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

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Diomedon said:
It's not sexism, if Rhaenyra won the dance, I'd expect her to exert control over her household as well.

And Malarys with our mother is a...mistake. A danger. It's literally step 2 in the plan to usurp our position, particularly if he can use magic to boost her fertility. Let's not tempt him by leaving the gate open, yeah?
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MalarysXMom is a great plan!
I want to see Daenerys (whose definition of "sane" and "normal" are already weird enough) cut loose for a wedding and try to impress someone from a high-magic society!
 
Cercei being caught in infidelity would strain the Robert-Lannister alliance. Jon Arryn would do his best to preserve it, but it would become even more strained than in canon when Cersei assassinated Robert. Furthermore, a lot of men who find out their wife hasn't been faithful start being suspicious if they hadn't been cheating earlier, perhaps making him wonder at the parentage of his children, even if he doesn't admit it out loud.

There are potential benefits. Maybe. Depending on the timing and exact circumstances.
 
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Interlude CXCV: The Queen Who Was
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    • The Queen Who Was​

    Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

    ... She remembered the pain and the darkness, as the world slipped away bit by bit the screaming and the cold, the fear that went beyond them all... and then the world slipped away, first the cold, then the pain, and at last even the darkness became something else... but the fear did not pass...

    Rhaella Targaryen, daughter of a king, sister and wife to another, felt soft earth beneath her. She shivered in the strange cold. Had it all been a dream? Where was she? It did not feel like the deck of a ship. With mounting dread she realized she could not hear her daughter. Panicked, her eyes snapped open to see only a cave ceiling pierced by bone-white roots. Without thought she started to rise to her feet. She moved easily... too easily. How long had it been?

    Just as her eyes began to adjust to the gloom of the cave she heard a voice at once familiar and strange. "Mother?" A moment's pause. "Do you recognize me?"

    The woman turned on the spot as swiftly as she ever had in her youth, not a single ache or pain. Was she dead? The thought sent a cold shiver down her spine. What she saw made the words catch in her throat. "Rh... Rhaegar?" He seemed younger than when last she had seen him, and garbed not in armor gilded with dragons but simple robes in the colors of fire, his cloak lost in the shadows, and in his hand not a sword but a staff of white. By his side stood a knight whose armor was etched with tongues of fire, and on the other an angel with wings of gold, hair like spun silver, and eyes of piercing amethyst.

    A part of her was glad that it was finally over, that she could rest, and she hated herself for it. There was no sorrow in the heavens, she remembered reading that line many times.

    "It's Viserys," he said softly, and just like that the fear, her greatest fear, fell away.

    Then the questions rushed back, each clamoring to be asked. "How...?" Rhaella's voice sounded strange to her own ears, stronger than it had been before.

    "I know I look different. It's been a long time." The words were hesitant as she had never heard him speak before, as though... as though he feared she would break, the way Rhaegar would speak to her sometimes, but as she looked upon his face she knew him for her younger son now grown into a man's years. How could she have slept so long?

    As he reached out to touch her she laced her fingers through his. It did not feel like a dream born of fever. It felt real, and Rhaella clung to that feeling with all her strength.

    "You're alive again." The words did not make sense at first, like they had been spoken in another language... then they hit her like a hammer. "Again...?" Some distant part of her wondered in a sort of mad fancy if she could only speak one word at a time now.

    "Hello, mother," the angel spoke in a voice like silver bells. "I'm Daenerys. I know I do not look much like when last you saw me, in more ways than one." A smile lit up her features, too sly for any angel surely. Now that she looked beyond the otherworldly beauty she could see parts of herself and of Aerys in the... child's face. Her child, whom she had only caught a glimpse of before...

    "Why are you like that?" Five words this time. The world spun around her, but she refused to let go, too faint to wake up. Even if this was a dream she could make it last a moment longer.

    "I know you have questions," Viserys said softly. "But believe that you are truly here and we are your children. Nothing will change that." There was a fierce certainty behind those words unlike anything Rhaella had ever heard. She let herself believe.

    "Farewell, your grace. May we met again in dreams, perhaps in flesh," spoke a voice that was a slow rattling whisper like death itself come to claim her.

    Instinctively Rhaella turned, hand still holding tight to her son. Seeing beyond the chasm and the thin bridge of stone the horror of ruined flesh that should be dead yet was not, the single staring eye, she screamed, the sound echoing through the chamber. But in the same instant she stepped fully between it and her children.

    "It's alright, mother. Lord Bloodraven isn't going to hurt you," Viserys spoke quickly, stepping forward. "He's the one who helped bring you back."

    Bloodraven... the name brought back the fears of her girlhood when her nanny would scare her with tales of the Arch Sorcerer and his dark ways. Even then she had not believed them all, for she had been a serious and sensible child, but here and now looking upon the single crimson eye that stared at her from amidst pale roots... weirwood roots she realized, she believed them all and more. What dreadful price had her children paid this ancient monster for such an impossible sorcery?

    As she watched in mute horror her daughter stepped into the chasm and with two beats of her wings she reached the tangled nest of roots and laid a small peck upon his withered cheek. "Farewell, uncle Brynden, and thank you for all your help. I will search for you in the Dream," she said fondly.

    "It does get easier, your grace," a familiar voice called... the knight, she recognized him now, Ser Richard Lonmouth, though looking older and more weathered than when last she had seen him at Rhaegar's side.

    OOC: There... This interlude has been rattling around inside my head for years. I'm going to need a vote for what you do next and what you explain to Rhaella as you do it.
     
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    • You know, Valaena is going to be useful in grounding and guiding Rhaella. She hasn't crossed the threshold into magic quite yet, but is working towards it. She's still a classically trained Westerosi girl, but has been working quite hard to adjust.

    As for right now...how we explain SD will be important. We don't want to portray ourselves as pirate king.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    As she watched in mute horror her daughter stepped into the chasm and with two beats of her wings she reached the tangled nest of roots and lay a small peck upon his withered cheek. "Farewell uncle Bryden and thank you for all your help, I will search for you in the Dream," she said fondly.

    "It does get easier your grace," a familiar voice called... the knight, she recognized him now, Ser Richard Lonmouth, though looking older and more weathered then when last she had seen him at Rhaegar's side.
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    Rhaella: Error 500 - Internal Mother Error
    Richard: "There, there. That feeling will pass. I suggest wine for the meantime. Lot's of wine."
    Rhaella: "Lot's of wine?"
    Richard: "Your children are... special..."
    Viserys: "Alright everyone. I will now conjure some horses to fly us to Castle Black. Two Childrens of the Forest per horse and Dany rides with the last of you. Don't worry mom. The horses look a bit weird, being made of smoke and all, but they are perfectly obedient. Probably cause they are not really horses."
    Rhaella: "... I see your point ..."
     
    We totally are a pirate king though. Not really much obfuscation of the fact, aside from our strict targeting of slavers.

    Which is really just a justification for finding acceptable targets to extract wealth from. Gotta raid someone, and it's either them or Lannister ships.

    But we also don't target merchants, for the most part. Bad for business. So there is that.

    Really, the most uncomfortable thing is the ratio of 'former' criminal scum that makes up our domain. It's getting better every month, but it'll be awhile before SD makes the transition from "former pirate den" to royal capital.

    That we've made most of our fortune off tomb raiding, or battle, is merely a balm on our second greatest source of wealth: mercantilism.

    Rhaella is just... going to be fun. I'm actually eager to make Richard's laconic reassurance at the end there true, and just inundate her with our world out of order until she just starts going with the flow.
     
    The priority now should be keeping everyone safe now.

    So I guess that a Spectral Steed Blitz towards the wall, and then plan teleport to carry everyone back as son as we can.
     
    I'd start with where we are (North of the Wall), who we are with (Introduce Richard and the children of the forest), and where we are going (Castle Black, and from there, to our new home, which segues into our narrative of how we might still be in exile, but have subdued and are civilizing the Stepstones, and are gathering more strength and allies).

    Crake said:
    We totally are a pirate king though. Not really much obfuscation of the fact, aside from our strict targeting of slavers.
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    We are, but we don't want to stress that aspect. Just hearing we're in the Stepstones will produce the response of "how far have my children fallen?"
     
    Honestly, I have more issues with the fact that the part of the OG that really dislikes him has a point. He is an oathbreaker, kinslayer, and committer of incest. The first is going to be an issue, since we're kinda duty bound to stick him back on the wall if he's ever not part weirwood root (further complicated because we're likely going to have to tell some Targ loyalists at Castle Black that, unfortunately, they have made oaths and must stay. If we later grant an exception to Bloodraven who pops back up, it's an issue. ). Hopefully he's considerate enough to wait until the wall is no longer needed, or slip away when we are not looking. Or arrange for someone to cast reincarnate on him and stab him.
     
    Diomedon said:
    Honestly, I have more issues with the fact that the part of the OG that really dislikes him has a point. He is an oathbreaker, kinslayer, and committer of incest. The first is going to be an issue, since we're kinda duty bound to stick him back on the wall if he's ever not part weirwood root (further complicated because we're likely going to have to tell some Targ loyalists at Castle Black that, unfortunately, they have made oaths and must stay. If we later grant an exception to Bloodraven who pops back up, it's an issue. ). Hopefully he's considerate enough to wait until the wall is no longer needed, or slip away when we are not looking. Or arrange for someone to cast reincarnate on him and stab him.
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    That's an issue way in the future, though. Possibly after the Long Night.
     
    Diomedon said:
    Honestly, I have more issues with the fact that the part of the OG that really dislikes him has a point. He is an oathbreaker, kinslayer, and committer of incest. The first is going to be an issue, since we're kinda duty bound to stick him back on the wall if he's ever not part weirwood root (further complicated because we're likely going to have to tell some Targ loyalists at Castle Black that, unfortunately, they have made oaths and must stay. If we later grant an exception to Bloodraven who pops back up, it's an issue. ). Hopefully he's considerate enough to wait until the wall is no longer needed, or slip away when we are not looking. Or arrange for someone to cast reincarnate on him and stab him.
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    Meh, he served for more than a human lifetime in defence of the Wall, even if only part of that time actually on the Wall and the rest here, further North.

    We could just make a new law that with the changing life-expectancy of some people and creatures the service for the Wall is now limited to a human lifetime, defined as 75 years.
    Not really a change, just an adaption to changing circumstances.
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    Meh, he served for more than a human lifetime in defence of the Wall, even if only part of that time actually on the Wall and the rest here, further North.

    We could just make a new law that with the changing life-expectancy of some people and creatures the service for the Wall is now limited to a human lifetime, defined as 75 years.
    Not really a change, just an adaption to changing circumstances.
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    You can't rewrite oaths. That'd work for new people going to the wall, but for people sworn under the old way it'd be tough luck, and just cause resentment. This is why you have to be careful about oaths, they are not modifiable.
     
    We just need to convince her we haven't sold our souls.

    On the plus side we can tell her we named out flag ship after her.:p
     
    Diomedon said:
    Honestly, I have more issues with the fact that the part of the OG that really dislikes him has a point. He is an oathbreaker, kinslayer, and committer of incest. The first is going to be an issue, since we're kinda duty bound to stick him back on the wall if he's ever not part weirwood root (further complicated because we're likely going to have to tell some Targ loyalists at Castle Black that, unfortunately, they have made oaths and must stay. If we later grant an exception to Bloodraven who pops back up, it's an issue. ). Hopefully he's considerate enough to wait until the wall is no longer needed, or slip away when we are not looking. Or arrange for someone to cast reincarnate on him and stab him.
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    He also broke guest right. The only Old Gods stricture he didn't break is the ban on slavery.

    That said Dany would help him break out now if he asked not only because of all the help he's given you but because he is family.
     
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