind of that IC, we should ask the High Septon if Joffrey is acting weird. Like, trying to charge out of the sept and killing us with a dagger weird.
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Man, how cartoonishly evil.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I expect the bread dole to significantly vary regionally, actually. We don't (yet) have effectively insignificant transport costs for cheap bulk goods, after all.
For example the fat source could be a problem in some areas (butter is relatively expensive) but a non-issue in others (anywhere that olives grow, there are cheap low-grade ones for sale in stupid amounts). Same for the fruit, of course.

In any case, massively standardized meals across two continents runs into immediate issues, like:
  1. Locals will have different tastes
  2. Locals will have specific cooking skills (after all, ingredients will be new to them!), making hiring difficult if you're looking for enough bakers to feed half of Flea Bottom with olive bread
  3. In some cases, locals may be used to their food being a completely different shape/texture, and coming in completely different servings/times
Obviously the starving will take what they'll get, but there's really no reason to suffer all these problems when you can just embrace the regional supply chains and have major cities handle it locally.
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That's why I said that the recipe would vary greatly by region. This is just the general outline of what is supposed to go in there. For example, in Tyrosh, where you have a large alcohol industry, fruit pulp is dirt cheap, so you would have more of that in the Imperial Bread. Volantis might use more chick pea flour than grain flour. Braavos likely has some low cost fermented fish as a seasoning and fat supply ingredient.

They would still be recognizable as variants on the same concept though. Last but not least because texture and appearance will likely be relative same-ish, while taste might vary far more.
 
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My bet on the mind magic is that it's not an obvious "obey my every order" command. That would be noticeable. It seems to convince the victims that their interests are the same as those of the head of house, which is a much subtler way of getting them to do what you want.
 
@Azel @DragonParadox

Okay, yeah, so I just reread that update.

Tygett by no means would think something like that, and from the presentation of the text and the weight assigned to the refrain being intentionally 'ominous', a bloodline curse enchantment is looking more and more likely.

This presented from the PoV of a character who desired nothing more than to get out of Tywin's shadow and was always bitterly angry and resentful from the whole 'towing the party line' and, to directly quote canon, "being his own man".

As far as narrative beats go, losing all agency and free will to Tywin would literally be Tygett's living nightmare. He was already consumed by his brother's shadow, this is just the kind of ironic / poetic end fate would have in store.
 
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Crake said:
@Ael @DragonParadox

Okay, yeah, so I just reread that update.

Tygett by no means would think something like that, and from the presentation of the text and the weight assigned to the refrain being intentionally 'ominous', a bloodline curse enchantment is looking more and more likely.

This presented from the PoV of a character who desired nothing more than to get out of Tywin's shadow and was always bitterly angry and resentful from the whole 'towing the party line' and, to directly quote canon, "being his own man".

As far as narrative beats go, losing all agency and free will to Tywin would literally be Tygett's living nightmare. He was already consumed by his brother's shadow, this is just the kind of ironic / poetic end fate would have in store.
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Let's make this better, and have us interrogate Tygett to get all the dirt on Tywin, and then propose to ress him and serve us faithfully. No better way to get out of the lion shadow than taking refuge under the dragon wings.
 
Crake said:
@Ael @DragonParadox

Okay, yeah, so I just reread that update.

Tygett by no means would think something like that, and from the presentation of the text and the weight assigned to the refrain being intentionally 'ominous', a bloodline curse enchantment is looking more and more likely.

This presented from the PoV of a character who desired nothing more than to get out of Tywin's shadow and was always bitterly angry and resentful from the whole 'towing the party line' and, to directly quote canon, "being his own man".

As far as narrative beats go, losing all agency and free will to Tywin would literally be Tygett's living nightmare. He was already consumed by his brother's shadow, this is just the kind of ironic / poetic end fate would have in store.
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Worst part is that I'm pretty sure the point of this curse would have been to bypass Lanna's protections, with most of the family being collateral damage.

Well no, the actual worst part is that chances are exactly one member of the family managed to fend it off or otherwise bypass it, and that was Cersei, who quite possibly did it by being stupid enough to just tell herself that her antics were for the greater good of House Lannister.
 
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Azel said:
He is forcing others to work for him in perpetuity against their will, in so far as they even still have their own will.. I'm pretty sure even Viserys has not enough Bluff to convince someone that this isn't slavery.
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Even if he did I don't think he would want to try. This is certainly one of the more fucked up things I have read this month.

Edit: I wonder though...doe it not work on close family? Because Cersei was unaffected...I think
 
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If Viserys is always covered by a mind blank, how does he appear on TV? Or whatever the network of scrying mirrors is called. Are only people in his presence able to see and hear him?
 
Cheiromancer said:
If Viserys is always covered by a mind blank, how does he appear on TV? Or whatever the network of scrying mirrors is called. Are only people in his presence able to see and hear him?
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That's a fascinating question and I'd say we sidestep this plothole by saying that you are scrying only the mirror, not the actual things around it.

It kinda makes sense, since you can't move the view like a Scrying Sensor could and neither can you use any extravagant senses or Detect spells through it. Just whatever the mirror genuinely reflects.
 
Cheiromancer said:
If Viserys is always covered by a mind blank, how does he appear on TV? Or whatever the network of scrying mirrors is called. Are only people in his presence able to see and hear him?
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Those aren't divination magicks. They're illusion subschooled.

So it is only reflecting an image of what's in front of another receiver, and any extraneous details are just copies, whereas Divination is reflecting what information actually is there.
 
Cheiromancer said:
If Viserys is always covered by a mind blank, how does he appear on TV? Or whatever the network of scrying mirrors is called. Are only people in his presence able to see and hear him?
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Because the spell built into the Mirrors is transmitting the actual reflection of Viserys rather than acquiring his image through magic.
 
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