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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:
So fun aside, her intelligence is literally superhuman right now, at least compared to most humans. See if someone rolled three 6s on their character generation that is 18, add one more from the stat bonus at 4 and you only get 19. By contrast Ysilla with her items counts as three points higher, which on a ten year old is going to look really eerie.
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Mission accomplished! :cool:

Ysilla is 10 now? Her sheet still has her at 9. And Kyla is at 8. I think that's out of date as well?
 
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Interlude MCCXIV: Cast in Steel
  • Threadmarks
    • Cast in Steel ​

    Twenty-Fourth Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

    Dust hung heavy in the air, on the shelves the spines of old books gleamed with rune-script in a thousand tongues. The floor was covered in arcane lines such as snarled the patterns of magic into sharp edged discontinuities deadlier than blades to the average imperial mage. To the ones who made use of the chamber buried deep within the roots of the palace the perils were no greater than the scattered pieces of some engineer's assembly to be stepped over with absentminded skill.

    "Alright," Dany said, weary satisfaction in her words. "I think we have a solid foundation we can sink into the ground here..."

    "As opposed to one that floats on dreams, dream-spun clouds and wishes you mean?" Aenie asked with an air of familiar self-deprecation, though without the bitterness she had shown three months ago when they had sat down to actually map out the plan for the God of the Imperium. The hardest part of any research is not barreling ahead guided by vision and driven by ambition to change the world, it was figuring out what you were going to cut out to actually apply it to the lives of people and the use of the realm...

    "One should hardly blame the dreamwalker for dreaming," the princess replied politely. It was a point she had been making almost from the moment they realized that building in the Dreamlands would be fundamentally uneconomical. The spells simply did not scale, the skills required to lucid dream were easy to gain but hard to master and a master is what you would need to build any sort of collector for power from prayer on the other side of the veil.

    Then there had been the realization that while you could certainly build lines of imperial steel there and they would work wonderfully, better than weirwood roots in fact, they would also stand out like lines of white hot flame on a moonless night. There were far too many things that would seek out the warmth of that flame for themselves, not even counting any attack.

    They could not make a god where gods dwelt... fortunately they did not need to. Meraxes had called the attempt to redirect the ley lines of two continents ambitious, she had not called it impossible.

    The first sketch of the Imperial God, the vast reservoir of power that would lie at the heart of the realm, was starting to take shape. It's beating heart would be the palace here is Sorcerer's Deep, which would imprint upon it the domains they wished to to have. Its veins would be the ley lines redirected in a process of arcane engineering fit to match the works of the Freehold on a far vaster scale. Its nerves would be the roads traveled by millions embedded with imperial steel. In each city it would have eyes of silvered glass that were by millions beheld and ears of whispering sand, and all this would be reflected in the Dreamlands like the rising sun in still waters.

    "Alright," Lya said as she carefully sorted a handful of carefully faceted hexagonal crystals into her arcane pouch. "Let's see how well this works in practice."

    ***​

    The road started nowhere amid the meandering dunes of the Orange Shore and after three miles straight east to west it ended nowhere. The line of imperial steel at its core hidden from view, as at two ends of it stood the princess and the Imperatrix, hands outstretched and minds floating in a realm far distant. Once the signal was given Daenerys crushed the crystal in her hand, it was as fragile as a snowflake.

    Nothing changed about the stone underfoot or the muggy air of the still fading desert evening far from any human settlement, but in the same moment Dany heard in her mind. "I felt that, it worked, it carried the power!"

    Of course it was not quite that easy, they had to take out the line of steel and ensure it was not harmed or used up by the flash of quintessence gathered from the rituals of the Imperial Bureaucracy, they were after all trying to make a focus, not a reagent, and so it was. The major infrastructure could be kept safely on this side of the veil and any harm that might be done to the reflection in the Dreamlands would heal in time.

    There was a long way yet to go, but now at least they were not aiming right into the glare of the sun.

    Forging Paths Divine: 97 (Critical Success!)

    Results
    1. Basic Imperial Steel conductor developed
    2. God-Forging simplified, Dreamlands elements streamlined
    What next?

    [] Warlord Pattern Armor research

    [] Interlude as the first Quarter closes above the new-made Imperium
    -[] Write in

    OOC: Sorry this took so long, I had to beat all the needless complexity out of the project into something that feels reasonable under the new system both of realms actions and military realities.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • I always love the godcrafting research interludes

    And I think that we should start to stat out our line of Imperial Outsiders
     
    Awesome development! Gonna web up the world with that stuff!

    I wonder if we can use preexisting roads as a base, like powerlines following them in RL.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Cast in Steel ​

    Twenty-Fourth Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

    Dust hung heavy in the air and on the shelves the spines of old books gleamed with rune-script in a thousand tongues. The floor was covered in arcane lines such as snarled the patterns of magic into sharp edged discontinuities deadlier than blades to the average imperial mage. To those who made use of the chamber buried deep within the roots of the palace, the perils were no greater than the scattered pieces of some engineer's assembly to be stepped over with absentminded skill.

    "Alright," Dany said, weary satisfaction in her words. "I think we have a solid foundation we can sink into the ground here..."

    "As opposed to one that floats on dreams, dream-spun clouds, and wishes you mean?" Aenie asked with an air of familiar self-deprecation, though without the bitterness she had shown three months ago when they had sat down to actually map out the plan for the God of the Imperium. The hardest part of any research is not barreling ahead, guided by vision and driven by ambition to change the world. It was figuring out what you were going to cut out to actually apply it to the lives of people and the use of the realm...

    "One should hardly blame the dreamwalker for dreaming," the princess replied politely. It was a point she had been making almost from the moment they realized that building in the Dreamlands would be fundamentally uneconomical. The spells simply did not scale, the skills required to lucid dream were easy to gain but hard to master, and a master is what you would need to build any sort of collector for power from prayer on the other side of the veil.

    Then there had been the realization that while you could certainly build lines of imperial steel there, and that they would work wonderfully, better than weirwood roots, in fact, they would also stand out like lines of white hot flame on a moonless night. There were far too many things that would seek out the warmth of that flame for themselves, not even counting any attack.

    They could not make a god where gods dwelt... Fortunately, they did not need to. Meraxes had called the attempt to redirect the ley lines of two continents ambitious, she had not called it impossible.

    The first sketch of the Imperial God, the vast reservoir of power that would lie at the heart of the realm, was starting to take shape. It's beating heart would be the palace here in Sorcerer's Deep, which would imprint upon it the domains they wished it to have. Its veins would be the ley lines redirected in a process of arcane engineering fit to match the works of the Freehold on a far vaster scale. Its nerves would be the roads traveled by millions embedded with imperial steel. In each city it would have eyes of silvered glass that were by millions beheld, and ears of whispering sand. All of this would be reflected in the Dreamlands like the rising sun in still waters.

    "Alright," Lya said as she carefully sorted a handful of carefully faceted hexagonal crystals into her arcane pouch. "Let's see how well this works in practice."

    ***​

    The road started nowhere amid the meandering dunes of the Orange Shore, and after three miles straight east to west it ended nowhere. The line of imperial steel at its core hidden from view, as at two ends of it stood the princess and the Imperatrix, hands outstretched and minds floating in a realm far distant. Once the signal was given, Daenerys crushed the crystal in her hand, it was as fragile as a snowflake.

    Nothing changed about the stone underfoot or the muggy air of the still fading desert evening far from any human settlement, but in the same moment Dany heard in her mind. "I felt that. It worked, it carried the power!"

    Of course, it was not quite that easy. They had to take out the line of steel and ensure it was not harmed or used up by the flash of quintessence gathered from the rituals of the Imperial Bureaucracy, they were after all trying to make a focus, not a reagent, and so it was. The major infrastructure could be kept safely on this side of the veil and any harm that might be done to the reflection in the Dreamlands would heal in time.

    There was a long way yet to go, but now at least they were not aiming right into the glare of the sun.

    Forging Paths Divine: 97 (Critical Success!)

    Results
    1. Basic Imperial Steel conductor developed
    2. God-Forging simplified, Dreamlands elements streamlined
    What next?

    [] Warlord Pattern Armor research

    [] Interlude as the first Quarter closes above the new-made Imperium
    -[] Write in

    OOC: Sorry this took so long, I had to beat all the needless complexity out of the project into something that feels reasonable under the new system both of realms actions and military realities.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Made some additional edits to the chapter, DP.
     
    [X] Interlude as the first Quarter closes above the new-made Imperium
    -[X] Alinor
     
    Ouranous said:
    Wait we need to protect it at the palace?:???:
    i thought lazy snek Yss protected all of SD as the mega dream fortress wall.
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    Oh sure he is doing that now, but do you want Yss to be the lose guardian of your Imperial God? That is a bit of a political issue for lack of a better term. also given the enormous amount of power we are talking about he might not even be strong enough for the task.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Its veins would be the ley lines redirected in a process of arcane engineering fit to match the works of the Freehold on a far vaster scale. Its nerves would be the roads traveled by millions embedded with imperial steel. In each city it would have eyes of silvered glass that were by millions beheld and ears of whispering sand, and all this would be reflected in the Dreamlands like the rising sun in still waters.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Great update all around but this bit is my favorite.
     
    So... The Imperial God will have TV's for eyes.

    Note to self: Vehemently oppose any inquiries of Evangelists to proselytize over the mirrors.

    [X] Goldfish
     
    Takesis said:
    So... The Imperial God will have TV's for eyes.

    Note to self: Vehemently oppose any inquiries of Evangelists to proselytize over the mirrors.

    [X] Goldfish
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    It's pretty funny. It's literally what the Moonsinger Goddess was pulling in Braavos. Instead of taking their offer for her mirrors, we made our own mirrors and we're stealing her idea.
     
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