Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

I wonder if the car demon is capable of controlling stuff like the seatbelt not fastening properly and the airbags from inflating. I assume that it IS capable of preventing the doors from unlocking , the windows from rolling down, besides driving itself.
In that case we could set up a nice little ambush.
Since it is a fair assumption that she will be driving back to Chicago, we can go ahead and wait for her in a chosen place, a look at google street shows that there are some parts of US Hw 20 where there are some very nice rocky cliffs right by the highway.

Goldfish said:

What's to stop them from doing similar shit to us and our family?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The angelic aegis that covers the family for one?
The fact that it has Uriel and Raphael's attention by canon?
All the "coincidences" that have served to keep the Carpenter family safe since at least the events of Grave Peril?

Michael killed a fuckmothering Dragon. None of the dudes cultists did shit about it.

Goldfish said:

If she is combat-specced and loaded for bear, Katrina has no reason to let us walk away from this encounter, and since she felt us magically fucking with her car, she probably won't be willing to just hop in and trust it not to explode at an inopportune moment.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

If any of this was true, she wouldnt be asking questions, she'd have already Joined Combat.

Earth-Destroyer said:

Your forgetting how magic works it fully possible to kill him at any time with the granddaughter. Hell people tried to kill the blackstaff by using his great granddaughter to fire a blood curse at him. Them having a blood relative is putting a gun to his head, he can do nothing about.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

He. Has. Wards. Very heavy duty wards.
It really isnt easy to kill someone who is protected remotely; Quintus Cassius used Dresden's own blood to guide a entropy curse at him in Death Masks, and Dresden no-selled it by getting home, under his wards and initiating lockdown for the night.

There is a reason why the Changes blood ritual to kill Ebenezar needed the leyline nexus at Chitchen Itza to power it.
You need a fuckton of power.

uju32 said:

He. Has. Wards. Very heavy duty wards.
It really isnt easy to kill someone who is protected remotely; Quintus Cassius used Dresden's own blood to guide a entropy curse at him in Death Masks, and Dresden no-selled it by getting home, under his wards and initiating lockdown for the night.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

In other perfect for them, they are both able to threaten him with torturing his grand-kids. And also can keep him in permanent lock down. Both insuring he does what they say, and simultaneously cannot try and rescue his grand-kid. That a win win he is both trapped unable to leave, and unable to counter attack.

Earth-Destroyer said:

In other perfect for them, they are both able to threaten him with torturing his grand-kids. And also can keep him in permanent lock down. Both insuring he does what they say, and simultaneously cannot try and rescue his grand-kid. That a win win he is both trapped unable to leave, and unable to counter attack.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This is the modern world. Telephones exist. Old Man Mathews has a television set, which means power.
His grandkids have social media.
For even a lesser sorcerer, spirits will carry messages for a price.

And the Bad Guys are on a time limit. They cant just hang around here indefinitely.

EDIT
Kattrina didnt drive all the way out here for the scenery.
She needs something from him.
Some service.

Him holed up and waiting her out is a failure for her.

uju32 said:

The angelic aegis that covers the family for one?
The fact that it has Uriel and Raphael's attention by canon?
All the "coincidences" that have served to keep the Carpenter family safe since at least the events of Grave Peril?

Michael killed a fuckmothering Dragon. None of the dudes cultists did shit about it.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

These people are already off the rails. As far as they know, Gorfel has been compromised and the White Council will be sniffing around very soon. Why else would Harry have been at Matthews' place to begin with, if he wasn't tracking down leads generated by pumping Gorfel for info?

Harry is only off the board for a short time, and even if the frame job keeps him out of play for a few days longer, it will only take one call for Wardens to start showing up in Chicago sooner than the Society would prefer. There is a war on, but the WC can't tolerate this sort of escalation. AND Mab is involved in some capacity, which is generally bad news for everyone. Desperate people do stupid, desperate things.

Will the Archangels protect our siblings when they're at the park, or walking down the sidewalk? Will they stop some druggy muggle that's been bribed into grabbing one of the Jawas off the street in broad daylight?

The Archangel security has done a pretty good job over the years, but I don't trust them to cover all the angles.

The full Angel-security only kicks in after Michael's semi-retirement due to injuries in the line of service.

Before that, well just recently some Fetches proved capable of harming our family.

Goldfish said:

These people are already off the rails. As far as they know, Gorfel has been compromised and the White Council will be sniffing around very soon. Why else would Harry have been at Matthews' place to begin with, if he wasn't tracking down leads generated by pumping Gorfel for info?

Harry is only off the board for a short time, and even if the frame job keeps him out of play for a few days longer, it will only take one call for Wardens to start showing up in Chicago sooner than the Society would prefer. There is a war.on, but the WC can't tolerate this sort of escalation. AND Mab is involved in some capacity, which is generally bad news for everyone. Desperate people do stupid, desperate things.

Will the Archangels protect our siblings when they're at the park, or walking down the sidewalk? Will they stop some druggy muggle that's been bribed into grabbing one of the Jawas off the street in broad daylight?

The Archangel security has done a pretty good job over the years, but I don't trust them to cover all the angles.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

1)This is not the first time the White Council has manhunted the Thule Society.
Its an occupational hazard.
They pick up their personnel and run to another part of the world.

2)This is not the first, nor is it likely to be the last, time people have had bright ideas about striking at a Knight's family.

Do you think it was coincidence that Harry and Michael were both on the scene to intercept Kravos' Nightmare when he went after a pregnant Charity at the grocery store in Grave Peril? When the fetches invaded the Carpenter home a couple weeks ago all the damage that happened was Daniel, the oldest strongest kid taking a physical beating.

And "coincidentally" every fetch involved in that attack died at Arctis Tor.
There are a lot of "coincidences" around a protected family.

EDIT
The point of defences around a Knights family, IMO, is to increase the points where "coincidences" are decisive.

uju32 said:

The angelic aegis that covers the family for one?
The fact that it has Uriel and Raphael's attention by canon?
All the "coincidences" that have served to keep the Carpenter family safe since at least the events of Grave Peril?

Michael killed a fuckmothering Dragon. None of the dudes cultists did shit about it.

If any of this was true, she wouldnt be asking questions, she'd have already Joined Combat.


He. Has. Wards. Very heavy duty wards.
It really isnt easy to kill someone who is protected remotely; Quintus Cassius used Dresden's own blood to guide a entropy curse at him in Death Masks, and Dresden no-selled it by getting home, under his wards and initiating lockdown for the night.

There is a reason why the Changes blood ritual to kill Ebenezar needed the leyline nexus at Chitchen Itza to power it.
You need a fuckton of power.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It also was fueled by something like a thousand human sacrifices or more.
Edit:also worked together with dozens if not a hundred or so wizard level talent red vampires and the veritable demigods of the red court vampires with mantles of some kind not even counting the red king.

[X] Try to persuade Matthews to turn the tables in Katrina, you can find Cindy afterwards with the Crown (Charisma+Empath Excelency still in effect)
-[X] STUNT: You steel yourself, your determination to end the threat, for she was a threat, awakening something within you. You do not fight it even as you take in her position and yours. You assess her appearance and danger even as you feel the Nuclear fire filling your veins, changing you. You smile at her, with a smile that promises violence. It was time to put her down. So you make your plea and give your minion its orders.
-[X] Regardless what Matthews decides to do, have the car distract her by ramming her throughout the fight distracting her while you transform.
-[X] Transform into the Shintai Form and go hard on her.
-[X] Use a Melee Excellency and By Rage Recast but otherwise conserve Essence. See if you can limit the power use to that.
-[X] Assess the situation and use Green Sun Nimbus Flare as a finishing move or if a good opportunity presents itself in the form of Matthews or the car or any other ally.

[X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car

I do not want to do this fight here, not near Matthews' place and not so close to civilians.
Not with a little girl's life in the balance, if the girl weren't a hostage against Matthews maybe I would think differently.

Get the evidence to Forthill, prep to rescue the girl.
If she tracks us down the road so be it, but right now fighting puts too many mortals at risk

uju32 said:

Thats what we've seen Gard do in canon.
And Gard doesnt dabble in necromantic magic like this woman is supposed to.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Those are pre-prepared runic enchantments, not spontaneously cast spells. Being able to build a bomb doesn't mean you can throw fireballs.

XenonPrime said:

I do not want to do this fight here, not near Matthews' place and not so close to civilians.
Not with a little girl's life in the balance, if the girl weren't a hostage against Matthews maybe I would think differently.

Get the evidence to Forthill, prep to rescue the girl.
If she tracks us down the road so be it, but right now fighting puts too many mortals at risk

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Alternatively, if we don't kill her now then right after extracting the knowledge she wants from Matthews she'll be directly on her way to inflict a fate much worse than death on his granddaughter.

She's probably Nemesis infected so can defy her nature and isn't bound by oaths, and Matthews may well not realise that, so she can make promises that he thinks she has to keep she can immediately ignore.

Alratan said:

Those are pre-prepared runic enchantments, not spontaneously cast spells. Being able to build a bomb doesn't mean you can throw fireballs.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

We dont know how long it takes to make a runic enchantment.
Donal Vadderung certainly has no trouble instacasting, and he's from the same magic tradition(probably created the magic tradition, tbh).

We do know that Gard is Marcone's magic consultant, was responsible for the wards around Marcone's estate in Death Masks, and the wards on Marcone's safehouse in Small Favor that took a fuckmassive pentagon circle created by Denarians and powered by Hellfire to breach.

So we know that Gard, specifically, slings a lot of mojo when she wants to, and she's not particularly magic focused; she went after the grendelkin in Heorot with an axe.

This woman here, also a Valyrie, sits on the board of a group of amoral/evil spellcasters and necromancers, which makes her definitely a lot more magically interested than someone like Sigrun Gard. Specifically, with this woman, we dont know many runes she carries around, and how fast she can cast or recreate them.

Alratan said:

Alternatively, if we don't kill her now then right after extracting the knowledge she wants from Matthews she'll be directly on her way to inflict a fate much worse than death on his granddaughter.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

What knowledge?

I honestly think y'all are probably deluding yourselves to think we could solo a sorceress who apparently hangs with a Denarian sorcerer with naught but a Shintai and a Melee Excellency.
This aint Gorfels.

But thats my opinion.

[X] Yzarc

Current tally:

[X] Yzarc

[X] Yzarc

[X] Yzarc

To be more specific about my issues with the murder plan, even if you set aside the consequences and the likelihood that we're biting off more than we can chew (which we really shouldn't) it's bad tactics.

Shintai is a super form sure, but it's not ideal to open with it. Specifically because using it mid combat lets us reset our health track.

Order matters here. If we start in Shintai and she burns through it then we drop into our normal form with 5 unsoakable bashing damage and have to finish the fight starting with penalties. A reset means that she's (hopefully) built up penalties and then we can ignore our for the last half of the fight. If she manages to push us out of Shintai after hanging fought base and super mode Molly we're screwed anyway baring amazing luck.

This is doubly important because right now Molly is basically a glass jawed lighting bruiser. Her ability to take hits is vastly inferior to her ability to dish them out. Our best play is to alpha strike as hard as possible as soon as possible; Shintai facilitates this by letting us reset if she hits us too hard during our attack run.

We're also wasting our surprise card by using it to distract her while Molly transforms. Sure it'll probably keep her busy for a turn, but at these distances the car isn't exactly going to build up a lot of speed and the turning radius won't be the best either.

The thing turning itself on will also probably be obvious enough to give her a heads up.

If we attack simultaneously, then she has to split her attention making both actions on our side more likely to work.

Since RR activates for free with the anima banner flare we get TA automatically when we spend our next mote here. So melee excellency + GSNF is a boatload of Agg damage to the back while she struggles with the car.

Second round we can repeat it, and have forced her to soak a minimum of 8 Agg while defending against an angry car.

Then we back off and shift while the car (and radiation burns) keep her busy to clear any damage she did in our first 2 exchanges.

We want to maximize early damage as much as possible, before she has a chance to understand what we can do.

This is also why the ideal set up to kill her would be wrapping her car around a tree 50 miles from the nearest town and then stab her in the back repeatedly while she tries to crawl from the wreckage. When she stops moving we toss her back in the car and ignite the gas tank.

Squaring up like this only makes sense if you presume she can't beat us no matter what she does.

BronzeTongue said:

This is also why the ideal set up to kill her would be wrapping her car around a tree 50 miles from the nearest town and then stab her in the back repeatedly while she tries to crawl from the wreckage. When she stops moving we toss her back in the car and ignite the gas tank.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I would honestly prefer to do this, IF I thought she had any intentions of letting us leave here. She also detected us doing something magical to her car. Whether she has some idea of what we did is unknown, but I doubt she's going to trust the car enough to drive it away without some thorough checks.

Honestly I believe that we're a disappointment of an exalt, I mean we haven't even massacred a bunch of thugs yet, so I says we do a bit of trolling by turbo murdering a nazi.

Goldfish said:

I would honestly prefer to do this, IF I thought she had any intentions of letting us leave here. She also detected us doing something magical to her car. Whether she has some idea of what we did is unknown, but I doubt she's going to trust the car enough to drive it away without some thorough checks.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

For us this spot is as good as any other. In some ways it's actually worse, since Mathews could be compelled to attack us.

She has all the power here, so if she wanted to attack us immediately she'd have done that instead of talking. She probably got some ping from what we did, but not enough details to get a good picture of the results.

My guess is that even if she plans to attack us, it won't be here and how. More likely she'll set up an ambush somewhere else, or try to follow us out of town to attack us alone.

As long as she starts in her car and some reasonable speed the following fight will be much more favorable to us than this one.

CorruptedKing said:

Honestly I believe that we're a disappointment of an exalt, I mean we haven't even massacred a bunch of thugs yet, so I says we do a bit of trolling by turbo murdering a nazi.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Exalt for a week, and most of our exp is in stuff other than fighting.

Even if you want to fight we don't have the horsepower to larp as a dawn caste.

Turbo murder is only fun when you're the one doing it.

This is a bit off-topic, but where would I go about reading more about Exalted? I'm very familiar with Dresden Files, but less so on Exalted.

[X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
-[X]After leaving, have Clippy find the kid's Myspace page, then Crown of Eyes to find her, and Google Maps/Google Earth on the location, with particular attention to places that might have security camera coverage
-[X]Call Michael with the child's name and location; this is in his bailiwick, and getting his input seems relevant
-[X]Call Gard's number which you have, and ask her if she has a grey eyed sister named Katrina with a sideline in kidnapping children.

I'd feel really bad if we attacked impulsively and it went horribly wrong, so...

Edit:

[X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car

Zioneer said:

This is a bit off-topic, but where would I go about reading more about Exalted? I'm very familiar with Dresden Files, but less so on Exalted.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

What are you looking for? The books are out there, but you either need to buy or pirate them.

Keychain of creation is an unfinished webcomic but was fun while I read it... Alchemical solutions on this website is well regarded. Mare Internum is wacky.

Omicron wrote a good short one called the Centipedes Dillema from a more down to earth perspective.

edit:
They also have a 1d4 chan page. Which IMO is excellent and a fun read.

Goldfish said:

I would honestly prefer to do this, IF I thought she had any intentions of letting us leave here. She also detected us doing something magical to her car. Whether she has some idea of what we did is unknown, but I doubt she's going to trust the car enough to drive it away without some thorough checks.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

We tripped an alarm. Thats why she's asking about us touching her car.
If she wanted to commit murder she wouldnt be talking, she'd have just come out shooting.

Seriously, this is an urban fantasy setting, not DnD.
Even mortal enemies do not up and start murdering others in broad daylight with magic.
Even the Kemmlerites trying to murder Chicago last year didnt attempt to throwdown on sight.

Besides Grave Peril where Dresden torched an estate of vampires, single book body counts only really started ramping up in White Night.

CorruptedKing said:

Honestly I believe that we're a disappointment of an exalt, I mean we haven't even massacred a bunch of thugs yet, so I says we do a bit of trolling by turbo murdering a nazi.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

My sister in Christ, this is NOT a good setting to play murder hobo for the lols.

You do not vote to have a "God Forgives" Knight of the Cross as your Mentor 5, move back home with your very Christian parents and then choose to play lol sword hobo in an area that will get canvassed by the Chicago cops and FBI agents looking to confirm or disprove Dresden's alibi and the video we're looking to bring in.

And if Mathews and his family get collateraled here, we were well known to be in the area since we showed ourselves to the entire town. The themes of Exalted will not protect us from the Consequences of our actions if we deliberately choose to make suboptimal decisions.

This is very much putting me in mind of that Bleach quest where people voted to stab themselves with a sword and started complaining when they died.