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- He/Him
Do dragons even need to mate to lay eggs?
The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest
No, and male dragons can lay eggs just as well as female dragons.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I must have missed that, but I believe it. Still, as Teen Spirit notes, we could invest effort in prolonging his life. Yes, it'd do a number on our action economy, but a few more years of being heir before having to fight our way into proper rulership could do good things.
I'm very much flexible about this and not trying to push matters unduly. I just want to keep it on the radar that it is probably not a great idea for an aspiring empress* who plans to rule in her own name and will probably have to fend off one or more rounds of challengers for the throne to completely set aside dynastic considerations.
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*(and the Iron Throne is an imperial seat, not just a royal one, make no mistake)
Ehhh. The way I figure it, Rhaenyra's not irreplaceable as a soldier in ground combat. She's strong and going to be a prodigious duelist in her twenties, thirties, and probably well into her her forties, sure, but I doubt she's going to be so invincible that it's even a good idea for her to lead her battles from the front. There's always that stray arrow, or that lucky lance, or that mace that hits you hard enough to give you a concussion you never quite recover from properly.
The Queensguard will still exist for a reason, in other words.
No, where Rhaenyra is going to be really decisively relevant in battle is on dragonback, and somehow, I think her window of combat-effectiveness on dragonback is going to be a long one if she doesn't die of something else first.
I'm not saying you're wrong to think about this, but I don't think it's realistic to expect VIserys I to live well past his sixtieth birthday (in canon he died at, uh, I think it'd be 129-77 = 52). And when he's sixty, Rhaenyra will still be forty, and while forty's a bit old to be pure hell on wheels in the melee, it's definitely not too old to be dangerous in dragonrider combat.
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"The Action Economy is expanding to meet the meets of the expanding Action Economy."
Yeah, I mean, Rhaenys was considered about the most dangerous dragonrider in the war and I think she might even be a bit older than Viserys.
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- He/Him
I will say if personal prowess matters a lot for Rhaenyra in direct combat during a dance then things have gone weird or wrong
Tfw we avert the dance by having a trial of the seven against Daemon and cave in his skull.
But yeah. If we were a guy, our personal prowess would be a real factor just for the reputational aspect getting us support. But that's a bit more mixed with Rhaenyra. Might get us some respect in some corners at least, even if it's likely to drive some off. Though a lot of those would have hated us for being a girl anyways.
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Personal prowess matters a fair bit reputation wise. For better and worse
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I know we're all using "dance" as a euphemism for "civil war fought over the succession," but I can't help but imagine this in the context of "no, I meant literally ballroom dancing."
Though to be fair if Rhaenyra was low-Prowess we probably, she wouldn't have been able to lift Lady Jeyne, and that would have been a tragedy.
...
More seriously, yeah, I agree, with the caveat that you really cannot expect nothing to go wrong in a war zone. Rhaenyra probably shouldn't be leading too many cavalry charges, but in a full-scale war it is reasonably likely that she'll find herself using Prowess at some point.
I wonder if we can get her to take up dragon-mounted archery. That'd be an interesting way to end a dragonback duel...
- Location
- Germany
Civil war cancelled in favor of an armed dance-off.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Speaking of, we still do also have to find time for her to train in command stuff.
ScholarNyra probably would have invented parachutes, too. Snipe your opponent, set your dragon to chasing off the other one, jump off to safety
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, the problem there is that now it's your unpiloted dragon against theirs. That doesn't sound like a good plan.ScholarNyra probably would have invented parachutes, too. Snipe your opponent, set your dragon to chasing off the other one, jump off to safety
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Horseback archery is already difficult enough that adding even more unstable and faster movement alongside 3 dimensional combat would make it heinously difficult, not to mention it'd occupy both hands which can be very dangerous. I'd suggest getting a specifically crafted arbalest that can be achored to the saddle with a chain, for use only when the dragons enter in melee with eachother.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Or maybe javelins. Except if the other dragonrider is wearing any armor, a javelin probably isn't going to hurt them.
StarSingerBlue
Zenryoku Zenkai !
- Location
- The City of Lights
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- They/Them
I think we should invest in actual strategy at one point.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
That's the kind of statement that, when I see it, usually sounds like "I think everyone else in the thread is stupid and has no plan, clearly I am very intelligent."
Maybe you didn't mean it that way?
What is your idea of "actual strategy?" Do you mean "have Rhaenyra study military operations and how to plan a campaign?" Do you mean "work to give Rhaenyra a solid dynastic position with a strong core of potential future supporters so that she is most likely to be able to take the throne safely?" What, exactly, are you saying?
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Depending on the size of the dragon, it would be more like elephant back archery. It would be far less of a balancing act due to the size difference, and there would be far less strain of doing archery and controlling the mount at the same time, again due to the size difference and because dragons don't need to be controlled at all times.
- Location
- United States
They probably just mean the strategy skill.
Character Sheet RN:
Rats, my plan was to just solo the dance by repeating the Daemon maneuver like 4-5 times. Clearly nothing could go wrong with this.
Character Sheet RN:
Rats, my plan was to just solo the dance by repeating the Daemon maneuver like 4-5 times. Clearly nothing could go wrong with this.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Up to a point. On the other hand, you ARE fighting in three dimensions, so opportunities for a good bowshot wouldn't come easily or reliably. It might well be a more productive use of the required training time to just get really good at flying and bonding with your dragon.
Well, that would absolutely make sense. On the other hand, there's a fairly good reason we haven't gotten much training in military strategy up to this point- because it's hard to get people to teach you about leading armies if they're not taking you seriously as a warrior. Remember that in this culture, even someone like Tyrion Lannister, who is obviously physically disabled from being a really effective combatant, is still expected to wear armor and get on a horse and all that.
Getting taken seriously as a warrior is arguably a prerequisite for getting the relative handful of people in Westeros who know how to command an army properly to take us seriously as a candidate for lessons, as opposed to, at best, a future reigning queen who will "have a guy for that."
It's absolutely something we need to study, but it's not something to sneer at that we haven't made it a priority. We're not likely to get command of a serious military force for years.
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- He
Sure, but even then you'd still only do it when dragons are in melee as otherwise you have to either fire at another dragon's rider, a small target, with both you and them moving at 30-50 mph.
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- He/Him
On a random note I do plan on reworking the Character Sheet to be more in line with the Skills next month.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Trial by fire wouldn't really work either. The only active force needing command is the Velaryon fleet in the Stepstones, and neither Corlys nor Daemon would ever give us leave to command it.
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Presumably in the right circumstances we could hunt
We could solve this problem by having Rhaenyra incite enough wars until all the other qualified commanders are occupied and the powers-that-be have to assign Rhaenyra to lead the newest one.