A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
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- Tags
- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I originally had more scheduled, but many had to be postponed in order to squeeze in other stuff. Thankfully, however, there are still quite a few left on the schedule and we should have more than half a dozen unassigned PfE rings available. It only makes sense that Viserys would carry a few of them with him at all times for situations just like this one. We've also got Healing Belts to spare, so Rodrik should get one of those as well.
Relath had purchased some sort of pearl that indicated the presence of Aberrations, but I can't remember what they were called or how much they cost. I believe we expressed interest in purchasing a great deal of them, but nothing ever came of it. Our short attention span strikes again.
- Location
- Germany
[X] Plan Proxy War
-[X] "I am afraid that war is upon us all, regardless of our wishes. The Illithid will not give us any choice on the matter and neither will others."
-[X] Info-Dumping
--[X] Tell him about what you know about the Illithid, their methods, capabilities and goals. Don't sugar-coat it. He doesn't look too faint to handle the truth and if he feels overwhelmed by it, all the better for your position and good to know that he might be not suited to fight this war.
--[X] Do not mention what you know about their fortresses to not needlessly risk information security on that one. Instead, just imply that you know they have underwater fortresses but that you don't know any locations. It's not as if he had any chance to strike at them anyway.
--[X] Tell him what you know about the Drowned God - Illithid connection, including a recounting of the whole Damphair mess.
--[X] Explain your truce with the Illithid to him and that you are thus somewhat limited in your movements, even though you would love to offer more direct aid. Also stress that you are adhering to it mostly due to needing time to prepare for the war. If it were re-ignited right now, the death toll in your realm would be staggering.
--[X] Explicitly warn him about the effects of Bilestone and that it's being spread among his subjects. Also, that throne? Rots your brain. Doubly so if you wore that Driftwood Crown.
--[X] Ask him to share everything he deems important about the situation so that we can better formulate plans and render aid. That includes the political situation and in that regard, we can act more directly.
-[X] Offer Aid
--[X] Give him 5 PfEs and Healing Belts, for himself and those he deems the most in need of mental protection. Also the option to commission more from you.
--[X] While you can't send mages, you can't stop any of the Scholarium mages from accepting temporary employment on the Iron Isles. Neither could you stop any Ironborn who learned there to come back to their home later. (He can try to hire some Scholarium students as sell-spells and send people to learn there. This circumvents the terms of the ceasefire and gets him some of the magical aid we can't supply directly. Also allows some of our mages to level.)
---[X] Strongly suggest to him to buy some wands to bolster their strength. Fireball, healing spells, Summon Monster IV and so on.
--[X] Offer to arrange a meeting with the Tritons so that he can strike more bargains with them.
--[X] Offer him to talk with Breath Taker in case he is willing to look into divine aid. The Merling King would not give aid without a cost, but said cost can be paid in the blood of the squidheads. (No need to beat around the bush here. He knows what we are all about, doesn't look terribly squeamish and is backed in a corner.)
--[X] Offer him to buy weaponry from you. Potions of Cerulean Sign, alchemical substances, steel weapons, potentially with +1 effects, the abberation detection pearls from Relath (though don't mention the source, just what they are and that you can provide them).
--[X] You are currently looking into making magic more widely available through minor rituals and will share some of those once they are ready.
--[X] Offer to sell him magic items. All of this stuff is preferably not made by your own crafters, but bought in Amun Kelisk and the Opaline Vault in bulk, or in the case of +1 weapons and armor made by Everflame Ironworks. Everything that needs to be crafted by ourselves gets a 25% markup over crafting cost, everything bought is sold to him at the price we bought it for.
--[X] Offer him a war-time loan of up to 2,000,000 IM, at a fixed interest of 0.25% monthly (roughly 3% yearly), to be repaid after the Illithid are permanently repelled.
--[X] Also give him a bag of attuned sand or a Greater Three Eyed Raven to keep in touch.
Preliminary plan.
So... that's how being the US or the Soviet Union during the Cold War must have felt like. We are basically doing intelligence work, offer his guys training and supply him with weapons on the cheap.
-[X] "I am afraid that war is upon us all, regardless of our wishes. The Illithid will not give us any choice on the matter and neither will others."
-[X] Info-Dumping
--[X] Tell him about what you know about the Illithid, their methods, capabilities and goals. Don't sugar-coat it. He doesn't look too faint to handle the truth and if he feels overwhelmed by it, all the better for your position and good to know that he might be not suited to fight this war.
--[X] Do not mention what you know about their fortresses to not needlessly risk information security on that one. Instead, just imply that you know they have underwater fortresses but that you don't know any locations. It's not as if he had any chance to strike at them anyway.
--[X] Tell him what you know about the Drowned God - Illithid connection, including a recounting of the whole Damphair mess.
--[X] Explain your truce with the Illithid to him and that you are thus somewhat limited in your movements, even though you would love to offer more direct aid. Also stress that you are adhering to it mostly due to needing time to prepare for the war. If it were re-ignited right now, the death toll in your realm would be staggering.
--[X] Explicitly warn him about the effects of Bilestone and that it's being spread among his subjects. Also, that throne? Rots your brain. Doubly so if you wore that Driftwood Crown.
--[X] Ask him to share everything he deems important about the situation so that we can better formulate plans and render aid. That includes the political situation and in that regard, we can act more directly.
-[X] Offer Aid
--[X] Give him 5 PfEs and Healing Belts, for himself and those he deems the most in need of mental protection. Also the option to commission more from you.
--[X] While you can't send mages, you can't stop any of the Scholarium mages from accepting temporary employment on the Iron Isles. Neither could you stop any Ironborn who learned there to come back to their home later. (He can try to hire some Scholarium students as sell-spells and send people to learn there. This circumvents the terms of the ceasefire and gets him some of the magical aid we can't supply directly. Also allows some of our mages to level.)
---[X] Strongly suggest to him to buy some wands to bolster their strength. Fireball, healing spells, Summon Monster IV and so on.
--[X] Offer to arrange a meeting with the Tritons so that he can strike more bargains with them.
--[X] Offer him to talk with Breath Taker in case he is willing to look into divine aid. The Merling King would not give aid without a cost, but said cost can be paid in the blood of the squidheads. (No need to beat around the bush here. He knows what we are all about, doesn't look terribly squeamish and is backed in a corner.)
--[X] Offer him to buy weaponry from you. Potions of Cerulean Sign, alchemical substances, steel weapons, potentially with +1 effects, the abberation detection pearls from Relath (though don't mention the source, just what they are and that you can provide them).
--[X] You are currently looking into making magic more widely available through minor rituals and will share some of those once they are ready.
--[X] Offer to sell him magic items. All of this stuff is preferably not made by your own crafters, but bought in Amun Kelisk and the Opaline Vault in bulk, or in the case of +1 weapons and armor made by Everflame Ironworks. Everything that needs to be crafted by ourselves gets a 25% markup over crafting cost, everything bought is sold to him at the price we bought it for.
--[X] Offer him a war-time loan of up to 2,000,000 IM, at a fixed interest of 0.25% monthly (roughly 3% yearly), to be repaid after the Illithid are permanently repelled.
--[X] Also give him a bag of attuned sand or a Greater Three Eyed Raven to keep in touch.
Preliminary plan.
So... that's how being the US or the Soviet Union during the Cold War must have felt like. We are basically doing intelligence work, offer his guys training and supply him with weapons on the cheap.
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- Location
- Who knows?
[X] Azel
- Location
- florida
Why not introduce him to Relath?
- Location
- Germany
No real need to do so yet and he isn't yet so far on our side that I want to parade our allies to him. That can come later, once we have a better work relationship.
Also, adding this:
--[] Offer him a war-time loan of up to 2,000,000 IM, at a fixed interest of 0.25% monthly (roughly 3% yearly), to be repaid after the Illithid are permanently repelled.
That makes sure that he has the money to actually pay for all that equipment and he will suddenly be deeply in our pocket. We can spare the cash right now, interest is pretty hefty with these sums and I'm gladly investing into anything that involves dead mindflayers.
- Location
- Germany
Pretty low-key concern given the situation, but sure. I was thinking about cobbling together a ritual package for him once we got the results of our research at the end of the month.
We could also offer to have Vee pay a visit and blast some fertility into the soil, but at that point, he might as well hoist our flag above the keep.
- Location
- Australia
As someone who routinely trawls for unique spell effects and anti-illithid techniques etc I really feel that the tools of DnD are very different from the set pieces of DnD.
The former augments the setting and I like experimenting with magic in ASoIaF far more than experimenting with politics in DnD.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
- Location
- United States
Seconded, @Azel. 2 million is way too much.
- Location
- Castle
With that sum... He is "buying" the Islands for the foreseeable future.
He did say it was the Cold War analogue
He did say it was the Cold War analogue
- Location
- Australia
As far as I am concerned Relath ripped off my original idea to use continuous items of Detect Aberration that will glow in the presence of one. That's what his pearls do.
Detect Aberration 3.5
Detect Aberration Pathfinder
We should default be using the 3.5 version as that is the agreed order of priority, Pathfinder is lower level (1vs2) and thus cheaper plus has a huge range boost. Might be worth discussing with DP.
- Location
- Australia
Is this true? It's a nice fiction but I thought we had laws and policies in place to do exactly this.
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- Location
- Germany
First, this is the potential maximum sum. I seriously doubt he will take nearly as much.
Second, I'm indeed planning to buy the Iron Isles with this. They have plenty of iron mines that we could "privatise" and I want to buy a decent sized area for a massive Legion and Navy base later on.
It's an investment into the future.
- Location
- Germany
They remain legally part of the Scholarium, but yes, they can take work from elsewhere. This has been discussed multiple times.
- Location
- Brazil
Gotta agree.
If people dislike Xenos, then I feel like we ought to use huge armies and excessive amounts of blood magic to do it.
Like an honest Dragon.
- Location
- Australia
And we have 0 oversight or say in this? What does them being part of the Scholarum actually mean in terms of authority over them if we "can't stop them" working for our (on paper) enemies.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
The islands aren't worth it. We could create our own islands for cheaper, in a better location, and with less troublesome neighbors.
Don't even give him the option of 2 million IM. You throw big numbers around too easily. That was many times our total worth just a few months ago. Even 500,000 IM is stupid.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I like most of @Azel's plan, but some parts are unacceptable, chiefly the offer to allow Rodrik to hire low level Scholarium mages and the stupidly huge loan he wants to give them. Allowing him to hire our low level mages might as well be sending them to their deaths and 2,000,000 IM for a loan to the Iron Islands of all places is simply unacceptable. Our entire kingdom wasn't worth that much just last month and still wouldn't be if we hadn't looted all the doors from the Sultan's prison on the Plane of Fire.
Also giving Rodrik a Lesser Three-Eyed Raven rather than making him choose between a bag of attuned sand and a Greater Three-Eyed Raven. We don't have many of the Greater Ravens and it would be of limited usefulness to Rodrik. A Lesser Raven is much more expendable and less likely to attract attention, while still providing Rodrik with a trusted observer and messenger.
[X] Plan Proxy War, the Goldfish Option (yellow was originally part of @Azel's plan, red are my own adjustments or additions)
-[X] "I am afraid that war is upon us all, regardless of our wishes. The Illithid will not give us any choice on the matter and neither will others."
-[X] Info-Dumping
--[X] Tell him about what you know about the Illithid, their methods, capabilities and goals. Don't sugar-coat it. He doesn't look too faint to handle the truth and if he feels overwhelmed by it, all the better for your position and good to know that he might be not suited to fight this war.
--[X] Do not mention what you know about their fortresses to not needlessly risk information security on that one. Instead, just imply that you know they have underwater fortresses but that you don't know any locations. It's not as if he had any chance to strike at them anyway.
--[X] Tell him what you know about the Drowned God - Illithid connection, including a recounting of the whole Damphair mess.
--[X] Explain your truce with the Illithid to him and that you are thus somewhat limited in your movements, even though you would love to offer more direct aid. Also stress that you are adhering to it mostly due to needing time to prepare for the war. If it were re-ignited right now, the death toll in your realm would be staggering.
--[X] Explicitly warn him about the effects of Bilestone and that it's being spread among his subjects. Also, that throne? Rots your brain. Doubly so if you wore that Driftwood Crown.
--[X] Ask him to share everything he deems important about the situation so that we can better formulate plans and render aid. That includes the political situation and in that regard, we can act more directly.
-[X] Offer Aid
--[X] Give him 5 PfEs and Healing Belts, for himself and those he deems the most in need of mental protection. Also the option to commission more from you.
--[] While you can't send mages, you can't stop any of the Scholarium mages from accepting temporary employment on the Iron Isles. Neither could you stop any Ironborn who learned there to come back to their home later. (He can try to hire some Scholarium students as sell-spells and send people to learn there. This circumvents the terms of the ceasefire and gets him some of the magical aid we can't supply directly. Also allows some of our mages to level.) This is a good way to get low level mages killed.
--[X] Offer to arrange a meeting with the Tritons so that he can strike more bargains with them.
--[X] Offer him to talk with Breath Taker in case he is willing to look into divine aid. The Merling King would not give aid without a cost, but said cost can be paid in the blood of the squidheads. (No need to beat around the bush here. He knows what we are all about, doesn't look terribly squeamish and is backed in a corner.)
--[X] Offer him to buy weaponry from you. Potions of Cerulean Sign, alchemical substances, steel weapons, potentially with +1 effects, the abberation detection pearls from Relath (though don't mention the source, just what they are and that you can provide them).
--[X] You are currently looking into making magic more widely available through minor rituals and will share some of those once they are ready.
--[] Make him a good price on everything, just a 10% markup over purchase price. All of this stuff is preferably not made by your own crafters, but bought in Amun Kelisk and the Opaline Vault in bulk, or in the case of +1 weapons and armor made by Everflame Ironworks. Everything that needs to be crafted by ourselves gets a 25% markup over crafting cost. We can do better than this without costing ourselves anything but perhaps some low level crafting time. Considering that we are going to give him a fuckhuge loan, that seems fair to me.
--[X] Allow him to commission items at market cost (twice our cost). This means that our crafting time will make us some profit, while commissions we facilitate in extraplanar markets will not.
--[X] Offer him a war-time loan of up to 500,000 IM (the originally proposed 2,000,000 is ridiculous), at a fixed interest of 0.25% monthly (roughly 3% yearly), to be repaid after the Illithid are permanently repelled. The loan can be expanded, if necessary, pending a review of previous expenditures.
--[X] Also give him a bag of attuned sand and a Lesser Three-Eyed Raven to keep in touch.
Also giving Rodrik a Lesser Three-Eyed Raven rather than making him choose between a bag of attuned sand and a Greater Three-Eyed Raven. We don't have many of the Greater Ravens and it would be of limited usefulness to Rodrik. A Lesser Raven is much more expendable and less likely to attract attention, while still providing Rodrik with a trusted observer and messenger.
[X] Plan Proxy War, the Goldfish Option (yellow was originally part of @Azel's plan, red are my own adjustments or additions)
-[X] "I am afraid that war is upon us all, regardless of our wishes. The Illithid will not give us any choice on the matter and neither will others."
-[X] Info-Dumping
--[X] Tell him about what you know about the Illithid, their methods, capabilities and goals. Don't sugar-coat it. He doesn't look too faint to handle the truth and if he feels overwhelmed by it, all the better for your position and good to know that he might be not suited to fight this war.
--[X] Do not mention what you know about their fortresses to not needlessly risk information security on that one. Instead, just imply that you know they have underwater fortresses but that you don't know any locations. It's not as if he had any chance to strike at them anyway.
--[X] Tell him what you know about the Drowned God - Illithid connection, including a recounting of the whole Damphair mess.
--[X] Explain your truce with the Illithid to him and that you are thus somewhat limited in your movements, even though you would love to offer more direct aid. Also stress that you are adhering to it mostly due to needing time to prepare for the war. If it were re-ignited right now, the death toll in your realm would be staggering.
--[X] Explicitly warn him about the effects of Bilestone and that it's being spread among his subjects. Also, that throne? Rots your brain. Doubly so if you wore that Driftwood Crown.
--[X] Ask him to share everything he deems important about the situation so that we can better formulate plans and render aid. That includes the political situation and in that regard, we can act more directly.
-[X] Offer Aid
--[X] Give him 5 PfEs and Healing Belts, for himself and those he deems the most in need of mental protection. Also the option to commission more from you.
--[] While you can't send mages, you can't stop any of the Scholarium mages from accepting temporary employment on the Iron Isles. Neither could you stop any Ironborn who learned there to come back to their home later. (He can try to hire some Scholarium students as sell-spells and send people to learn there. This circumvents the terms of the ceasefire and gets him some of the magical aid we can't supply directly. Also allows some of our mages to level.) This is a good way to get low level mages killed.
--[X] Offer to arrange a meeting with the Tritons so that he can strike more bargains with them.
--[X] Offer him to talk with Breath Taker in case he is willing to look into divine aid. The Merling King would not give aid without a cost, but said cost can be paid in the blood of the squidheads. (No need to beat around the bush here. He knows what we are all about, doesn't look terribly squeamish and is backed in a corner.)
--[X] Offer him to buy weaponry from you. Potions of Cerulean Sign, alchemical substances, steel weapons, potentially with +1 effects, the abberation detection pearls from Relath (though don't mention the source, just what they are and that you can provide them).
--[X] You are currently looking into making magic more widely available through minor rituals and will share some of those once they are ready.
--[] Make him a good price on everything, just a 10% markup over purchase price. All of this stuff is preferably not made by your own crafters, but bought in Amun Kelisk and the Opaline Vault in bulk, or in the case of +1 weapons and armor made by Everflame Ironworks. Everything that needs to be crafted by ourselves gets a 25% markup over crafting cost. We can do better than this without costing ourselves anything but perhaps some low level crafting time. Considering that we are going to give him a fuckhuge loan, that seems fair to me.
--[X] Allow him to commission items at market cost (twice our cost). This means that our crafting time will make us some profit, while commissions we facilitate in extraplanar markets will not.
--[X] Offer him a war-time loan of up to 500,000 IM (the originally proposed 2,000,000 is ridiculous), at a fixed interest of 0.25% monthly (roughly 3% yearly), to be repaid after the Illithid are permanently repelled. The loan can be expanded, if necessary, pending a review of previous expenditures.
--[X] Also give him a bag of attuned sand and a Lesser Three-Eyed Raven to keep in touch.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
We currently have a net-worth of 19 million just in currency. Why shouldn't we use that leverage to make politics with it?
We have repeatedly run nearly dry because people splurged on equipment, crafting, weird purchases, phoenixes and so on, so I'm not seeing why I shouldn't use a comparatively smaller percentage of our current funds on politics. Especially as it's a loan, not just throwing it out of the window.
- Location
- Germany
@Goldfish, your plan is, frankly, shit. You are trying to milk him for money instead of actually providing any aid at all.
Did you never notice that nobody ever bought stuff from us for these prices? Ever? Relath and Doran got better deals then that and never made use of them.
Might as well plunder his treasury by force and be on our way.
Did you never notice that nobody ever bought stuff from us for these prices? Ever? Relath and Doran got better deals then that and never made use of them.
Might as well plunder his treasury by force and be on our way.