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

[Duesal]

The chance of them still being there and keeping them off Tiamat's grubby hands still exists. After all, they were barely more than a curiosity which in canon he gave to a totally disposable asset. If not for Red Comet bullshittery, those eggs would have ended forgotten in a random cave in Vaes Dothrak. The leap from, "this fossilized, worthless stone eggs can be returmed to life when all previous attempts with live eggs have failed" is still a huge logical leap even with magic, so theres a chance he still has them.

A chance that is rapidly dwindling as grandma's newest cleric makes her way to Pentos. Even if they're not, looting Illyrio to the bedrock alone is worth it, more than go gallivanting around the Dragonmount, because we'd kill a bloody thorne on our side and take his everything.

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Don't get me wrong, Illyrio is happening next turn. Everyone wants that man dead, and the Blackfyre threat is too great to ignore.

The tree, ironically, can wait one month. Maybe even two or three. Illyrio needs to happen now.

Not for dragon eggs, not for gold, simply because the man has to die. The rewards would just be a bonus.

And we can do that in addition to raiding Dragonstone.

EDIT: I still think he no longer has dragon eggs, btw.

 

[Snowfire]

That said, I understand both points of view, and you should too. A lot of people are very engaged with this quest, planning conquest and adventure and great plans and suddenly they're saddled with a week's worth of updates of some character they didn't ask for, which generated a lot of salt and even a retcon, a most grave of things.

The thread is averse to Timesinks, and Rhaella has been quite a DP-update ooc timesink. (I loved them anyway but eh), so maybe you should have a bit of empathy for the thread.

Also, the thread is very whiny when the mood strucks us. Its nothing personal or terrible or world ending. Just salt.

Salt is life.

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I do understand their viewpoint, it's just how it seemed to drive self-destructive courses of action over the last week in the (possible) hope that it might end the matter early. Distance will help, though. That said, a lot of the wild and unmeant aggression comes from investment in character health that (I do understand) can sometimes be a little baffling and trying to hammer that against what oftentimes felt like a brick wall. Yes, I know, the votes I crafted passed easily and pretty much without issue. The matters being addressed here are about as important to me as those plans of conquest and the rest are to those who've plotted them, or Azel's glorious revolution is to him (no sarcasm meant). But I'll avoid going any further, I've done so enough. As you say, I guess, salt is life.

Reconsider your generalizations. Please.

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I will. I usually don't vote or participate in the thread discussion that much, so this has been something of a dive into a deep pool for a considerable length of time, and that's had its effects. My seething irritation with various perspectives tossed around in discussion has blown them out of proportion somewhat where my reaction to them is concerned, and that's not at all fair to the mostly silent majority who were the largest part of my voting support and got us to this point safe and relatively sound. Sorry

 

[Diomedea]

Don't get me wrong, Illyrio is happening next turn. Everyone wants that man dead, and the Blackfyre threat is too great to ignore.

The tree, ironically, can wait one month. Maybe even two or three. Illyrio needs to happen now.

Not for dragon eggs, not for gold, simply because the man has to die. The rewards would just be a bonus.

And we can do that in addition to raiding Dragonstone.

EDIT: I still think he no longer has dragon eggs, btw.

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Illyrio is my favorite of our options for what to do with the last 10 days for Viserys. I'm trying to remember if we have anything else "on fire" that would need to be taken care of. Lya wants to come for that (our reason for visiting him is stealing some of her early notes, after all), so she needs to be free as well.

 

[Raichu1972]

I do understand their viewpoint, it's just how it seemed to drive self-destructive courses of action over the last week in the (possible) hope that it might end the matter early. Distance will help, though. That said, a lot of the wild and unmeant aggression comes from investment in character health that (I do understand) can sometimes be a little baffling and trying to hammer that against what oftentimes felt like a brick wall. Yes, I know, the votes I crafted passed easily and pretty much without issue. The matters being addressed here are about as important to me as those plans of conquest and the rest are to those who've plotted them, or Azel's glorious revolution is to him (no sarcasm meant). But I'll avoid going any further, I've done so enough. As you say, I guess, salt is life.



I will. I usually don't vote or participate in the thread discussion that much, so this has been something of a dive into a deep pool for a considerable length of time, and that's had its effects. My seething irritation with various perspectives tossed around in discussion has blown them out of proportion somewhat where my reaction to them is concerned, and that's not at all fair to the mostly silent majority who were the largest part of my voting support and got us to this point safe and relatively sound. Sorry

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I feel for ya.

I usually don't post much, mostly because I still don't know much about DnD, such as the ways to minmax properly or which monsters you really got to look out for, and I'm not good enough at speechcraft to really contribute anything to the votes.

So I mostly lurk, and while I disagree with the direction some of the more active posters go sometimes, I also realize that they're much better at this stuff than me, and it's better to successfully get to any destination than it is to die halfway through the journey.

It doesn't help that we all have our pet peeves and our grand plans, and sometimes these plans can compete with each other, causing gigantic amounts of salt.
As an example, I really like Yss, and like it when we do things that involve him (pls give Best God more screentime DP ) and generally dislike the whole Evil Overlord thing people are trying to cultivate, but I seem to generally be outnumbered on both accounts.

So in general, it helps to not get too invested in things like that, and instead enjoy the quest as a wonderful piece of fiction.
This, uh, kinda got away from me, but TLDR: being too active can lead to shit tons amount of salt.

I'm a Paths of Civilization veteran, so I can tell you from experience

 

[Azel]

May I direct you to my post last night regarding well constructed quest characters having motivations and desires that sometimes conflict with those of the quest thread. Frankly, given how utterly unreasonably people have reacted to her doing everything she can to adapt to the new world she's found herself in, and Viserys' feelings on the matter, I'm left wondering why the choice of character even mattered. They don't seem to want to play a person, they want to play a caricature with Vast Arcane Power who turns into a dragon. Everything involving meaningful human interaction that isn't shameless aggrandisation, futile resistance, or meek obedience just seems to be met with incomprehension and salt.

>The following veers off heavily from being a response to your quote and is not singularly directive<​

Quest (and other) characters are representative of people. They do things sometimes, and have desires that the quest thread will not like. This is a mark of DP's skill as a writer, and it's more than a little disgusting to see it met with such complete apathy and/or outright rejection. See: how people were adamant that I was overreacting because 'Oh, Heart's Ease can fix everything and catatonia isn't an option so she'll totes just adapt because there's no other choice.'

Seriously.

The actual fuck is wrong with you?

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I feel the need to reply to this in depth, since you raise some points that rankle me quite a bit. Obviously, I'm mostly speaking only for myself here and the opinions of others will greatly differ.

1. "Everything involving meaningful human interaction that isn't shameless aggrandisation, futile resistance, or meek obedience just seems to be met with incomprehension and salt."
Quite the contrary. I greatly enjoyed our interactions with Zherys, like Velarion, who is obviously making his own moves, greatly enjoyed our latest meeting with the Sealord and the Iron Bank, hammering Stannis into shape and quite a few others interactions with people who decidedly did none of those things. I still like to remind people that I even liked the Lich in Lys and only campaigned for his death due to his actions making him untenable for recruitment after freeing him. What all these persons have in common is that they are competent, acting goal oriented and try to leverage their interactions with us into benefits for themselves.

They are peers. Interacting with them is fun because we can't just roll over them. What I detest are Aurane being a oblivious moron at us or Doran "hedging his bets" instead of taking the best offer he is ever going to get. He wants to keep looking for other others? Fine by me. Try and betray us. I will vote to give a toast to you in recognition of a game well played if you pull it off.

What I detest is the sheep acting as if they could dictate the actions of the wolf. And Rhaella is a sheep.


2. "This is a mark of DP's skill as a writer, and it's more than a little disgusting to see it met with such complete apathy and/or outright rejection."
I did not deny the quality of the chapters at all and neither claim that she is badly written, but I see Rhaellas resurrection as nothing more then a personal failure of Viserys. He has many issues. His father, Wildfyre and burning people, and the death of his mother. All of these are an avenue for character growth by addressing them, but instead the two first a floundering around for years now and the last has just become permanently unaddressable. Viserys is trying to rebuild a rose tinted image of his past and a perfect home. Nothing more.

Why did he bring her back? Because she wanted it? Because Dany asked it of him? Dany didn't care terribly much about Rhaella, having never met her. She said about Aerys once that she always thought him "roughly king-shaped" and I have no reason to assume that her mother was any different before this.

All Viserys did here was do drag a woman back from the dead for his own gratification. All that anguish, that trauma, the fears and worries? The chance to have her break down and become a catatonic wreck? It's all for him to have her there to give him a hug. He basically turned her into a pet whose only purpose in existence is to make him feel good by being present.

That is what I consider disgusting.
This is Viserys being a self-centered fool, which I detest.


So yeah. I don't care about her feelings. If you wanted to spare the woman grief, then you should have fought to let her rest in peace instead of dragging here back to Planetos on some self-deluded attempt to 'fix' things.

Bonus:
3. "The actual fuck is wrong with you?"
A lot of things.

Edit: This is not meant to be loud, yelling, angry or an attack. You merely poked the salt-dam a bit too hard this time, so the whole mess needed to vent.

 

[Duesal]

Illyrio is my favorite of our options for what to do with the last 10 days for Viserys. I'm trying to remember if we have anything else "on fire" that would need to be taken care of. Lya wants to come for that (our reason for visiting him is stealing some of her early notes, after all), so she needs to be free as well.

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"On fire"... Hmmm...

There is hunting down devil cultists in the Stormlands, @Diomedon. We need to prepare for the Lys Heart Tree and start gathering sacrifices.

EDIT: We even have implicit permission from Stannis to handle supernatural enemies of mankind within the Stormlands. I'd say it's perfectly fair game.

 

[Snowfire]

Edit: This is not meant to be loud, yelling, angry or an attack. You merely poked the salt-dam a bit too hard this time, so the whole mess needed to vent.

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It's cool, and thank you for expressing your viewpoint so clearly. I disagree a lot with the second point, but this is case where neither of us are likely to succeed in bludgeoning the other into submission, and the resulting mess wouldn't be good for anyone.

Now, though, the thread seems to be moving on to setting Illyrio on fire. And fortunately, I think this is something that just about everyone will be able to agree on being a good thing.

 

[ryuan]

The idea that adequate appreciation of her mental state and proper treatment of it are seen as white knighting is a little ridiculous, to be honest. But I do agree that, given time and opportunity, she'll be a capable and eventually powerful ally.

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And I find the utter panic and incapability to treat her as a person instead of a effigy made of soap bubbles to be completely ridiculous, and the accusations of the heartlessness on the part of the players for daring to believe she can, in fact, deal with it is nothing sort of stereotypical white knigthing.

Maybe you should wait until people ACTUALLY want to assassinate her before you start with the overly moralistic treatment. As it is you're only speeding up the process towards people voting en mass to kill her.

 

[Diomedea]

Taking advantage of Stannis's tacit approval is probably something we should jump on, but we'd have to drop something important to do so. Delegate maybe? Garin has been a little under utilized.

We also need to solve the crafting supply issue. We can probably use greater disguise ribbons to regain access to MS, but if we want to go to the Plane of Air that likely needs a more personal touch.

Pushing Illyrio could get us Stannis + Plane of Air.

Not pushing him would mean delegating Stannis, and sending someone back to MS...preferably not Tyene (who is the likely target for divination if it's in use). I think that leaves Dany or Vee if she's using the portal and teleporting? Ehhh....

Not sure.

 

[Duesal]

Oh. @Diomedon. Major place we need to set on fire. There's Lolth's crumbling temple in Sothoryos guarded by fiendish spiders. We could BP dozens of those for sacrifice, burn everything in our path without a care in the world since nobody's going to stop us there and we don't have to administer over any fallout, and we get the loot Yss promised us and maybe even make him happy that we wrecked his ancient enemy's holy site.

I don't think we'll find time for it within the next few turns, but the option is there.

 

[Azel]

It's cool, and thank you for expressing your viewpoint so clearly. I disagree a lot with the second point, but this is case where neither of us are likely to succeed in bludgeoning the other into submission, and the resulting mess wouldn't be good for anyone.

Now, though, the thread seems to be moving on to setting Illyrio on fire. And fortunately, I think this is something that just about everyone will be able to agree on being a good thing.

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Well, I am quite interested in your answer on the second, but that probably is better done by PM if you are interested.

On the matter of Illyrio, it depends on what he is offering for his life. As you might have notices, I have no issue to be friends with people who I have plans to murder if they ever become inconvenient. Just look at Salladhor.

 

[Duesal]

Taking advantage of Stannis's tacit approval is probably something we should jump on, but we'd have to drop something important to do so. Delegate maybe? Garin has been a little under utilized.

We also need to solve the crafting supply issue. We can probably use greater disguise ribbons to regain access to MS, but if we want to go to the Plane of Air that likely needs a more personal touch.

Pushing Illyrio could get us Stannis + Plane of Air.

Not pushing him would mean delegating Stannis, and sending someone back to MS...preferably not Tyene (who is the likely target for divination if it's in use). I think that leaves Dany or Vee if she's using the portal and teleporting? Ehhh....

Not sure.

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Rule of thumb, crafting materials trump all. We absolutely cannot do without going to the Plane of Air. Those crafting materials are the lifeblood of our future conquests and keeping our PCs equipped and alive. They're what you need for the waterworks and other major infrastructure.

We need to plan around the Plane of Air trip, then see what else we can fit in the turn. For me, I'd take PoA and Illyrio, then happily delegate Garin to the Stormlands after having Lya scribe him a couple scrolls of BP for sacrifice capture.

 

[Diomedea]

Rule of thumb, crafting materials trump all. We absolutely cannot do without going to the Plane of Air. Those crafting materials are the lifeblood of our future conquests and keeping our PCs equipped and alive. They're what you need for the waterworks and other major infrastructure.

We need to plan around the Plane of Air trip, then see what else we can fit in the turn. For me, I'd take PoA and Illyrio, then happily delegate Garin to the Stormlands after having Lya scribe him a couple scrolls of BP for sacrifice capture.

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I don't want to push Runestone again. Waymar just regrew an arm, let the guy visit home. I'd do Illyrio first thing the month after, closer to Tyrosh to disrupt Varys's information network shortly before we make our move.

 

[Duesal]

I don't want to push Runestone again. Waymar just regrew an arm, let the guy visit home. I'd do Illyrio first thing the month after, closer to Tyrosh to disrupt Varys's information network shortly before we make our move.

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Painful, but we'll survive. It's just the Plane of Air that absolutely under no circumstances can't be pushed aside. We run out of crafting materials and every single facet of our plans grind to a halt.

 

[BeepSmile]

@Diomedon where it comes to Rhaella, a combination of Dany and possibly...frak, I can't remember the right spelling of her name. The Velaryon daughter. Are probably our best bets. Although I would vastly prefer to be on hand in terms of actually introducing her to those she'll need to know around the keep (Alinor, etc.) if we can manage it. Which I think we can. After that's done, leave it with them. They should have enough bullshit hax on the one hand and sufficient similarity in terms of having recently gotten used to the whole thing of 'magic be real' on the other to keep her stable(ish).

We need to do a general round of introductions of her to our inner circle, but do some legwork before that (specifically in the case of Xor) to make sure that it doesn't throw too much strangeness at her. Give her time to acclimate there, and let her come to us when she needs to. This isn't the end of her recovery, and I really do hope it's not the last we see of it. Some of what still needs to be related might benefit from a finer touch. In the end, though, that's up to @DragonParadox.

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Imbue alinor with divine insight/cast AoN on her (unlike VotD, AoN can be cast on others), introduce her to Rhaella as the woman who runs herd on these... Ahem.. Miscreants (pirates). A genius at mathematics and a dear friend.
Befor Rhaella learns she was a prostitute.

 

[MTB]

Painful, but we'll survive. It's just the Plane of Air that absolutely under no circumstances can't be pushed aside. We run out of crafting materials and every single facet of our plans grind to a halt.

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Do we run out of crafting materials, or out of cheap crafting materials?

 

[Wheel of time]

The idea that adequate appreciation of her mental state and proper treatment of it are seen as white knighting is a little ridiculous, to be honest. But I do agree that, given time and opportunity, she'll be a capable and eventually powerful ally.

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I love this thread but its moralas and ethics are very self centered around our intrests and desires. Which is reflected in Viserys and how he interacts and sees the world I think.

 

[Duesal]

Do we run out of crafting materials, or out of cheap crafting materials?

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Cheap crafting materials. Nobody wants to pay double for everything. All we need to do is get a huge stockpile of cheap crafting materials, as big as we can stomach, then we can ignore extra-planar markets for a few turns while we take care of business on our home plane. Finish building the Stepstones, finalize our Tyrosh conquest, equip our PCs, maybe even complete one or two fetch quests.

 

[ryuan]

I love this thread but its moralas and ethics are very self centered around our intrests and desires. Which is reflected in Viserys and how he interacts and sees the world I think.

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I think it's time to stop seeing Rhaella as a potential liability and use her as the asset she is. We really need to get those 5 ranks of Know:Royalty/Nobility for that final +2 to diplo synergy and now we have an excuse to get it.

Also we need to star training her into PC hood ASAP, for survival purposes if nothing else.

We don't want anyone in our family that don't work after all.

We must corrupt Rhaella into being just as much of a workaholic as both her children.

 

[Duesal]

I think it's time to stop seeing Rhaella as a potential liability and use her as the asset she is. We really need to get those 5 ranks of Know:Royalty/Nobility for that final +2 to diplo synergy and now we have an excuse to get it.

Also we need to star training her into PC hood ASAP, for survival purposes if nothing else.

We don't want anyone in our family that don't work after all.

We must corrupt Rhaella into being just as much of a workaholic as both her children.

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Oh, I completely overlooked that! Rhaella can give us our knowledge for nobility and royalty. Originally we were planning on just having Viserys get it anyway in preparation for conquest, but having his mother teach him how things used to be run (notably used to be run) is wonderfully thematic. It might even make her comfortable enough to start poking at magic.

 

[Goldfish]

I think it's time to stop seeing Rhaella as a potential liability and use her as the asset she is. We really need to get those 5 ranks of Know:Royalty/Nobility for that final +2 to diplo synergy and now we have an excuse to get it.

Also we need to star training her into PC hood ASAP, for survival purposes if nothing else.

We don't want anyone in our family that don't work after all.

We must corrupt Rhaella into being just as much of a workaholic as both her children.

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She's unlikely to ever be a PC, or exceed level 5. That doesn't mean she can't be useful, but we shouldn't ever get our hopes up that she will gain more than 2 caster levels.

She probably has at least 3 or 4 levels in Aristocrat, and that's after taking into account the level loss from Resurrection.

 

[tarrangar]

Painful, but we'll survive. It's just the Plane of Air that absolutely under no circumstances can't be pushed aside. We run out of crafting materials and every single facet of our plans grind to a halt.

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If we need crafting materials we still have MS, sure we can't go there ourselves, but we have plenty of strong underlings who has never been there, I don't think we offended them quite enough that they will have divined the looks of all our allies, so as long as we don't send anyone who has been there before we can shop there, or if you think that too risky, we can always find a random group of travelers in MS, and pay them a small commission to buy the reagents for us.

Of course POA is better, but if we don't have time we can do MS with only moderate risks.

 

[Wheel of time]

Note I did not say Viserys was bad or evil for how self centred he is more that he manipulates and shapes the world instead of he to it even to his friends. The best way to sum it up Viserys paraphrasing from Lord of the Rings is he desires power above all else and linked to that are his reasons for it which are noble and heroic while being savage and brutal if he deems it so. A good natured control freak is the best description I have.

 

[Goldfish]

So, priorities for next turn?

Runestone?

Plane of Air?

Illyrio interrogation, murder, and looting?

Dragonstone looting?

Westerosi pub crawl?

What else am I forgetting? Seems to me like we could do at least everything I listed if we can avoid getting sidetracked.

We need crafting materials early in the turn, whatever else we decide to do, whether that means travelling to the Plans of Air or risking Molten Skies.

EDIT: Hunting cultists in the Stormlands.

 

[Duesal]

So, priorities for next turn?

Runestone?

Plane of Air?

Illyrio interrogation, murder, and looting?

Dragonstone looting?

Westerosi pub crawl?

What else am I forgetting? Seems to me like we could do at least everything I listed if we can avoid getting sidetracked.

We need crafting materials early in the turn, whatever else we decide to do, whether that means travelling to the Plans of Air or risking Molten Skies.

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Dragonstone looting can be handled in a single day, honestly. I'm hoping we can tack it on at the end of this turn.

That aside, @Goldfish, you're forgetting Stormland cultist hunting. Those are perfectly good sacrifices that we can reserve for the Lys Heart Tree.