House Among Chaotic Kingdoms

Votes for this Turn:

A1 - Commons - 0

A2 - Reputation - 23

A3 - Medcorps - 2

A4 - Marshal - 2

A5 - Non-Coms - 30

S1 - Wikipedia - 0

S2 - Steam - 21

S3 - Wookiepedia - 6

S4 - World - 30

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Rolls for this Turn:

Personal: Elder Scrolls Wiki

Thanks to Serul Dathren², Aegon Blackfyre¹ is now Prodigious in Form/Bewegungsgestalt and Heavy Armour², along with gaining the ability to freeze an opponent in place for about 5 seconds up to once per day³.

(Note 1 - This is not official confirmation that this version of him is a Faegon rather than an Aegon.

I’m just getting tired of calling him “Young Griff,” and Aegon Blackfyre is what Wulfric thinks of him as, so I’m going with it.)

(Note 2 - While I was tempted to just add him into Aegon's forces, we seem to have rolled a particularly uninteresting guy this time.

His whole wiki page is 2 lines about his race, where he can be found in the game, and what skills you can buy from him.

So instead Aegon gets a buff to the relevant skills rather than some random guy added to his forces.)

(Note 3 - Contrary to Note 2, there actually is ONE interesting thing about Serul Dathren, and that is that he is noted to carry the Silver Staff of Reckoning.

Which is what makes this roll interesting since it simultaneously drains the target of speed and willpower, while also paralysing them.

So, Aegon got this as an ability, and even though it only lasts a few seconds, those can and will be deadly if utilized properly.

Unfortunately, he is far enough gone that he will attribute this new ability to the Grandfather, who will gleefully take credit.)

World: Fallout Wiki

Thanks to Jericho (Fallout 3), the Night's Watch has just gained a new Brother.

Nobody (including Jericho) seems quite sure where he’s from or when he joined, but that he is a relatively well-respected brother of the Night's Watch is beyond Question.

Additionally, he carries his trustworthy Custom-Modified Chinese Assault Rifle² along with up to 20 bullets per day¹.

(Note 1 - This is due to his nature as a companion, granting him functionally unlimited ammo, yet only having 20 Bullets on him if he dies.

So he can fire up to 20 times per day, but the bullets are use-it-or-lose-it, so he can’t stockpile.)

(Note 2 - Continuing in the compromise to allow Guns to exist in this quest but not take over the setting, Jericho’s gun has a mild notice-me-not effect on it such that people will just treat it like the special bow that he brought with him to the Watch… whenever he joined.

So it has all the power an assault rifle normally has, but don't expect the Night's Watch to start making crude Guns like Stannis has in low numbers or crude (and dangerously unreliable) cannons like Tywin has.

Jericho’s gun is Jericho’s gun, and that's the end of that.)

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Story:

Well, that had sucked about as badly as you’d expected.

Every older lord you spoke to insisted that a five week siege was remarkably quick, especially for a castle in the Dornish Marches.

You believed them, but five weeks of staring at Nightsong, checking supplies, organizing work details, and waiting for the defenders to give up still felt incredibly long.

You couldn’t really blame House Caron for fighting it out.

Anyone openly worshipping the Grandfather already knew they wouldn’t survive a loyalist victory, while the Carons themselves had little reason to expect a pleasant future.

The useful members of the family would probably spend the next few years as hostages before being married into whichever house Joffrey eventually gave Nightsong.

The others could look forward to the Wall or the Silent Sisters.

Barristan would treat them honorably while they were prisoners, but that didn’t mean he could somehow undo their second round of treason.

The smallfolk confused you much more.

Everyone knew surrendering early usually meant better treatment than making an army fight its way inside.

Harvest Hall was close enough that nobody needed an old story to prove the point.

Its people had opened the gates, helped remove the garrison, and gotten through the whole affair with very little bloodshed.

The people inside Nightsong had seen that and stayed anyway.

You weren’t sure whether that came from loyalty to House Caron, the Grandfather’s religion, or both.

Whatever the reason, nobody inside managed to organize the sort of revolt that had handed over Harvest Hall.

Eventually the castle had to be taken by force.

The army did have one major advantage.

Between the Stormlanders and Reachmen, there were men in camp who knew nearly every road, hill, stream, wall, and gate around Nightsong.

Some had visited the castle before the war, while others had hunted nearby or knew families from the surrounding lands.

Barristan certainly wasn’t going into the siege blind.

That made the eventual result fairly obvious.

Nightsong could delay the army and make the taking expensive, but nobody seriously believed it could hold forever without relief.

No relief was coming.

You supposed that gave the Carons another reason to keep fighting.

Barristan’s reputation meant they could trust him not to massacre noble prisoners after the castle fell.

If surrendering immediately and surrendering five weeks later both ended with the loss of Nightsong, they didn’t have much to lose by waiting for some unlikely rescue.

The rescue never came.

After five weeks, Nightsong fell, House Caron lost its castle, and the Prince’s Pass army had managed to fall even further behind schedule.

The defenders hadn’t changed the result, but they’d certainly made everyone work for it.

For yourself, most of those five weeks went into the Infantry.

The siege finally gave you enough time to look at the whole command instead of dealing with whichever problem happened to be in front of you that morning.

You also had most of the experienced noncoms you’d brought over from the larger army, including quite a few men you’d spent months helping train.

You couldn’t reorganize the Infantry into anything approaching a perfectly sensible structure.

Every lord brought his own household men, sworn soldiers, levies, officers, family favorites, local customs, and ancient privileges.

Trying to sweep all of that aside would’ve created an argument with most of the army before you even reached the second step.

More importantly, you didn’t actually want to establish that precedent.

If the Infantry commander was allowed to break apart every lord’s forces whenever efficiency demanded it, somebody would eventually point at Long Lake and ask why your own troops were still serving together.

You wouldn’t even be able to call the argument unfair.

So the existing lordly structure stayed in place.

You concentrated on moving the noncoms around inside it.

Your goal was fairly simple: every good sergeant or corporal should serve under a lord he could tolerate, with officers who would actually make use of him.

Sometimes that meant putting one of your best men under a lord who’d already shown himself willing to listen.

Other times it meant separating two perfectly capable men who hated each other enough to become useless whenever they shared a camp.

Your reputation made the whole process much easier.

A few months earlier, plenty of lords would’ve objected simply because you were the one suggesting a change.

Now they’d decided you knew what you were doing with Infantry, so most assumed there was a good reason when you asked to move somebody.

Often there was a good military reason.

Sometimes the reason was that a particular captain was an ass and his sergeant was three arguments away from hitting him with a shovel.

The lord receiving your recommendation didn’t need every detail.

The noncoms were enjoying the change as well.

Some of your reputation had spread to the men who’d spent months training under you, and lords were starting to treat that connection as a recommendation in itself.

Sergeants who would once have been ignored were getting asked for advice.

A few were even being allowed to manage most of their lord’s Infantry without somebody noble hovering over every decision.

You weren’t going to pretend the Infantry had suddenly become orderly.

Units still used different arrangements, officers with the same title often had completely different responsibilities, and more than a few men held positions because somebody important liked their father.

You knew exactly how much of a mess remained because you’d spent five weeks digging through it.

Still, the important parts were mostly working.

The men generally knew who gave them orders, who passed those orders down, who handled supplies, who reorganized a damaged unit, and who took command when the man above him died.

For a feudal army assembled from half the realm, you were prepared to count that as progress.

Ser Wylis’s reports about the Cavalry certainly helped your mood.

Apparently his side of the army had become a collection of proud lords, expensive horses, old grudges, competing claims of precedence, and men who could turn their position in a marching column into a question of family honor.

More than one argument had apparently started because somebody believed his banner had been placed too far from Barristan.

Tulin’s Archers weren’t doing much better.

Different companies had started competing over accuracy, range, hunting skill, and kills.

According to Tulin, several of those competitions were becoming personal enough that the officers had started paying attention to which Archer units camped beside each other.

You weren’t entirely convinced he wasn’t exaggerating, but you had no desire to investigate.

Your Infantry was messy, but at least it was a familiar sort of messy.

Nobody had started a blood feud over target shooting yet.

The siege also gave you and Jon plenty of time to keep working on warging.

Jon was still better at it than you were, as usual.

This time, he’d figured out something new with Ghost.

He’d learned how to sink partway into their bond while staying fully aware of his own body.

Jon still saw through his own eyes and controlled his own movements, but he could feel enough of Ghost’s intentions to stop guessing what the direwolf was about to do.

Ghost seemed to get much the same thing from him.

The difference became obvious once they tried fighting together.

Jon knew when Ghost was about to circle, Ghost knew which direction Jon wanted an opponent pushed, and neither had to stop to check where the other was.

They could attack the same man without getting into each other’s way.

Once Jon had figured out what he was doing, he tried teaching you.

Your first attempts with Jinx went badly.

You nearly stepped on her once, then managed to catch her shoulder with your knee when both of you moved through the same opening.

Jinx made her opinion of your performance very clear.

Eventually, you started getting it.

You weren’t controlling Jinx and you weren’t looking through her eyes.

You simply knew where she meant to move before she actually moved there.

That was enough to change how the two of you fought.

You could drive someone toward her without looking back, shift aside before she passed you, or attack at the same moment she did without worrying about putting your sword in her path.

Jinx also stopped hesitating whenever the two of you moved close together.

You had no intention of bringing her into a proper southern battle.

A packed melee was full of armored men, horses, spears, arrows, and frightened soldiers swinging at anything close enough to hit.

Being able to coordinate with Jinx wouldn’t make any of those things less dangerous.

The King Beyond the Wall was a different problem.

You and Jon had both been thinking more about what would be waiting in the North once this war finally ended.

Wildlings weren’t likely to spend all their time standing in neat ranks or hiding behind one castle.

You were expecting something much uglier: raids, ambushes, scattered warbands, fighting in forests, fighting through hills, and dozens of small clashes happening nowhere near the main army.

That was exactly where Jinx and Ghost would be useful.

Against a handful of wildlings in broken country, knowing what your direwolf was about to do could matter more than another hundred men somewhere else.

So you kept practicing.

There wasn’t much reason to expect the skill to matter in Dorne, but you’d need it once you got home.

Janus might actually prove useful before then.

You’d already learned how to follow his senses without completely losing track of yourself.

During the siege, you finally started experimenting with using him as a scout instead of simply practicing the bond.

You had to be careful.

A raven flying around during the day wasn’t strange, but a raven repeatedly circling whichever part of a castle interested you might eventually attract attention.

At night, that problem mostly disappeared.

You started sending Janus across Nightsong after dark.

From the ground, he was little more than another black shape against the sky.

Once he reached the castle, you’d ease into the bond and watch through him.

The first attempts weren’t very useful.

Flying still felt strange enough that you kept paying attention to the height and movement instead of the castle below.

Janus also had his own ideas about what deserved attention, and troop movements ranked well below food.

You improved with practice.

Once you stopped thinking about every turn of his wings, you could actually concentrate on the ground.

You saw where extra guards had appeared, which courtyards stayed active after dark, where supplies were being carried, and which stretches of wall suddenly had more men standing on them.

It wasn’t the same as having a spy inside the castle.

You couldn’t hear most conversations from that height, and seeing twenty men cross a courtyard didn’t tell you where they were going afterward.

Still, you were watching things happen while they happened, which no ordinary scout outside the walls could manage.

The awkward part would come when you started using that information.

One unusually good guess wouldn’t draw much attention.

Knowing what the defenders were doing night after night eventually would.

After everything that had happened with foreign magic, you weren’t eager to explain that a raven was showing you the inside of enemy castles.

Even among Northmen, warging was the sort of thing people spoke about much more comfortably when it belonged to old stories.

So for now, you mostly practiced.

You worked on staying with Janus longer, directing his attention without fighting him over every movement, and remembering what you’d seen once you returned fully to yourself.

There’d be time to worry about explanations once you could actually rely on the information.

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Skills:

Combat:

(12) Form/Bewegungsgestalt - 50/400 (+20)

(11) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 10/300 (+20)

(12) Archery - 30/400 (+30) (Gifted)

(11) Equestrianism - 225/300 (+20) (Talented)

(12) Heavy Armour - 390/400 (+30) (Prodigious)

Diplomacy:

(11) Interpersonal Communication - 300/300 (+25) (Skilled)

(8) Public Speaking - 60/100 (+25) (Skilled)

(13) Management - 400/500 (+50) (Prodigious)

(8) Stewardship - 30/100 (+15) (Knack)

(7) Northern Law - 50/100 (+5) (Knack)

(7) General Westerosi Law - 40/100 (+5) (Knack)

Language:

(11) Common Speaking - 15/300 (+25) (Knack)

(11) Old Tongue Speaking - 170/300 (+5) (Knack)

(7) Valyrian Speaking - 95/100 (+5) (Knack)

(7) Common Reading - 25/100 (+0)

(6) Valyrian Reading - 30/100 (+0)

Scholarly:

(9) Pure Math(s) - 55/100 (+5)

(12) Accounts/Ledgers - 160/400 (+25) (Prodigious)

(10) Northern History - 170/200 (+5) (Knack)

(8) General Westerosi History - 25/100 (+5)

(8) Northern Peoples - 80/100 (+0)

(7) General Westerosi Peoples - 5/100 (+5)

Leisure:

(10) Hunting - 20/200 (+0)

(7) Fishing - 59/100 (+0)

(6) Swimming - 39/100 (+0)

(6) Seacraft - 6/100 (+0)

(6) Climbing - 60/100 (+0)

(5) Acting (Lying) - 35/100 (+5)

War:

(11) Strategy - 300/300 (+50) (Prodigious +)

(7) Castrametation - 30/100 (+30) (Knack)

(3) Poliorcetics - 60/100 (+50)

(4) Fleetcraft - 5/100 (+5) (Knack)

(3) Battlewise - 70/100 (+20)

Magic:

(12) The Green - 325/400 (+25) (Prodigious)

(6) Warging - 75/100 (+25) (Gifted)

(5) Westerosi Runes - 100/100 (+10)

(1) The Force - 40/100 (+5) (Knack)

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Earning: 6

Spending: 0

Banked: 96

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Rolls for Next Turn:

T3 = Objects/Effect on Another Place

L1 = Inconvenient

(Ouch!)

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Voting:

Main Actions: Who should we focus on during the march South?

A1 - Focus on the needs and training of the Common men.

A2 - Focus on your reputation with the Lords by training with them.

A3 - Work with the Medcorps and other Support Staff.

A4 - Focus on your Marshal Skill by Training with Jon and the Knights.

A5 - Focus on the Organisation and Non-Coms of the Army.

Personal Rolls Sources:

S1 - Wikipedia (On Cooldown 2/2)

S2 - Steam Games

S3 - Wookiepedia

S4 - World Rolls List (On Cooldown 1/1)

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Information/Maps:

1 - War-Map: In Zones mode for easier understanding.

Imgur - File Garden - Catbox

2 - New World Map

Note: Not accurate to Westeros or Western Essos/the Free Cities.

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Write-In/Questions:

1 - Do you think Guns should play more of a role in this Quest?

Please Vote for one of:

More Guns

Same Guns

Less Guns

But I’d also like your reasons if you don’t mind giving them.

At the moment, it’s not hard to offscreen the Gun use, since there are basically 3 groups with Guns (not counting specific exceptions like Ned's gun or the coin guns the Tyrells have).

But I could make them more present if you lot want me to.

Alternatively, I could make them even more of a background thing, with Stannis having supply chain issues and Tywin deciding they're just not worth the bother.

Note: I’m counting any comment that votes for Actions and/or Sorces but not guns as “Same Guns.”

Gun-Using Factions in this Quest:

1 - Tywin has managed to reverse-engineer the idea of Canons, but because this is Westeros and they don't have fireworks, his immediate thought for explosives wasn’t gunpowder but instead Wildfire.

So his guns are either massively more powerful than they should be.

Or, more likely, blow up on use and there is no in-between.

2 - Stannis had a moderate number of basic guns made while Joel and Ellie stuck around (before the people burning got too noticeable), but his supplies are limited and his attempts to keep making them since have been much less successful.

So basically he has a bit under 200 handmade guns with mildly skilled troops trained on their use and a limited supply of ammunition.

He is, however, a brilliant enough commander to be making proper use of said guns, which does help his forces quite a lot.

Plus the worshipers of the Red-God have taken to the idea of guns very… enthusiastically…

3 - The unknown 3rd faction, which I do believe I’ve confirmed at some point was the one to assassinate King Robert and Queen Cersei.

Something I don’t think I’ve mentioned is that this 3rd faction went the Quality over Quantity approach, and so has custom-ordered their guns and bullets to be painstakingly recreated by skilled artisans.

So while they have the most limited supply, they also have the best guns in Westeros.