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

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Goldfish said:
The preliminary scroll scribing schedule has been completed. Quills of Scribing are great, but limited in the number of scrolls they can produce, meaning that at most Lya and Leila can use them to each scribe 30 scrolls this month, while Mia will be able to scribe 29 due to her Quill not being crafted until the 2nd day of the month.

Lya is producing some higher level scrolls for use by herself and the main party, along with a variety of useful lower level spells for Mia to learn.

Leila's scribing is dedicated entirely to producing useful low level Divine spell scrolls for Scholarium mages to learn. We've been neglecting this part of our mages' educations. They need spells to learn, after all. The idea is that the scrolls she produces are learned by other Scholarium mages, who in turn can produce scrolls for others, or teach them directly. I'm not sure if this practice should generate any sort of modifiers to how many mages we produce or how they level, @TalonofAnathrax, @DragonParadox, but even if there is no mechanical effect, it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Mia is doing much the same as Leila. Some time is being set aside for her to build up a small stockpile of useful scrolls for herself, but a lot of her scribing will be to produce useful low level Arcane scrolls for Scholarium mages to learn from.

Anyone have any objections to this course of action?
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We don't really go into that much detail though. This shouldn't make mages level any faster IMO, but maybe it could have prepared casters know a few more low-level spells?
 
Crake said:
@DragonParadox Zherys repeatedly keeps trying to wield us like his own blade against a foe or rival.

He has done that every single time, whether or not he tried to angle towards us doing so, or we offered outright.

Every single time we show up in Volantis and meet with him, he tries to use us to eliminate an obstacle.

It's a pattern he hasn't dropped and we haven't disabused him of the notion that we aren't a sword to be wielded, but the hand that grasps.

@Azel, ideas?
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I say that we should prove him wrong. Poach the necromancer, so that he sees that unlike common swords, we do get a share of the loot too.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Exept when we showed up to save Hermetia.
Then he couldn't really do much about our intend of burning down her house, except trying to profit from the inevitable result.
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In that case we already had a goal, though.

To dig a bit more in your analysis though, @Crake, I think there's also an aspect of him trying to treat us like a dragon. We're a massively powerful threat, but also one that can be...distracted. If we want to make it clear that we're more than that, we need to stay the course here. Focus on what is in front of us, instead of what he's trying to distract us with. Qarth is not our concern right now. Volantis is.
 
And yet again, our greatest strength comes to the fore! Our many skilled and powerful allies!

Viserys is the tip of the spear. And though it may be a +5 brilliant energy flaming burst vorpal soul-killing deathspear, it does require a Valyrian steel haft and a strong arm behind it.
 
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The necromancer is still the highest weakpoint of Zherys in our favor. The guy has terrible social skills. Which means that we can socially rape the guy for information.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Nice.
That can only end well for us.

Either an ancient threat is stopped and the Undying meet the fate of all men, or the Lannisters loose some valuable assets.
A bit of both would of course be optimal.
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Mindblanked dragon-man ready to swoop in and burninate the victors?

That would make it a really good ending. :p
 
BeepSmile said:
He did maintain an abusive relationship with Teana. Not interested in actually... expending effort to help the dude, in any way.
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Well, Relath did actually eat people, so our moral standards for conquest via subversion of individual leaders are fairly low. Regardless of personal unsavoryness or even atrocity, might be better than mass bloodshed. A war with Volantis would be pretty horrid, they have more magic and competency than poor Tyrosh did. Once they are in our Empire, we have other options to remove, reform, or otherwise deal with them as we will.
 
Tomcost said:
The guy is apparently a shadowbinder from Asshai, and actually knows quite a lot about the Plane of Shadow. I think that the guy could greatly help us to improve our demiplane.

Also, we have a fucking dracolich for him to study. We can buy him whenever we want.
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Hell, even the book we have on making a dracolich and lore we have on phylactery-making would be enough to make him personally stab Zherys in the face.
 
Seriously? He tripped us with Braavos?

Next time I'm writing a exhaustive list what to expect of him to know.

Bah. That could have been a lucky guess!

*grumble*

...

Anyway. Next part is delicate. He needs to be gently told that he should stop treating us like a moron and think carefully about the fact that we are approaching him now instead of going for his stalling games.
 
Azel said:
Seriously? He tripped us with Braavos?

Next time I'm writing a exhaustive list what to expect of him to know.

Bah. That could have been a lucky guess!

*grumble*

...

Anyway. Next part is delicate. He needs to be gently told that he should stop treating us like a moron and think carefully about the fact that we are approaching him now instead of going for his stalling games.
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In your defense, I think DP used Braavos as the "tripping point" more because of how narrow Zherys' margin for victory was than anything else. He also went through pains to show Zherys was equally flummoxed about our recent ventures and our information about his doings.

It was basically DP cherry picking a political landmine and deciding that Braavos was a decent lynchpin to make a hill to die on.

FIW, Zherys doesn't seem to view us as a superior, but a peer. Until he's dissuaded of that notion...
 
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I have something to ask about the turn plan: Did we squeeze in studying the Reaper Scythe so that we can merge it with Dark Sister and capture souls?
 
Crake said:
In your defense, I think DP used Braavos as the "tripping point" more because of how narrow Zherys' margin for victory was than anything else. He also went through pains to show Zherys was equally flummoxed about our recent ventures and our information about his doings.

It was basically DP cherry picking a political landmine and deciding that Braavos was a decent lynchpin to make a hill to die on.

FIW, Zherys doesn't seem to view us as a superior, but a peer. Until he's dissuaded of that notion...
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No, my point is that Zherys revealing that he knows we talked to the Sealord is as surprising as the announcement that the sun rises in the east.

He could have easily guessed that we did so. We are in bed with the Iron Bank and recently conquered a city. Of course we talk to the Sealord!
 
I'm not sure what you're saying. If what you're saying is what I think you are, that Viserys should not have been caught off guard by "what could have been a random jab", DP could just as easily make his own defense that "Viserys had gone to great pains to be discrete about his dealings in Braavos and did not expect Zherys to bring it up".

But you should definitely be more detailed on your write-ups and preconceptions for plans, they help DP with our frame of mind and also might give us some pity circumstantial bonuses... doubtful, but hey.
 
AntaeusTheGiant said:
Well, whenever we want before we reincarnate Amrelath that is. So we are on kind of a deadline, but since that is also self-determined, its more of a sequencing issue. Necromancer recruitment first, Amrelath revivement later.
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We would still have the lore on how to make Dracoliches and the insights of a former one written down.
And also that of a Vampire Wizard.

And he could study the strange shadow-thing we captured from teh Valyrian/Tiamat Shadowbinder.
And Lya is somehow infused with some NeE but not dead or Undead.
And we regularly go up against the Other-made undead and he could study those once we fight some the next time.
Worst case he could ask Rina about her lore on Undead, should be deeper than that most mortal caster could learn in the short time since magic came back.

We have lots of tasty treats for a curious Necromancer.
 
Crake said:
also might give us some pity circumstantial bonuses... doubtful, but hey.
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Look at the major social votes I've crafted recently. Specifically DP's comments on them. It's not just the dice rolls, it's the framing around it. I'm pretty sure it does affect the mechanical outcome, at one level if not another.

See: Rhaella, Rina, et. All.
 
Azel said:
No, my point is that Zherys revealing that he knows we talked to the Sealord is as surprising as the announcement that the sun rises in the east.

He could have easily guessed that we did so. We are in bed with the Iron Bank and recently conquered a city. Of course we talk to the Sealord!
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It's not just taking to the Sealord, he knew (or guessed) what you offered the Sealord and when.
 
@Snowfire I've gone into pretty exhaustive detail for my social write-ins before. It might be the case that various thrusts for the conversation does not actually help as much as anecdotes detailing the motive for each small, constituent stand-alone sentence, but I feel pretty confident in saying it's 50-50 depending on the actual response, motives and angle of attack the other party is going to take for their social rolls.

With that said, I concede it can't hurt, and might help. So that means it should always be done.
 
So, if we poach the necromancer, we can alos poach the Devil-bound astronomer. Mainly by breaking the bond with Baator. We are going to have experience with that.
 
Crake said:
@Snowfire I've gone into pretty exhaustive detail for my social write-ins before. It might be the case that various thrusts for the conversation does not actually help as much as anecdotes detailing the motive for each small, constituent stand-alone sentence, but I feel pretty confident in saying it's 50-50 depending on the actual response, motives and angle of attack the other party is going to take for their social rolls.

With that said, I concede it can't hurt, and might help. So that means it should always be done.
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Going into exhaustive detail isn't the point here. It's putting the detail in the right places. Go back and look at the high-tension votes I did for Rhaella and Rina. Their wording is usually concise, but the framing around each point can run longer than the points themselves, to the point that I've been called out about it before. And yet, it works.

Detail is one thing. Direction is another. And from everything I've seen, the direction of an interaction matters a lot. Because it dictates what you're running up against in terms of social combat. And that means it does have a mechanical effect, which can be pretty powerful if the direction of an attack slides in 'between' an opponent's defences.
 
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