[OOC] Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

[Abefroeman]

@kingkonrad
@Monochromatic Rainbow

PLOT SPOILERS!!!!

Hmm, I guess I should be more precise, and refer to the converstation between Lady Olenna and Ser Jaime. I wonder if she is referring to the garrison that defended Highgarden.

Lady Olenna: "Did we fight well?"
Ser Jaime: "As well as could be expected."
Lady Olenna: "It was never our forte, golden roses indeed."

So, lets go one point at a time. MC = Monochromatic Rainbow. KK = Kingkonrad.

1. Being caught off guard - MC, I'd definitely agree there, but it is a bit more indepth that, "Holy smokes Golden Rose defenders, a massive army." Lord Tarly defecting certainly didn't help, along with who knows how many other lords with him, as he is one scary old war dog. And I mean scary. I want to say Jaime said he was on par with Tywin, as a military leader. On that same note, of being surprised, the Lannister army would have had to march south completely undetected, again, a bit fishy.

2. The Tyrell's have bite to them, due to their numbers/ The Tyrell armies aren't a paper cannon- they are 80,000 men - MC and KK, I agree that numbers do help, but the episode's dialogue, and perhaps a bit of bias from myself, I would argue that the Tyrell's go for a "quantity is its own quality" mentality. Like the Soviets of WW2. You know, the enemy will run out of tanks and bullets before we run out of men. Don't take this as I am saying they are all untrained rabble and peasants, but rather, with having so many more men, I would argue that the need for more stringent/rigorous training is not as pressing. In the books, the Tyrell forces guarding the Shield Islands get overwhelmed very quickly. I digress, the point I am trying to get at is the Tyrells, while having numbers on their side, may not be the strongest army. 80,000 is a whole ton of men, but numbers aren't everything.

3. Highgarden probably had a minimal garrison at best, with the Tyrell forces were off somewhere completely different, mustering to repel a more... conventional assault - rather than something that deep within their territory. - MC, with Dorne to the South, and an ally, the Tyrells/the Reach wouldn't have to station a large portion of their forces there. Due to bordering both the Westerlands and the Crownlands, it would make sense to have the bulk of your forces to be stationed there to 1) Guard against attacks, and 2) Prepare for an offensive operation. I still wouldn't leave Highgarden with a minimal garrison if all me gold was there. I mean, that is a metric ton of bloody gold. Like, more gold than Yukon Cornelius could ever fathom. That would be like leaving a five man team to guard Fort Knox.

To me, the most reasonable explanation is that the Lannisters did a blitzkrieg strike. They abandon Casterly Rock, blitz south as fast as possible, brush aside any defenses in place, and just slam the hammer home on Highgarden, with its probably standard garrison. Lord Tarly defecting doesn't help as well, along with Tywin's training. Also, who knows how many other Reachmen either defected, or simply just said "F it, I'm going home." After the incident at the Great Sept, losing member of the High Command never helps. And Mace being the putz he was, yeah, it also didn't help.

4. KK mainly. Different timelines from our RP to the Show, to the Books - 100% Agree. I was saying that the main branch of House Tyrell went bleh, with Mace, Margery, Loras, and Olenna dead. Garlan and Willas are still kicking about in the books and this timeline, and I would say in the show too, but they are just either never mentioned, or get a brief, "Yeah, I had other kids too, but they didn't make my beautiful grandchildren Loras and Margery." The books also depict the Tyrell family being very large, so I am not worried that they died out, but rather, "Damn, the Queen of Thorns and her favorites are no more." Bummer. Them thieving Lannisters stole all your gold, sacked Highgarden, and stole Lord Tarly. Its would be cool if that was present in the current timeline for the RP, as it would make the love interest between Alerie and Tom that much more family blood feud angry status.

5. The Tyrell's were lordless - KK and MC, Mace dead, and who knows if any other lords with him at the Great Sept. Lord Tarly defected, with who knows what other Lords. Willas and Garlan are alive, no doubt, but they may have been abroad in the field, and not at home with their respective armies. I'd argue that the Tyrell forces suffered a bit of interior disarray from defections, combat losses, Wildfire losses, and god knows what else, which may have left the garrison defenses in either a less seasoned officer, or a grizzled old timer. A scrapping the barrel scenario. Also, the Tyrell armies may have lost men as well from any offensive or defensive operations.

6. Last, I promise - KK and MC, still a great episode, and it was awesome to see Lady Olenna tell Ser Jaime the truth, and go out like a boss. Anyhow, no worries, all speculation anyhow, but it is fun to try and figure out what the hell happened.

Everyone else, if no one has any objections, I will have Ser Aerion ask for the Big Boss Maiden's Men Female leader to yield, and if you are cool with it, I will give her a name, and perhaps have Aerion know her from times past fighting on the Stepstones?

[bloonewb]

Didact hasn't come on for over three days now. Should we be concerned?

[NecroKnight]

@MrDidact

Having some difficulty getting back into this since the whole Stepstones plot is everywhere. To the point neither I nor @kingkonrad where our Ellion/Merebelle chars are located at all. Too many names, too many lines and too many posts without indicating where they are or whom is who.

Can anyone who hasn't been part of the situation, have been left behind at the ships? Incase they persay, could be written to have gotten wounded?

(P.S - we really, really. Need a small 'story so far' post either on the first page of the IC or OOC, since it's really hard to follow on the plot)

[Abefroeman]

@bloonewb He said he was going on a small vacation for a little. Don't fret comrade.

[MrDidact]

@NecroKnight I can probably come up with a summary sometime tomorrow. But if you really need it, you can always have Miri take a backseat on the ship.

@bloonewb No need for that Bloo, I have returned, as was promised. If I do ever become indisposed for a prolonged period though, I might need to designate another Co-GM to help run things. If anyone is interested, please contact me.

Also, that was quite a doozy of an episode.

Thoughts

On the whole Tyrell situation, I feel that was a hell of a send-off for the Queen of Thorns, she will be missed. I believe the Lannister victory over the Tyrells can be attributed to

1) Randyll Tarly is probably the finest strategist living in the Seven Kingdoms, him working together with this new pragmatic and cunning Jaime would absolutely beat whoever the Tyrells had in charge of the garrison, probably a standard Master-at-arms.

2) The Lannister army is the most hardened in the Seven Kingdoms after all of the constant wars and the tight ship that Tywin and Kevan ran. The Tarlys would have made up the core of the Tyrell's considerable army, but with Tarly's defection and the defection of other Reach Lords presumably, you're talking about an army upwards of ten thousand men who would be much more hardened and battle ready than the Tyrell garrison. The Tyrells probably already had most of their forces deployed elsewhere in preparation for the coming battles and weren't expecting an attack so close to home. Even Jaime says they fought as good as the circumstances could allow.

Other thoughts

3) This doesn't mean the Tyrell family is gone, just Olenna and her favorites. If we were folding this into our own canon, we could say that Willas was either sent away or taken prisoner by Jaime only to be freed and Garlan was in the field with the main Tyrell forces, and couldn't do anything to save Olenna. The Tyrell House is also very expansive and the family is spread all over the Reach, the ones in Oldtown or different holds would have escaped the battle and even if they didn't they probably would have just been taken prisoner. Personally, I feel we should wait until the season ends to get a full picture of the political situation and think how that can be integrated into our own canon.

4) That said, I do like the idea of folding the Siege of Highgarden and death of Olenna into the backstory. It would add a lot more weight to the troublesome implications of Tommen and Alerie's forthcoming marriage, and would believably fuel a lot of political tension in both the Reach and the West and among Houses Lannister and Tyrell. Dickon Tarly, was just following his father's orders and likely would have bent the knee to Willas and the Crown after the defeat of Cersei's coalition and his father's assumed death in the war. This could mean tension between House Tarly and House Tyrell of course too.

5) This defeat as a whole is supposed to even the playing field between Daenerys and Cersei, taking it from where it was looking like a curbstomp in Dany's favor to Cersei actually dominating so far.

[Abefroeman]

@NecroKnight As of Mr. Didact's most recent post, all characters involved in the Stepstone storyline are attacking the Maiden's Men base of operations. We are there to either capture or incapacitate the Big Boss, female leader of the Maiden's Men sellsword company. (They are under the employ of the rebels in the Stepstones.) The original party loadouts/unit members i.e. Those with Aemon Targaryen when they attacked the castle on the island, and the party that went with Lady Visenya Waters.

Lady Visenya's original group is engaged in the main room of the Maiden's Men base. Prince Aemon, Prince Viserys, and anyone else not with Lady Visenya originally are with the Crown Prince attacking the rear of the building, or rather, breaking into the back, and then attacking the common room from the opposite side of Lady Visenya.

When I fell behind, I wrote that I was detailed to guard the ships during all the action that had taken place on the island before the most current GM post by Mr. Didact.

The previous actions boiled down to those aboard the Grey Ice taking control of the Silver Serpent, disguising themselves as pirates. Upon arrival to Bloodstone, the party split in two, with Crown Prince Aemon assuming the identity of a pirate captain, and heading to the local lord's keep to meet with him. A battle happened there, and the bad guys got killed, and a few npc's for the good guys.

The other party, led by Prince Viserys, headed for the town itself. Upon arrival at a brothel, the party was split in two, with Prince Viserys and others heading into the Brothel, and Lady Visenya taking a number with her to search the docks, which led to her contact with the Maiden's Men captain, and other events.

Everyone rallied back at the brothel after their event chains were done, a new plan was made, which led to the most current GM post.

[NecroKnight]

@Abefroeman

So what, in question is the next plot of the plan? (Should've stayed in Westeros, too many people along, too many to follow)

We got so many chars about, that it's impossible to determine who is where. An indicator of where everyone is at the start of each post might do wonders, to aid in solving this confusion.

[NecroKnight]

@MrDidact

Yeah. I think I will have had Miri remain behind on the ships. She had charged to aid the original group on Grey Ice....which nobody replied to, and after that its just went to fast to follow.

[Antediluvixen]

@Abefroeman

I'm about to pass out so this'll be like a sentence

Admittedly, I always imagined the Tyrell forces as being something of a quantity over quality as well - but with a solid backbone of knights and trained retainers. The Tyrells are rich, if say... 5-10k of those 80-100k Reachmen are truly well trained, high quality soldiers, they can do the heavy lifting. You use your rabble to absorb some losses, pad the line - and if they falter, you have your shock troops ready to prop them up.

Also, the Soviets didn't really go quantity over quality to that extent. It's a common notion that Russia merely drowned their enemies in bodies - they usually did have the numerical advantage, but never to the extent of being like the hordes of vodka loving lemmings many people like to portray them as.

[Abefroeman]

@NecroKnight Well, for those on the Stepstones campaign, you have the following:

Abefroeman's Characters: Ser Aerion Goldfyre, Lady Lyvia Clegane
Kingkonrad's Characters: Ser Ellion Tyrell
Mr Didact's Characters: Crown Prince Aemon Targaryen, Prince Viserys Targaryen, Lady Visenya Waters
Nightwing95's Characters: Prince Rhaegar Targaryen
DrunkasaurasRex's Characters: Ser Malik Towers
Bloonweb's Characters: Lord William Bolton, Arak Snow
AtomicNut's Characters: Seran of Lys

There are also some important named npc's as well, Ser Jaime Lannister, a Tarth character, and a few others. These I believe are controlled by GM Mr. Didact. Of course there is your character, Merebelle 'Miri' Gray in attendance as well. You could either remain on the ship with some NPC's, writing a post guarding the ship, like I did when I fell behind for the first phase of the operation upon Bloodstone, or, since the second phase is still very fresh and just beginning, you can have your character with Crown Prince Aemon's party attacking the rear of the Maiden's Men compound.

If I forgot anyone's characters, I do apologize. But suffice to say, there is a decent amount of people here, that you can interact with outside of the normal interactions you may have with Ser Ellion Tyrell. Also, if I missed any part of an IC post where your character addressed one of my character's, I do apologize.

Finally, though not being the GM, I can not say for certain, the third phase, or subsequent phase to the current operation of taking out the Maiden's Men, would, from the previous IC posts from Mr. Didact and others, would be for our party to hunt down the next commander of the rebels. As Qui Gon Jinn said, "There's always a bigger fish."

[MrDidact]

@Abefroeman You summed it up, pretty well Abe. And indeed, the next phase will have the pcs going higher up the rebel ladder.

You're also free to have Aerion attempt to take Big Cap prisoner.

[FourtyTwo]

@MrDidact

I'm tempted to play it by ear- although, the issues with Bran not wanting to become the head of the Starks may also be another issue that may need some looping around. It just feels a little strange- I don't want to alter too much house history, as it also influences Willas (and that would mean a lot of . I'm personally a little more attached to the concept of leaving the Tyrell history to kickstart at the end of S6- I imagine the effects are similar, but just better still account for Willas and Garlan. Though I can see what you mean though- it would be interesting to see the affect. I imagine they'd hate the Lannisters irrespective of a change in history, making Alerie's choice interesting too.

[Greenie]

If I forgot anyone's characters, I do apologize.

@Abefroeman

Okay ;w;

Taria and Layali are there too ;w;

[Abefroeman]

@MrDidact I am going to post my overall post in three sections, the first of which has been posted, which concerns the Dornish/Vulture King adventure. That way it is also not a metric ton of text walls for people to read if they want to, or if not, then okie dokie too. I will get parts two and three out ASAP. (Part Two is the Westerlands adventures, and part three is the Stepstones adventure.)

@Greenie I have brought great dishonor to myself for forgetting your other two characters. Please forgive me senpai. Joking aside, my bad, I derped on that one.

[AtomicNut]

So many things happening at once X_X Probably need liason with a couple of players to sort.

[MrDidact]

@Abefroeman Cool post Abe. I like how twenty good men is a solution for every problem in this universe.

@Celeste@DrunkasaurusRex Also good to have you guys back!

[Greenie]

Hmm I may just wait until Abefroeman's Stepstones post is up. I was going to work on my post today but ended up having to do other work instead ;-;

[Winston Smith]

@Abefroeman Yeah, let's just have it be scuttled as well, and you can have your characters riding along in events. Seems the best route to take.

@Winston Smith I was wondering if you had dropped out, but thanks for the well wishes, and if you ever wanna come back in feel free to do so.

@MrDidact

I really do but I'm likely to be very free until I start my Masters in early september. I'll have to get back to you when I've gauged my timetable a bit better. I guess this means I'll have plenty of time to read up on what I've missed since I abandoned my post.

[Abefroeman]

@Greenie Me tinks thou are looking to interact with Ser Aerion or Lady Lyvia?

[Greenie]

@Greenie Me tinks thou are looking to interact with Ser Aerion or Lady Lyvia?

@Abefroeman

That'd actually be cool, I don't think my Taria has interacted with your chars yet :O

Also because I can't think of what to write XD So once the scene is over I'd be able to start anew hehe.