So, I get that Raksha are bad news, but is there a possibility that they've also been watered down by this lesser version of reality that we've found ourselves in? Compared to the Essence rich environment that was Creation, I mean?
So, I get that Raksha are bad news, but is there a possibility that they've also been watered down by this lesser version of reality that we've found ourselves in? Compared to the Essence rich environment that was Creation, I mean?
What makes Raksha so powerful Is their dice pools. They regularly hit 6-7s in both Stats and skills. And they can stunt, if they can shape them they can double stunt for +6 dice. Giving them dice pools on par with exalted in their specialty.
I don't know anything about Raksha, but if reality is so anemic that an Exalt has to function in what basically amounts to power-saving mode, it stands to reason that other beings from a similar era would be similarly limited.
They get called the fair folk, run on story book logic, and generally get treated sort of like fey, but they're nothing like the DF equivalent.
Fundamentally a Rakasha is a spirit of formless chaos forced to pin itself to a specific shape to interact with reality. Fey are part of the world, and their rules are less constrains and more definitions.
If they come to the same place, they're approaching at different angles.
Mab has more in common with a capybara than the thing behind a Rakasha's mask has with anyone from inside reality. Or that's my understanding anyway.
On a practical level, it mostly important to keep in mind that as high functioning as they are "bugfuck crazy" doesn't even begin to describe their psychology, and they're often obsessed with stories and weaving one out of the world around them when in creation.
They'll do stuff that no fey would even consider, purely because it makes the game they want to play better.
So, I get that Raksha are bad news, but is there a possibility that they've also been watered down by this lesser version of reality that we've found ourselves in? Compared to the Essence rich environment that was Creation, I mean?
Outside of the big boy unshaped Rakasha, celestial exalts generally weren't scared of them. If they got powered down to match how solars did, then even if this guy is a higher noble we still have a chance.
Yeah, the big thing to always remember and never forget about Raksha is that they aren't native to Creation. Or anything that is concrete.
The creation of stable, one way time has been a horrible event for the entirety of all Raksha, and they have been alive at least since the Primordials, way before Zen-Mu, not to mention Creation was even an idea.
They are absolutely alien behind the masks. See the Unshaped. Though there have been...ecological changes to them due to outside influence. Like the Hannya, who if I understand it right are Raksha (specifically Unshaped?) that prey on other Raksha, instead of doing the normal narrative taking on thing, or just being a blob of chaos. I think those were new during the time of Creation.
So, I get that Raksha are bad news, but is there a possibility that they've also been watered down by this lesser version of reality that we've found ourselves in? Compared to the Essence rich environment that was Creation, I mean?
If its a raksha, just carry a lot of iron with you.
Unless its an Ishvara, being forewarned is half the battle; you just come prepared. And if its an Ishvara, thats the kind of thing you call Mab and Titania for, not an E2 Infernal.
Outside of the big boy unshaped Rakasha, celestial exalts generally weren't scared of them. If they got powered down to match how solars did, then even if this guy is a higher noble we still have a chance.
This basically.
We have a Sword with us, and Michael is a paladin with access to Faith magic.
There's enough firepower in play to handle 99% of combat situations.
But like you said, I doubt this comes to a fight with the beastie itself.
If its confirmed to be Iku-Tor, there are pretty clear existing measures for forcing it back into containment away from fragile mortal minds in its mythology.
Its mortal minions on the other hand, are a different matter.
Because Iku-Tor in his prison is not the person who set up Pathways Pharmaceuticals in 1953, or resurrected its successor 53 years later. Thats mortal/near-mortal work.
We can get 14 dice persuading people if we use Excellency and Stunt. 16 if we're using Intimidate instead of Empathy. If it's remotely humanly possible to talk these cultists around to redemption, we got it. Otherwise… well, we have a sword, and so does our Dad. If these guys won't accept redemption, we can still end the threat they pose to reality, one way or another.
That could get messy. We can't exactly beat the stupid out of them, and we don't have a prison either.
If Micheal can't social them into giving up then we might need to earn some unfortunate bonus exp.
Depends on what said minions are.
If they are lesser raksha or some sort of fae, oaths and bindings will hold them if Exalted rules hold.
Possibly even if they're magic users swearing on their Power.
If they're standard mortals, stripping them of financial resources by fucking with the holding company will cripple them for longer than a mortal lifespan. Cant do shit without money; each of their previous attempts has required significant financial investment.
Then put them on a watchlist just in case.
If they're basically Stygian Sisterhood-style post-human enhanciles who have basically amputated chunks of their personalities and replaced them with nonhuman mentalities, then we shank them and drop the dime to the White Council and Fae Courts to ensure that someone keeps an eye out for shenanigans around the beasties prison.
Indeed. Neither Boiling Sea Mastery, nor Bitter Heart Resentment care if the liquid is deadly.
And I think it might actually be more socially acceptable than going around covered in water or oil. More of a fashion statement at least. Refuge in audacity and all that.
Few notes:
A: Our skin temperature is well below average. So we are going to have a lot of trouble keeping it molten.
B: No toxicity. It mildly stains skin on exposure but is otherwise safe for humans to handle. (Though the method it stains is technically "wetting" so maybe something there)
C: Weight. 5.9g/cm^3. Roughly 6 times as dense as water. Rather inconvenient.
To throw a suggestion of my own in, perhaps a non-flammable oil? Oil sticks to humans quite well, and there are oil soluble toxins if we need that.
Oil is an option, yes. Paint too, for that matter. Concerning your other comments:
A) If the temperature of our skin is below 29.7 C, which is well below "you are actually dead, and this is your corpse" for normal humans, we could always go with galinstan on other alloy with low melting point (since mercury is hard to obtain). In regards to toxicity, either mercury or a mercury-thallium eutectic would be ideal, but they would probably be evaporating.
B) While gallium is considered safe to handle and, indeed, studies with rats have indicated that it might be safeish to drink (disclaimer: do not try to drink gallium!!!), and, as such, not very applicable for Charred Sinner Renewal, that's actually not what I wanted it for. The use of gallium was proposed as a solution to "in actual deadly combat, wizards will evaporate liquid from out skin with fireballs, leaving our perfect soak unusable, since it can only be used when we are wet". Gallium has the boiling temperature of more than 2000 C, and very low evaporation rate due to low saturated vapor pressure. As such, it won't evaporate until stones under our feet are melting, at which point we have other problems. Some machine oils have working temperatures of up to several hundred celcius, but that's well below gallium.
It also, as you noted, stains everything, including glass, and is hard to get rid of. That's perfect, since that means that it wets those things easily. There's nothing technical about it - that's how wetting works. If something is stained with substance X, then substance X wetted the surface of that something.
C) I don't think that's too much of a problem. We are unlikely to need more than a liter or two to cover ourselves in a thin layer of gallium and to cosplay as a T1000 (Ichor Flux Tendrils + Bitter Heart Resentment while covered in liquid metal would totally allow us to cosplay it perfectly).
So, I get that Raksha are bad news, but is there a possibility that they've also been watered down by this lesser version of reality that we've found ourselves in? Compared to the Essence rich environment that was Creation, I mean?
That's... in my opinion that's arguable. Raksha are ultimately creatures of / from primordial chaos, if I understand correctly. Reality weakens and irritates them. In a thinner, weaker reality, they might well be stronger than they were in First Age Creation. Or at least they might have an easier time shaping reality to their whims. Or not, depending on how "essence is much thinner" works.
-[X]STUNT: Squeezing your dad's hand with one hand for reassurance, yours as much as his, you fumble your phone out one-handed as you continue talking."Polku Pharmaceuticals, the current owners of the nursing home? Is the Finnish word for pathways. And Im willing to bet that if I type into Google...yes." You look up. "Edvard Nieminen is a Finnish name as well. Well, he was Finnish-American. Poor guy. Just seeing what he saw broke his mind." You pause, then look over at your other companion. "Lydia, do you remember any Finnish myth? Specifically magic sea monsters?" At the shake of her head, you go back to typing into your phone. "Clippy, please search Finnish mythology for thousand-headed, thousand-horned ocean monsters." You hesitate for a moment, then type further "And cross-reference the current list of nursing home residents with names and families from the 1950s experiments. Finnish ancestry, common schools,workplaces, anything in common." You finish typing and look up again. "Lets get back to the truck. This will take a minute." As you walk, you ask silently of your final companion. Usum? What is a raksha?
That's... in my opinion that's arguable. Raksha are ultimately creatures of / from primordial chaos, if I understand correctly. Reality weakens and irritates them. In a thinner, weaker reality, they might well be stronger than they were in First Age Creation. Or at least they might have an easier time shaping reality to their whims. Or not, depending on how "essence is much thinner" works.
Raksha are creatures of essence rich environment that is wyld; they are not of Creation, but metaphorical "thin air" is unlikely to be terribly great for them either.
That said, high-essence beings seems to be self-sustainable to a degree, and overall changes for Raksha are more likely to be of a "you can't reach high [primary stat]" values, rather than "you get less buck for your [primary stat] bang."
-[X]STUNT: Squeezing your dad's hand with one hand for reassurance, yours as much as his, you fumble your phone out one-handed as you continue talking."Polku Pharmaceuticals, the current owners of the nursing home? Is the Finnish word for pathways. And Im willing to bet that if I type into Google...yes." You look up. "Edvard Nieminen is a Finnish name as well. Well, he was Finnish-American. Poor guy. Just seeing what he saw broke his mind." You pause, then look over at your other companion. "Lydia, do you remember any Finnish myth? Specifically magic sea monsters?" At the shake of her head, you go back to typing into your phone. "Clippy, please search Finnish mythology for thousand-headed, thousand-horned ocean monsters." You hesitate for a moment, then type further "And cross-reference the current list of nursing home residents with names and families from the 1950s experiments. Finnish ancestry, common schools,workplaces, anything in common." You finish typing and look up again. "Lets get back to the truck. This will take a minute." As you walk, you ask silently of your final companion. Usum? What is a raksha?
Squeezing your dad's hand with one hand for reassurance, yours as much as his, you fumble your phone out one-handed as you continue talking."Polku Pharmaceuticals, the current owners of the nursing home? Is the Finnish word for pathways. And Im willing to bet that if I type into Google...yes." You look up. "Edvard Nieminen is a Finnish name as well. Well, he was Finnish-American. Poor guy. Just seeing what he saw, it broke him utterly. "
I should really be more worried about this, you realize. I'm more worried than terrified at the sight, the knowledge. I can do this, I can kill that thing or drive it back, something within you whispers. Is is Usum's flattery, some misplaced self-confidence or some deeper truth you can hardly put into words.
"Lydia do you know anything about Finnish sea monsters, something with a thousand heads and a thousand horns?" You ask after a moment had passed with nothing but the whisper of the wind through the branches.
"I haven't read much about that part of the world but that sounds a bit like... Typhon, the titanic beast. It's the a archetype of things without definitive, that cannot be bounded by the gaze of man and so live in their tale contained only by the bard's imagination. A thousand with a thousand rhymes because it is like acid upon the tongue of the storyteller to say that they do not know or worse still that it is unknowable."
"Titanic beast, like a beast that is a titan?" you ask. That does not sound quite right.
"Like a beast you have to be a god or a titan to fight," she replies. "When you come right down to it the big stories, the first stories are all order against chaos. Do the floods come or does the water irrigate the crops, does the earth shake and sunder or lie still that walls might be built upon it? Sometimes they get called out as good and evil and maybe from where most people are standing it is that, but to the beast itself.... well what care does the storm have that hail ruins the farmer's crops?"
"So why would anyone want to bring a thing like that into the world?"
Lydia shakes her head, as bemused as you are, not that you are surprised. The answer that comes to mind is because they have been tricked somehow so maybe you could tell them the truth and then.. And then what? The crazy cultists that are responsible for dozens of deaths at least get to walk? Maybe that's just you not being merciful enough, but it feels awful and unfair.
The three of you find a nearby bench, tucked away from the main paths through the cemetery and you turn your attention to Clippy. She had thrown a wide net and found quite a lot of fish. For one there are a lot of people with Finnish names at soul's rest, a lot more than in the city as a whole, though this area of the Midwest apparently has the most Finnish-Americans in the country. But even more importantly she had pulled up the Finnish national saga, the Kalevala. 'Son of Old Age' and 'ocean monster' are both a match as are descriptions of thousand heads and thousand horns.
"I've got a match dad," you say excitedly. "Iku Turso, father of diseases who can shoot plague arrows... well that does not sound like good parenting, shooting his kids at people. Anyway he is also an ocean demon thing that was apparently bound beneath the sea by an oath given to the hero... there is absolutely no way I can pronounce that. Clippy you give it a go."
"Väinämöinen," the mechanical voice dutifully sounds out, before the text keeps scrolling, one site flowing into another in a way no limited algorithm could ever do, intuitive and attentive.
"Huh... according to some sources Iku Turso was the one who impregnated the Maiden of Air, Ilmatar that she would later give birth to the very hero who bound Iku Turso."
"So it's kind of like Jupiter binding Saturn?" Lydia asks. "Only in this case the one who bound the elder god was mortal."
"If this hero of the Finns was indeed a man who lived and died than he could well have had mortal heirs," dad cuts in. "Depending on how long ago he lived there could be hundreds of thousands, millions even, bound by blood to both the oathbinder and the oathbound." He stops suddenly, right hand reaching for the hilt of the sword as he turns to face the alleyway to your left and calls out: "Who's there? Show yourself if you mean no ill or be gone."
The shadows under the linden trees shift and the silence that you had not even noticed fell under them, not even the chirp of a cricket to break it, suddenly lifts: "I mean no ill to those who do not mean me ill in turn," the man steps out as though from behind a tree, though to your gaze it seems stands revealed that he steps out of its shadow like a swimmer from dark waters. "I could not help but overhear you speak of weighty things freely where both the living and the dead might hear."
He's pretty enough to look at in a 'windswept executive' sort of way, a little tanned and sporting a little more than a five o'clock shadow, the kind of guy you would see in an inoffensive shampoo add. But there is nothing inoffensive about him, you see it in the way he moves, with boneless grace, you see it in the glint of his eyes fixed upon the hilt of the sword and most of all you see it in the cast of his features, a bit too carefully set, a flesh-mask over inhuman hungers. The last time you had met his kind they had no use for masks.
Looking around you see that you are alone, unless perhaps more of his ilk are hiding in the shadows. Maybe this is a chance to give the White Council a bit of help in their war,you think darkly, but Usum councils differently. "Why not extract the most advantage from the meeting Princess of the Age to Be. Question him about Soul's rest, compel his aid on pain of death and ruin. Then once the greater task is done dispose of him and his kin if that is still your will."
What do you do?
[] Kill the spy, the Red Court creep you out and they have given you plenty of reason to kill them already
[] Threaten and compel the spy as Usum suggested, maybe he knows something useful
[] Write in
OOC: You guys do not even have that good perception+alertness, he just rolled terribly. On the plus side you get to test out Demonic Primacy of Essence if you like, a Lord of the Outer Night this guy is not.
[X] Threaten and compel the spy as Usum suggested, maybe he knows something useful
-[X] Use Excellency (Intimidation)
-[X] Stunt: You shift your bearing a bit, the memory of Queen Mab in your mind superimposing itself upon your self, as you adopt her posture, mannerisms and very presence. The ghostly chill that always caresses your body spreads, otherworldly frozen winds rustling the tree's leafs. You catch the eyes of the lowly creature of darkness that dared to try spying on you, and still dares to try deceiving you with its human guise. The weight of your Essence pins it in place, daring it to try escaping, lying, fighting - doing anything but obeying your every command. And then, with a voice of an Empress, fit for proclaiming an immediate execution and an unlikely mercy, you question it for everything it knows, starting from the reason it's here.
Something like this. This is probably Charisma+Intimidation. That's 7 dice. 14 with Excellency. Hopefully a two dice stunt. With Demonic Primacy of Essence giving us -2 difficulty, I think we can get some legendary successes.
Surprise Red Court Vampire makes an appearance now, when we've been investigating a place with possible connections to Outsiders? Yeah, that's not a coincidence. Remember how we were wondering a while back where the Red Court was getting its lesser Outsider assistance from?
Rather than a mortal summoner, maybe this is how they do it? Plant what effectively amounts to Outsider seeds in the minds of a bunch of mortals, then wait for them to grow into something a few decades later. So what if 99 out of 100 attempts is a failure? After all, there are plenty of mortals to be found.
If this is the case, whatever is happening at Soul's Rest is probably a much smaller operation than what the Reds have going on down in South America.
Makes me wonder if there isn't someone tucked away out of sight with a camera getting ready to record us killing what appears to be an innocent man going about his business at the cemetery.
Makes me wonder if there isn't someone tucked away out of sight with a camera getting ready to record us killing what appears to be an innocent man going about his business at the cemetery.
I doubt it.
As far as I can tell the human mask is more literal in Rampires than for most near-human beings.
It will likely look like a monster under the first cut and certainly in death.
