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

[DragonParadox]

Lady of Iron ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Asha may not have had much to do with farming, much less mucking fields, but she could smell a pile of fresh shit when it was stuck right under her nose. 'Concerns of state about sharing anything about the journey' the King said, as though that was supposed to explain how by the Drowned God's salty left nut Old Wyk wouldn't be breaking up to drown her whole realm. She took a deep steadying breath, a habit she had picked up over the last few years, and stopped pacing.

Wouldn't do to argue with him now of all times. I'll find out what kind of horror had been lairing beneath Nagga's Hill even if I have to get the bloody half-squid wizard to make her a new brain the rest of the squids couldn't listen in on, she vowed inwardly.

As though reading her mind, though really only her expression instead, her uncle gave her one of his piercing looks, the sort that he used to give a certain girl who was in the habit of hiding in piles of old nets to get out to sea when her father would rather than do something ashore. "The King does have the right to keep you in the dark if he feels it is for the good of the realm... all the realm. It's not all being paid to fight and to sail in his name, or knock together the heads of lords who wouldn't take you seriously when you were younger."

"I know I know..." The young captain sighed. "It's his island more than it is mine because he's king, but it's my island first if that makes sense. I should know what's down there."

Rodrik's expression turned grave. "I've known some who would rather be able to forget what they learned of such dark things."

Once Asha might have scoffed and claimed she was made of sterner thing, but she had met the knight of Grey Garden and she knew he was anything but weak of mind and yet he lamented not being able to drink to forget. "They will come for me when the war starts. They will come for us all before they ever touch the shore of Sorcerer's Deep..." she trailed off, then with an edge of gallows humor added. "I hate to die with my chin dropped all the way like a Far Islander at the first sight of a real port."

"You are in a grim mood for a woman about to take on a Dukedom," her uncle said, pouring her another glass of Arbor Gold, compliments of Horas' family.

"Islands shouldn't bloody break like a skiff in a storm," she said picking it up and draining it.

Even Rodrik, a man as famed for fair argument as the breadth of his reading, couldn't argue with that.

***​

Twenty Second Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

When the lords of the Iron Islands laid eyes upon the daughter of Balon Greyjoy on the next morning they saw in her no trace of the uncertainty, the fear or the anger that her uncle had glimpsed. Some of it was magic, the power of insight and foresight, the gift of gab borrowed from some ancient dragon, but some of it was just her, a woman who had sailed from the Shivering Sea to the Shores of Sothoryos and from the familiar waters of Sorcerer's Deep to Yin and the gate of the Golden Empire. She was garbed in enchantments, glittering mail and a sorcerous cloak, and at her side axes of dragonsteel such as only the boldest and luckiest raiders had brought to these shores.

As Asha spoke of the wealth and power that could be had in the wake of the Dragon, of the glory to be garnered in wars under skies beyond their ancestors' imagination, it was as much with her very presence as with the words that passed her lips into the chill air.

Spoiler: Asha Greyjoy

No showman or mummer she, for all she had seen King Viserys at it enough times that she thought she could play the part at need. Instead Asha spoke quietly with unwavering conviction of what she had seen of the 'god' of her girlhood and the things that were pulling its strings.

For Theon's sake she couldn't speak of what their... of what Damphair had done to him in the name of the Drowned God, but there were plenty of other stories awash in horror beyond the blood and death that Ironborn were used to hearing of. Deepsmen's tales of what it was to be really under the hand of the Drowned God and of those scattered sailors like Halfhand who managed to keep body and mind together enough to turn their coat and live to make a better life.

"The Deep Ones don't want us to pay the Iron Price, they want us to pay the bloody Flesh Price because that is all we are to them!" she roared, raising an axe to the sky. "I say we pay them with iron in their guts instead and keep the gold for ourselves!"

In the east the first rays of light began to break, some trick of sorcery and glamor-craft timed just right. "A new king I call to, a new God!" Aife burst from the clouds in all her radiant power. flanked by sea drakes that had already been protecting the islands. "A new Way to chart! I call for Viserys King of the line of Aegon!"

What do you do for your part in the oathtaking?

[] Write in

OOC: Asha is one of those rare characters where I actually found two pics of her, one looking younger than the other. This was also really fun for me to write, a speech that is given in a different perspective than Viserys' polished tones, but still influenced by them. Hope you guys enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Promise of Dawn ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

One must admit, looking at Asha in the gathering dawn light, that while she will never be a great orator without the corona of swirling sorcery, she is surely a skilled one. You could well imagine her on the deck of a longboat, motioning to the shores of the Reach or the Riverlands with axe and flaming torch for plunder and glory. Thankfully, that day will never come, her father's mad dreams stillborn, the Ironborn set upon a new course.

The whisper-thin magic of illusion dances around you, allowing you to seemingly appear out of the light of the rising sun, borne aloft on a spell of levitation. It feels strange after all this time flying upon the power of your own wings, leashed wind beneath it or no, but that is rather the point of this. After all this talk of monsters plotting their doom, coming to the Ironborn lords and captains as a man will surely ease their minds.

As you step deftly upon the rocky soil, you proclaim, "Long has the yoke of the Deep Ones, the illithid to give the secret name they have hidden from you alongside their foul nature, rested upon the Ironborn's shoulders. Long you were forced to live like beasts. Like cattle, to date their appetites for the flesh of man. But no longer. The time has come to end this. The time has come for them to bleed. To make their halls tremble in fear before our might."

"I'm sure that they are trembling in fear at the thought of men with axes," Varys snickers in your mind. She finds the Ironborn and their ambitions somehow even more absurd than the other lords of Westeros, by reason of their insistence of crippling themselves in a deluded attempt to show strength.

You shush her, as much as one can do that without sound. These captains are not to blame for the traditions that had been foisted upon their ancestors so long ago, no more than one could say the Freefolk or the clansman of the Vale are wholly responsible for the traditions of raiding that mark them.

"The nightmare is no longer," you call out with confidence as much as with arcane grace. "A new dawn has broken for the Iron Isles and it's people. Swear to me, and at long last the Ironborn shall have their vengeance. What say you?"

At that, a roar of approval rises from the crowed of lords briefly silenced by your entrance. As you hear it, an old Myrish saying comes to mind: Hope is sweeter than honey, but the promise of vengeance is the spice of life.

Aife lands softly between you and Asha with appropriately cat-like grace as the lords of the Iron Islands step forward to give their oaths, first to you and then to their future duchess. Not entirely the most coherent arrangement, but these are not a formal people and the only ritual you truly care about is one wrought long ago.

No matter what you had said to the crowd, the Deep Ones are probably still not afraid and are unlikely to become so anytime soon, though perhaps a shiver of unease passes through the alien mind at the heart of their dominion when they realize just where the power of those first oaths is destined to flow.

Once oaths are sworn and feasts are rightly partaken, what do you leave the Iron Islands with now that your rule over them is no longer shrouded in shadow and secrecy?

[] Write in

OOC: Well it looks like roughly 1,500 words (75-150 Written) is about what I can manage per day comfortably. I think if I tried to push it past that I would start getting twinges in my hands.

 

[DragonParadox]

Broken Heritage ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Asha remembered her father sitting on that wretched throne, she remembered when she was very young and had not yet learned to hide her fear from the Lord of the Iron Islands about how it frightened her. She could almost hear the thin young voice. "It's like it's eating you, papa..." Later, when she had taken up axe and shield, rudder and oar, she would think it a child's silly fright. Looking at it now, the light of witchfire turned warm orange passing through Aife's rippling fins, she had to wonder if perhaps young eyes did not see the horror that a more jaded gaze failed to grasp.

Spoiler: Seastone Chair

The Seastone Chair in all its horror had eaten Balon Greyjoy, as surely as if its stone limbs had sprung to life and torn him apart. Ambition for glories that never were and faith in a monster that deserved naught but death, those had killed her father as sure as Robert Baratheon's hammer. But had there been more, she wondered, reaching out to touch the foul stone. Had there been some whisper back of his mind, pushing him on to recklessness akin to madness...

She felt nothing but slimy stone beneath her fingers, then a thudding in her ears like the sound of a distant tide... or more like a hangover coming on in the wee hours of the morning.

"What are you..." Theon began, even more ill at ease than she had ever seen him since he arrived in Pyke.

"Shh... give me a moment," the new lady of the Iron Islands said. She pushed against the feeling and just like that it was gone, only damp stone beneath her fingers that was no worse than a hunk of polished basalt. It couldn't be that easy... "That's how it gets you I guess," she scoffed, deliberately taking her hand off the bilestone armrest and turning to the King. It would take a dragon to hoist this thing out of here. "Let's carry this to shore and send it into the embrace of a better god than the one who put it here..."

Such pragmatic concerns were are sadly interrupted when the throne shifted in place as though in the grip of an earthquake, as though the polished stone floor had suddenly become a heaving sea.

Cold grey eyes opened. ​

Distantly Asha realized everyone else in the room, the King, the queen-to-be, even Ser Richard bloody Lonmouth was not moving, which the latter would certainly be doing if the room had suddenly decided to start bouncing about. He'd have probably jumped in front of the King, never mind the latter was a dragon and didn't need it. It was all in her head.

A dream laid on cursed stone a thousand winters and more stirred.​

There were eyes in the patterns. Why hadn't she seen them before, not the eyes of some strange beast, or eater of minds but a man, and old man with a beard and a robe of seaweed and a crown of weathered weirwood.

Who brings False Gods in my hall? ​

The words rang like a great bell of iron in Asha's mind and almost she answered, almost she deferred, as she would have done before her father sitting on this very chair, then she recognized the being in the vision, and far from awe, far from reverence, she was carried up on a tide of red rage. "So you're the squid-sucker who sold us all to the fucking monsters, Grey King. Tell me, were you just an idiot buying their lies or were you fine serving up your kith and kin up so long as you stayed on that bloody chair?"

Spoiler: Grey King

"You know... nothing of what we endured, wretched child..." the words scraped on the inside of her mind.

Asha did not listen. "I don't give a shit! Tell me if you were a fool to forget or a monster that we should remember to hate?" perhaps another might have lingered, might have listened, but the same will that allowed her to spit defiance at the memory of her forebearer made Asha Greyjoy most unsuited to questioning and prodding. The conflict of the mind soon fell to the more familiar rhythm of clashing steel and straining muscles, a metaphor perhaps, but one the young Greyjoy was far more comfortable with. "I'll gut you son of a squid's whore!"

Her axe was still at her side... her axe was in her hand.... biting deep into false flesh and memory.

A roiling chaos of a thousand thoughts and more spilled into her mind, then dragon-fire swallowed her vision.

***​

"Stop shouting Theon!" Asha yelled, or at least she thought she yelled as the throne room swam back into view. Her mouth tasted foul and her nostrils were filled with an even worse stink, like rotting fish and tar.

"I don't think it was a proper ghost, more like a haunt, a fragment of a fragment of a soul," Wisdom Lya was saying, of course she wasn't bloody shouting, so she could dissect spooks all she wanted as far as Asha was concerned.

"I'm not shouting," Theon said disturbed, and only then did Asha realize his lips had not been moving before.

Asha has Awakened Psionically from defeating a Haunt of the Grey King in a battle of wills ​

What path will she follow (Full restructuring of classes possible but not stats)?

[] Wilder
-[] Write in Character Sheet

[] Psychic Warrior
-[] Write in Character Sheet

[] Soul Knife
-[] Write in Character Sheet

[] Write in

OOC: Well on one hand this makes the Seastone Chair a somewhat less potent sacrifice without the remnant of its first king, on the other hand you guys have been complaining about Asha's class for a while so seeing as she rolled really well, not just in the fight but the set up to even have a fight on her terms (93 vs 42), here you are.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Power Unseated ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

"Ah... you might want to push away the sense of other minds," you say, rallying from your surprise. Even as strange as the last few days have been one could hardly be expected to witness one's vassal be attacked by the age old haunt of her ancestor and awaken to power strange to the world.

"You are practically letting anyone with the power to see minds into yours, like a ship with the gangplank down," Varys adds, peering over the blackened shield of some long vanished House.

A moment later you can feel the slight pressure of Asha's mind recede. "Like this?" She asks aloud.

At your nod Theon, reassured of his sister's safety, eagerly asks: "So what can you do, besides look into people's heads?"

As she steps away from the Seastone Chair without giving the thing a second look a slow smile grew on Asha's face, the sort of smile you imagine had been the last thing quite a few foes had seen. Twin axes forged of will and purpose form in her hands, not forged of light or spirit-stuff, but ripples in the very fabric of space that cut deeper than even the Valyrian Steel you had gifted her. She proceeds to run at the nearest wall, up the nearest wall as though wholly untethered from the earth, then in a twist of strange geometries she is gone and standing next to you once more.

While you, Lya and Aife applaud the feat Theon does his expected brotherly duty in such a moment: "So you finally got some spells and you use it to make axes and run around to bash people with them better?"

His sister throws him a glare that is almost as sharp as the implements of power in her hands, but before she can speak Lya interjects: "Those are not really spells, more a reflexive ability like this..." She conjures up a burst of unshaped fire from her hand. "As much as the term 'spells' is even applicable to the mind arts that is, but I won't go into that."

"Why wouldn't you want to? After all, so many people find it fascinating," you tease. Of late the Scholarum is awash with mages fascinated with the similarities and differences between the arcane and the mind arts, but unlike many topics tomes which contain hints on the subject are rightfully restricted, which means that many junior would-be researchers find themselves without avenues of study. Which is how Lya ends up with letters addressed to her as much as personal petitions to weigh in, her equivalent of a day's worth of audiences.

She just rolls her eyes at you as Asha walks over to Ser Richard to ask about training. She won't get far there you suspect, but perhaps Liomond Lashare might help her in melding martial excellence with the new gifts her foes had unwittingly given her.

***​

Thankfully the lump of polished bilestone that is the Seastone Chair has no more surprises in store for you as you carry it to the sea shore under Aife's watchful eye. Rodrick had already procured a longboat to carry it out into the waves for its last journey, though you have to strengthen its straining timbers to take the unnatural weight of the stone.

"For something that supposedly came from the sea this thing sure does not want to go back in there," you jest, though you keep half an eye on the undersea contingent you have shadowing the ship. It would not do to have the Deep Ones recover their poisoned gift to the Ironborn.

Once you are over deep water all of you take to the air. Theon takes up his bow and the traditional flaming arrow that is still used in ship burials as far as the Riverlands and the Crownlands while Asha uses a flaming 'spear' to consign the ship and its cargo to the Ferryman's embrace, a burial of their House's past.

The flames burn hungrily at the pitch soaked pine, already dry and creaking, and with a heaving crash it spills into the sea. There is no flash of light, no roll of thunder, but Aife nods in satisfaction and says to Asha: "You will find the nets of your fishermen filled with fresh bounty and some who would have been lost to the sea in these waters find themselves safely to shore."

Blessing of the Still Waters invoked upon the Iron Islands

What next?

[] Write in

OOC: I know that is not a very impressive blessing, but the roll was really underwhelming. Most of the Ferryman's effort went into just unmaking the Seastone Chair.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Black and the Gold ​

Eighteenth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Clegane Keep was a miserable sort of place, that much Tyene had been expecting, a gray stone tower coming to a sharp point like a witch's hat rising atop a stony hill barely fit to raise sheep on. They said old Lord Tytos Lannister had been generous to a fault. Not enough of a fault obviously to give the kennelmaster who saved this life more than the barest semblance of a keep. Five years ago the thought would never have crossed her mind. Of course a lowly peasant only just elevated to lordship should start with something like this miserable pile of rocks.

Spoiler: Clegane Keep

After the last few years, after seeing those born to the most humble of circumstances rise up in the company of kings, she could now see this place for the mysterious gift it was. "The life of a Lord Paramount was cheap in those days, wasn't it?"

The Hound barely seemed to hear her speaking, the eyes behind the heavy warden armor's helm unwavering, fixed upon the tower and its supposed 'lord'. Just like his namesake, she thought idly. Perhaps this day would see the last of the Hound and the birth of something... someone else. After all, men were born in blood, who is to say they could not be reborn in it?

"So do we march up to his door, break it down and then watch Sandor break him?" her father asked, interrupting her thoughts. Glancing at the armored giant he added in a sorrowful tone that Tyene imagined had won him back into the graces of many women, highborn and low. "Seeing as he won't share even a bit."

The First Praetorian was unsurprisingly made of sterner stuff. "No sense making a show of it and having servants get questioned by the Lannisters over it." They have been through enough just dealing with his brother, the tone clearly said. Even Tyene's father grew more somber at the thought. He knew just as well as she that it was not just the highborn who had suffered at the hands of Tywin Lannister's monster.

"We should scout the woods, find out when he's hunting," Sandor continued. "He likes to hunt alone ever since..." He trailed off before adding with such hate Tyene could just make out a shudder through his armor. "Even since he killed father."

At these words Sarell bowed lower than Tyene had ever seen her do to anyone besides Viserys and said simply: "My sisters and I will find the time and place of your vengeance."

***​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

The Sisters of Vengeance were as good as their word, no path too hidden, no Golden Shield spy too sharp eyed that they could not distract or remove entirely. So it was that the three of them came to be looking down at a forest path winding among oak and thornbrush. A perfect place to hunt boar or worse prey. A man in golden armor, cunningly wrought with symbols of earth and sun, rode upon a great roan warhorse. While she may not recognize the steel she recognized the man.

Her father had pointed him out to her when she was seven when he explained what he had done. She had decided in a fit of youthful fervor that he would be the first man she would poison. Alas, some youthful dreams were meant to die.

Spoiler: The Mountain that Rides

"Gregor!" the Hound shouted in a voice that shook leaves from the trees. "Get off that fucking horse and fight me! Time to end this!"

The mountain pulled on the reigns hard enough blood flew from the horse's mouth and as he jumped off he slammed his first above where his heart should have been, if he had such a thing. His armor blazed blue-white flame as he roared back: "Finally scraped up the guts to fight me have you? Fire's warm!"

Tyene, who had personally warded Sandor against fire beyond even what his praetorian's physiology could usually take bit, her lip to keep from laughing.

OOC: No vote this time, this is all Sandor, tactics included.

 

[DragonParadox]

Sundered ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

As he looked into his brother's bloodshot eyes beneath the helm of gold as he looked down at his brother for the first time in his life Sandor Clegane softly spoke a single word, heard by none save the enchantments carved into the Warden armor: "Burn." Fire roared over the steel of his armor, enveloping him not in a pyre but a protection. The wizard's shield flew off his back to guard him by its own strange will leaving him with only one thing to do, find a way to run his man-tall sword through Gregor.

They came together with a deafening clash of steel, with the sound of earth and roots tearing underfoot, with the roar of long-suffering hate against endless rage.

Hit from above, he's not used to it.

Gregor was fast, faster than he had any right to be, not skill, not anger, something else was moving with him, he seemed to flicker in and out of the world in the light of the golden fire. He wasn't quite fast enough on the third blow. Enchanted steel smashed against the golden armor covering of his forearm, crumpling it and driving shards of it into the flesh underneath.

The Mountain laughed, a mad and terrible thing, joyous in blood and pain, even his own: "That still you in there little brother, or is it some golem the dragon stitched together from your worthless skin?"

His sword found its way through the under-arm joint of the construct armor and bit through carefully crafted muscle, before turning on unnaturally hard bone. A strange chill went though Sandor even in the midst of red rage. Like someone stepped on my grave. A shiver of old fear crawled into his mind, a memory of pain and helplessness...

It was only then that Sandor realized the sword in his brother's hand was not simply covered in the same gold flame, but made of it. "I've killed giants bigger than you brother," the Mountain taunted. There was a cruel knowing to his words that Sandor had not heard in his brother before, usually he wouldn't be able to form proper words when he was this furious. "Dead giants, not just ones that wished they were, like you are!"

Sandor was far past giving a shit what his brother had to say. Not worth the breath to answer, never had been.

Put your back into it lad, his father used to say when he was practicing with a wooden sword as a boy and so he did, sweeps raining down on Gregor's shoulders and head like a blacksmith's hammer on an anvil. Put your heart into it. They had carved dragon's runes into his heart and so he poured that into it too, fire and purpose.

Gregor was trying to guard against the blows his golden light mantle couldn't hide him from, heels digging into the blood soaked forest floor as he was hit. But he couldn't keep from taking an opening when he saw one. Lunging forward with his sword hooked backwards to hamstring Sandor he opened his own back to a solid blow that would have shattered the spine of any normal man even through armor.

The golden blade dug only into the soft ground of the forest, sparking of a stray rock.

"Fuck you, you little shit! I'll dig your head out of that helmet, burn out your eyes and piss in your mouth!" There was the Gregor Sandor knew. He could have done without watching his brother's wounds literally scab over and heal before his eyes as though the anger was driving his flesh to mend in the face of his foe.

Healing or not he was still off balance from that lunge. As the Mountain's sword came up again to split him crotch to neck Sandor pushed with his shoulder into the arc of his magic shield, smashing Gregor in the head and pushing him back a step. He had seen enough of that light to know whatever the fuck it was Gregor could control it so his own hits didn't get lost, but the moment of distraction was enough. The Praetorian's sword smashed into his enemy's wrist with enough force to pulverize bone and for the first time since the fight had begun the Mountain howled in pain. Reversing the grip on the sword Sandor smashed him in the head with the pummel of his sword again, leaving Gregor flat on his back.

Something magical fizzled in the air but he paid it no mind, merely raising his sword one last time. Another man might have named his father then or his sister in whose name he did the deed, but the Hound knew that there was no point. He knew what he was fighting for and Gregor would never understand.

Sandor Clegane cleaved his brother's head from his neck with a single clean blow, a greater mercy than the latter had afforded many of his victims.

OOC: The last flash of magic was a contingency teleport someone had cast on Gregor if he was ever near death, but Tyene counterspelled it. Also, the golden field was an improved version of greater blink.

 

[DragonParadox]

Improvements Arcane ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Designing an item for the purpose of energetic arcane detonation is far simpler than the triggering of a recording device, at least without the use of a thinking mind or brain that would add undo cost to the project either in the form of necromancy or flesh-craft. Nonetheless, efforts continue making use of simplified runic script to create a trigger that is both resilient enough to stand up to the wear of the deep jungle and the blood-chilling winds of the north.

-Wisdom Riz'Neth of 'Snake Port'
​

Proximity Alarms: Progress 17/25

***​

The scope of the project's ambition often leaves me breathless. Alas that it also leaves me without time in the day to explore the full scope of potential changes. The noble art of alchemy as we understand it today is a wondrous chimera off uncounted traditions, each rooted in a different understanding of the world, or worlds as the case may be, from the ancient serpentfolk to the First Men, from the pyromancers of the Red Faith to the wisdom seekers of Volantis. Even as alchemy distills matter so too do we distill knowledge at a rate that seems dizzying and heady as the finest wine.

-Wisdom Denys Trainer, Head Alchemical Researcher ​

Thankfully he is not head poet.

-Wisdom Ceria Storm (scribbled in the margins of the report)​

Improved Alchemy: Progress 43/50

***​

Well, this would have come in handy this month against the fey and the aboleth and... too many to count really. If only I had finished it earlier. Poor work ethic, me.

-Lya​

[Spell-Crafting: Research a Greater version of Baleful Teleport [no distance limit, 8th level]: Complete 21/16

***​

Being the full and unabridged account of all the new protections at the Flesh Forge of Gogossos, including but not limited to; thought-stopping mechanisms, runic verification arrays, divine blessings and the regimen of automated mind probes necessary to prevent servitors and staff from falling to Far Realm influence such as has occurred in the previous incursion, the document itself is deemed a potential security threat and should be destroyed upon reading.

- Lady Saenena Caleris​

Secure the Flesh Forge, and fleshsmiths, against memetic attacks (Heavy): Complete 62/45

***​

While working with dead flesh lacks a certain charm that only the constant permutations of life can bring there is something to be said for the ease of application and the elegance of a minimalist aesthetic. Reforged bone is thus melded to arcane metal, the carefully sculpted echo of life melded with the precious notes of the Deep Earth. Still, I wonder if any of the living might be inclined to make use of this art, not you of course, Your Grace, your marvelous cloak already guards you better than adamantine ever could, but perhaps Wisdom Lya. She is rather lacking in protection. Redundancy is all well and good, but discorporation can be quite inconvenient.

-Wisdom Elaheh Marita, Apostle of Flesh​

Undead Template Research: Metal-Clad Template (Mithral and Adamantine): Complete 32/20

***​

A second Forge has been erected near Mantarys with the aid of the Scholarum mages in the city. The region's slight but detectable association with the magics of fire opens up a bevy of fascinating possibilities for the future, perhaps the creation of elementally enhanced warforged or even empowering the furnaces further for speed and effectiveness.

Several of the sorcerers who worked on the project also brought up the possibility of spinning the fading light of the Upper Planes into Warforged bodies, allowing those celestials for whom the weight of the world has grown too heavy to take on bodies of the material world rather than fade into memory and reverie. Proposals included with the present report.

Last though certainly not least the folk Sarnor are beginning to seek out the forges, only the most adventurous for now or those who find their present existence most loathsome, but I have no doubt the rate of transmutation will only grow with time.

-Wisdom Anu, the Brass-Smith ​

Forge of Creation -- 2.0: Complete 28/15

Sarnori rebirth has begun

***​

The first step to creating more delicate workings that interact with the Ethereal Plane has been attained. The first simple, contiguous objects to pass through force effects, have been a spheres of various metals and small animals, moving up to sentient. At this level of progress, mass and complexity is limited and certain arcane materials like adamantine, Valyrian and Imperial Steel cannot pass through at all. Materialized creatures and objects with strong auras of enchantment are unable to move outside of the effect.

Divinations have shown that beings that depend on magic to survive like fey, dragons and certain far-born mutates would suffer unfortunate health effects from passing through the barriers. More study is needed.

-Incarnate Beryl the Strategist ​

Selectively Permeable Force Effects - Tier 1: Gateway Research: Complete 32/25

***​

Though the Azure Court has been nothing but helpful in our exchange, the process of making sense of their lore is complex and filled with false starts and frustrating dead ends. By the very nature of the fey's susceptibility to Far Realm influence the secrets held herein are hidden behind allegory and code that flow into one another, behind spell that enchants one's own mind even as it twists the world. Perhaps I should say 'fey such as I', yet it still feels strange upon the lips and stranger upon the quill no matter that every frozen mirror, every pond's surface, reminds me of it.

I do not know if it is the fault of my lingering attachment to mortality as the envoys say or simply my lack of affinity to what the Azure Court is, but it will be months yet before we may can add this lore to the libraries and vaults of the Scholarum. I pray my tardiness does not harm those whom might otherwise have been protected by a deeper understanding of what lies beyond the Farthest Sphere.

-Rina Cox​

The Key to Madness: Progress: 11/40

***​

With the present report I can finally claim to have attained some deeper understanding of how and why the arc of the mind bends to the whim of the enchanter and how those processes can be ameliorated and reversed. This is not a task for wizards, nor even for those who heal by the light of sorcery alone, but for those patient souls who take up a mind healer's arts in full. Treatment plans would of course have to adapt to each patient's circumstances, but I am confident that with care and understanding even the most ensnared of minds can be freed of the lingering tangles of enchantment.

There are certain indications that this study could be expanded to deal with memetic dangers such as the touch of the Far Realm or the corrupting will of the Abyss, though such lie beyond the remit of this study. Suggestions for further study included with the present report.

-Incarnate Mercy of the Soul​

The Mind's Games: Complete 46/32

***​

We have had three near poisonings, one instance of a researcher falling prey to paranoid delusions and several sample containers corrode at unforeseen speed. One might almost be lead to suspect that this noxious miasma from the borderlands of Hell does not wish to be studied, much less made use of in a controlled fashion. Still, we should be able to offer an answer about the potential utility or countermeasures by next month at the latest. After the troubles of this month I do not hold out much hope of an unmitigated success, but I will be damned if it isn't comprehensive as I can make it.

-Valeria the Wondersmith​

A Baleful Mirage: Progress 45/60

***​

We have found out a lot of what we shouldn't do at least, compression by will and by inert dream construct, magnification in the manner of light and last but certainly not least creating a 'vortex of faith'. The latter did attempt to kill us, but it was much too weak to pose a serious threat. Surprised Aenie though, she's pretty jumpy about the Dream.

-Dany​

Project Distilling Dreams: Progress 25/60

***​

Attempts to create razor wire, as a cheap and effective way to prevent trespass, have all but stalled thanks to the attempts of an ambitious scholar to improve upon the project for their own prestige and aggrandizement. The notion of running arcane lightning through the wire likely has value, but the means by which it was attempted do not as witnessed by the fire that raged throughout half the wing of the university. Thankfully there was no loss of life, though the disruption of courses was significant. A suggestion for flesh-forged firefighters is included in the report.

-Slagor of the Deep, Dean of the University​

Razor Wire: Progress 3/18

Lost 8.000 IM

OOC: How do you guys like these snippets for research? I will still be doing proper interludes for particularly momentous ones as well as crit fails and successes, but this will let us move at a faster clip through normal progress reports.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Business of Kingship Part One ​

Twenty First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Some say realms are forged in blood, others claim they are carved in stone or tilled from the soil. For your part, you know realms are forged in parchment, or in this enlightened age paper. It's ramparts are set before your desk, a siege you can never hope to win. Speaking of sieges, the Military Academy here in Sorcerer's Deep has expanded once more to accommodate the influx of students from beyond the Narrow Sea and likely in time from far stranger places like Sallosh.

The expansion of the administration as well as law enforcement throughout the Stepstones and the Three Daughters continues apace, with only the discovery of an efreeti espionage cell in Tyrosh being particularly noteworthy. The merchant who fronted the operation is an oread formerly of the Peerless Empire whose assets are currently tied up in legal proceedings between the two realms, but who did not pose a significant threat to the welfare of your citizens nor to state secrets. In a twist of irony, the operation planned for Tyrosh in some way mirrors the one Maelor set up in the City of Brass, mostly passive, a foundation for further espionage. It's possible there are other such 'merchants' who slipped through the net, but now the Inquisition has a pattern to look for.

It is from Myr, however, that the worst news comes. Unlike in neighboring Lys, the school system there had expanded at a prodigious rate in no small part due to the efforts of the local aristocracy. Alas, while many of those efforts were motivated by a genuine desire to improve the city and in time reap the benefits of a more educated populace, some were reaping a darker harvest.

Tyrosh has not seen the last of the daemons who almost spelled its end. A small but insidious cult formed on the ruined estate of one of the magisters previously involved, sinking its claws deep into the man who acquired the land from the state. Driven by desire to sow distrust and ruin in equal measure, the so-called 'Eaters of Worms' aimed to introduce cursed talismans and mind-twisting text into classrooms across the city. Pestilence and death would follow, generous nobles revealed to be monsters and, it was their hope, anarchy would reign on the very day you were to set the crown of Empire upon your head.

It was perhaps only through the efforts of one of the city's new made healers that this dark plan could not bear full fruit. A woman with an interest in the arcane beyond the rituals she learned by rote, though not quite enough of to seek out the Scholarum, Ateria of Myr, realized that the sleepy and listless children spotted one cold afternoon were not suffering from any simple chill, but something far worse. She was able to leave the school without arousing suspicion and called upon the lawmen at once, who in turn called upon the inquisition, its investigators, its mages, and even its praetorian squads.

Thankfully, the cult did not have the means to accelerate its plan, nor the assets to stand its ground once secrecy was lost. None of the students and only a handful of teachers died before healers could be summoned from Sorcerer's Deep and Tyrosh. It is hard to even estimate how many lives the young healer saved by uncovering the plot, thousands at the very least.

Spoiler: Action Progress

Expand Imperial Military Academy (12/10) -> Complete

Expand Administration in Stepstones (22/42)

Expand Law Enforcement in Stepstones (12/51)

Expand Administration in Tyrosh (6/30)

Investigate Enemy Spies in Tyrosh (Found Efreeti)

Establish Messenger Service in the Western Disputed Lands (27/110)

Establish Public Schools in Lys (13/19)

Investigate Enemy Spies in Lys -> Nothing found

Establish Public Schools in Myr (3/4) -> Critical Fail

Establish Healthcare Services in Myr (11/56) -> Critical Success

What reward do you give to Ateria and what (if any) resources do you move into the area?

[] Write in

OOC: So not only was there a crit fail on an action with only 4 progress left, the roll for 'how bad' was 3, plague cult, but you then crit succeeded on a healthcare-related action and I decided to weave them together and throw in some rolls for the Inquisition, which thankfully went well.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Business of Kingship Part Two ​

Twenty Second Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

The Imperial Meritorious Service Cross is the least you can do for one who had offered as much of as service to the Empire and its citizens as Ateria. The commendation is set for the day before your coronation, with the invitation containing an offer to attend the Scholarium in Sorcerer's Deep, or any other branch she desires, if she ever chooses to gain a more formal grounding in magic. Should she wish for a change of scenery in her current profession that too can be arranged as well of course, you employ healers from the borderlands of Valyria to the Iron Islands and from the trade outpost on Skane to Gogossos.

"Not everyone wants to go on adventures, and you can't eat glory," Varys reminds you sleepily from her latest perch atop Gregor Clegane's skull, delivered to you by Elia after Oberyn had recovered it in the aftermath to gift to her. Your goodsister, while happy to see it and what it represented, had no interest in keeping it around her daughter.

"A thousand marks, fine healer's tools and a pouch of alchemical remedies then," you nod. After a moment's thought you add: "Best to include a healing belt and a warding amulet for good measure in case she ever crosses paths with the servants of Abaddon."

Lost 1,000 IM

You move on through the rows of reports, from expansions in law enforcement, administration, guard posts and of course the messenger system to keep it all together. Inquisition bases were established in Valysar and Selhorys, hopefully to keep a better watch on the respective provinces, while in Morrogos inquisitors looking into the wilder parts of the province discovered an unexpected but not unwelcome being, an elemental oracle who had slept away the waning of magic in the embrace of the deep earth only to awaken from its cairn into a world transformed. The inquisitor in charge of the area saw the use of hiring such a being, and keeping it from perhaps selling its services to less savory groups.

While the monthly payment from the Inquisition is not quite the same as being offered tribute by the tribes of old, the company is much more charming and the repartee more interesting according the the brief letter in which the oracle pledges its allegiance.

By contrast the latest crop of Norvosi spies in Braavos, disguised as missionaries of the Bearded God, is barely worth noting. Braavos has been dealing with the like since the Century of Blood.

Spoiler: Action Results

Establish Messenger Service in Northern Disputed Lands (8/35)

Establish Messenger Service in Daughter's March (5/27)

Establish Guard Posts in Eastern Flatlands (10/13)

Expand Law Enforcement in Orange Shore (7/46)

Establish Inquisition Base in Orange Shore (54/98)

Establish Messenger Service in Orange Shore (18/26)

Establish Inquisition Base in Valysar (13/9) -> Complete

Establish Inquisition Base in Selhorys (24/22) -> Complete

Investigate Enemy Spies in Volon Sar

Expand Administration in Braavos (23/50)

Investigate Enemy Spies in Braavos (Norvos Spies Found)

Establish Messenger Service in Braavosi Coast (10/25)

Establish Messenger Service in Sweetwater (7/27)

Establish Inquisition Base in Morrogos (11/28) Crit Success (70) -> Elemental Weird Earth Hired on (+10 to counter-intelligence rolls for the base once founded)

The Inquisition is doing just as much good work in the Velevet Hills and Lorath with the latter city's administration surprising you by completing the new aqueducts and sewers months ahead of schedule. You send a small note of personal congratulations to the governor, and while it may not be an act of heroism nor even technically going beyond the call of duty doing one's duty very well should still be noted.

Meanwhile in the lands that once belonged to the Rhoynar the creation of orphanages is almost complete, having found among the first of their charges four young mages who might otherwise have been lost at the edges of the still half-wild provinces or worse. How people can still drive newly discovered mages away when they or their neighbors are laying arcane blessings on their crops you will never know. Perhaps an article about the different sorts of magic and their sources would not go amiss for the Times...

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Sanitation Systems in Lorath (11/17) Crit Success (56) -> +1d6 (6) -> (17/17) -> Complete

Investigate Cults in Lorath

Establish Inquisition Base in Lorath Bay (6/4) -> Complete

Establish Messenger Service in Lorath Bay (16/9) -> Complete

Investigate Enemy Spies in Morosh

Construct Sanitation Systems in Pentos (9/27)

Expand Law Enforcement in Pentos (7/75)

Investigate Enemy Spies in Pentos

Investigate Supernatural Activity in Andal Coast

Establish Inquisition Base in Velvet Hills (29/23) -> Complete

Establish Inquisition Base in Nontelos (17/9) -> Complete

Establish Orphanages in Chroyane (4/20)

Establish Orphanages in Ar Noy (8/9)

Establish Orphanages in Ny Sar (12/13) Crit Success (30) -> +2 Sorcerer lvl 4

Investigate Supernatural Activity in Andal Coast

Establish Public Schools in Ghoyan Drohe (9/10)

Establish Orphanages in Golden Fields (8/8) Critical Success (25) +2 Mystics lvl 4 -> Complete

Gained +2 Mystics lvl 4 and +2 Sorcerers lvl 4

The creation of public schools is going almost as well as that of orphanages with other forms of infrastructure also on the horizon, from sanitation to law enforcement that should help Relath deal with anymore subversion among the Tolosi. He probably would not have as much trouble if he had not introduced himself to them by eating dissenters, but that's water in the canal now.

To judge from the fact that you just lost almost three thousand marks to common graft in Elyria that place might use more lawmen for its own reasons. One hopes they will settle down once the nobles involved get convicted to prison like common criminals.

Lost 2,975 IM

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Sanitation Systems in Mantarys (8/28)

Expand Law Enforcement in Tolos (45/53)

Investigate Enemy Spies in Mantarys -> None Found

Establish Public Schools in the Painted Mountains (8/9) Crit Success (45) -> +1d6 (1) -> (9/9) -> Complete

Establish Orphanages in Draconys (13/9) -> Complete

Construct Sanitation Systems in Tolos (17/62)

Establish Inquisition Base in Elyria (7/4) -> Complete

Establish Messenger Service in Elyria (5/18) Crit Fail (87) - Graft Lose 2,975 IM

Improve Infrastructure in Naath (16/4) -> Complete

Investigate Supernatural Activity in Naath -> Tribe of Moss trolls wants to join

It is however a message hand delivered by a faintly exasperated Wyla that actually requires most of your attention for the day. Not that it is precisely bad news but... "A tribe of moss trolls managed to raft to Naath and now they want to stay?"

"Apparently their shaman divined when the currents would be right and they all just jumped at it," she replies. "They fished and ate pieces of their rafts when they got hungry. They have agreed to swear allegiance, but my people are quite leery of having them on the island. One of them let slip that they had eaten men before, those who invaded their old territory." Wyla herself is obviously untroubled by the revelation, not that you had expected her to be given her history.

Spoiler: Troll Numbers

1 Moss Troll Great Shaman (Oracle of Wood 8)
17 Moss Trolls Old Hunters (Slayer 5)
193 Moss Trolls

Where do you settle the trolls?

[] Gogossos, they will be used to the climate and they will hardly be the strangest beings about

[] One of the smaller islands of the Stepstones to keep a closer eye on them and maybe allow them to share their lore more readily

[] Write in

OOC: I rolled through several low order crits and mentioned actions that are just chugging along less. Hopefully this is the right level of abstraction.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Business of Kingship Part Three​

Twenty Second Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

While a part of you is tempted to invite the trolls to Sorcerer's Deep, one more people to add to the uncommon and extraordinary folk who call your capital home, you suspect it is the same part that inclined your remote ancestors to sleep on gold and dragonslaying weapons. The change would be too great, shocking most likely, and is unfair to count upon these new arrivals to act with as much coldblooded deliberation as the serpentfolk. Better to leave them closer to home, in a realm whose perils they know while still being protected by the full night of the Legion and Inquisition as any citizen of the Empire.

Speaking of that most far flung holding the newest report you have paints the picture of a place that is less armed camp among the ruins of the past that you had left it and more growing city, vibrant as it is uncanny, from the works of the flesh-smiths to the Ledge Runners growing closer and closer with your citizens each day. Even the Pale Ones who had been too skittish and distrustful of the world under the sun have grown more open to the trade of goods and ideas, from strange mushrooms that grow only in the lightless places seeped in the magic of the Flesh Forge over the ages to ways of finding one's way in the lightless depths.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it was the first generation of kobolds who helped bridged the gap of trust and understanding, opening a whole new world to your explorers. It is a world only open to those the Empire trusts not to delve too greedily and too deep and rouse those best left sleeping.

News from the other side of the Empire proves to be more of a mixed bag. On the one hand Saath can no longer be counted merely a colony and is working at binding its hinterland together with the messenger system while on the other hand a minor drought in Omber costs you over five thousand marks in importing horses at higher prices than you had expected.

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Guard Posts in Gorgossos (7/1)

Investigate Supernatural Activity in Eastern Basilisk Isles

Establish Inquisition Base in Gorgossos (10/1) -> Complete

Establish Messenger Service in Gorgossos (8/1) -> Complete

Investigate Supernatural Activity in The Three Snakes

Establish Inquisition Base in Western Disputed Lands (26/166)

Improve Infrastructure in Gorgossos (46/45) -> Complete

Construct Sanitation Systems in Andalos (6/2) -> Complete

Establish Messenger Service in Omber (6/26) -> Crit Failure (55) -> Drought, Lost 5,120 IM

Establish Messenger Service in Saath (5/30)

+1 Wealth added to Gogossos from increased Trade

Lost 5,120 IM

The cost pales into insignificance however beside an unexpected botanical report. Seeing Wisdom Denys Trainer's carefully crafted signature besides Vee's hurried scrawl is already enough to raise an eyebrow, never mind actually read the contents... well, someone at the Lyseni Spice Company is definitely getting a promotion, possibly a commendation from the crown. Alchemical substances that make one's magic more potent are generally rare, costly, circumstantial in function or damaging to the imbiber. While you certainly would not call 'mild to moderate euphoria with the possibility of hallucinations' nothing, it is an ill effect magic can cure.

Spoiler: Action Results

x2 Expand Salty Shores Incorporated (22/13) -> Complete

Expand Earths Bounty Jewelry Manufactory (8/10)

Expand Everflame Ironworks (6/7) -> Complete

Expand Lyseni Spice Company (11/4)-> Complete - > Crit Success (96) Discovered Panaeolo seeds

Expand Golden Fields Agriculture Consortium (6/10)

Encourage Immigration from Orange Shore --> Stepstones

Expand Verdant Vistas (10/7) -> Complete

Expand Great Northwestern Trading Company (4/3) -> Complete

Expand Southlands Fruit Company (3/2) -> Complete

A final experiment at the end of the report notes that the resulting concoction does not work on Vee herself nor on anyone who has already achieved significant mastery of their magic, it does not produce skill or affinity for the arcane, rather it lowers unconscious barriers in the novice spell weaver at a price. Thankfully it is one most battle mages and perhaps even journeymen on dangerous paths are well equipped to pay.

Spoiler: Panaeolo

Panaeolo
Description: Panaeolo's leathery-tasting leaves attune the user to the Weave, and boost the power of arcane spells.
Type: Ingested DC 8.
Initial Effect: None.
Secondary Effect: The DC of all arcane spells the user casts increases by +2 for the next 1d4 hours.
Price: 250 gp.
Side Effects: 1d6 points of temporary Charisma damage.
Overdose: If a second dose of panaeolo is taken within an hour of the first, the increase to the user's arcane spell DCs becomes +3 but the user suffers 2d8 points of temporary Charisma damage. Additional doses within an hour do not increase the DCs any more but still cause the Charisma damage.
Addiction: Low.
Special: Will not work for casters of CL 10 and above

What next?

[] Write in

OOC: You were doubly lucky that crit fell on the Spicers, none of the others had anything as good on their table.