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

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Crake said:
The reasons were that the former state she was in, before she entered her current pathological state of anti-slavery sentiments (focusing more on the institution than the individual acts), was of unmitigated semi-frequent but massive risk taking. And her argument for doing so was 'we've done it before and came out fine'. Which is true and makes things interesting.
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Ftfy.
Risks exist for being taken after all.
 
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Duesal said:
Yeah, the regular Heralds only need steel. I'm hoping for one for every major province so the lawfully-appointed governors have a solid slab of living fire-breathing steel backing them up. Also it's just cool as hell.

Thumbs up for the Harbinger. Suitably ominous name right there.
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I'm actually aiming to get two Heralds per Legion as heavy fire-support. They are devastating against armies and very easy to maintain in the field, as they basically heal themselves by sitting in a campfire for a while.
 
Crake said:
Dany has basically gotten to her current status based upon needs and musts that Viserys has been the final arbitrator for, and hasn't moved from there because of an unspoken agreement which is basically thus: Viserys doesn't impugn upon where she draws the line or ask her to compromise that well established line in the sand that she has drawn out for any reason, and in exchange she does not take risks without consulting us and, implicitly in doing so, leave it entirely up to us how, when and where that risk gets mitigated, managed, and then resolved, which could, obviously, lead to some innocents suffering longer than they had to because we weren't prepared enough, or we were busy doing something else.

The reasons were that the former state she was in, before she entered her current pathological state of anti-slavery sentiments (focusing more on the institution than the individual acts), was of unmitigated semi-frequent but massive risk taking. And her argument for doing so was 'we've done it before and came out fine'. Which is unacceptable, obviously.
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Well this is a deeply disturbing view on our relationship with DaeDae. (Possibly correct however.)

How would you like her to handle the power/responsibility dynamic?

Since I believe that was the root of her thought process. "We can handle the risks/burdens better so we should take them". I think she said.
 
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zxzx24 said:
Well this is a deeply disturbing view on our relationship with DaeDae.

How would you like her to handle the power/responsibility dynamic?

Since I believe that was the root of her thought process. "We can handle the risks/burdens better so we should take them". I think she said.
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Well uh, we disagreed? Pretty resoundingly? I mean taking care of people in general in the long view is where we're at, but I'd let entire fucking countries burn if it was them or Dany.

It's fine if she doesn't explicitly agree with that sentiment, in fact it is better, it helps keep us anchored in the "okay time to turn our towering intellect and phenomenal cosmic power towards finding a way to avoid that outcome".

We have no incentive if she has already sacrificed herself upon the altar of martyrdom.
 
Daenerys is a child, you know. She'll change and grow, and it will definitely be for the better. Because nothing bad will ever happen. Those dark gods? Eldritch abominations? Interplanar cataclysms?
Tuesday.
They happen, we loot them, and then we go on to crush the next one.

No, nothing shall defy the Dragon Emperor and live. Last time it did, he awoke to power on the streets of Braavos. Then his sister did. And when the world made best sister think that fear was "a fact of life" or "something adults were just better at hiding" or even "the price of power", well...
Viserys Targaryen vowed to change it. It may bow or it may break, but one thing is certain: that world will end.

And Viserys' little-girl-spellcaster complex will finally be enshrined as law in the new Pact Primeval!
 
Snowfire said:
Framing this in this manner is really sketchy, DP. Fiends and other Evil aligned outsiders are literal anathema to the ordered and safe world we want to create - unless they're working for us. We have a way to systematically depower them to some degree, at the same time as destroying their form so that they have to spend decades reforming, and probably as a lesser fiend. That we're paying money to do this really shouldn't be relevant, and the phrasing in your response seems to miss how relevant a service this could be to all the non-Evil aligned Planes, not just our own.
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While individual fiends may not want to be slaves their masters* certainly want them to be. A slave influences the master one way or another and even if they only act as an "acceptable target" for torture etc they're doing their jobs, making mortals fall and defiling/destroying their works. Not to mention just the basic spreading of fiends like rats on grain ships to new and fertile lands.

Purchasing fiends promotes the fiend trade and this is bad for the planes generally.

*This was meant as Fiendish Masters as opposed to the purchasing masters referenced thereafter.
 
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Part MMCDXXIII: Secrets from Silence
  • Threadmarks
    • Secrets from Silence ​

    Twenty-Second Day of the Sixth Month 293 AC

    Your first Legion would have its banners hung upon poles of Valyrian Steel, you decide at length. No less are they than ancient Houses treasuring heirlooms of old, greater in fact for under their tread an empire will be born, or so at least you hope. Stepping through the shadows of falling night you reach the Deep, though not yet to lie down beside Lya with a book in hand. You set off in search of Garin and Malarys.

    "What did you find?" your words trail off into a whisper as you see the child in Garin's arms, already asleep, likely exhausted by the whirlwind of changes that had been going on in his life.

    "The boy served Varys as we suspected," Garin replies in like tone, causing your own familiar to hiss in annoyance.

    "You should kill this false Varys for making use of my name," she utters in your thoughts, only half jesting.

    "I suspect I will have far better cause to separate the Master of Whispers' head from his shoulders," you announce grimly.

    So it is in truth, the Spider weaves many webs, and none are to the benefit of the realm and its people. He buys, mutilates, and uses children like tools, and you suspect like tools he also discards them when their time is done. Yet they see more than their master would wish, enough to guess that he was not blind to the nature of the Deep One magus who armed himself with wildfire.

    "He warned them against so much as approaching the chamber the horror inhabited during its brief stay in the Red Keep, and then this Spider had the room purged with flame," Malarys recounts, falling into step alongside you. "He told some tale of 'cursed objects' to the remainder of the court and it was enough to keep them content... at at least pretending to be so."

    "Who is the court composed of?" you ask, eager to learn more of the Usurper's inner councils from more than rumor and hearsay.

    "The boy did not understand the whole of the puzzle, and I imagine that was by design, but children are more clever than most give them credit from," the mage-priest replies. "The Stag King's first adjutant, his 'Hand' heads the most influential faction at court by all accounts, though he is often too busy organizing to truly rule. He grows ever more suspicious of magic and the changing times as the years weigh heavier upon him and his heir does not grow. Second are the Lannisters, led mostly by the queen, though her uncle Tygett is often present at court for one reason or another to offer a steadying hand. She resents it, to judge from a few letters the boy glimpsed, though dares not act against her father's implicit orders."

    You nod and continue: "Did he know aught of devils?"

    "Not even what one was, and that too was I imagine by design," Malarys replies instantly. It is clear he has been considering the matter for some time. "A child would not be able to stand up to fiendish enchantments or cruder means of persuasion long, so ignorance in this matter kept the Spider's 'little birds' safe."

    Though disappointed you are not wholly surprised. Perhaps some of the boy's companions will know more. The interrogation has certainly given you enough information about where they might be found throughout the warren of tunnels that crosses under the Red Keep to make you reasonably confident that you can find and 'capture' all thirty-two of them. For certain they will have a much better life in an orphanage under the watchful gaze of a phoenix than being made into rats in the Usurper's walls.

    Hardly the most cheerful thoughts to follow you into slumber, but far from the worst. Dreams of power echo through your mind, phantasms of the past, but even in their midst the future calls you onward, towards Valyria's grave.

    [] Write in any preparations for the expedition to Valyria

    OOC: Not the most fruitful interrogation though you can now try to sweep the tunnels under the Red Keep of 'little birds' if you want.
     
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    • Snowfire said:
    No. That's a cop out, and it's a bad one. Anything like this has a root cause, like Viserys does - he saw the failings of his father and then the Usurper. Dany has to have one. I want to know where it is. Once I know that, I can learn how to work around it if/when we need to. Viserys has, in some ways, learnt to balance his own Targ madness. Dany has not. This is not healthy.
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    DP has stated previously it was rooted in the Tiamat situation, and I disagree with your notions of "willing" as if it's an absolute concept and not on a spectrum reliant on context.
     
    Crake said:
    Well uh, we disagreed? Pretty resoundingly? I mean taking care of people in general in the long view is where we're at, but I'd let entire fucking countries burn if it was them or Dany.
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    Yes. Obviously.

    The only reason we let her fight/adventure with is us because we know she would do it behind our back if we didn't let her. (At least without taking drastic measures)

    Crake said:
    It's fine if she doesn't explicitly agree with that sentiment, in fact it is better, it helps keep us anchored in the "okay time to turn our towering intellect and phenomenal cosmic power towards finding a way to avoid that outcome".
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    I was trying to explain her point of view, not argue against...

    I was asking for a suggestion on what you would like her to believe. How you think she can channel her desires in a constructive and helpful way.
    Crake said:
    We have no incentive if she has already sacrificed herself upon the altar of martyrdom.
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    Which is one of the many reasons we keep an eye on her when we adventure.
     
    zxzx24 said:
    Yes. Obviously.

    The only reason we let her fight/adventure with is us because we know she would do it behind our back if we didn't let her. (At least without taking drastic measures)


    I was trying to explain her point of view, not argue against...

    I was asking for a suggestion on what you would like her to believe. How you think she can channel her desires in a constructive and helpful way.

    Which is one of the many reasons we keep an eye on her when we adventure.
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    *shrug* I'm not invested like her. I roleplay this thread as if I were Viserys, with the same motivations and interests, and it's largely true.

    Even down to uh... er... general proclivities.

    Regardless, our relationship with Dany just works, there's implicit trust. That's always been there, but now we know where it's full extent lies. We would give her the world, but she knows fully well now that we would let it burn if it meant saving her. So she has incentive in turn to not do what she wants at great personal cost, since those costs mount and mount, piling up until she can't secret away the strain of it on her lonesome anymore.

    As long as it continues to work, I doubt we'll be prodding this issue any time soon, not until it begins to creep up and cause issues which interfere with our agenda again.
     
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    DragonParadox said:
    Yet they see more than their master would wish, enough to guess that he was not blind to the nature of the Deep One magus who armed himself with wildfire.
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    Aaaand... he is dead. Very dead. The nailed to a Heart Tree kind of dead.

    DragonParadox said:
    "He warned them against so much as approaching the chamber the horror inhabited during its brief stay in the Red Keep, and then this Spider had the room purged with flame," Malarys recounts, falling into step alongside you. "He told some tale of 'cursed objects' to the remainder of the court and it was enough to keep them content... at at least pretending to be so."
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    :jackiechan:

    What kind of train-wreck is the fat idiot running there?
    DragonParadox said:
    "The boy did not understand the whole of the puzzle, and I imagine that was by design, but children are more clever than most give them credit from," the mage-priest replies. "The Stag King's first adjutant, his 'Hand' heads the most influential faction at court by all accounts, though he is often too busy organizing to truly rule. He grows ever more suspicious of magic and the changing times as the years weigh heavier upon him and his heir does not grow.
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    Sounds as if the old falcon might go down in a blaze of glory with the right push. Our wrecking of the alchemists guild should have reinforced these tendencies.

    That also makes him a like recruit for the anti-magic cabal among the Maesters.

    I'm unsure if it's more or less likely that he is the Mammon servant in Roberts court. On the one hand, this tendencies imply he would never cut a deal with fiends, on the other hand, they might be the result of having been cheated.
    DragonParadox said:
    Second are the Lannisters, led mostly by the queen, though her uncle Tygett is often present at court for one reason or another to offer a steadying hand. She resents it, to judge from a few letters the boy glimpsed, though dares not act against her father's implicit orders."
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    Hm... any idea how to push Cerseis buttons a bit here? Because this is a lovely setup for her to do what she does best. Shooting her own side in the foot with a balista.
    DragonParadox said:
    OOC: Not the most fruitful interrogation though you can now try to sweep the tunnels under the Red Keep of 'little birds' if you want.
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    And visit Varys. No point in removing the minions but not the leader.
     
    Azel said:
    Aaaand... he is dead. Very dead. The nailed to a Heart Tree kind of dead.


    :jackiechan:

    What kind of train-wreck is the fat idiot running there?

    Sounds as if the old falcon might go down in a blaze of glory with the right push. Our wrecking of the alchemists guild should have reinforced these tendencies.

    That also makes him a like recruit for the anti-magic cabal among the Maesters.

    I'm unsure if it's more or less likely that he is the Mammon servant in Roberts court. On the one hand, this tendencies imply he would never cut a deal with fiends, on the other hand, they might be the result of having been cheated.

    Hm... any idea how to push Cerseis buttons a bit here? Because this is a lovely setup for her to do what she does best. Shooting her own side in the foot with a balista.

    And visit Varys. No point in removing the minions but not the leader.
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    Should we swap birds with imps and use them to implicate Varys as a devil binder?
     
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