Votes for this Turn:A1 - Jon - 4A2 - Sansa - 3A3 - Cat - 0A4 - Arya - 27
S1 - Wikipedia - 0S2 - Steam - 0S3 - Paradox - 27S4 - World - 7
Names:(M) Silco - 10(F) Luna - 8(F) Cat - 2(F) Winter - 2(F) Visenya - 2(F) Moon - 1(M) Pochita - 1
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Rolls for this Turn:Personal: Surviving MarsThanks to Disaster, each of Westeros's 9 regions will experience 1 of 6 Disasters:D1 = Cold WaveD2 = Dust DevilD3 = Dust StormD4 = MeteorsD5 = Marsquake (Pnetoquake)D6 = Toxic Rain
Results:The North = Cold WaveThe Iron Isnds = Marsquake (Pnetoquake)The Rivernds = Dust DevilThe Westernds = Marsquake (Pnetoquake)The Vale = Toxic RainThe Reach = MeteorsThe Stormnds = Dust StormThe Crownnds = MeteorsDorne = Cold Wave
So, best off is the north, which just had a bunch of crops fail for no reason, but whose people 100% know how to deal with cold snaps.Then, the worst off is the Westernds, where a bunch of mines just colpsed, and rockslides just happened, on top of the whole actively at war thing.
World: Might and Magic WikiThanks to Arthur (armorsmith), the Best Armorsmith in the North can now be found in Long Lake Castle. With the men off to war, he’s begun crafting your first set of armor to train in, starting at age 9.Usually, they don't bother until lordlings are older, but Long Lake is known for its heavy armor, so you’ll be expected to be well-versed in fighting in pte by then.But in the meantime, he needs a family name, since clearly his craft is one that gets passed down an ancient line of northern Smiths!
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Story:Watching Arya was not like spending time with Sansa, or Jon, or really anyone else in Winterfell who could be relied upon to remain the same person for longer than half a minute.Arya moved the way lightning did, with: darting starts, sharp turns, bad ideas, and the apparent belief that stillness was something done only by the dead, the sleeping, or the very boring.
The wolves made this worse, naturally.Silco was hers, and therefore perfect in every possible way according to Arya, despite the fact that he was small, unruly, and pinly determined to test whether every object in Winterfell could fit inside his mouth.Jinx was yours, and if not exactly calm, then at least more used to being told things she was expected to remember afterward.This meant Arya regarded Jinx with some admiration, some envy, and a great deal of offended loyalty on Silco’s behalf whenever he failed at something Jinx managed easily.
The whole business became rather less manageable after the cold snap.It had come early and wrong, the sort of sharp, sudden turn in the weather that sent servants hurrying off in all directions to deal with fires, shutters, extra bnkets, frozen buckets, and all the other tedious little catastrophes that arrived whenever the sky decided to misbehave.Your Aunt Catelyn had gone from already distracted to fully occupied in the aftermath, which was how you found yourself left with Arya, Silco, and Jinx for much of the week while the adults handled matters they considered more important than preventing one four-year-old from becoming a local legend.
That, in fairness, may have been a mistake.
The only sensible way to teach Arya anything was through py.Trying to sit her down and expin a thing to her was like trying to pour water into a basket and then acting wounded when it failed to stay put.So instead you made a game of it.If she was going to spend the afternoon running wild with a wolf pup anyway, then she could at least do it in the Old Tongue.
The first words were easy ones, the sort that could be shouted while moving and remembered because they attached themselves to something fun.You started with: wolf, come, stop, up, down, run, quiet, and bite.Arya liked all of them well enough, but she took to bite with immediate and slightly troubling enthusiasm.The moment she understood what it meant, she began saying it to Silco with the fierce gravity of some very small and slightly unhinged commander.Silco, being Arya’s wolf, took this not as a command but as spiritual encouragement.
Jinx, to her credit, understood the idea faster.She would come when called more often than not, stop sometimes, and bite what you pointed her at if the thing in question was: a scrap of cloth, a bit of wood, or an old glove no one valued highly.Silco had a looser retionship with order.He would run when Arya told him to stop, stop when she wanted him to come, and bite whichever thing seemed most offensively avaible.Arya insisted this did not mean he was worse trained.It meant, according to her, that he was clever and had his own mind.This was less a defense than a confession.
Still, the words stuck.Arya liked saying them.She liked hearing the wolves respond, even badly.She liked that some of them sounded rough and sharp in her mouth.Before long, she had decided the four of you were a pack, which was perhaps not a promising sign but did at least mean she was engaged with the lesson.
From there, things got worse in the natural way.Arya decided that the packs hunted.Hunting, in her view, involved crouching very badly behind objects far too small to hide her, whispering “quiet” at the wolves in a voice loud enough to wake half the castle, then pointing at some helpless target and hissing bite with so much delight that the command itself became half the game.The prey changed every few moments.First, it was Jinx’s tail.Then Silco’s ear.Then a fallen branch.Then one of your gloves, which had the misfortune of being within reach when Arya decided it was behaving suspiciously.
You let this continue longer than you perhaps should have.Partly because Arya was learning, and partly because there was a limit to how much dignity one could maintain while chasing a four-year-old and two wolf pups around a castle yard in cold weather, while trying to make education happen by force.The game had by then become something like half a lesson and half a small war.Arya shouted, "Run," and both wolves bolted.She shouted, "Stop," and neither of them did.She shouted, "Bite," and all three of them looked far too interested in the possibility.
That was when Silco found the woodpile.
It had been built near one of the outer walls after the cold snap, with more timber dragged in and stacked in a hurry while everyone tried to stay ahead of the weather.To any sensible person, it was simply a pile of wood.To Silco, it was a fortress.He vanished into a narrow gap between the stacks with all the speed of a creature who had never once considered whether he would fit coming back out.Arya, naturally, went after him at once.Jinx shoved her nose in after both of them, then sneezed and backed out with clear professional disappointment.
By the time you reached the pile, Arya was already somewhere inside it.Not trapped, exactly.Not yet.But deep enough in the gaps between stacked logs and kindling that she could not easily be reached, and worse, deep enough that she had decided this was marvelous.You could hear her in there with Silco, whispering to him in fierce little bursts, half Old Tongue and half Arya, which was to say mostly nonsense held together by conviction.
Calling her name did very little.Telling her to come out did less.Trying to sound stern accomplished nothing except convincing her that this was now absolutely part of the game.So you stopped doing that.Instead, you crouched near the gap and switched back into the lesson.
You called, come in the Old Tongue.No answer came at first.Then you heard Arya whisper the word back to Silco, as though checking whether she agreed with it.You told Jinx to come and rewarded her when she obeyed, which Arya immediately noticed because Arya noticed any slight against Silco, real or imagined, with the sensitivity of an insulted queen.Then you used: quiet, down, come, and good, one after another, keeping your voice calm and the game intact.
That got farther.Arya began answering from inside the woodpile, repeating the words back, correcting them once badly, and finally giving Silco commands of her own.He emerged first, because of course he did, dragging half a strip of bark and looking deeply pleased with himself.Arya came after him more slowly, backing out on hands and knees with twigs in her hair, dirt on her sleeves, and the sort of expression small children got when they believed they had conquered something.You helped her the st little bit down, and she accepted this without embarrassment because in her own mind she had pinly been descending from a mountain rather than crawling out of firewood.
Once she was out, she pointed at Silco with great seriousness and gave the Old Tongue word for bite.He immediately turned and chewed on the bark strip instead of on anything more valuable.Arya looked at you as though awaiting judgment from a higher authority.You admitted that this did, in fact, count.She took the victory with unbearable grace.
By the time a servant finally came looking for the two of you, Arya had learned more than you would have guessed at the start of the afternoon.Not all of it usefully.She said bite far too often afterward, and with a little too much joy for anyone’s comfort.But she knew: wolf, come, down, run, quiet, and bite, and more importantly, she knew them as things that did something rather than just sounds adults made at children to be tiresome.
You ended the day cold, dirty, and carrying a wolf pup who had grown tired only once the trouble was fully over.Arya ended it triumphantly.Silco ended it with bark in his teeth.Jinx ended it mildly offended that she had, once again, been the best-behaved creature present and received nowhere near enough credit for it.
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When the moon was full, your aunt Catelyn went into bor.
This was not, as it turned out, a quiet or private sort of event from the perspective of everyone else in the castle, trying very hard to pretend it was.No one said so outright, of course.That would have been improper.Instead, you, Sansa, Jon, Arya, and by extension the wolves, were all kept well away from the room while the sounds of your aunt bringing new life into the world carried farther than anyone involved likely would have preferred.
It was an odd sort of evening.No one wanted to speak too loudly.No one wanted to sit too close to the door.No one wanted to acknowledge the shouting either, which only made each cry of pain feel rger by the fact that everyone was trying so hard not to react to it.Arya had to be distracted more than once.Sansa did her best to look composed and dylike about the whole thing, which mostly meant going very still and holding herself tight whenever your aunt cried out again.Jon was quieter than usual.You did your best to ignore it all in the only way children ever really could, which was by failing to ignore it together.
It was in the middle of that strained sort of waiting that a messenger arrived.
He had come hard and fast from the south, road-worn and tired, with the sort of look men got when they had been carrying news long enough for it to start feeling heavier than anything in their saddlebags.The word he brought was that your uncle Ned and Rob had met with the main host at Seagard.The armies gathering there were preparing for the royal fleet’s arrival, so that once the ships came, the war could be carried to the Iron Isnds themselves.
That changed the shape of the room at once.
Not because anyone present had thought the war was not real before.No one was that foolish.But there was a difference between war being somewhere else in the world and war becoming the next thing.Seagard was not some vague point on a map anymore.It was where your uncle was.It was where Rob was.It was where the North had gathered itself and was now waiting for ships enough to carry swords, banners, and anger across the sea.
Your aunt was still in bor while this was said.That, more than anything, made the whole thing feel strange.Life and war had the indecency to go on at once, apparently, with no regard at all for whether the timing suited anyone.In one part of the castle, your aunt was shouting a child into the world.In another, men were making ready to carry war to the Iron Isnds.And in between sat the rest of you, trying to be quiet, trying not to think too hard, and failing at both.
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Skills:Combat:(1) Westerosi CQC - 69/100 (+5)(1) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 66/100 (+5)(2) Northern Archery - 32/100 (+12) (Knack)(1) Northern Equestrianism - 71/100 (+3) (Knack)
Diplomacy:(1) Interpersonal Communication - 100/100 (+10)(1) Public Speaking - 25/100 (+0)(1) Management - 40/100 (+3) (Knack)(1) Stewardship - 32/100 (+3) (Knack)(1) Northern Law - 32/100 (+3) (Knack)(1) Westerosi Law - 26/100 (+3) (Knack)
Language:(1) Common Speaking - 90/100 (+10)(2) Old Tongue Speaking - 15/100 (+25) ←(1) Valyrian Speaking - 36/100 (+5)(1) Common Reading - 86/100 (+7)(1) Westerosi Runes - 14/100 (+3)(1) Valyrian Reading - 72/100 (+7)
Schorly: (+1)(1) Math(s) - 52/100 (+10)(1) Accounts - 57/100 (+10)(2) Northern History - 54/100 (+12) (Knack)(1) Westerosi History - 44/100 (+7)(1) Northern Peoples - 95/100 (+10)(1) Westerosi Peoples - 44/100 (+7)
Leisure:(1) Northern Hunting - 53/100 (+12)(1) Fishing - 10/100 (+0)(1) Swimming - 25/100 (+0)(1) Sailing - 10/100 (+0)(1) Acting - 10/100 (+0)
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Rolls for Next Turn:T5 = Power/Skill for a Prominent FigureL7 = Most convenient
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Voting:Main Actions:A1 - Spend your time with your cousin Jon. (Combat Focus) (Rep: - Cat, + Jon)
A2 - Keep up your studies with your cousin, Sansa. (Knowledge Focus) (Rep: + Sansa, +Cat)
A3 - Spend your time following your Aunt around. (Diplomacy Focus) (Rep: + Cat, - Jon)
A4 - Spend your time teaching/watching little Arya (Language Focus) (Rep: + All)
Personal Rolls Sources:S1 - Wikipedia
S2 - Steam Games (On Cooldown 2/2)
S3 - Paradox Wiki's (D30) (On Cooldown 1/1)
S4 - World Rolls List (D12)
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Information:
1 - So, I kind of messed up the dates here, which is why the Ironborn Rebellion is only happening now, and Bran isn’t born yet.
But this does work in our favor, since part of the plot is us being left behind when the War starts as Bran’s Regent/Protector of the North, which makes a lot more sense if he’s only 5-6 or so by then.
It also makes Bloodraven’s whole thing a TON more creepy, but…
2 - Before you keep ignoring A3/Cat…Just keep in mind that Aunt Cat is how we train Diplomacy, which is likely to be one of, if not THE most important skills we possess come the Plot, and at the moment ours is… pretty sad.
One turn with Cat won’t kill the Progress with Jon, just stall it, it's repeatedly going for Cat over the course of years, while not going to Jon as much, that would do it.But not training Diplomacy 100% will become an issue down the line.
Simir thing with Public speaking, once Rob gets back, it’s a necessary skill, even if combat also is.Same with Sansa, in terms of people not thinking we were an idiot and thus not respecting us.Meanwhile, Arya lets us actually talk to people and not sound like a toddler.
TL;DR all the (Focus) options are important, and even if retionships are important too. Completely ignoring one of the options will HURT ter… just an FYI.
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Write-In/Questions:1 - What should the family name be for our new Armorsmith?Ideally, something old and strong-sounding like Coalryn HardIron, or you could keep the rolled firstname and go for the family name like Arthur LongIron.
The name CAN be anything, but try to stick to Smith names, at least for the family name.So long as the family name is fitting, he can be Gaylord Longirons, and I won't mind.
2 - Do you think Dorne actually froze over, or was it just a random mid-summer monsoon that might have actually been nice, if unexpected?
3 - What do you think the faith/faithful will do about all these sudden, simultaneous disasters?Will they take it as a condemnation of the Iron Isnders or of House Baratheon?
