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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:
Ugh... I can't believe that we nearly didn't go to this meeting.

Writing questions now.
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Be sure to ask questions along a spectrum of competence/foreknowledge.

E.g. Don't just ask how she made the Golems, ask how she protects the works from heat etc. so she can't get a grasp on what we do know by what we don't ask.

[X] Azel
 
On the one hand, the questions about her capabilities seem a little on the nose to ask someone who might yet become an enemy (and legitimately should worry about being so rather than arguing from a position of strength).

On the other hand, if she's asked us here for what I think she has, it would be a massive sign of trust for comparatively little loss. The only potential rival who is better served by hiding their precise capabilities that I can think of is Zherys, who is basically a dark mirror of Viserys with enough Decepticon versions of the Companions to make a fight viable.

...don't look at me like that, the comparison is on point.

Anyway, that last question is the most important part. Things are waaaay too calm on the surface.

I also feel like it's in her interest to be as protectionist towards her business model as possible while giving up the most other things so that the concessions she asks for come down as a choice between "do you want to make a lot of money or kill a lot of people", but to be honest our reputation as being a brutal motherfucker are helping us out here, even if they're (somewhat) off base. She might not think we give a shit about people killed in a city fight.

To be fair, I really don't, but it's worth pointing out that Myr has a lot of valuable infrastructure and people to make our life uncomfortable if someone were to say, redirect their efforts towards scorched earth rather than resistance.

If they did that though, obviously they would want to have an escape route prepared.
 
@Duesal, I think you are digging far too hard. That will just put her on the defensive and not net us any answers.

Posting my batch for now. Need some food and will probably add to the list later.

[X] Questions
-[X] Why the meeting in this manufactory?
--[X] Is it warded against prying eyes?
---[X] If not, Bloodwish Mages Private Sanctum.
--[X] Does she have reason to assume that her private properties are not safe?
--[X] Does she have reason to assume that others would try to listen in on this meeting?
--[X] Does she possess secure means of communication?
-[X] Ask her if she is a mage herself and if so what kind, or merely bought her enchanted gear and if so, where.
-[X] Ask her about magic in Myr in general and the skills and abilities of her guild in particular.
-[X] Is the Glass Golem the result of preserved pre-doom lore or did they do their own experiments to develop it?
-[X] What is her relation to the other factions in the ruling council?
-[X] Are there other influential parties in the city that we should be aware of?
-[X] What is her background? Is she a noble by birth, rose through the ranks of the guild or something else?
-[X] Every Free City has had some manner of magical mishap without exception... save for Myr. How is it that a Daughter of the Freehold managed to weather the changing tides of the world unscathed?
-[X] Is she aware of any activities by Fey, Fiends or similar forces in Myr itself or its held territories?
-[X] What are the economic interests and activities of her guild? She mentioned concerns about luxury trades, which implies that glass-making is not the sole focus of their operations.
 
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@Azel, my questions about her capabilities were less about gathering intel on a potential enemy -- because I believe she'll do everything in her power to avoid fighting us, we wouldn't be in this situation if she wasn't explicitly trying to build some measure of trust -- and more about seeing how good of a magical craftswoman she is. I'm basically viewing her as someone to outsource time-consuming projects to when Lya and Rina are otherwise busy, provided of course we pay a fair amount rather than the inflated prices we're currently dealing with.

I suspect she's an Artificer or something along those lines.

[X] Azel
 
@Azel I almost feel that the "is this meeting warded" question deserves to preface the rest of the discussion... for obvious reasons.

[X] Azel
 
So... we're still going ahead with our own scheme for hardened glass, right? I don't want to give that up just because Myr has an established industry. We're not even going to sell to anyone, this is mainly for our own needs.
 
Duesal said:
So... we're still going ahead with our own scheme for hardened glass, right? I don't want to give that up just because Myr has an established industry. We're not even going to sell to anyone, this is mainly for our own needs.
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Relatively few people in Myr are actually employed in the glass making industry, AFAIK. If we destroy that, we can just hire the newly freed slaves in some other capacity. They'll likely be able to continue as normal, though. With our Greater Stone Metamorphosis item, we can produce tons of perfectly clear Quartz, which Lya or Viserys could fabricate into hundreds of thousands of perfectly uniform panes of glass superior to anything not created using ultra-modern technology. It would take less than 30 seconds to outproduce what Myr could manufacture in months.

Where we won't waste our time is in the production of specialty pieces, glassware, figurines, bottles, etc. Skilled glassworkers will still have a place.

EDIT: Why wouldn't we sell the Quartz-glass? It's something we can produce for free and make a huge amount of money selling at a fraction of Myr's prices.
 
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Goldfish said:
Relatively few people in Myr are actually employed in the glass making industry, AFAIK. If we destroy that, we can just hire the newly freed slaves in some other capacity. They'll likely be able to continue as normal, though. With our Greater Stone Metamorphosis item, we can produce tons of perfectly clear Quartz, which Lya or Viserys could fabricate into hundreds of thousands of perfectly uniform panes of glass superior to anything not created using ultra-modern technology. It would take less than 30 seconds to outproduce what Myr could manufacture in months.

Where we won't waste our time is in the production of specialty pieces, glassware, figurines, bottles, etc. Skilled glassworkers will still have a place.

EDIT: Why wouldn't we sell the Quartz-glass? It's something we can produce for free and make a huge amount of money selling at a fraction of Myr's prices.
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Just making sure. I don't want anything to jeopardize our pseudo-glassteel industry.
 
I'm honestly not that interested in selling quartz glass. The market for standardized parts is too small there and I'm strongly against any plan that is using PC time for economic purposes for indefinite amounts of time.

I see it mostly as a way to produce large quantities for construction purposes and special applications.
 
Azel said:
I'm honestly not that interested in selling quartz glass. The market for standardized parts is too small there and I'm strongly against any plan that is using PC time for economic purposes for indefinite amounts of time.

I see it mostly as a way to produce large quantities for construction purposes and special applications.
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Less than a minute of PC time could produce enough perfect Quartz-glass panes to fill the cargo hold of a small trading ship for free. Do that four or five times and send them off to sell their cargo.

Sure, we can use it for other stuff, but it's such an easy way to make a nice pile of money that I can't understand why we wouldn't do it.
 
Azel said:
I'm honestly not that interested in selling quartz glass. The market for standardized parts is too small there and I'm strongly against any plan that is using PC time for economic purposes for indefinite amounts of time.

I see it mostly as a way to produce large quantities for construction purposes and special applications.
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I want that industry in place for our purposes, and I want it under our direct control in Sorcerer's Deep. Whether or not we sell the glass is irrelevant to me.

@Goldfish, in the future once the economy revs up again and we have fatter coffers, maybe we can just buy an item of Fabricate at will? We can pair it with whatever other items you'd need so the DC to shape the hardened glass never goes awry, but yeah. This way we wouldn't need any of the PC oversight at all.
 
Just a reminder to everyone that in theorycrafting Artificers are a bigger threat than Wizards, Clerics(DMM), Archivists etc.

That's in a normal game, here DP removed XP from crafting and this woman is not bound by PC WBL.

On top of that DP is also allowing ritual to inflate caster level (or lower CL reqs)

It would be very dangerous to leave her unleashed if she is one or has access to one.
 
We might be able to co-opt these folk into selling the quartz for us. It's be a small concession, but would be a powerful statement. We had the opportunity to obsolete them, but since they joined us we instead help them get ahead of the magical industrial revolution. I suspect that we'd want to retool them towards some type of magical artifice guild anyway.

Assuming they're sensible.
 
Goldfish said:
Less than a minute of PC time could produce enough perfect Quartz-glass panes to fill the cargo hold of a small trading ship for free. Do that four or five times and send them off to sell their cargo.

Sure, we can use it for other stuff, but it's such an easy way to make a nice pile of money that I can't understand why we wouldn't do it.
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It would be a violation of our gentlemens agreement with DP to not abuse any spells to make money fountains.

Keep in mind that the spell has provisions against what you are proposing. It can't make "precious or semi-precious gems", which is a pretty wobbly rule, but allows the GM to veto specific materials (like Quartz or Corundum). It also says that the spell can't change the monetary value of the materials, which is pretty nonsensical per RAW, but the RAI are pretty obvious: You are not supposed to make money with this spell.

So I would rather not invite a GM veto on the Quartz and Corundum by going beyond the pale with this.

Same for Fabricate to be honest. That spell is ludicrously overpowered if we start throwing it at items. Please don't try to provoke the nerf-hammer.
 
Diomedon said:
We might be able to co-opt these folk into selling the quartz for us. It's be a small concession, but would be a powerful statement. We had the opportunity to obsolete them, but since they joined us we instead help them get ahead of the magical industrial revolution. I suspect that we'd want to retool them towards some type of magical artifice guild anyway.

Assuming they're sensible.
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I bet the Iron Bank would do backflips into a pit of rusty razor blades to have the privilege of finding someone to sell our Quartz glass for us.
 
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Azel said:
It would be a violation of our gentlemens agreement with DP to not abuse any spells to make money fountains.

Keep in mind that the spell has provisions against what you are proposing. It can't make "precious or semi-precious gems", which is a pretty wobbly rule, but allows the GM to veto specific materials (like Quartz or Corundum). It also says that the spell can't change the monetary value of the materials, which is pretty nonsensical per RAW, but the RAI are pretty obvious: You are not supposed to make money with this spell.

So I would rather not invite a GM veto on the Quartz and Corundum by going beyond the pale with this.

Same for Fabricate to be honest. That spell is ludicrously overpowered if we start throwing it at items. Please don't try to provoke the nerf-hammer.
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DP handles stuff better than that. Arbitrary limitations on what can be created based on human concepts of value have always been one of my biggest problems with D&D magic, not too far behind the whole ridiculous Vancian concept of magic.

Quartz is a rock that is only worth as much as people are willing to pay. Same with Obsidian, which DP has already said we can make.

More likely, it would be just like with Obsidian, as DP has ruled; we can make it, but the transmuted material would have none of the metaphysical weight of Dragonglass, and would this be useless against the Others. Similarly, our Quartz glass wouldn't be suitable for material components, spell foci, or for enchanting purposes.
 
Goldfish said:
I bet the Iron Bank would backflips into a pit of rusty razor blades to have the privilege of selling our Quartz glass for us.
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Yet the Iron Bank does not really help us gain Myr, nor a guild of competent and secretive craftsmen who could be turned into a (taxable) NPC magic item creation machine.
 
Deliste said:
Just a reminder to everyone that in theorycrafting Artificers are a bigger threat than Wizards, Clerics(DMM), Archivists etc.

That's in a normal game, here DP removed XP from crafting and this woman is not bound by PC WBL.

On top of that DP is also allowing ritual to inflate caster level (or lower CL reqs)

It would be very dangerous to leave her unleashed if she is one or has access to one.
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Mind, a big part of that is that they can go around XP requirements.

Still, a half-way competent artificer is pretty amazing, and can be played in many different ways.
 
Goldfish said:
DP handles stuff better than that. Arbitrary limitations on what can be created based on human concepts of value have always been one of my biggest problems with D&D magic, not too far behind the whole ridiculous Vancian concept of magic.

Quartz is a rock that is only worth as much as people are willing to pay. Same with Obsidian, which DP has already said we can make.

More likely, it would be just like with Obsidian, as DP has ruled; we can make it, but the transmuted material would have none of the metaphysical weight of Dragonglass, and would this be useless against the Others. Similarly, our Quartz glass wouldn't be suitable for material components, spell foci, or for enchanting purposes.
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Counterexample: Wall of Iron can't be used to produce steel, as per DPs ruling.

The problem is just that arbitrariness of D&D spells. You have some effects that would do utterly ridiculous things if not kept in check by such rulings.

Also, keep in mind that we are not allowed to mine infinite money in the PoE or PoM. Why should DP allow us to mine infinite money on the PM instead?

What looks more reasonable to me is to have a GSM item give them a massive boost to productivity, while still requiring processing and craftsmanship to create something.

Just limit the utility of the directly metamorphosed material by ruling that it can't be cut or processed without having the spell break down partially, thus making the pane of glass worthless the second you try to cut it into a new shape.

So it's still a big deal in economics, but it won't make free money out of dirt. Much like the Smelter.
 
So remember way back when Viserys got Alter Self, how people were commenting on us obseleting the Faceless men and how DP responded by going "*peeks at Faceless Man Char Shert* lol no"

I suspect our efforts to obselete the entire industry of glassmaking might run against something similar. Viserys has more resources and spells now, but I think it's clear the glassmakers have something up their sleeves
 
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