Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Obviously CMA would not be designed with humans in mind, a human attempting it would... probably die with some very rare exceptions.
I wonder if a Merit would do it.
It probably wouldnt be worth the trouble for a vanilla mortal, because the thing about classic CMAs is that they were generally too power hungry for a vanilla mortal to run, especially the post-Form effects.

Mirror style is because it has to be given that it interacts with an enemy attack, but not any of the others, you need to spend a turn preparing your body for the superhuman feats.
That seems acceptable.
Combat turn is 3 seconds. Just about the normal duration to activate a shintai.

No they aren't.
Mortals can use TMA fine, and nearly 100% or all are even built with them in mind.
Golden Jannisary, Even Blade, White Veil...Dragonblooded use the Elemental styles, Celestial Exalts use CMA.
Point of correction: DBs can and did use CMAs; pre-Usurpation they were all they used to expand outside their native skillset. The Elemental Styles were invented post-Usurpation to give them a leg up against hostile spirits that didnt recognize their overthrow of the old order and rogue Anathema.

Nothing prevents DBs learning the charms of Violet Bier, or Crane , or even Solar Hero Style.
Five-Dragon Style (Adaption-Test)
While Five Dragon Style is a solid TMA?
You'd be thematically better off looking at the styles designed to give mortals a leg up against supernatural threats.
Like Janissary(anti-CoD), or Ivory Pestle(anti-ghost).

Pure fluff does kind of matter in a narrative though...How about this? You come at it from the 'elements' not the 'dragon' angle so you have to posses some insights of the Five Elements in order to start to recreate it. So you might want to look into elemental numia, things like the path of Hellfire or weather-working.
Golden Janissary already draws inspiration from the Sun, which in Dresdenverse disrupts a lot of magic enchantments, and weakens or kills creatures of the night. Bringing a version of that back to a world where Red and Black Court vampires burn in sunlight? Yeah.

Assuming Mavra et al get frisky, reverse-engineering that and just proliferating it among the multitude of lower level mortal organizations might have interesting effects.
Something to keep in mind.
 
[X] Tell Charity that you are learning the Qiao and explain what they are
-[X] Point out that you are learning how to be harder to hurt
 
I'll be honest, the qiao seem really useful, and I'm all for learning what we can. But I am skeptical about the effort required to develop our own martial art being worth it when Molly has so many other things going on.
 
You can ask him to teach you the mind control magic IC if you like, you did see him use it so you know he has it.
Mind control is a strong word.

First Charm:
A stun.
Second Charm:
A debuff reducing dice-pools.
Third Charm:
Only works on people who escaped from Hell by reminding them of it. Also no control.
Fourth Charm:
Here the actual control starts, though only against Spirits.
It's pretty redundant with several options from Ancient Sorcery or our own Charmset.
Fifth Charm:
Supernatural terror for anyone not immune to Delirium. Not mind-control.

Now that I've read them in detail I'm not actually interested anymore.
First one only stuns for one turn, so in almost every case an attack is better.
Second only reduces initiative.
Third only works against very few foes we might meet in america.
Fourth is redundant.
Only the fifth is actually good, as delirium both disables mortals and makes the weak-willed ones forget or re-imagine the entire encounter.
But that is not worth the XP for the entire path.
 
Point of correction: DBs can and did use CMAs; pre-Usurpation they were all they used to expand outside their native skillset. The Elemental Styles were invented post-Usurpation to give them a leg up against hostile spirits that didnt recognize their overthrow of the old order and rogue Anathema.
Err....no?

DBs using CMA is a huge plot point with Immaculate Grand Master Ragara Myrrun. His Sidereal teacher was trying to teach him CMA without him exploding.

The Immaculate Dragon Style is the Only CMA they can learn.
 
While Five Dragon Style is a solid TMA?
You'd be thematically better off looking at the styles designed to give mortals a leg up against supernatural threats.
Like Janissary(anti-CoD), or Ivory Pestle(anti-ghost).
What I like about Five Dragon is that it has some useful parts for Molly, aside from being a good option for mortals.

I also like the Golden Janissary and would love to allow Michael or even more regular mortals to take it, but I didn't think an Infernal was best suited to recreating a Style relying on Holy effects.

I haven't found the Ivory Pestle yet, will look it up.
 
Err....no?

DBs using CMA is a huge plot point with Immaculate Grand Master Ragara Myrrun. His Sidereal teacher was trying to teach him CMA without him exploding.

The Immaculate Dragon Style is the Only CMA they can learn.

I don't believe so, that was them attempting to teach him Sidereal Martial Arts, the step above. He had also learned all five Celestial Elemental Dragon Styles, along with other CMS. DBs just need the initiation charms to do so.

Golden Janissary already draws inspiration from the Sun, which in Dresdenverse disrupts a lot of magic enchantments, and weakens or kills creatures of the night. Bringing a version of that back to a world where Red and Black Court vampires burn in sunlight? Yeah.

Assuming Mavra et al get frisky, reverse-engineering that and just proliferating it among the multitude of lower level mortal organizations might have interesting effects.
Something to keep in mind.

The problem is that no one else has the essence to fuel martial arts charms, mortals certainly don't. Molly only has essence because her Exaltation is a perpetual essence generation machine plugged into her soul. There exist charms to lend out your essence to other people, but I don't think infernals get them, and we'd have to keep them topped up whenever they use them.

We can invent Terrestrial Martial Arts, but I don't think we could teach them to anyone save other Exalts, if there are any out there.
What I like about Five Dragon is that it has some useful parts for Molly, aside from being a good option for mortals.

I also like the Golden Janissary and would love to allow Michael or even more regular mortals to take it, but I didn't think an Infernal was best suited to recreating a Style relying on Holy effects.

I haven't found the Ivory Pestle yet, will look it up.

Creatures of Darkness like Infernals couldn't learn Holy charms.
 
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Do we have to explain the Qiao? Can't we just say we're learning martial arts from an expert in using them to defend against supernatural threats?
Can we say nothing? Yes.
But lies of omission are to be saved for when it actually matters. And this doesnt matter.

Also, Charity is astute. Molly's brother Daniel already goes to a martial arts dojo.
If she's taking private lessons from a monk instead, then it stands to reason its not something she can learn in a dojo.
And Charity would want details as a responsible, if overbearing parent.

Also remember that Michael actually knows the dude. Saw him use his powers in the fight against Gorfel's posse.
If Charity asks him, he'll tell her whatever he is aware of.
It gains us nothing to dissemble.

Why not actually?
We are pretty well-suited to that.
To excert command without going to the extremes of Crowned with Fury might be helpful.
Because presumably he recognizes we're still a teenager and has doubts about the ability of a teen to use that wisely.
And frankly, we have better mindwhammy effects.
 
Seems redundant with Emerald Spirit Binding or Crowned With Fury?

Both are significantly worse. Voice of the Yama Kings doesn't have a time limit like Crowned With Fury and can't be ignored by taking damage. It's also quicker and easier than Emerald Spirit Binding.

Edit: it's also a known power of the Shih, so we can use it without making it clear that we're something more unusual than that.
 
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[X] Tell Charity that you are learning the Qiao and explain what they are
-[X] Point out that you are learning how to be harder to hurt
 
Err....no?
DBs using CMA is a huge plot point with Immaculate Grand Master Ragara Myrrun. His Sidereal teacher was trying to teach him CMA without him exploding.

The Immaculate Dragon Style is the Only CMA they can learn.
You misremember.

Immaculate Grand Master Ragara Myrrun's stat table explicitly includes multiple CMAs.
He knows all 5x Elemental CMA Styles, as well as the TMAs Jade Mountain, Five Dragon and Terrestrial Hero.
AND the CMAs Celestial Monkey, Mantis, Violet Bier, and Ebon Shadow. All charms.

The only thing DBs cant learn is SMAs. Thats what makes them explode.
 
It's too bad taking inspiration from something adds a supernatural connection back to them. Making a style based on the three swords would be pretty great.

Especially if we made it terrestrial tier so that we could give it to the knights.

It's not like Hell gets free points for what we do, since we don't work for the white god. In fact, regardless of whether terrestrial arts still exist or not, we should make one compatible with sword use so that we can share it.

Sure they can't use essence, but presumably learning how to make shih arts use our fuel source would give us insight into how to downgrade MA charms into spells.

Amoracchius to the Denarians, after seeing Micheal kick flip over Magog and deflect bullets off his pecs without help from Heaven:

I assume they have a private shit talk channel in a higher dimension based on no evidence whatsoever.
 
Both are significantly worse. Voice of the Yama Kings doesn't have a time limit like Crowned With Fury and can't be ignored by taking damage. It's also quicker and easier than Emerald Spirit Binding.

Edit: it's also a known power of the Shih, so we can use it without making it clear that we're something more unusual than that.
-Voice of the Yama Kings
  • Only applies to one order
  • Only applies to simple and direct orders, like <leave this territory>
  • Must be carefully worded, or they pull a fae
  • Can be resisted by a Difficulty 8 Willpower roll.

It really is not in the class of Crowned with Fury, let alone Emerald Spirit Binding.

-We are, and I quote, a "5% Darkhallow" of Infernal power to anyone with supernatural senses.
Some of the shit we do can be detected globally, thats how much power we move.

We arent hiding our nature by using a Shih combat technique, thats like attempting to hide your identity with a domino mask.
Anyone who can recognize a Shih technique can tell the difference.
That particular horse was never in the stable to begin with.
 
Upgrading Qiao to be a psudo shintai that stacks with our regular shintai would work. Especially if we incorporate Regeneration into it.

An infernal with Regen would be beastly.
 
Utility aside, mind magic is sort of a sore point for everyone in Molly's life right now. It's also a problem if the council learns about what we're doing.

It immediately undercuts the theory that got us our under the table deal in the first place. Sure it can't effect us like black magic, but Harry and Ebenezer don't have copies of 2E lying around.

There's no argument we can make in character that doesn't sound like an addict looking for an excuse to get her fix.

We should give it a little while for things to cool down more, and even then stick to the ones that work by projecting our presence instead of enforcing orders or forcing things into people's brains for a significant portion of the game.
 
The problem is that no one else has the essence to fuel martial arts charms, mortals certainly don't. Molly only has essence because her Exaltation is a perpetual essence generation machine plugged into her soul. There exist charms to lend out your essence to other people, but I don't think infernals get them, and we'd have to keep them topped up whenever they use them.

We can invent Terrestrial Martial Arts, but I don't think we could teach them to anyone save other Exalts, if there are any out there.
Eh. We'll see.
Creatures of Darkness like Infernals couldn't learn Holy charms.
Can I get a citation for this?
 
Can I get a citation for this?

Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals, page 104 'Holy: This is an existing keyword that bears special mention. As a point of clarification, creatures of darkness can't use Holy Charms under any circumstances and both types of Infernal Exalted are inherently creatures of darkness. They may learn Holy Charms solely to satisfy prerequisites but gain no other benefit from doing so. This limitation really only matters for once-righteous akuma, as no Infernal Charms have the Holy keyword. Charms that can be used in ways that do not have the Holy keyword may be learned and activated in those ways. Holy options remain unavailable.'
 
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