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

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Azel said:
How high is her Will save?

With the Philosophers Tree, she can get up to another +20 bonus to knowledge.
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At 7 HD her base Will save bonus would be +6. Her Wisdom would be 14 for a +2 modifier. A +2 Wisdom item would be cheap, raising it to a +3 Wisdom modifier.

We could push it up fairly high with a bit of work. Heroism would already add +2, she could use Channel Vigor for another +6, use Blessed Watchman for another +2, and then add Iron Will for a final +2.

So without any outside help, such as higher level buffs from Companions, she could easily push her Will save up to +21. Use a Moment of Greatness spell to double the effect from Heroism and it would be +23.

EDIT: Actually, the 3rd level Shadow Enchantment spell would be enough to let her cast Heroism, Blessed Watchmen, and Investigative Mind. Very useful spell for our purposes, and it would have offensive capability in a pinch.

EDIT #2: Since she would only need to pass a DC 20 Will save according to the tree's effect, Iron Will wouldn't be necessary to guarantee success.
 
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Fehu said:
@Goldfish if we are able I'd suggest any research Arcanum's first goal should be creature-template vats. So we can easily modify any minions, not having to create them wholly new if we want templates, like the Leshies.

Also, a group of Savant Creature (CR special)[3pp] – d20PFSRD underlings for the Arcanum.
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The very first device we create to apply a template would be one to give everyone the Advanced template. A +2 Natural Armor bonus along with a +4 bonus to every physical and mental attribute, all for just a +1 CR adjustment.
 
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Part MCMXCI: Of Haughty Spirit
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    • Of Haughty Spirit ​

    Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

    "I have no desire to tangle your father's fate in lies and deception for my own end, and only seek to untangle the plots the madmen who consorted with fiends wove," you answer. Then noticing that your answer had only left her more confused, you say bluntly, "He will receive a fair hearing."

    "What...? Fiends, I heard something about that, but..." the girl trails off. She shakes her head, perhaps unable to accept that the monsters of bedtime tales are horrors she has endured at all too human hands. With a long weary sigh, she gathers herself and asks, "What do I need to do for the spell? Spill blood, or...?"

    You swiftly hand her the Wayfinder and explain its workings before she can conjure yet more frightful things from her own imaginings.

    Truth be told you are not certain what to think when the device does indeed hum to life. On the one hand having the man dead in the chaos would spare you the trouble his presence may cause, yet if you found nothing you could never be certain he was dead... and neither could anyone else. Tales of 'miraculous returns' for heirs or exiled lords thought dead are all too common when interested factions need a figurehead to rally support behind.

    You lead the girl, Daela by name, to Lya, carefully keeping ten feet between you lest you startle her. You then conjure steeds, two not only one, before taking on your own winged form, though not fully that of a wyrm lest you have to navigate any narrow passages... as a dragon counts such things at least. The poor girl does not need the added strain of traveling alone with you weighing upon her mind.

    "Straight lines are easier to follow like this," you offer, trying not to smile, knowing that your expression has far too many teeth in it at the moment to be the least bit reassuring.

    A small nod is all the confirmation you get, but at least she is listening.

    ***​

    West and a little north the three of you fly, away from the city though not far from it. The archon must have fled as soon as he got word of your coming to have made the gates in time, you realize with no small measure of contempt as you look over the lands with an eye for the future.

    They are rich and well worked, for this is Tyrosh's bread-basket of last resort, irrigation canals cutting squares through fields of rye, grain, and barley, occasionally dotted by the odd village and rustic manor house. Unsurprisingly it is to one of these stately homes for the highborn that the trail leads.

    "Could you lead her back? There's no need..." you begin, addressing Lya.

    "No!" the girl calls frantically. "I have to stay, please!"

    A part of your resents the implied distrust of your word, but you push aside the thought. Given what she must have been hearing about you it is a minor miracle she trusts you this far.

    You fly out over the manse, calling for the former Archon to be brought out, unharmed, punctuating the end of your statement with a burst of fire. Not your most elegant of negotiations, but brevity has its uses and you have much yet to do in order to solidify your rule of Tyrosh, far too much to waste time bandying words with some minor magister.

    Thankfully you are not made to wait long. A man garbed in emerald green robes with golden trim emerges from the house, flanked by a handful of Unsullied, long spears held high, though you can see he slightest tremble even there.

    Daela almost outpaces you on her shadow steed, so swiftly does she spur it. You hardly need to ask who the man is.

    "...my poor girl, what have those beasts done to you?" you catch as you descend, and it is fair to say you are far more tempted to take umbrage at those words than anything his daughter had said, but the sight of her silently weeping into his embrace is enough to soften your tone somewhat at least as you explain the situation to the lord of House Taelreon.

    "So I am to take your word, who consorts with pirate and slaves freed to prey upon honest men and other unnatural things?" the former archon sneers.

    "You may trust that you are not already dead, though it could easily be arranged," Lya snaps as you look on in mute incredulity at the sheer gall of the man.

    Still you keep your temper in check, you will not harm a man over foolish words spoken in anger. Instead you merely say, "Your options are rather limited, and grow more so with every heartbeat."

    "Please father, listen to them. There's no sense in dying here," Daela pleads, fear lending her voice clarity. It is enough... if only just from the grudging nod.

    You can only hope the Red Priests will be more reasonable, they could hardly be any less so.

    What do you offer the priests of R'hllor and what do you ask for?

    [] Write in

    OOC: Viserys had to pass a will save this update. On failure he would not have killed the former archon, but he would have knocked him out, 'for easy transport'.
     
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    • Azel said:
    "In principle"

    Yeah. That's hedging if I ever saw it.

    @dpara, I'm hoping to also get bio-engineered plants for industrial purposes from the Fungus Forge and DP stated that we would get quite different results from that research action, depending on who we send. Hence ne not wanting Vee to touch that.
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    Lya is also Neutral good, if Lya at neutral good can be convinced to do such projects, then a True Neutral Arcanum shouldn't even need convincing, so long as the research projects aren't something Viserys would object to, and unlike an evil Arcanum, Lya wouldn't feel near as much need to check it's work, which mean doing the borderline evil experiments, would actually be easier than with an evil Arcanum, as Lya wouldn't feel the need to make sure the Arcanum wasn't doing too bad things for research.

    We only need an evil Arcanum if we want to begin to experiment on innocents, and most of our party not just Lya would oppose that, including Viserys himself, a Neutral Arcanum should have no problem making use of others foul research, as long as it was looted not bought from the foul researcher, and should be ready to do bad things to sufficiently reprehensible people for research(sufficiently reprehensible being anyone slated for sacrifice) meaning it would have all of the pro's of an evil Arcanum, and none of the drawbacks.

    The drawbacks being that an evil Arcanum is likely to be selfish, and so is likely to ask for more expensive luxuries than a neutral Arcanum, and might secretly begin to carry out experiments we don't want it to.

    We are likely to get more work for less pay out of a neutral Arcanum, and we are less likely to have it commit crimes, because that's a thing that can happen with an evil researcher even a loyal one, they might decide, that stealing away some of the prisoners slated for normal executions for secret research is a good idea, and they wont see that as being disloyal, they will see it as being loyal because while they aren't indulging our morality, they are getting us further power, and what we don't know can't hurt us.
     
    Goldfish said:
    At 7 HD her base Will save bonus would be +6. Her Wisdom would be 14 for a +2 modifier. A +2 Wisdom item would be cheap, raising it to a +3 Wisdom modifier.

    We could push it up fairly high with a bit of work. Heroism would already add +2, she could use Channel Vigor for another +6, use Blessed Watchman for another +2, and then add Iron Will for a final +2.

    So without any outside help, such as higher level buffs from Companions, she could easily push her Will save up to +21. Use a Moment of Greatness spell to double the effect from Heroism and it would be +23.

    EDIT: Actually, the 3rd level Shadow Enchantment spell would be enough to let her cast Heroism, Blessed Watchmen, and Investigative Mind. Very useful spell for our purposes, and it would have offensive capability in a pinch.

    EDIT #2: Since she would only need to pass a DC 20 Will save according to the tree's effect, Iron Will wouldn't be necessary to guarantee success.
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    I'm very much hyped forRmaking this arcanum.
    What interests me, though, is whether we should set up a dedicated R&D under her command.
    Even level 1 npcs can get far with Philosopher's Tree and our library.
    And that will obviously shorten any research actions, if only because she'd have a few more pairs of eyes to look through the library.
     
    It's safe to say this man will never be in power ever again. And from one look I'm confident we would easily find an excuse to execute him, and we wouldn't have to look very hard for it.

    @Azel, I guess we're sticking with the old deal of having him sell out the other magisters?
     
    [X] Ask their leadership to come out and speak with you
    -[X] Thank them for the ultimately unnecesary offer of support, you are sure they will instead devote those resources to help the liberated slaves.
    -[X] Reassure them that they will be able to continue operating in the city, provided they keep to the laws of the realm.
    -[X] Make It clear there will be no slaves on this city, the servants and clergy of the temple may call themselves whatever they wish, but if any wishes to leave then the law will protect them.
    -[X] Hear about their own proposals and plans to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the city.

    Just Reassure them they dont have to be in the shitlist, if they play nice they wont even notice that the city changed hands.
    On the other hand, if they have anything to offer now is the time, we reward those that serve willingly and they do have the ears and the hearts of a good portion of the city.
     
    You know for a guy who just had his entire city conquered in less than a day he's pretty damn ballsy.

    Unfortunately this courage is probably borne more of ignorance than actual virtue.

    Meh, either way one more thing to scratch off the old to do list.

    Now for the actual challenge of this whole ordeal, dealing with the god botherers.
     
    Evaunit02mark1 said:
    You know for a guy who just had his entire city conquered in less than a day he's pretty damn ballsy.

    Unfortunately this courage is probably borne more of ignorance than actual virtue.

    Meh, either way one more thing to scratch off the old to do list.

    Now for the actual challenge of this whole ordeal, dealing with the god botherers.
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    And he had the gall to say it to our halfdragon form no less. Despite the anger, I can't help but be impressed.
     
    Fehu said:
    Seven insightful ratings, what. :p

    What will happen to the Unsullied, theyre disarmed now are they not seeing as the Archon is imprisoned?
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    We perform experiments on them and poke and prod to see how to undo their indoctrination so that we can indoctrinate them. With a bit of effort they're great Legion candidates.
     
    Fehu said:
    Seven insightful ratings, what. :p

    What will happen to the Unsullied, theyre disarmed now are they not seeing as the Archon is imprisoned?
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    Interestingly enough, these guys were actually afraid enough that their hands were trembling. Makes me wonder why. If they went with the Archon then they wouldn't know what happened to their brethren (although guessing their fate from our presence should be clear enough). Maybe we actually terrified the Unsullied in Tyrosh so much that they went into shock and reverted to their trained behavior?
     
    Truth be told you are not certain what to think when the device does indeed hum to life. On the one hand having the man dead in the chaos would spare you the trouble his presence may cause, yet if you found nothing you could never be certain he was dead... and neither could anyone else. Tales of 'miraculous returns' for heirs or exiled lords thought dead are all too common when interested factions need a figurehead to rally support behind.
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    You would know it well, don't you ;)
     
    Duesal said:
    We perform experiments on them and poke and prod to see how to undo their indoctrination so that we can indoctrinate them. With a bit of effort they're great Legion candidates.
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    Unsullied indoctrination has them follow whoever holds a symbolic whip, which is what is actually sold in Unsullied transactions. So this will be relatively easy to deal with.

    This indoctrination is strong enough that in canon, they ignored the Good Masters' orders even as Dany was ordering her dragons to kill them, all because she was the one holding the whip.

    All we have to do is get the whip and tell them they're free to go, while making the offer to join the Legions. Then symbolically destroy the whip. They'll take it as a de-facto order obviously, but they'd be according to their own beliefs and rules free. Time and friendly social contact, especially the kind of social bonds you'd find in closely knit teamwork oriented institution like the Legions, will do the rest. Maybe throw in some regenerations for their mutilation and perhaps a treatment to fix the health issues from a lack of pubescent development.
     
    [X] das_slash

    'We'll help if you assure the end of slavery'.... coming from the faction with a private slave army. The gall of these guys...
     
    Algalon said:
    All we have to do is get the whip and tell them they're free to go, while making the offer to join the Legions. Then symbolically destroy the whip. They'll take it as a de-facto order obviously, but they'd be according to their own beliefs and rules free. Time and friendly social contact, especially the kind of social bonds you'd find in closely knit teamwork oriented institution like the Legions, will do the rest. Maybe throw in some regenerations for their mutilation and perhaps a treatment to fix the health issues from a lack of pubescent development.
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    Well, re-manning the unsullied...don't know if thats been tried before. We'll need to make it right cheap to cast en mass I think. Or maybe a function of a Tree--the Re-Manning Tree, with the face of an ex-unsullied carved on it.

    Edit: It would be poetic to have it in Astapor, but don't think it should wait that long.
     
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