[X] Plan dpara
-[X] Sand Snake
-[X] Feat: Inscribe Magic Tattoo
-[X] Skills: +1 Sense Motive, Bluff, Diplomacy; + 5 Craft (Tattoos)
-[X] Panacea, Dispel Magic, Close Wounds

@TotallyNotEvil
Tyene doesn't have the prerequisites for Ocular Spell and PF-reach still isn't allowed.
Maybe just Silent Spell or Still Spell to improve her sneaky skills a bit?
It's just knowledge dungeoneering that is required, so if TNE edits his plan it should be ok.
 
[X] Artemis1992

Where is everyone?



So pull a Daenarys Breaker of Chains but with MORE DRAGON?

So, belatedly, here's my thoughts on this comparison and on a potential Three Daughters Campaign. Which apparently turned into an essay, sorry.

1. If we intervene in Essos, the question of slavery is unavoidable.

Viserys has certain moral foundations, breaking which tilts him into Evil (which I think the quest decisively does not want), and opposition to slavery is the biggest of them. Unlike canon's Viserys and Dany, quest!Viserys didn't spend time wandering around the various Free Cities - he was raised in Westeros and Braavos exclusively. Also the Old Gods - slavery, it has been noted, is the only one of their taboos Bloodraven never broke. Not to mention the example being set for quest!Daenerys, etc..

Even if the questers didn't care about abolishing slavery (and some don't), there's the reputational matter of having already banned slavery in Sorcerer's Deep and (more importantly) Mantarys, from raiding slaver ships, from being Braavos-raised. Viserys doesn't like slavers, but moreover, slavers don't like Viserys.

The point is - slavery will come up as a subject of conflict, even if we intervene in the power struggles without outright conquering anything, but especially if we do. This isn't a bad thing. We would have a hard time holding a Free City under normal conditions, at least if we wanted to be more than a figurehead. IIRC all nine of them are republics of some sort right now. Holding multiple Free Cities, something that has been achieved twice in the past four centuries and collapsed within a generation both times?

So we're going to have a lot of enemies, from within and without, if we do conquer anything in Essos. We'd need a base of support, and slaves make up 75% of the population of these cities. And making it an ideological struggle also gives us justification for war.

Of course, it also gives our opponents justification.

2. Why Canon!Daenerys failed in Slaver's Bay

Okay, there's a long list. But above all, she failed to hold either Astapor or Yunkai. Daenerys in aDwD does not fail because of restructuring the cities' economy or anything like that. At book's end, Meereen is held by Barristan Selmy and allies, loyal to his queen despite canon!Dany being who knows how far away in the Dothraki sea. The problem is that the city is under siege by a coalition of every other city in the area, with Yunkai at the coalition's center.

Then we have other issues. Daenerys is still thinking of her people as a khalasar. This is part of why she doesn't hold Astapor or Yunkai, but also it means that she does not plan to hold Meereen forever. She's going to leave to invade Westeros, and the nobles of Meereen know this, and are just waiting for everything to go back to normal once she does. Related are the failures in social change - chaos in Astapor, compromise in Meereen, and complete failure to affect any change at all in Yunkai. Note that going full Lenin would necessarily have been any more likely to succeed, since it would have alienated the other cities even more and been more likely to lead to chaos within Meereen.

And, of course, the dragons aren't enough. They weren't entirely enough even before being chained, because they are not really under Daenerys's control. But once they're chained, she simply does not have enough of an apparent force advantage to keep her grip on the city.

Daenerys in Slaver's Bay also had some advantages we do not. In particular, she was dealing with a smaller and more isolated population.

3. Population figures

Here is an analysis of the population of the Free Cities. I think the figures should be about 25% higher, personally, because KL is stated as being noticeably smaller than all the Free Cities - maybe Lorath gets excluded from this, but the Three Daughters shouldn't. Then we have urban populations:

1 500 000 - Volantis (83% enslaved), 7-8M with towns+rural

1 000 000 - Braavos, 4-5M with towns+rural

650 000 - Pentos, 2-3M with towns+rural

500 000 - Tyrosh=Myr=Lys (75% enslaved), 1.5-2M each with towns+rural

450 000 - Volon Therys=Valysar=Selhorys (83% enslaved), subservient to Volantis [these I think should be below the Three Daughters]

Okay. After a brief look at what the Internet thinks about Slaver's Bay, pre-war urban population is probably around:

250 000 - Meereen

150 000 - Yunkai

100 000 - Astapor

Mantarys, Tolos, Elyria, and New Ghis are all, IIRC, smaller than Astapor.

For the most part, Slaver's Bay is likely as urbanized as the Free Cities, if not more. Looking at the map, the cities are isolated from their obvious hinterland by mountains. The exception is New Ghis, the "smallest but most dynamic" of the cities of Slaver's Bay. It also apparently has 10 legions of 6000 free men, which is just so large an army that I'm hard-pressed to reconcile it with the rest of the Slaver's Bay numbers. For the sake of consistency we'll say 6000 is the nominal size, and the actual strength of the legions is more like 2000 men each.

We thus get total populations around:

2M - New Ghis (smallest city, largest polity)

900K - Meereen

500K - Yunkai

400K - Astapor

300K - Mantarys=Tolos=Elyria

For comparison, Westeros estimates have some consistency in order of magnitude because of an abundance of sources. Something like:

12M - Reach (Oldtown 350K)

5M - Westerlands (Lannisport 200K)

4M - North=Riverlands=Vale (Gulltown 70K, White Harbor 50K)

3M - Stormlands

2.5M - Dorne

1.5M - Crownlands (King's Landing 400K, later swells to half a million due to refugees)

1M - Iron Islands

4. Westeros-First vs. Essos-First

The total population of Westeros, then, is in the same ballpark as that of the Free Cities, and by all accounts should be larger (though food import makes this not entirely obvious). Nonetheless, thanks to Aegon I, while the Free Cities have been nine independent states since the Doom, Westeros has been united under a single monarch for 300 years. And Viserys happens to have an excellent claim to that crown.

With that in mind, one might question why we're not content with Westeros, or at least with retaking Westeros before we think of conquering anything else. I'm honestly undecided on this point. I know I disagree with Azel's megalomania regarding Yi Ti. But the southern Free Cities are a region we can actually hold, and if we can establish peace we can use it as a base for our war in Westeros. And there's reclaiming Valyria - whatever form that may take - to consider.

Regardless, I really don't get the preference for murderhoboing as a campaign style. In character, Viserys will reconquer Westeros or die trying (possibly both, given that death has gotten a lot cheaper recently).

But if we do wage a war of abolition, the Three Daughters (Tyrosh, Myr, and Lys) are the natural target. They're the closest to us, for one. For another, they're close enough to each other that we can manage all three. And we will need to.

5. Avoiding Canon!Daenerys's mistakes (and copying her successes)

Daenerys's situation in Meereen, at the end of aSoS, was nowhere near as precarious as ours would be if we went and conquered just Tyrosh. Myr and Lys would, for one, instantly unite against us. Naval defense is all well and good... but you need to get food from somewhere, and for Tyrosh that's its not-as-disputed corner of the Disputed Lands. (Okay, magic can solve a lot of that, but I don't believe we actually have the ability to feed 500 thousand people.)

With all three cities under our control, we still have potential enemies to all sides, but they're relatively far away, giving us time to try and reestablish order. Moreover, we have potential allies. To the other side of Volantis is Mantarys under the archons (and in Volantis is Benerro). To the other side of Pentos is Braavos, which nominally still holds some amount of overlordship over it. As to Westeros, we'll have to try and do our best to delay the situation, especially since Westeros has their own reasons for war and will not want to join a slaver alliance... but if worst comes to worst, Robert Baratheon will have to launch a naval invasion, unlike any potential enemies in Essos.

Hopefully he dies before then.

Unlike canon!Daenerys, we are not so far from Westeros as to be unable to hold the three cities in question from the Iron Throne. Also unlike canon!Daenerys, we have magic. In particular we have Teleport, which allows us to be in all three cities on the same day. How to handle restructuring society is a thorny question; the good news is that utility magic can help with that as well.

That said, canon!Daenerys did win victories in Slaver's Bay that we should really not understate. One of her major advantages was shock. No one saw her as a threat, the dragons being only a future resource, and then suddenly Astapor had been sacked by its own Unsullied. At this point, the Free Cities do not see us as a threat; we want to maintain this illusion for as long as we can. Ideally, up until the people seeing us as a threat are no longer much of a threat to us.

6. So....

I've talked a lot about the implications of conquering the Three Daughters. So how, you ask, might we actually do it?

Well, honestly, part of it is that we don't know the situation enough to be sure. We've been to Tyrosh and Lys what - once each? We're nowhere near as familiar with their political landscapes as we are with those of Volantis and Braavos.

But here's something like how I would expect us to go about the matter.

* Start by waiting. Gather intelligence, send Azema and Glyra to cause chaos, plan the revolutions. Go to Bloodraven and get Rhaella Targaryen and Elia Martell resurrected. Build up Sorcerer's Deep. Et cetera.

* At a point when the Three Daughters are sufficiently unstable, have one half of the present party incite a slave rebellion in Lys while the other secures the palace-equivalent.

* The next day, before news can travel, do the same in Tyrosh (having prepared a sub-party there to do it). The day after that, in Myr.

* Frantically scramble to restore order in all three cities.

* Reach agreements with Braavos and with Mantarys. Try to do the same with Pentos.

* It's very possible Volantis will seek to march against us, but it will take them a long time to mobilize. But keep in contact with Benerro - if there is slave unrest, show up and help (and teleport back once enough party members are in; we have other people who can fight, but we'll probably remain needed to prevent chaos). Even if we don't actually control Volantis afterwards, having an ally instead of an enemy at our backs when we go to Westeros is a huge deal.

Easy? No. Doable? Maybe. The emphasis, I feel, needs to be on taking the cities 'from within', as opposed to a siege or assault. And that means acting faster than the speed of ship.
 
There are few good tattoes and Tyene doesn't have the feats or spells for most of them.
What would you want her to make with this?

[X] Plan TNE legal
-[X] Sand Snake
-[X] Ocular Spell
-[X] Skills: +1 Sense Motive, Bluff, Diplomacy, Concentration, +4 Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
-[X] Panacea, Dispel Magic, Close Wounds



@TotallyNotEvil @Takesis @Azel @Duesal @Helo89 @das_slash

There, now with the skills to actually take Ocular Spell.
 
Part MCIII: Glided Malice
Glided Malice

Twelfth Day of the Fourth Month 292 AC

Volantis does not take well to those who step from their assigned places, from slave to the great lords, and one of the most abiding taboos of the city at the mouth the Rhyone, enshrined during the conflict with Braavos is that nobles do not dirty their hands with trade. Great houses have fallen over insufficient discretion in handling such dealings, so to have one of the blood of the Forty Families of old Valyria itself is a spectacle the likes of which will keep tongues wagging for decades at your expense... You are forced to grit your teeth and endure dozens ... scores of petty slights, couched in flowery language from those who wish to take the opportunity to increase their own standing.

Of course you do get your own back from the more foolish, who overplay their hand to the point where you can demand and apology or a duel. Oddly enough no one is quite foolish enough to take the second option when faced with the looming threat of magic. Seeing them abase themselves will have to do.

The spectacle surrounding the auction does have its bright side however in drawing even those who might not otherwise have been interested in acquiring Valyrian relics. As the night goes on the sound of increasingly frenzied bids between the nobles trying to outshine each other do much to soothe your wounded pride.

Lost Treasures of the East

Lost 1 Valyrian Sword, 2 Valyrian daggers

Gained 14541 Gold


By far the most interesting guests in the sea of fools are the representatives of the Faith of R'hllor and the Mysterium. The first is an young man of Summer Island stock dressed in the same stark simplicity as Benerro who affords you all due courtesy, making a point to speak with you or Tyene throughout much of the evening. Though he keeps the discussion light and fitting to a public setting it is a challenge none of the assembled aristocrats can answer in any way. If someone told you you would be cheering for the Red Priests a year ago you wouldhave thought them mad.

Though he arrives late Zherys's messenger makes an even greater impression on even the most inebriated guests: wearing robes of heavy gold cloth that must cost more than the worth of some minor houses the figure moves with a stately gait amidst the crowds, heat radiating off it as if from a furnace. The envoys face is set in a remote expression and his lips rarely utter two words where one would suffice... but it is the eyes that set him apart: pools of swirling ruddy-golden light like molten metal. As soon as you meet them you guess his nature. You had met those eyes before In dream and vision. Zherys has made good his bargain with the fire spirit.

Do you approach the strange envoy?

[] Yes
-[] Write in motivation (optional)

[] No


OOC: You guys rolled very well for money... and very badly for noble reaction. Level up vote is still open
 
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@VNodosaurus, I agree with most of your analysis, but taking Dany as example may or may not work. What we need the most is indeed intelligence on our targets. From there on we can tailor the plans to take and hold those cities.

I know I disagree with Azel's megalomania regarding Yi Ti.
Yi Ti comes after the Dothraki Sea, which comes after Slavers Bay, which comes after Westeros.
We need proper core holdings before rolling east.
 
Of course you do get your own back from the more foolish, who overplay their hand to the point where you can demand and apology or a duel. Oddly enough no one is quite foolish enough to take the second option when faced with the looming threat of magic. Seeing them abase themselves will have to do.
Turns out that for all the heckling and sneering, deep down they know that we are above them or they wouldn't consider this so funny. Or would have tried a duel.

Lost Treasures of the East

Lost 1 Valyrian Sword, 2 Valyrian daggers

Gained 14541 Gold
Yeesss... my precious....

And it seems Benerro likes or values us enough to attach himself to our business. Good to know.
The reds have a lot of influence among the slaves, so they are a very useful contact to have when we move against the daughters.
 
[X] Azel
Well damn, next time we are dressing as a clown as selling things in song.
Also, if things go well with the envoy, the stage is set for a coup, its clear where the real powers of the city stand now.
 
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Viserys, Dany, Waymar, Xor, Alinor?

Tossing Waymar in there since a alchemist can also profit from clean notes and a secretary.
Alright, 6 dragonpens then? I want Teana to have one too. They only cost 200 Gold and they're useful as hell.

I'd even prioritize this above raising the Gorgon from the dead for Vee to train if it's something that costs us an action.
 
Alright, 6 dragonpens then? I want Teana to have one too. They only cost 200 Gold and they're useful as hell.

I'd even prioritize this above raising the Gorgon from the dead for Vee to train if it's something that costs us an action.
Ah yes, forgot Teana. I think 1200 IM should be manageable after this success.
And it should be free to do this. Aebys offered it out of turn and we basically just give him a pile of gold and tell him to eat up.
 
Viserys, Dany, Waymar, Xor, Alinor?

Tossing Waymar in there since a alchemist can also profit from clean notes and a secretary.
You get a Pen dragon, You get a Pen dragon, EVERYBODY GETS A PEN DRAGON!

Seriously though what spellcaster, aristocrat, archivist or random pencil pusher could not use a calligraphy wyrm . That things the ultimate paperwork reducer!
 
@DragonParadox, two things:

1. I can already tell that the bandwagon is going to be Azel (it's too early in the morning for many of us to argue, and there's nothing wrong with his vote in the first place), so here is the levelup for Tyene that's most likely going to win:
[] Plan TNE legal
-[] Sand Snake
-[] Ocular Spell
-[] Skills: +1 Sense Motive, Bluff, Diplomacy, Concentration, +4 Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
-[] Panacea, Dispel Magic, Close Wounds
If Tyene needs an interlude you can probably get started early on that. At this point I highly doubt the vote for her levelup will have any changes.

2. Can we go home and give Aebys the dragonpen a bunch of gold and let him make more dragonpens this turn? We did vote to ask him to wait so we had a chance to evaluate our treasure, and now our coffers are more full than they've ever been. :D
 
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