Remove ads

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

Reader mode
Any chance we could expand our band of exploitation of minors if we're already eyeballing potential mages among the populations aged 5-12?

Something kind of like JROTC. But for our Legion. Obviously less grueling, but soldiers are notably better when raised from a young age to be soldiers. And it's three hots and a cot and room for advancement for people who, while not intelligent, might be phenomenal athletes or leaders.

Also! We need our own Olympics.
 
Duesal said:
I don't even want to consider this unless the Calligraphy Wyrms are in the hands of loyal and experienced PCs. That seems like a far too easy way to get them stolen and into the hands of our enemies.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Artemis1992 said:
Eventually that will happen if we make enough.
You can't exactly keep an entire race to yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The instruction of teachers would happen on Sorcerer's Deep, and there would still be human oversight.

We wouldn't be sending the Dragongpens off to start a school in Old Town or the like. They're not even a requirement, I was just using them as an example of a much, much cheaper alternative to Arcanums.
 
Have the legionnaries tought High Valyrian and Primordial during their training. When the first batch leaves theyll be trilingual and it is more likely their descendants will know it or atleast also join the legion.

Stewards and administrators can be thought High Valyrian and primordial too.

Then theyll have two official languages and their provincial. So theyll always have something to fall back on in most situations. (Ofcourse a westerosi peasant or dumb noble wont know much HV but it will encourage everyone to pick up on the languages seeing as legionnaries will be statioend everywhere.)
 
Crake said:
Any chance we could expand our band of exploitation of minors if we're already eyeballing potential mages among the populations aged 5-12?

Something kind of like JROTC. But for our Legion. Obviously less grueling, but soldiers are notably better when raised from a young age to be soldiers. And it's three hots and a cot and room for advancement for people who, while not intelligent, might be phenomenal athletes or leaders.

Also! We need our own Olympics.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Orphanages!

We should open up state-sponsored orphanages, take in every street kid, byblow, and otherwise unwanted or neglected child. It would be a civic project that fits in perfectly with providing free education through state-sponsored schools.

The orphans can get the same education, but with a heavier dose of "Glory to the Empire", aiming to direct them into imperial service when they come of age.

EDIT: In fact, I want to do this on SD ASAP. We know there are street kids and some who are still quite poor. We don't need to invest PC time in this. Alinor and her people can arrange it. Make it a law on the island; every child gets a free education, which includes room and board, unless their parents object. If they have no parents, they can't object.
 
Last edited:
Goldfish said:
Orphanages!

We should open up state-sponsored orphanages, take in every street kid, byblow, and otherwise unwanted or neglected child. It would be a civic project that fits in perfectly with providing free education through state-sponsored schools.

The orphans can get the same education, but with a heavier dose of "Glory to the Empire", aiming to direct them into imperial service when they come of age.

EDIT: In fact, I want to do this on SD ASAP. We know there are street kids and some who are still quite poor. We don't need to invest PC time in this. Alinor and her people can arrange it. Make it a law on the island; every child gets a free education, which includes room and board, unless their parents object. If they have no parents, they can't object.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We can fit it in as a minor action and give Alinor like 200 IM or something as the funds for it. One giant Orphanage in SD that provides food, clothing, shelter, and an education.
 
Goldfish said:
Orphanages!

We should open up state-sponsored orphanages, take in every street kid, byblow, and otherwise unwanted or neglected child. It would be a civic project that fits in perfectly with providing free education through state-sponsored schools.

The orphans can get the same education, but with a heavier dose of "Glory to the Empire", aiming to direct them into imperial service when they come of age.

EDIT: In fact, I want to do this on SD ASAP. We know there are street kids and some who are still quite poor. We don't need to invest PC time in this. Alinor and her people can arrange it. Make it a law on the island; every child gets a free education, which includes room and board, unless their parents object. If they have no parents, they can't object.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This has my full support.


On the matter of languages, don't forget the written word.

We need a single language that is spoken in the whole Legion and bureaucracy, since those are the areas where the problems actually arise. Especially when translating paperwork.

Low Valyrian should be best for now, but letting an Arcanum and the Dragonpens get together to design something for science, administration and warfare would be optimal.

Not every Legionnaire needs to be fluent. It's enough to understand orders. Bureaucrats and Mages have the time to learn it.
Basically a exacting LN language geared towards precision and unambiguity.
 
Remove ads
Part MDCLXIX: Of Iron Forged
  • Threadmarks
    • Of Iron Forged​

    Twenty-Sixth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

    After dismissing Moonsong, as much as one can do that to a being with as high an opinion of herself as Moonsong-on-Still-Waters-at-Midnight, you invite the Greyjoys to follow you for a conversation in a somewhat more private setting. You lead them through the keep and into the chamber that holds the entrance pillar to the Shadow Tower, the room filled with the inky blackness of its shadow stretching out from beyond. If either of your guests have any hesitation from following you they do not show it in either word or deed. In truth, both have a gleam in her eye you find familiar, the province of those who have walked the strange and uncharted places of the world and fought things beyond most mortals' ken.

    Rather than head to the upper reaches of the tower, you go down through winding stairs carved into gleaming dragonstone and corridors filled with whispering shades until you come at last to the chamber warded against far-sight. Here lay entombed the trophies of your past battles. There the Fey-touched Drake, its bright purple scales glittering even in the shadows of this place, and next to it a snarling Peryton expertly mounted as though about to strike to rend and tear, but most important to your purposes is the Deep One Magus whose looming alien visage dominates one corner of the chamber even in death.

    You motion to the monstrosity and say plainly, "There lay the face of the Drowned God your uncle chose to give his soul and the souls of his followers and victims to in unending thralldom. There is what I would spare the Ironborn, a task in which I ask for the aid of the last scions of the Grey Kings of old if you would give it."

    Theon looks pale as sheet, but when he speaks his voice is strong. "I stabbed one of those things once. I'd much rather shoot it, but come what may I'll fight 'em to my last breath."

    "To their last breath," you correct. "It is unwise to enter battle with thoughts of your own death. Gallant last stands are all well and good for the ballads that singers exalt, but I would rather have living heroes in my service."

    "So what do you want from us?" Asha asks warily, showing herself far less headstrong than her brother.

    "What I want is to see the Iron Isles prosper, to see its people rise above being named brigands and traitors on every shore from Sea Dragon Point to Asshai. Look around you at the realm I have built here. Does it seem soft or easy pickings for drawing most of its wealth from trade? Do you see Greenlanders?" you ask in return, matching her steel-grey gaze with yours.

    "You paid the Iron Price for it," she challenges.

    "Yes," you agree. "I paid the Iron Price for the scattering of shacks and ruins infested by horror and decay, and then I paid a different sort of iron to see it prosper." So saying you flick a full Braavosi mark at her which she catches instinctively. "Do you know what is stamped onto each and every one of those coins that are carried across all the seas of the world?"

    "I'm sure you're about to tell me," she quips, but in her eyes you read a deeper struggle.

    "As Iron Enduring. Braavos, a city of merchants, one that allows no slave or thrall in its borders, has never bent the knee to a foreign conqueror, and few indeed have been the raiders bold enough to dare its shores," you finish.

    "You still raid," Theon says. "Not for the gold, but for the glory, for freeing slaves and to weaken your foes."

    "That I do, and knowing the world for that it is that will never stop," you agree. "That fount of glory will never run dry." Then to both of them, "What say you, scions of the Grey King? Will you help chart a different course for your people?"

    "Aye!" Theon says at once.

    Then after a brief moment's silence his sister joins him. "Aye, I'll swear to you as captain and lord."

    "Then come," you motion them. "If you would fully take up arms in a dragon's name, then it is fitting that those be arms by dragons wrought."

    To Theon you gift a bow forged from the bones of the twisted dragon creature that had sold its soul to Tiamat in Essaria, and to Asha an axe of Valyrian Steel that you had carried from Mantarys then had worked not with gold but iron in the shape of a kraken.

    "Even better than Goldenheart!" Theon shouts, the sound echoing strangely in the shadowed hall.

    Asha instead merely grins as she looks over her new axe. So too a shark might grin if it could you imagine. "I have to try this out."

    Curious, you follow her to the training field where you watch her spar against knights, sellswords, and even a few hapless legion recruits. She fights with skill and nimbleness as you had rarely seen, and with an almost gleeful disregard for anything that might be constituted as fairness. More than once you see warriors taunted into a rage, charging Asha, only for her to slip away from their blows and pay them back double for their clumsiness. Not for one moment is she still, matching strength to strength, but instead always sliding or tumbling away to approach from an unexpected direction, and though she does not always manage it only a fool would fail to see that she is a canny and dangerous fighter who will only grow more perilous with time.

    Name: Asha Greyjoy
    Alias: The Kraken's Daughter
    Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
    Age: 17
    Race: Human
    Level: 4
    Class: Mariner 4
    Feats: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Handaxe), Dodge, Sidestep Charge, Mobility
    Class Features: Bonus Feat (x2); Dirty Strike (1d4); Sailor Lore (+5); Seamanship (+1)

    HP: 29/29
    AC:     10 +3 (DEX) +4 (Chain Shirt) +1 (Dodge) +4 (Mobility/Sidestep Charge) = 18/19/23
    Initiative: +3 (DEX)
    Attack: +3 (BaB) +3 (DEX) +1 (WF) +2 (Enchantment) = +9 [1d6 +1d6 (Cold or Electricity) +1d4]
    Weapon Proficiency: Axe, Boarding Pike, Dagger

    STATS:
    10 (+0) Strength
    16 (+3) Dexterity
    15 (+2) Constitution
    15 (+2) Charisma
    12 (+1) Intelligence
    14 (+2) Wisdom

    SAVES:
    FORTITUDE: 4 +2 =6
    REFLEX: 4 +3 = 7
    WILL: 1 +2 = 3

    SKILLS
    Balance: 7 +3 (DEX) +1 Seamanship -2 (Armor) = 9
    Bluff: 7 +2 (CHA) = 9
    Climb: 7 +3 (DEX) +1 Seamanship -2 (Armor) = 9
    Intimidate: 7 +2 (CHA) = 9
    Profession (Sailor): 7 +2 (WIS) +1 (Seamanship) = 10
    Tumble: 7 +3 (DEX) -2 (Armor) = 8
    Spot: 7 +2 (WIS) = 9
    Swim: 7 -2 (Armor) = 5

    Extraordinary Abilities:

    Sailor Lore: Roll 1d20 + Mariner Level +Intelligence Modifier to obtain rumors and tales
    Dirty Strike: Opponent receives a Reflex Save against the Mariner's modified attack roll. On a failure he takes the extra damage (1d4) [Precision Damage]

    Pact-Bound Servitor: Mamiwa

    Equipped Magic Items: Valyrian Steel Axe (+2)

    What do you do next?

    [] Speak to the Children of the Forest about their plans
    -[] Write in (optional)

    [] Help Dany make your mother feel welcome in her new home
    -[] Write in (optional)

    [] Write in

    OOC: As I was considering the scene I remembered I never billed you guys for making the trophy room, so I took out 1500 Gold for mounting the current exhibits.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • That's a pretty decent stat spread for Asha. @DragonParadox I don't suppose you would let us pick one or two flaws out for her in order to get some more feats, eh?
     
    It's nice to see that our gifts are so appreciated, and even nicer to know that those gifts are going to be used in our service. :D This chapter confirmed that giving them those weapons was 100% the right decision.
     
    [X] Duesal

    Need to sleep and then work. Won't really get to participate in the rest of the discussion. It's always hard to find a vote to hedge towards lately, but given this is social interaction heavy either way, I don't think I'll vote for Goldfish this time, on the off chance we decide to talk to Rhaella over the Children (not that I imagine we will). No offense. :p
     
    [X] Speak to the Children of the Forest about their plans
    -[X] Try to find out what they might want besides being here and seeing human lands. Ask for the reasons for their dwindling population. If it's something related to fertility or something else you can help with assure you'll work on a way. Either way, saving their race from extinction means more younglings one way or another.
    -[X] Meanwhile try to find out if they can use any magic, either inherently or from the Old Gods and if either of that could be taught to humans.
    -[X] Get a rough understanding of the skills and abilities they have. Soft Strider, for example, is an able Ranger. What of the others?
    -[X] Ask what manner of housing they prefer, we can produce almost anything, though a full forest would be difficult on these islands.

    Basically Artemis' original vote on the matter. If anyone has things to add just let me know.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top