Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

DragonParadox said:

Molly's feelings towards queen Mab are not outright enmity but between the circumstances of her Exaltation and seeing what she did to Slade she is convinced Mab is evil. Whether that means she will go out of her way to make Mab lose if up to you guys.

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Evil comes in lots of shades and flavors. Mab is clearly evil by any reasonable definition, but, to borrow D&D terminology, she's Lawful Evil as opposed to the Chaotic Evil of the Denarians or similar threats. She's bad, but she's a necessary evil that allows reality to continue being reality and maintains the sort of stability that has allowed Human civilization to progress beyond hiding in caves from the monsters of the world.

Molly, with her Occult 5 and Usum the shoulder-Devil, should recognize that pretty easily.

SCO said:

Should have argued to get flaw points for considering the prime defender of the realm a enemy.

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I just said Molly does not think of her as an enemy, she thinks of hr as evil, which by most metrics she is. Just because she also has a essential task in the running of the universe does not make her good, I mean just look at the various asshole gods that dot many of the world's mythologies.

Goldfish said:

Evil comes in lots of shades and flavors. Mab is clearly evil by any reasonable definition, but, to borrow D&D terminology, she's Lawful Evil as opposed to the Chaotic Evil of the Denarians or similar threats. She's bad, but she's a necessary evil that allows reality to continue being reality and maintains the sort of stability that has allowed Human civilization to progress beyond hiding in caves from the monsters of the world.

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That merely means you don't kill her without having a replacement ready.

Not that you'll never stand in her way.

LightLan said:

That merely means you don't kill her without having a replacement ready.

Not that you'll never stand in her way.

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Once we're capable of offing Mab, we'll need to make the effort to groom a replacement before we actually do the deed. Preferably one we've used the wish Charm on a few times, for added effect.

That is a long, long way off, however, and I'm not in a hurry to get there.

LightLan said:

That merely means you don't kill her without having a replacement ready.

Not that you'll never stand in her way.

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Yeah, but context matters.

Man isn't going to shrug it off if we try to completely screw her over, and Molly isn't a big enough deal to take what she can dish out yet; not just in a physical sense either.

Mab is a highly entrenched political player, she can and will use that to her advantage when necessary.

It's highly unreasonable to assume we can punk anyone we like in the setting with no consequences one week into being an exalted.

BronzeTongue said:

It's highly unreasonable to assume we can punk anyone we like in the setting with no consequences one week into being an exalted.

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Technically, it's been almost a month. It will be a month after we finish this quest and our ride-along with Dad that we voted for in the turn vote.

I know that doesn't change what you meant, but I thought I'd point it out since I'm feeling pedantic today.

SCO said:

The dot is winter court, not Mab. There is 'this person messed around with one of my subjects and maybe sort of stole something, could be useful later since it was doing nothing' and there is 'this person personally humiliated me and ruined one of my plans'.

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The other way around. On Mab's character sheet there should be a five dot flaw representing the fact that she made Molly her Enemy.

Mab murdered Molly's friends, attacked her home, and kidnapped her. Mab might think that's fine, but now Molly is an Infernal Exalted. Mab played stupid games, and now she's going to win stupid prizes. And then she'll die.

Alratan said:

The other way around. On Mab's character sheet there should be a five dot flaw representing the fact that she made Molly her Enemy.

Mab murdered Molly's friends, attacked her home, and kidnapped her. Mab might think that's fine, but now Molly is an Infernal Exalted. Mab played stupid games, and now she's going to win stupid prizes. And then she'll die.

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Except Mab didn't do any of that, and even if she did such a significant relationship should be on both sheets.

Mab doesn't operate the winter court as a hive mind collective, Molly's encounter with them was Fetches being Fetches and her fear magic being a lure. You're blaming the CEO for what some guys from the janitorial department got up to in their off hours.

This axe you're looking to grind is unreasonable, and even if it wasn't petulantly flailing at anything Mab does within our reach would be bad tactics.

Starting a feud with someone that you can't beat is asking for them to solve you before you're a problem. Better to swallow the spite and wait until you can strike once and be done with it.

[X] Talk to everyone present, to work out what options exist that don't end with with Lydia suffering in eternal slavery to the person who has all reasons to make her life miserable as a tool of misplaced revenge against her father
-[x] Ask Gard if her employer would be willing to intervene in the situation, provided we deliver Katrina to him.

Hmm yeah we need a lot more information. We know Mab's big plan, but we have little details about the real situation down on the ground. We should talk to Bob, talk to Harry, talk to Lydia and maybe ask a few questions with our crown.
Right now we are still in the fact finding and brainstorming stage. Trying to jump to a solution now would be a mistake.

That said we should not reveal too much to Gard. Gard has already seen a lot about our capabilities. Our crown is a secret we should keep very dearly. Especially the fact that it works on targets of Mab's caliber would be too big. Being able to track a car was accepted. Being able to track a person across the undertown in an instant rose an eyebrow. Being able to divine specific secrets of Mab would blow everything up.

It also bears remembering that Mab is not the only active player here. She is smart and manipulative, but there is no guarantee that her plan would have gone off without a hitch. Perhaps something Arwan or the Nazi necromancers plan to do would have spoked things in one way or another.

Really the best outcome I can think of would be us finding a way that Mab's plans don't work out the way she intends, and its not our fault. Set one of our enemies up to take the fall.
An important question to ask is, why is Mab doing this now? Is there some specific window of vulnerability she is exploiting or some part of the Nazi necromancers plot she needs as to take advantage of?

So yeah more information. We are sort of on a clock, but spending a half hour to talk things out, thoroughly go over our options and gather information is time well spent. Much better then charging in with a half understanding of the situation.

[X] We still need more information. Talk to Bob about how mantles can be transferred without killing their holders.

Three way tie, plus another five options that don't have any hope of coming out on top.

Need some consolidating here, folks.

So, one thing we might be able to do… would this be allowed?
Advising Lydia WRT the contract between her and Mab, pointing out any potential traps and pitfalls, that kind of stuff?
We *do* have pretty good social stats.
Hey, even if she does end up having to contract with Mab, we can at least help to ensure that she gets a good (or at least decent) deal out of it? Unless, of course, that is verboten?

Tell Lydia is ahead, only difference is the secondary/sub votes

Edit: OOps, looks like I miscounted, they're still tied.

Just telling Lydia is essentially us abandoning her.

Yog said:

Just telling Lydia is essentially us abandoning her.

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This is still the planning phase, we can consider how to help her together.

TonedMite said:

So, one thing we might be able to do… would this be allowed?
Advising Lydia WRT the contract between her and Mab, pointing out any potential traps and pitfalls, that kind of stuff?
We *do* have pretty good social stats.
Hey, even if she does end up having to contract with Mab, we can at least help to ensure that she gets a good (or at least decent) deal out of it? Unless, of course, that is verboten?

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We could try that, but I don't see it work out.
Lydia is pretty smart herself, but neither of us can out-contract the ancient fey queen.
Not without some specific power for the purpose.

Lash got to be frantic right now.

She knows this situation right now is where Harry gets all self-sacrificing.

Artemis1992 said:

Lydia is pretty smart herself, but neither of us can out-contract the ancient fey queen.

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We do have superhuman socials, we got better odds than pretty much anyone else.

10 dice is what the very very best mortal can roll.
Depending on what we do, we roll between 12 and 16.
Add an extra success from exerting will power too, because holding back against the Cold Queen is folly.

She won't have had such an argument in centuries.

LightLan said:

We do have superhuman socials, we got better odds than pretty much anyone else.

10 dice is what the very very best mortal can roll.
Depending on what we do, we roll between 12 and 16.
Add an extra success from exerting will power too, because holding back against the Cold Queen is folly.

She won't have had such an argument in centuries.

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Problem is contracts don't work by Social.
That would be INT plus something like Law or Expression.

But even if we could roll all the dice, Mab is still better at the particular game she has been playing at superhuman levels for centuries.

Looking up the akuma rules for selling your soul (closest I can find on short notice to Fey bargains), it uses Intelligence + Law for the dice pool. Probably means we're going to invest in some Law dots and an Excellency long-term for dealing with Fey.

Artemis1992 said:

Problem is contracts don't work by Social.
That would be INT plus something like Law or Expression.

But even if we could roll all the dice, Mab is still better at the particular game she has been playing at superhuman levels for centuries.

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The last time someone looked for loopholes in contracts Harry rolled wits+occult

DragonParadox said:

Harry to tell if there is a loophole in the matter of Kemler's secrets

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Which Molly has 3+5+Stunt+Excellency = 18 dice.

Approval vote.
I dont like the phrasing of the second option, but too late to do anything about it.

VOTE
[X] We still need more information. Talk to Bob about how mantles can be transferred without killing their holders.

[X] Talk to everyone present, to work out what options exist that don't end with with Lydia suffering in eternal slavery to the person who has all reasons to make her life miserable as a tool of misplaced revenge against her father
-[x] Ask Gard if her employer would be willing to intervene in the situation, provided we deliver Katrina to him.

I really don't like the idea of telling Gard what we have learnt. We have already shown too many of our cards with regard to it. Minimizing the chance that the fact that we plucked a secret straight from Mab's head gets back to her is very important. Back to her or to any of the major supernatural players.

So, Approval vote:

[X] Tell Lydia, it's her life and her father that's in danger

[X] We still need more information. Talk to Bob about how mantles can be transferred without killing their holders.

Just to clarify, the GM already clarified on the transfer so talking to Bob is a wasted action, right?

Yog said:

Just telling Lydia is essentially us abandoning her.

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Not really, and I think we have an obligation to bring her in on this. We don't have the right to make unilateral decisions for her and her father now that one of them is available to consult.