A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
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- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
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- Germany
Looks all Rhoynar to the average Westerosi.
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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- The interblag
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- She/Her
I was editing that bit in. To an Essosi I'd think she'd look Rhoynar-ish, but to Westerosi the example of "Rhoynar-ish" is Dorne. So I wouldn't be surprised if some Westerosi mistook her for Dornish, particularly once our alliance with Dorne becomes clear.
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- Brazil
Yeah, kind of my point.
And my logic for the first suggestion.
And can still cast Death Ward and/or wear a nice ring!
Not to mention a lot of gribblies rely on grappling.
Hey now, that's not fair at all. I periodically nerf my own classes, often with just a side mention. Warden got a massive nerf in the initial design and then subsequent rework of domains, from "stronk" to "thematical". Twilight Hunter lost some stuff. Hero got an at will ability taken down to 2/day. Sand Snake got a massive whip nerf and even the sun/illusion aspect had the "need to be level 5 or higher to use both" added. And so on and so forth.
This ain't personal. I consider you a friend man. I'm just legit asking here.
Someone tagged me asking "hey TNE, is this how it works?"
So, to answer for sure, I went to read it. Here's the full text:
It mentions no cost. So of course, I go and tag Azel and ask about it.
The only faint connection is a throwaway "based on his works with Arcanums". Which sounded like fluff, not "here's how the mechanics for this work".
If I had to say a downside, I'd say vulnerable to all the unusually potent anti-dragon spells. Yeah, not a tremendous weakness, but we are talking fundamentally different paradigms here.
He doesn't get nearly full power of the form he takes, I ran the numbers, and Shapechange more or less blows it out of the water for pure, traditional TT combat.
He is a massively roided out sorcerer, but fundamentally, that's it. Different, much improved chassis, but same engine.
For me asking about a possible disadvantage: as written, there's little to not reason Lya couldn't Von Neuman herself. That's a radically different level than mere super steroids.
Yeah, waaaay back then, I myself asked for the cost for Arcanums to be slashed. Didn't think it'd be the same for the bodies themselves. And in hindsight, I loathed losing any XP. We were sort of super low level.
Now for slightly more than the cost of a single wish she can make 6 full power clones of herself.
It struck me that she could very quickly craft her way into being unbeatable here, and there seemed to be no built-in mechanic to prevent that.
So asking "am I missing something" seemed quite reasinable at the time. Obviously, it wasn't.
I sought the approval of a majority in-thread, as I wanted to poke at someone else's stuff.
That people weren't terribly interested in that meant it got dragged on, true. To be fair, no one quite had a decent proposal.
I'm quite satisfied to how it turned out. We essentially felt nothing change IC, still massively powerful, but at least she won't now go "oh, I suppose I should stop sandbagging" after the whole party is beaten, become a Shadesteel golem or something and win.
Heh
There's a reason we don't sport Shivering Touch and Polymorph. I try to keep it sane.
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- being near locations is my passion.
I thought the go-to name was "grumpkin," (of various sizes, well defined as small, big and bigger) with occasional use of "snark" for the trulymighty ones, as demonstrated by the good* warrior, Bronn
*skilled
Edit: Here's a thing: the Vrooks caller/binder/medium term victim used a polymorph effect to become a rat and hide in a bag.
What about a version that is super-limited, like limited to animal shapes or a strong HD cap and a very strict list of what someone can become?
I'd be happier to use an imbued polymorph to starfish waymar than to use what is conceptually a curse to do the job tbh.
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- Location
- Australia
That's just a Monster in the Manual sense not a Monster from our perspective.
Xor is a gribbly but he's not "a thing in the dark".
Damphair was not a gribbly but he was "a thing in the dark".
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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- The interblag
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- She/Her
Something we need to remember for the turn vote is to check in on how raiding has been for Asha personally. She joined up just as it was starting to dry up, and when our personal raiders were competing with Saan's. I think she got to participate in the exciting attack on the Lannister fleet, but it'd be good to keep an eye on her progress.
I'm hoping to have her in command of a ship by the time we hit Tyrosh.
I'm hoping to have her in command of a ship by the time we hit Tyrosh.
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- being near locations is my passion.
Huh - I do very much see where you are coming from with that, but for me it's the other way about - gribble to me is evil/foe/monster-to-be-stopped like Damphair*
*Stupid, stupid name. Damp-hair. Fml.
Interlude in beta. It's from Raella's PoV as some of you guys asked to hear from her soon.
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- being near locations is my passion.
And to thank her for warning her sterward guy - she may not be believed, but she has tried to protect her home, her kin from the horrors that come for them. And to fix her impression that we care to allow people to die just becasus of who their lord might be
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- Brazil
So you are saying the final solution is to send them to camps?
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And to thank her for warning her sterward guy - she may not be believed, but she has tried to protect her home, her kin from the horrors that come for them. And to fix her impression that we care to allow people to die just becasus of who their lord might be
It'd be amusing that when we get around to checking in with her, we ask her for a favor now that we've had more time to earn her trust, and it's to inform Rodrick of the dangers of the Deep Ones and the ill intention of the "Drowned God" for his human followers. Her reaction to that would be amusing.
To expand a little on this. Dany's view of what is and is not a monster grew out of what was effectively a child told the monsters under the bed are sometimes real and they are trying to kill her brother. And so Dany being a brave little girl, with the blood of red dragons in her veins, decided she was going to kill the monsters under the bed. Because of those childlike beginnings the distinction is very stark: there are the people inside the circle of firelight, whom you may or may not agree with, and then there are things in the dark with which you do not reason, only kill however you can.
In a practical sense, you are either in society (or at least not inimical to it) or you are a monster. It has nothing to do with how something looks.
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- Chile
The more of those interludes the merrier we'll be DP, the whole thread is in agreement. I think part of that is because as someone who did not live the return of magic, and someone who's actually our mother, Rhaella has all the hallmarks for a nice 'whoa' expirience, something we've been a bit starved of in recent months (
Remember the whole "people fear us but dont respect us/we are not appreciated by anyone" salt explosion?) Though we've been getting away from that after you heard our grumblings, showing npc's differently, and making at least the citizenry of SD more aware of our plight, I still feel we as a thread love to tell of our struggles and victories to someone who can properly react to them.
Edit: this is only one reason though, there are many others too. I for one am loving her character.
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- Brazil
So, genocidal but not racist.
Sounds reasonable. And ironically politically correct.
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- being near locations is my passion.
Be a good way to get around the OOC info problem:
"I've been thinking, you've neen here long enough that it is plausable to have reached here on your own, I was wondering if you would mind sending a letter back to your kin warning them in some way about the dangers that their God represents? If you like, I can add in my own bit after yours with a technical explination, as I both best understand it and as I believe it will be understood. Some knowledge is very dangrous, but I will not lie or attempt to deceive"
Also, have VS axe. You're -kind of - from Westeros, right? Westerosi love VS, forged in dragonfire, fiend's blood and the blood of countless slaves as it is. How wholesome!
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Be a good way to get around the OOC info problem:
"I've been thinking, you've neen here long enough that it is plausable to have reached here on your own, I was wondering if you would mind sending a letter back to your kin warning them in some way about the dangers that their God represents? If you like, I can add in my own bit after yours with a technical explination, as I both best understand it and as I believe it will be understood. Some knowledge is very dangrous, but I will not lie or attempt to deceive"
Also, have VS axe. You're -kind of - from Westeros, right? Westerosi love VS, forged in dragonfire, fiend's blood and the blood of countless slaves as it is. How wholesome!
Well, when we read the interlude where she sent a letter, we basically went "we should have had her done that!" It's completely IC for Viserys, but it's also IC for Viserys to wait a bit for her to settle in. He's also been so busy that he likely only has a vague notion of how "settled in" she is, and so is just getting around to it. Like, I'm 90% we would have at least talked about having her do something similar once it was clear she was starting to trust and respect us.
As for the axe, I think we've been waiting to give it to her when she earns her captaincy, which is part of why I want to know how far along she is on that.
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- Mexico
[X] Snowfire
The Shaggy dog is on fire!
No, not like that.. in a good way.
I do think we are avoiding the topic of the old gods too much, she just Saw bloodraven,we might want to tell her that the Steven are dicks and the old gods always honor their deals now, while the "they just brought me back to Life" is fresh. What are a few squid brochettes compared to that?
The Shaggy dog is on fire!
No, not like that.. in a good way.
I do think we are avoiding the topic of the old gods too much, she just Saw bloodraven,we might want to tell her that the Steven are dicks and the old gods always honor their deals now, while the "they just brought me back to Life" is fresh. What are a few squid brochettes compared to that?
Interlude CXCVI: Upon a Northern Wind
Upon a Northern Wind
Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC
The cold northern air whipped by, whistling louder than in any gallop Rhaella had ever dared to drive a horse to. Yet the saddle beneath her moved with impossible smoothness as though the spirit, for she could not call that thing a horse whatever its shape, did not even need to touch the ground. Indeed according to Viserys, who had conjured the thing, it could even ride in the air as well just as between the ancient trees of the Haunted Forest. A name upon a map it had been once, only remembered because it sounded interesting to the girl she had been, and now here she was, in the land of great beasts such as had not stalked the Seven Kingdoms in and age and... she shivered, but not from cold... other things.
This morning she had felt like she awoke into a tale, one in which her son.... her children played the heroes will, she nil she. Guilt had grown almost as common a companion as wonder and fear since her return. Daenerys was her daughter, she knew that, but to see what had been once a small screaming bundle as a child of eight with a mind as sharp as a razor's edge and the mannerisms of a knight ready for battle was almost more than she could bear. They were kind, of course, her children and their knight protector. Even the Children of the Forest who could not speak the tongues of man without sorcery were being kind, yet it felt as the manner one might treat a bird with a broken wing.
Rhaella felt adrift as the leaves stirred upon the wind, as though some artist's fancy had seen a lady of the court and painted her into a fresco of the Age of Heroes, fitting about as well as some of those ridiculous paintings of 'shepherdesses' garbed in silk that had been so common in her grandfather's day.
"So after leaving Braavos what did you do? How did you take the Stepstones and hold it with three ships?" she asked her son who rode dutifully at her side. She needed to know, to understand, even if sometimes the answers made no more sense than the rushing sound of the wind in her ears.
The story that unfolded then was no easier to hear than the one that had come before, of coming to Tyrosh and finding the archon replaced by a demon, but the creature itself only interested in its foul studies and trapping sorcerers in its webs. Of how her children and Ser Lonmouth besides Prince Oberyn's bastard daughter had broken the trap from the inside. Beside the rush of fear, of dread at the danger of the battle itself, there was dread at what it meant. If monsters with serpents for arms and faces pointing backwards could simply take control of a Free City thus... then what else could they take?
"What did these things want? Why replace the archon and then let the city just slip away?" she asked, so frustrated she was almost angry.
"The minds of the Rakshasa are not like those of men, mother," Daenerys said from her other side. "They obsess about their particular depravities of the spirit in ways that are simply mad by any mortal measure. One whose nature is to sow blasphemy and apostasy for instance, such as the dancer was, will do so in defiance of say a particular faith is supporting her in a position of power or safety, simply because mortal power is transitory and death a setback, a worse a fall of sorts down their foul hierarchy."
The soft lecturing tone in which her daughter spoke of such horrors begged other questions, deeper questions, ones she was afraid to ask. What life had her daughter lived? That they were not telling her everything was clear as the sun in the sky, she did not truly understand half of it anyway. Yet that begged the question, to she who had been raised and lived at court, if all this was what they thought prudent to say, what was being hidden?
"From Tyrosh we traveled on to the small village of Saltcliff," Viserys continued. "In truth I think the place may be so small as to be ignored by most maps. The water-source had been inconstant before we came, you see."
"You made a spring by magic?" Rhaella could not keep herself from asking what was in truth the same question repeated over and over again.
"Yes, or rather Lya did," he replied. "I've neither the skill, nor truth be told the patience for crafting lasting enchantments."
She wanted to ask about this Lya again, but from the look in her son's eyes he was not ready to speak of it yet and he would likely find some way to distract her. Now was not the time for that. "So you made plans there to kill the Ironborn renegade?" she asked instead.
War plans... at least that made sense, if not in detail then in concept, even if it sounded more like the plans of bandits than knights. Rhaella shook the thought away. What would knights do, so few against so many? Charge the fortress of the Ironborn sorcerer with their horses? Skewer his longboats on their lances?
What she heard next sounded to her ear to be the place where the truth had been altered the most of all Viserys had told her, too many things did not quite fit as he rushed through them, not least how Prince Oberyn, a fearsome fighter though he may have been, could have convinced the defenders to turn their cloaks mid battle, pirates or no. When mention had been made of this Damphair having made pacts with sinister powers and driven his followers to do likewise even the stoic knight had shifted slightly in his saddle.
The woman was startled from her thoughts by the feeling of something cold and soft upon her cheek. A snowflake, then another. Clouds had swept in swiftly from the north to cover a quarter of the sky already.
"It could just be normal snow," Viserys offered just as the Child of the Forest who rode with Daenerys said something in their odd singing tongue.
"Soft Strider said she does not like the look of this. Too swift, it is uncommon for clouds to be more fast enough to outpace something moving as swiftly as us. Something might drive them on."
Ser Lonmouth cursed under his breath. "Where to, your grace?" he asked her son.
In one smooth motion Viserys halted his horse, faster than any flesh and blood creature could have done, and jumped off and drew out a small golden box. "There is some kind of stone ledge that way..." he pointed left and a little forward. "We can make our own cave, like we'd planed to do tonight."
"It'll be alright, mother," a golden wing reached out to cover Rhaella in the oddest hug she had ever experienced. Even now faced with danger out of oldest darkest tales she wondered: Shouldn't she be the one doing the comforting?
OOC: Oddly this is one of those cases where rolling really low on the encounter may actually be slightly better than bad-to middling, since it means a daytime encounter when your enemy is less powerful.
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