The very highest powers of your crafting system are supposed to be a little sus. These are not tools meant to conform to the sensibilities of 21st century wizards of the White Council, they are the instruments of god kings and diabolists, they have more in common with the Stone Table upon which the wars of the Fey are fought than with Harry's duster.
I dont agree.
Exalted thematics are fine with having to find rare and difficult components for high-tier Craft.
Or having to invest a lot of time and resources to make it. It doesnt even shy away from sometimes shady sourcing.
But making it mandatory to kill people and things to make stuff is more a specifically Abyssal thematic.
And the power argument about the products of Craft in ExWoD seems a little specious when the book has statted Antediluvians for combat encounters.
Which brings us back to the Dresdenverse and its crafting levels.
Its first worth remembering that every mortal can use magic. Very few can be wizards, but everyone can do at least some rudimentary magic if they try. The potential is there.
Warden swords are apparently attuned to individuals as much as a security measure as a power thing
That did not seem to be an issue for Madrigal Raith's spellbane bracelets in White Night chapter 38-39, which he used to block spells in his duel with Dresden and Ramirez.
Thorn bracelets for blocking magic are a thing. And hexenwulfen belts. Dresden gave a Dead Mans Talisman, for protection against ghosts, to Lydia in Grave Peril. Victor was selling Three Eye potions to any bum on the street. Dresden regularly gives alchemical potions to his mundane allies in Changes. Butters makes some in Skin Game. All mortal usable.
Shoggoths are a thing here.
Dresden has fought three varieties of golems, slime golems and barbed wire golems and a third that was uncategorized, in Chicago. There's also Demonreach. There's a pretty high incidence of independent craft if you look, its just not obvious. And many wizards have trouble accumulating the resources necessary.
To get back to the current vote.
By snapping a picture we are:
-Further disturbing Harry
-Making an image of a name that should be forgotten
-Gettlng an advantage on learning Old Realm, a language that doesn't exist anymore except maybe in the deepest memoriest of some improperly cleaned Exaltations
Doesn't seem worth it to me.
1)The cost of disturbing Harry has already been paid.
If we produced it once, there's no guarantee about us producing it again. Thats the province of private discussions after this is all over about caution, care and information security, not pretending we wont look into it again.
Because thats not reassuring to someone who we've explained how the Crown of Eyes works; it just means a countdown to when we whip out something similar during another crisis.
2)Molly's vow at Exaltation was never to make a wrong decision again due to ignorance.
And unlike with Uriel's request, noone in trusted authority is asking her not to do this. Even Dresden is not actively objecting.
Entirely thematic for her to make a note for research.
Sure, if it was a clear threat to other people? Then she'd destroy any records no problem.
But without that, it just be careful about records and dissemination.
3)Harry memorized the Word of Kemmler last year, or at least had Lash do it, and knows how to run the Darkhallow.
He stole Bob from the wreckage of DuMorne's home at 16, and has been hiding him ever since.
He certainly remembers what it is like, when he has to deal with similar situations.
Mind you, its responsible for him to be disturbed and to worry, and I wont deny it gives me a little amusement.
But he knows enough to know he doesnt know our business better than we do, and the life experience to extend a little trust.
4)If the ritual thing explicitly has resonance with the Black Feast and the creation of Black Court vampires as per Word of QM?
Then I'm sad to say that it probably was never entirely forgotten.
Choosing not to learn something does not oblige anyone else to follow suite.
5)We are not the only person who has seen it, and a bunch of those people have very good memories, as well as magic to help refine memory recall. We cant tell Arawn to forget, for example. Or the Archive.
Or Mab, who walked into the aftermath and also saw the ritual circle, and who you can be sure remembers what it looks like.
6)We cant actually say for certain what Old Realm's utility is because we dont know anything about the history of our reality.
We know that our Exaltation was coded in Old Realm.
For all we know the source code of this Reality is written in Old Realm. Or our Hell's inhabitants may all show up speaking Old Realm as a second language. No idea.
It is however canon for ExWoD that without the Brigid's Heir merit, we'd learn ancient sorcery by finding old grimoires and the like.
And I dont think Sorcery spells from the Age of Legends are written in English.
So I suspect Old Realm is more relevant than you might expect.
Whats worth asking is whether Usum can read Old Realm. Because that helps date him to either back during Creation, or after it.
