Yeah, it was roughly six months, give or take one or two. Getting trainers from all over southern Essos, mostly Lys, Mantarys and Tolos. Recruiting people. Inventing the Everflame Smelter. Buying bulk iron in the Plane of Earth. Forging. Drilling. Anti-Divination gambits. Sending our entire fleet on wildly nonsensical errands, just to pull them back together at the last moment. Hiring sellswords in Braavos. Asking Yrael for a hand. Meticulous planning by Divination scouting and careful strike-team composition.
The whole thing was our D-Day.
Not only in the scope and nature of what had happened, but also in the sense of the breaking point of the course of history. After it happened, everyone could see that things would go vastly different then they had anticipated.
Which is what has me kinda in the dumps lately. Everything feels so easy lately. Kinda lowers my interest in planning that much anymore.
I've said as much to Duesal a bit ago and he keeps bugging me about actually switching sides and running our opposition, so that I have a challenge again.
The Garden of Delights, as the locals name the part of the Bazaar that currently plays host to the most sought after courtesans, is filled with the sound of soft lingering melodies, sighs from the softly-plucked strings of long-necked lutes, and the thump of large ash-wood drums akin to the beat of a heart racing ever swifter with passion. Colorful awnings proclaiming the skills of the occupants vie for attention with often explicit stitching on long sinuous banners swaying in the wind. Yet for all that you and Garin sweep through, moved not to lust, but pity and a measure of anger hidden beneath spell-wrought seemings. Before the gates of the City of Brass courtesan is all too often another word for slave.
The one you seek, the Bey's paramour, is not among that number, nor does he seem to be a patron of any of the brothels. The Crimson Thorn's tent is set in splendid isolation from its fellows, the passage to it barred by a pair of bored-looking Fire Giants. Looking closer reveals a far more troublesome sight, arcane shapes in the swirling black sand meant to strip away glamours and prevent translocation. The Bey's jealously is more troublesome than you had first assumed.
Luckily, though the wards are strong they are not broad in kind, thus allowing Garin to step from shadow to shadow past wards and guards. Your own path is perhaps less elegant, but effective just the same. By careful wishcraft you gain the skill to burrow through the soft sand deep enough that the wards do not reach.
***
As soon as you are past the wards you wish into being ethereal mists akin to those you had often seen Lya do to guard against foresight and common eavesdropping both.
"Who might you be?" The voice that calls out as soon as you surface is not what you might have expected, then again neither is the speaker. The flame-haired woman certainly has an ageless beauty about her, but there is nothing sensual about it. Eyes bright as burnished copper look to you with frank curiosity.
"What would you say if I were to answer, someone able to rid you of the misplaced guards outside your tent door?" you ask, knowing that Garin is ready to sweep aside her memory of the meeting at need.
"I would say there is worse company to be had in this realm," the woman replies, feigning disinterest almost well enough to slip by your notice, but the pose rings ever so slightly false. Something about her still niggles at the back of your mind just the same.
"Then I shall just have to let my actions speak for me," you say, stepping to the low basalt table in the center of the tent and spreading a fistful of gems over it, emeralds green as new grass and rubies gleaming blood red in the soft candlelight. "Secrets are precious things, and all the more so to the right ears."
"They are also perilous," she counters.
With a small nod to Garin to be on his guard in case your next words should cause her to call out you explain: "Not if you do not remember having spoken them."
"Finding a pouch full of gems would be rather odd," she counters. "Could you not pay in coin?"
You almost relent, for you certainly have plenty of Brass Seals to trade in, and as unpleasant as they may be they are the coin of the land, but then you catch the subtle test to the question, and all at once the memory that had been shying away form the forefront of your mind stands revealed. The woman before you is not kin to devils after all, not any kind of fiend. Emberkin her kindred are called, scions of the righteous but tempestuous Peri.
"Such coins as the Brazen Throne strikes weigh heavier in the mind than they ever could in the hand," you answer instead in all sincerity.
"Very well then," the courtesan nods resolutely. "I will trust you to pay once it is safe to do so. What do you wish to know?"
[] Ask about the Bey's mysterious wanderings
[] Ask of any hidden way into the Office of Taxation
[] Write in
OOC: Normally I would have tried to do the questioning myself, but it's late and I'm afraid I will miss something and then you guys will be stumbling around blind again.
Which is what has me kinda in the dumps lately. Everything feels so easy lately. Kinda lowers my interest in planning that much anymore.
I've said as much to Duesal a bit ago and he keeps bugging me about actually switching sides and running our opposition, so that I have a challenge again.
I was actually quite afraid of that. That's why Baelor was designed to be troublesome to mages. Unfortunately he did not really perform as I hoped. Maybe I should just up the effective CR of your fights.
...is that an inversion of the "what's the worst thing that could happen?"-trope?
I feel like it's an inversion of the "what's the worst thing that could happen?"-trope.
I was actually quite afraid of that. That's why Baelor was designed to be troublesome to mages. Unfortunately he did not really perform as I hoped. Maybe I should just up the effective CR of your fights.
I was actually quite afraid of that. That's why Baelor was designed to be troublesome to mages. Unfortunately he did not really perform as I hoped. Maybe I should just up the effective CR of your fights.
Honestly, right now I don't see anything being problematic.
We are a Red Dragon Sorcerer.
(Half-rant incoming)
We are the very definition of overpowered.
Yet we cannot fight off armies of Outsiders, sufficiently big squads even.
We cannot stomp Illithid infiltrators and psionic kill-squads.
We cannot fight off most powerful creatures of Winter on our own.
Basically, us being "OP" right now is due to us staying in lower levels' brackets - while magic is coming back, Planetos in general isn't nearly Faerun enough to give us challenge in such a way.
Enter, Valyria, Sothoryos, Beyond-the-wall, Other Planes, Freaking Feywild, even!
Our challenge right now is ruling.
When we decide to step up our game, there will be challenges to us in person, no doubt.
But for now, all our OP-ness won't let us take over the world in the easy (I'm a dragon, you are now Empire) way we'd like to, so we do it through rule.
I was actually quite afraid of that. That's why Baelor was designed to be troublesome to mages. Unfortunately he did not really perform as I hoped. Maybe I should just up the effective CR of your fights.
I don't think higher CR is going to fix the feeling. Fact is, we are in high-level combat now. It takes one or two turns tops until one side is dead. Which is how D&D works, but it doesn't evoke the image of grand battles and hard-won victories. See the CR 21 Aspect of Mammon being treated not as an epic victory, but as us completely curb-stomping a chump.
It makes narrative sense sure, but the encounters I do send rarely feel like they have high stakes these days so I was thinking of upping them, though of course they will stay rare.
I was actually quite afraid of that. That's why Baelor was designed to be troublesome to mages. Unfortunately he did not really perform as I hoped. Maybe I should just up the effective CR of your fights.
Maybe give epic creatures multiple actions against groups? (I made a giant robot scorpion with 4 turns. Claws, movement, spellcasting, and death Ray tail.)
Also give them the "automatically pass" a certain number of saves per day like from 5e.
Also adds. Many. Many. Adds.
Not sure how much of this would apply to the way we do things though...
It makes narrative sense sure, but the encounters I do send rarely feel like they have high stakes these days so I was thinking of upping them, though of course they will stay rare.
You could also give us more morally difficult or complex issues to tackle, we do run a realm after all and all kings sometimes have to make less than grand decisions and deal with aftermath. Even with magic we can't totally cheat.
It makes narrative sense sure, but the encounters I do send rarely feel like they have high stakes these days so I was thinking of upping them, though of course they will stay rare.
Personally, I think the battles itself can't evoke the necessary gravitas anymore. Not when the worst that could happen to us is loosing a few PC's temporarily and they will be right as rain after a little spell.
I can write something longer on this matter later if you want my perspective on things.
Maybe give epic creatures multiple actions against groups? (I made a giant robot scorpion with 4 turns. Claws, movement, spellcasting, and death Ray tail.)
Personally, I think the battles itself can't evoke the necessary gravitas anymore. Not when the worst that could happen to us is loosing a few PC's temporarily and they will be right as rain after a little spell.
I mean the Others can fix that since perma-death is their nature, but it's not nearly their time yet.
Ultimately as long as you guys keep enjoying some aspect of the quest I'll keep writing because I do want to finish them but what I would appreciate most is suggestions on how to make things more engaging at high levels. I've never even GM-ed a game in the 15-20 bracket before.
As an example, I was much more interested in reading about Danar and Alyssa, their exploits, hopes and deams then about mulching Baelor. See also people feeling Dywen would make an interesting character.
The written medium is something that is hard to carry with battles alone.
I was actually quite afraid of that. That's why Baelor was designed to be troublesome to mages. Unfortunately he did not really perform as I hoped. Maybe I should just up the effective CR of your fights.
The problem with Baelor is you designed him in a way that made him very powerful, but ultimately he was just a lone dumbass. We fought at a time and place of our choosing, after researching him thoroughly.
You need smarter opponents, not stronger ones in this case. Unless an enemy has to go and try to kick Viserys in the face to act IC, people who want to hurt us should try for our soft spots. That or traps, big traps.
I mean the Others can fix that since perma-death is their nature, but it's not nearly their time yet.
Ultimately as long as you guys keep enjoying some aspect of the quest I'll keep writing because I do want to finish them but what I would appreciate most is suggestions on how to make things more engaging at high levels. I've never even GM-ed a game in the 15-20 bracket before.
I mean the Others can fix that since perma-death is their nature, but it's not nearly their time yet.
Ultimately as long as you guys keep enjoying some aspect of the quest I'll keep writing because I do want to finish them but what I would appreciate most is suggestions on how to make things more engaging at high levels. I've never even GM-ed a game in the 15-20 bracket before.
And I think that treating this as a high-level D&D campaign is kinda the problem, because it isn't. We have much less agency then a table-top player and @Goldfish having the battle-planning monopoly makes the combat sections in particular the weakest part.
a) Make our battles more mechanically challenging to compensate for proficiency of battle-planning players, making it even harder for others to participate, and heavily unsatisfying due to other characters in the world not facing such challenges.
b) Strain everyone's SoD when a big guy brings with him a small army/super-elite goon squad with which he should have already conquered half of the continent, even if he's an ultimate, worse-than-aurane-idiot.
Remember, stuff being problematic and annoying to us equals absolute murderblenderfuckadoodely for everyone else.
Like mentioned dealing more closely with issues of ruling would sound good, maybe send some time going over trials and dealing with disputes between parties and such.
