Votes for this Turn:A1 - Jon - 1A2 - Sansa - 18A3 - Cat - 0A4 - Arya - 17
S1 - Wikipedia - 0S2 - Steam - 17S3 - Paradox - 13S4 - World - 6
Names:Niht Hounds (Mightyenas) - 9Winter Wolves - 4Wolfpack - 3Dawnguard - 2The BrightSpears - 1Iron Wolves - 1Lead Hooves - 1Frostwyld Vanguard - 1
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Rolls for this Turn:Personal: Steam GamesThanks to Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, House Holmes has been transmigrated into Westeros as an old but small house in the Veil, sworn directly to House Arryn.Sherlock Holmes is currently working for the Master of Whispers with his loyal protector, Sir John of the (very new) Knightly House of Watson.Sir John, for himself, is a merchant's son from Our own Heart of the Gods town who nearly became a Maester and had several links in healing before joining the Northern army during Robert's Rebellion, where he was knighted (and his leg injured).Sherlock is loyal to John Arryn and will help him uncover corruption in King's Landing.
This is forcing Varys to act very carefully, and will eventually get several people from canon killed, such as Janos Slynt.(Offscreen, because there is no reason to send word of that kind of thing North, much less to tell a kid like us.But rest assured that Sherlock Holmes presence in King's Landing will have it’s effects.)
(However, for the sake of the plot continuing, I will say that Sherlock arrived after the Royal Children were conceived and will be personally dubious about anything with magic as the expnation, including the Baratheon’s magical bck hair.)
Also, both from personal preference and Jon Arryn being afraid he’d offend the wrong person, Sherlock is kept out of Cort and spends most of his time in the city, or out on tasks for either the Hand or Master of Whispers.)If Sherlock dies before him, or the right set of circumstances arises, then Sir Jon will do his best to return to his home of Heart of the Gods, Long Lake.As part of this, he would be quite likely to consider the lord of Long Lake his Ally and would encourage Sherlock Holmes towards the same inclination, should it ever come up.
World: TerrariaThanks to Undead Viking, a small but worrying zombie pgue has started on the Western shores of the North and beyond the wall.While it is only a few smallish groups dressed like Ironborn raiders, anyone killed by them will rise as another.Also causing problems is that this version of zombie/other can jump supernaturally high in the air in order to pounce on victims.Upshot to this, however, is that they must fully kill a victim to spread, not just bite, and that they are explicitly an ice monster, so will not go any further south than Last Hearth during summer, and will stick to nighttime when temperatures are low enough for them.(Bad but not the end of the world, that's what “L1 = Inconvenient” is for on World Rolls.)
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Story:With your uncle and Rob gone south, and Jon no longer called to family meals even if no one stopped you seeing him elsewhere, the lessons you traded with Sansa felt different.Not new, because they weren’t.Just heavier, somehow, now that Winterfell had gone quieter in the wrong pces.
Sansa, unlike Jon, did not require chasing into the yard or out into the wet cold if you wanted her company.She liked warmth, light, and chairs, which was on reflection an entirely sensible set of preferences.So most of your lessons happened by a fire, near a window, or off in some corner of the hall where the light was decent and no one was likely to stomp through the middle of them carrying linens.
The trade between you had long since settled into shape.You helped Sansa with: the Old Tongue, the older stories of the North, and the endless line of dead kings and old grudges that made up so much of Northern history.Sansa helped you with High Valyrian, though in practice that mostly meant she helped you read it while you tried not to hate the page on sight.Speaking it was bad enough already.Reading it was somehow worse.The words sat there looking pretty and insufferable.
Sansa, naturally, was better at this than you.She liked things done properly: posture, words, songs, stitches, manners, all of it.So High Valyrian suited her.The Old Tongue did not.It was older, rougher, and full of sounds that seemed built for cold air and hard mouths.Sansa could learn it well enough.She just didn’t much like it, which made the whole arrangement feel fair.
She was a good teacher, though.That was partly because she liked lessons, and partly because she liked being right enough to work at it.When you butchered a line of Valyrian, she’d correct you with all the patience of a girl nobly enduring barbarism.When she tripped over an Old Tongue word, or confused one long dead Brandon with another, you returned the favor with what you considered fairness and she considered intolerable smugness.It worked well enough.
That day you’d been trying to walk her through a story she kept half remembering and half fixing to her own taste.Sansa did that.Give her an old story, enough dead people, and anything remotely ugly, and sooner or ter she started trying to smooth it down and make it behave.Unfortunately, most Northern stories had no interest in behaving.So when she stopped in the middle of an Old Tongue phrase and gave you the look she reserved for words she considered ugly on principle, you had to expin yet again that yes, it did mean blood price, and no, that did not change because she disliked it.She sighed at you as though you had personally built the North with your own hands.You took that for the victory it pinly was.
Still, she wasn’t quite herself.You’d noticed that before then.She lost her pce more often.She drifted in the middle of passages.Every so often she’d gnce toward a doorway, or some noise in the hall, then look back down again.It was all very small.It was also not hard to see.
You couldn’t much bme her.Winterfell with your uncle gone felt wrong.Winterfell with Rob gone felt quieter.Winterfell with Jon missing from the table felt narrower.And Sansa was the sort of person who noticed when a household no longer sat right.
That evening, at supper, the thing came up another way.Your aunt Catelyn was there with Sansa and little Arya, who at four seemed to spend half her life either wriggling, reaching, or saying something no one had been talking about a moment before.Your aunt had that look about her she sometimes had now, the one that made it hard to forget she was with child even before anyone said so.At some point in the meal she asked Sansa and Arya how they liked the name Brandon, if the babe should be a boy.
Sansa took that with full seriousness, because Sansa always knew when something belonged to the world of dies, families, and proper important talk.Arya, for her part, treated it as license to throw out names at speed, at least two of which were not names at all.Your aunt bore this with the patience of a woman who had no better choice.You mostly sat there thinking that if the North produced many more Brandons, they’d eventually have to start numbering them.You did not say this aloud.You were not a fool.
Sansa said Brandon was a good strong name.Which, to be fair, was hard to argue with in the North.The pce was thick with: dead Brandons, storied Brandons, useful Brandons, foolish Brandons, and likely a fair number who had managed to be all four in turn.Arya announced that the babe ought to be named something more interesting.This was less useful, though not less honest.Your aunt smiled at that, but only a little.There was something strange in the moment all the same.Not cheerful, not sad, but something pulled tight between them.As though talking about a baby’s name made the future feel a little closer at hand.
After supper you found Sansa again, and after a little while the lesson started back up.Not cleanly, and not at once, but it started.She read a line of Valyrian with the exact kind of satisfaction she reserved for nguages that behaved, then stopped halfway through the next page.At first you thought she had lost her pce again.Then you saw her blink hard and look down.
You did not point it out.That would only have made it worse.Sansa did not like being seen while unhappy.So instead you asked whether she wanted to do the Northern story instead.She hesitated, then nodded.
You switched over to the easier part, or easier for her at least, and took her back through the tale from before.Not the blood price part, because you weren’t witless.You gave her the parts she liked better instead: old kings, old walls, old promises, and all the heavier grander bits she could admire once no one forced the uglier words on her all at once.After a while she asked, without looking at you, when Father and Rob would be home.
You told her that you didn’t know.That was not much comfort, but it was true.Then you added that they were together, at least.Your uncle had Rob with him.Rob was not alone.And if Rob was with your uncle, then he was probably talking too much and getting in the way often enough that no one there could forget him for long.That got a ugh out of her, small but real.
So you kept at it.You said Rob would likely come back full of himself and impossible to live with.You said your uncle would likely come back tired and quieter than before.You said both of them would probably be deeply annoyed if they returned to find Sansa’s Valyrian improved and yours still a wreck, because that would mean they had gone to war and still somehow failed to spare you from further lessons.At that she smiled properly.Not a great shining thing.Just enough.
After that the two of you went on with the lesson, and though her Old Tongue was still somewhat battered by the way she handled it, she made fewer mistakes than before.Your Valyrian, in exchange, remained wretched but survivable.More importantly, the evening felt less empty by the end of it.
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Skills:Combat:(1) Westerosi CQC - 64/100 (+5)(1) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 61/100 (+5)(2) Northern Archery - 21/100 (+12) (Knack)(1) Northern Equestrianism - 68/100 (+3) (Knack)
Diplomacy:(1) Interpersonal Communication - 90/100 (+10)(1) Public Speaking - 25/100 (+0)(1) Management - 37/100 (+3) (Knack)(1) Stewardship - 29/100 (+3) (Knack)(1) Northern Law - 29/100 (+3) (Knack)(1) Westerosi Law - 23/100 (+3) (Knack)
Language:(1) Common Speaking - 80/100 (+10)(1) Old Tongue Speaking - 90/100 (+20)(1) Valyrian Speaking - 31/100 (+10)(1) Common Reading - 79/100 (+10)(1) Westerosi Runes - 11/100 (+3)(1) Valyrian Reading - 65/100 (+20)
Schorly: (+1)(1) Math(s) - 42/100 (+12)(1) Accounts - 47/100 (+12)(2) Northern History - 42/100 (+12) (Knack)(1) Westerosi History - 37/100 (+7)(1) Northern Peoples - 85/100 (+20)(1) Westerosi Peoples - 37/100 (+7)
Leisure:(1) Northern Hunting - 41/100 (+3)(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:T1 = Person/Event in the WorldL4 = Just what's described
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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 (On Cooldown 2/2)
S2 - Steam Games (On Cooldown 1/2)
S3 - Paradox Wiki's (D30)
S4 - World Rolls List (D12)
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Information:
1 - Turns out it’s possible to select for only games with more than 1,000 reviews on Steam.I wish I’d known that during BOBO, but at least now I can guarantee semi-recognisable games from the Steam rolls going forward.Still random, but no more 0.99 ptformers with 13 reviews and nothing else.
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Write-In:1 - What should Arya’s Poochyena be named?I figure she’s 4, and so Nymeria isn't a story she’d have known yet, much less a word she could even pronounce.But do try to stay in character here, we're naming a 4-year-old's dog, so ideally it would be simple names like: Bear, Frost, Smoke, etc.That said, if you have a reference you all want to go for, then I’m fine with just calling it a name, little Arya made up, so we could end up with a Ryu, or Kratos the Poochyena.(Also, yes, we are deciding her Poochyena’s gender with the name here, like we did with Jinx.)
