Remove ads

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

Reader mode
@Azel I mean, is there any reason not to go:
[X] Plan Consolidating v2
-[X] Punish slavers for exceptional cruelty (Ex: trying out torture implements as a public spectacle) and for the breach of Tyrosh's very sparse and effectively unenforced pre-existing laws on the treatment of slaves
--[X] Use the chance to settle some of the wrath of the former slaves and seize a properties wherever feasible.
--[X] If any opposition to your rule can be identified until then, try to get rid of the more troublesome elements while the hangman is already busy.
--[X] Also destroy any businesses that organized slave raids on other countries. Seize all properties.
-[X] Tell Saan and Moonsong, who will get to command half of the royal fleet for this month, that you want both the remaining Tyroshi vessels captured and some raids on Westerosi shipping. How they divide these tasks between each other or if they make a sport of it is not your concern.
-[X] The remainder of the royal fleet will enforce the Stepstones Toll as planned.

Essentially so we can free ourselves of the lazy ones and the cunning ones, and get a boatload more property to play with.
 
brmj said:
Azel, you seem to have misread my proposal.

Kill the ones who commited capital crimes, sure. At least those who wouldn't prefer the wall. However, I'd be entirely satisfied with many of the rest facing severe fines, confiscations, maybe even public service requirements for maximum irony. Let them go on living, but leave them no better off than their former slaves.

It is essential that we completely break the power of the old ruling class, both in the interests of justice and because failing to do so guarantees that civil war you so want to prevent, but ensures they will be fighting with sellsword armies rather than sticks and rocks. If you think completely breaking their power will start a war, just wait until you see what leaving them with most of their wealth and a serious grudge against us will do.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The old ruling class has no power! *cue lotr "you have no power here" meme*

Who could they even hire that dared to fight us and took gold as payment? What they can have, is relevant use to governance if we keep things under control, or enough desperation to cough up the souls for some actual fighters if we start doing stupid stuff.
 
Last edited:
The end result is the same. Rebellion and then mass death. Reactionary overreaction... on both sides. Chaos in the streets. Revenge killings. Punitive measures. Anarchy. Mass death. Crisis. Starvation.

In the end the only thing we can do for former slaves is to be a ruthless pragmatist. For once carefully calculating the level of punishment and the spread to reap personal benefit isn't just the sane thing to do, but given what we have to work with, the only thing we can do, barring just punishing no one whatsoever.

There are so many-knock on effects, forgetting the amount of time required to investigate even half of the stuff I skimmed from your plan, resultant from your proposal that it guarantees more people are effected than you actually imply, realistically hundreds of thousands more, the very slaves you tout as being able to "pick up the slack" in the place of the old ruling class... who would die in droves.

We conquered Tyrosh so there'd be a city left by the end, not on the skeletal bones we have to slowly remove with a dust pan before building something new upon the bloody ruin.
 
Last edited:
TotallyNotEvil said:
@Azel I mean, is there any reason not to go:
[X] Plan Consolidating v2
-[X] Punish slavers for exceptional cruelty (Ex: trying out torture implements as a public spectacle) and for the breach of Tyrosh's very sparse and effectively unenforced pre-existing laws on the treatment of slaves
--[X] Use the chance to settle some of the wrath of the former slaves and seize a properties wherever feasible.
--[X] If any opposition to your rule can be identified until then, try to get rid of the more troublesome elements while the hangman is already busy.
--[X] Also destroy any businesses that organized slave raids on other countries. Seize all properties.
-[X] Tell Saan and Moonsong, who will get to command half of the royal fleet for this month, that you want both the remaining Tyroshi vessels captured and some raids on Westerosi shipping. How they divide these tasks between each other or if they make a sport of it is not your concern.
-[X] The remainder of the royal fleet will enforce the Stepstones Toll as planned.

Essentially so we can free ourselves of the lazy ones and the cunning ones, and get a boatload more property to play with.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Uhm... I was under the impression that punishing cruelty automatically included to enforce what little law Tyrosh had on the matter.
 
brmj said:
Azel, you seem to have misread my proposal.

Kill the ones who commited capital crimes, sure. At least those who wouldn't prefer the wall. However, I'd be entirely satisfied with many of the rest facing severe fines, confiscations, maybe even public service requirements for maximum irony. Let them go on living, but leave them no better off than their former slaves.

It is essential that we completely break the power of the old ruling class, both in the interests of justice and because failing to do so guarantees that civil war you so want to prevent, but ensures they will be fighting with sellsword armies rather than sticks and rocks. If you think completely breaking their power will start a war, just wait until you see what leaving them with most of their wealth and a serious grudge against us will do.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Azel's not scared of a civil war, he wants to avoid wrecking the city's infrastructure and labor pool because that will cost us much-needed cash. That's what your plan to persecute slavers and essentially make them second-class citizens is going to do.

We don't need to break the old ruling class.

They're already broken. They completely and utterly lost their power the second we stepped foot in the city.
 
brmj said:
Azel, you seem to have misread my proposal.

Kill the ones who commited capital crimes, sure. At least those who wouldn't prefer the wall. However, I'd be entirely satisfied with many of the rest facing severe fines, confiscations, maybe even public service requirements for maximum irony. Let them go on living, but leave them no better off than their former slaves.

It is essential that we completely break the power of the old ruling class, both in the interests of justice and because failing to do so guarantees that civil war you so want to prevent, but ensures they will be fighting with sellsword armies rather than sticks and rocks. If you think completely breaking their power will start a war, just wait until you see what leaving them with most of their wealth and a serious grudge against us will do.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Alright. Fine. Let's play out your plan.

We gather the slaves to find out crimes. Now we start hanging the worst offenders and seizing their properties, giving them to former slaves "to pick up the slack".
We do the same with the moderate accusations, but often enough, the public trial will find witnesses that are certain that the accused did something worse. As per your plan, we hang them, seize the properties, hand them out.

By now, we've got trade ships coming in and we get reports that their captains and crews are slavers or did slave-trade in the past. So, as per your plan, we believe the former slaves to make sure that nobody gets away. So we hang a bunch and fine the rest.

Traders start avoiding us like the plague, since word gets around that a mob of slaves will rob you blind the moment you enter the port. Meanwhile, you have former slavers humiliating themselves publicly in an attempt to escape the gallows being erected all over the city to keep up with the executions. A few riots occur, but it's just dead slavers, so who cares.

As the granaries empty out and no trade goods are produced as the slaves, who more often then not can't replace the skilled craftsmen we executed anyway, trade away whatever we gave them for food. So we load up our ships with all the slavers we want to deport to the Wall and give them enough gold to buy desperately needed supplies. The ship never return, for the crews fear that they are the next victims of the reign of terror.

Civil order is breaking down anyway, as we threw out all civil servants as former slavers. That is, the part that we didn't hang because someone accused them of something. As the food runs finally out, the desperate former slaves will look for alternatives. The Legions seems to still have some rations left, so a daring raid is staged on their camps. Thousands die in the riot that ensues, the streets run red with blood and the last remnants of order break down as city devours itself in a final conflagration.

Meanwhile Viserys pats himself on the back for letting no slaver escape.

...

Fuck this shit.
 
"But they were only slavers. At least we saved all those slaves."

*sitting in burning palace while the screams of women, children and even some eunuchs sounds in the distance*

"This is fine."
 
TL;DR: The French Revolution. That sure worked out well for all involved, didn't it? Didn't turn into a tyrannical murderous mess in any way, shape, or form.

I mean, I could go into studies about how eyewitness testimony is unreliable, how giving people even the slightest amount of power tends to corrupt them and get to their heads, how mixing the power to kill and punish with vengeful people with giant hateboners and nothing to lose is a recipe for chaos and destruction... but I don't really know if there's actually a point. The people who get it's a bad idea don't need further incentive, the people who don't probably won't be convinced anyway.
 
But they know so much better, history was a boring class anyway, who actually paid attention to that stuff anyway? And for those that did, that's populist revisionism! Clearly killing all the nobles worked out for France. They still exist today after all, don't they? You'll look back on all this mass slaughter proudly years from now and think "what a fucking mess".

Uh. I mean... how productive.
 
Generally speaking, if you consider random executions in the name of ideology acceptable and are willing to write of a two digit percentage of your population as expendable, something went very, very wrong.
 
On the other hand, look at how well leaving a slave owning aristocracy most of their wealth with only a slap on the wrist worked out in the American south. Your plan means that in 100 years, their descentents who have inherited all their wealth rule over an underclass of the destitute descendants of former slaves and keep them in line with dogs, fire hoses and lynch mobs. We can do better than that.

If someone wants to put together an alternate plan for those who've read too much Edmund Burke, feel free. So long as it breaks the financial power of the old ruling class completely, I may vote for it. As is, Azel's doesn't go nearly far enough.
 
[X] Azel

Honestly, so long as we aren't going full on post USA-Civil War levels of leniency I'll be good. Also I am still up for using the Inquisition's first major action to conduct a full audit of Senor FatMouth Magister. I want to (figuratively) bleed one of them dry...

This is purely hypothetical, but if there was somehow a situation where you had to pick between 100% purges and French Terror levels of blood in the streets, vs 100% leniency for the former slaveholding ruling class with not even an economic slap on the wrist, I'd push for the former, partially out of "fuck you" and partially because I think it would be much much more destructive in the short and long term to have people who hate us with an intact power base and pocketbooks in charge*. But this is nowhere near an either or scenario and we can definitely find some middle ground so I'm for all quest-practical intents and purposes gonna vote away from "KILL THEM ALL NOW**" as a "solution" to dealing with an existing city's power base.

*See canon Dany
**Them giving us excuses to kill them off for various crimes/treasons and replace them with Admins trained by our infrastructure and personally loyal people over the course of time? Totally different. Non-sarcastically.

brmj said:
On the other hand, look at how well leaving a slave owning aristocracy most of their wealth with only a slap on the wrist worked out in the American south. Your plan means that in 100 years, their descentents who have inherited all their wealth rule over an underclass of the destitute descendants of former slaves and keep them in line with dogs, fire hoses and lynch mobs. We can do better than that.

If someone wants to put together an alternate plan for those who've read too much Edmund Burke, feel free. So long as it breaks the financial power of the old ruling class completely, I may vote for it. As is, Azel's doesn't go nearly far enough.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh look someone who ninja'ed my fears about American South V2 Dragonbugaloo happenening :p.

I think a few things that help Viserys a lot here is that
A) We are exacting some non-trivial economic reparations from the ruling class. (At least thats the impression I got from the Magister confrontation chapters)
B) Viserys isn't apathetic/stupid enough to let "totally not slavery" indentured servitude happen under his nose--see Pentoshi "bondsmen"
C) Active state support given to the newly freed slaves in terms of healthcare, education/indoctrination, jobs programs-especially for the legions and crafters, and someone who gives a damn about them as people.

|
|
v
lol in short what this guy says
 
Last edited:
brmj said:
On the other hand, look at how well leaving a slave owning aristocracy most of their wealth with only a slap on the wrist worked out in the American south. Your plan means that in 100 years, their descentents who have inherited all their wealth rule over an underclass of the destitute descendants of former slaves and keep them in line with dogs, fire hoses and lynch mobs. We can do better than that.

If someone wants to put together an alternate plan for those who've read too much Edmund Burke, feel free. So long as it breaks the financial power of the old ruling class completely, I may vote for it. As is, Azel's doesn't go nearly far enough.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I would like to point out that unlike post civil war America, we, the anti slavery faction, have absolute political power, are planning on living forever, are setting up an inquisition that we can tell to fuck over said slaver dynasties, and are revolutionizing manufacturing and many other industries, running them and anyone else we hate out of business. So, uh, very different than the post civil war south.
 
brmj said:
On the other hand, look at how well leaving a slave owning aristocracy most of their wealth with only a slap on the wrist worked out in the American south. Your plan means that in 100 years, their descentents who have inherited all their wealth rule over an underclass of the destitute descendants of former slaves and keep them in line with dogs, fire hoses and lynch mobs. We can do better than that.

If someone wants to put together an alternate plan for those who've read too much Edmund Burke, feel free. So long as it breaks the financial power of the old ruling class completely, I may vote for it. As is, Azel's doesn't go nearly far enough.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You are merely trying to tip your hand far too early in the game and substitute a lack of patience with a bucket of blind zeal.

You think I want to leave the magisters in power? Do you sometimes read my posts? I'm disgusted by pretty much everything in this city. The clothes. The fashion. The buildings. The gilding. The manners. The culture. The nobility. All of it. All can and will burn, but I will not set the house on fire to get rid of the cockroaches.

You can't break a faction that had centuries to entrench itself within a day. You need careful planning and measured action. Your rash actions will cost more blood from ordinary citizens and slaves then all the magisters put together.

What we need is to slowly and steadily isolate them from their powerbase and then you tie the noose for the old order. This here is barely the third move in the game, not finisher.
 
I don't suppose there is even the slightest interest on this thread to "ahem" adjust our careful plans of an orderly and natural conquest progression, and do an emergency and out of order conquest of Qohor rather soonish? After all, we did use the excuse of impending disaster for our conquest of Tyrosh, and Qohor seems to be in the midst of an ongoing disaster. As Azel pointed out several posts ago, there won't be much or anything left of Qohor if we wait the year or two it would take for us to get there naturally.

Edit: I suppose this is something that has already been heavily discussed, sorry if i am mining salt here...
 
Last edited:
AntaeusTheGiant said:
I don't suppose there is even the slightest interest on this thread to "ahem" adjust our careful plans of an orderly and natural conquest progression, and do an emergency and out of order conquest of Qohor rather soonish? After all, we did use the excuse of impending disaster for our conquest of Tyrosh, and Qohor seems to be in the midst of an ongoing disaster. As Azel pointed out several posts ago, there won't be much or anything left of Qohor if we wait the year or two it would take for us to get there naturally.

Edit: I suppose this is something that has already been heavily discussed, sorry if i am mining salt here...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, you're perfectly fine. I've also been musing on it, and you're right. It is time-sensitive. I don't want it to be looted before we get there, and I don't want to show up only for there to be nothing to conquer.

Maybe we should send the baby adventurers over there to take a look after a round of divination to make sure it's nothing more than they can handle.

We have Greater Teleport, let's put it to use.
 
AntaeusTheGiant said:
Even worse, what if Volantis is concerned enough about it affecting the whole area, and gets there first?!:o
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hey fun fact, due to Viserys claiming the Three Daughters as "mine" to the left of Volantis and our Mantarys/Tolos set up on the right, Volantis pretty much has to go "up" right towards Qohor.

Man now I wonder if Zehrys planned the flesh forge map of Qohor with even more catches than I initially thought. Like did he somehow divine "our meeting will end with me p much having to start Volantis' conquering up towards Qohor so I should give Viserys n Co a reason to visit Qohor covertly, which will put them in a better position for an ambush of some sort??"
 
AntaeusTheGiant said:
Even worse, what if Volantis is concerned enough about it affecting the whole area, and gets there first?!:o
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's the problem -- we straight-up don't have the manpower or the administrative capabilities to skip around and conquer Qohor ahead of time.

The reason we're conquering the Three Daughters is geography -- they're all right next to each other.

This allows our power projection to be amplified and be far, far stronger than it otherwise would be. Qohor is... a bit out of the way, to say the least. If we conquered it out of schedule, we'd have a hell of a time holding onto it even with a full garrison and an army of bureaucrats. Just look at Tyrosh. Tyrosh is actually better off than Qohor is right now.

Let's take a step back. There was another similar situation -- Mantarys.

It had otherworldly problems that we couldn't really ignore. It's right next to Volantis and a prime and juicy target for conquest. And yet, in spite of us being very capable of conquering the place, in spite of the fact that we did conquer it, we couldn't hold it because we were short on soldiers and bureaucrats, and because it was too far away to safely manage. That's exactly the problem we're facing with Qohor. The reason the Three Daughters work so well with conquest is that they're right next to each other, so each one becomes easier to be gobbled up by the Imperium than the last.

So yeah. Tldr; we can't outright conquer Qohor for purely practical reasons, even with Zherys as a looming threat.

What we can do is send PCs there to investigate, backed by divination, and then they either solve the problem or give us information so that we can solve the problem. Maybe help out with the food so they're not such easy prey for Volantis. Maybe capture a bunch of sacrifices.
 
Well, if you use that map, sure. But if you use THIS map, you'll see its barely a fourth the way across the continent. Practically next door, esp. for someone with a magical moveable fortress, really good teleports, more than one dragon, and gold that is limited only by his own desires not to wreck the economy. I'm sure we can install a puppet. Just like Catherine the Great did in Poland. Well, maybe not just like that...
 
AntaeusTheGiant said:
Well, if you use that map, sure. But if you use THIS map, you'll see its barely a fourth the way across the continent. Practically next door, esp. for someone with a magical moveable fortress, really good teleports, more than one dragon, and gold that is limited only by his own desires not to wreck the economy. I'm sure we can install a puppet. Just like Catherine the Great did in Poland. Well, maybe not just like that...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Teleport, while useful, doesn't fix everything. The Imperium needs to be a cohesive whole rather than a patchwork of random provinces spread across the continent.

That said... a puppet leader doesn't sound terrible.

We need to start producing PCs to do this stuff for us. Just train them to be murderbosses, then give them their own Alinors and give them a city to discreetly hold in our name (which they first must conquer).

We briefly had plans of training a Wildling PC to become a King Beyond the Wall, for example.
 
Last edited:
AntaeusTheGiant said:
Well, if you use that map, sure. But if you use THIS map, you'll see its barely a fourth the way across the continent. Practically next door, esp. for someone with a magical moveable fortress, really good teleports, more than one dragon, and gold that is limited only by his own desires not to wreck the economy. I'm sure we can install a puppet. Just like Catherine the Great did in Poland. Well, maybe not just like that...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's still thousands of miles and way to far to try and control even as a puppet. Hell, last time we tried to puppet a state was also Mantarys and now its doing so well we're doubting if we can easily incorporate them into the Imperium.
 
The history of the English Empire begs to differ....

That is also how Brandenburg, which became Prussia, which united the German Empire began. Grabbing whatever territories it could regardless of location, then slowly conquering around them wherever they happened to be.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top