Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

For my part my problem with Lydia getting high power charms is partly that terrestrials being as strong as celestials - especially random demigods from the modern era - kind of wears the shiny off of proper exalts, and partly who her dad is.

If she was Odin, Morrìgan, or Hades' daughter it'd be easier to swallow her being a liminal+ terrestrial, but Arawn has come off like such a chump that I struggle to take invoking him for power very seriously.

The only gods from DF canon that I'm aware of doing worse than him are the ones the red court ate/keep trapped in their basement.
Ya but I don't want "Random mortals are treated better than dragonblooded, because at least that random mortal might exalt as a solar." Levels of disparity coming back up.
 
Generally it might be best to spend any Lydia XP on her stats and skills rather than her low power charms. Those are the same right?
 
[X] Mastery of Waves and Wastes
-[X] Boiling Sea Mastery, 4 XP
-[X] Transcendent Lord of Flies 4 XP
-[X] Mercy in Servitude 4 XP
-[X] Technology Excellency, 4 XP
-[X] Technology 2 2 XP
-[X] Lydia
--[X]Essence 2: 8XP
 
Last edited:
So, my argument for Technology excellency over Etiquette:
1) We need Etiquette for Mab, primarily. When dealing with lesser beings, if they are Creatures of Darkness, DPE more than suffices. If they are not, we have Etiquette at 3, and we have Usum to fall back on.

2) We need to maximize XP gains. This means buying charms that give us more XP later earlier, so the sum total of XP is higher. In this respect I feel that Technology Excellency is more likely to help us right now tan Etiquette. Maybe we could switch it to RVD, but if we are focusing on the Dragon's Nest next, then going with Technology excellency is the best way to go. We need it to design stuff like CCC abusing ankle bracelets, renovating Dragon's Nest, bringing Harry to the 21st century, etc. Buy now to buy more stuff later.

Etiquette is more than likely to sit there waiting for encounters with Mab or other beings of the same weight class, where 3 points won't suffice. It's not an immediate purchase. It should be bought as close to when we need it as possible.
1)We are preparing for Mab, primarily. But Etiquette is hardly niche.
Brother Divishmar and Mouse come to mind as two important social encounters where social Etiquette turned out to be critical and is still giving us dividends.

I dont remember what the roll for Porter was. Maeve is just a matter of time. We've already got Lily's attention.
And its not like CoDs are all there is.

The Winter Court are Creatures of Darkness, but we have no idea if the Summer Court is, just that they exist. We have a business card from Odin. And Chicago is enough of a major hub that we are bound to run into other beasties, like the Twylyth Teg. The Svartalfar. Loup garou. Bigfoot. All sorts of scions.

2)I dont think thats how it works.
RVD's primary use is Essence regen, and secondarily spying. The transportation effect is huge, but not really useful to Molly in the next couple months.

Technological Excellency has very little applicability to most of the things you've rattled off.
Figuring out a way around the Techbane is primarily a Occult problem. The Dragons Nest does not seem to need a Tech Excellency to build, and certainly not at Month 1.

For my part my problem with Lydia getting high power charms is partly that terrestrials being as strong as celestials - especially random demigods from the modern era - kind of wears the shiny off of proper exalts, and partly who her dad is.

If she was Odin, Morrìgan, or Hades' daughter it'd be easier to swallow her being a liminal+ terrestrial, but Arawn has come off like such a chump that I struggle to take invoking him for power very seriously.

The only gods from DF canon that I'm aware of doing worse than him are the ones the red court ate/keep trapped in their basement.



Melee and intimidation excellencies do that already. We might even get exp for it.

I do want minions at some point, but I'd prefer it if we had some idea of how we're going to get a return on our investment before spending exp.

If the only thing they can do without screwing it up is guard the nest then HMP gun turrets or robot arms with chainsaws would do the job just as well and only cost crafting time.


We were talking about how having a circle made specialization viable earlier in the thread. Given Molly's occult score it's probably more effective to spend the extra exp on something else if it goes to Lydia.
1) She's not getting high power charms, as I understand it. Literally just one charm here in dispute, and its a research charm.
It doesnt make minions or train soldiers; its a mechanical representation of a fact introduced mid-story arc.

As for Arawn, be fair. We didnt actually see him do anything. When you're on Mab's shit list, you keep a low profile.
Or you end up like the trickster god Anansi, who is currently frozen in the middle of Arctis Tor.

2)The argument for MiS is that working on the Dragons Nest will inevitably bring us into contact with inhabitants around the area.
And unless we have plans to kill or mutilate a bunch of people to keep them from pilfering or defacing stuff we're working on while we arent there, we need to establish an ongoing relationship.

3)I was actually considering putting a second dot into Lydia's Finance for thematic reasons.
Alternatively, raising her Alertness.

Right now Im leaning towards giving it to Molly for either Athletics 2 or Drive 2.
Athletics 2 for maneuverability/ranged attack, or Drive 2 for when we have to rent a UHaul and return to Cleveland to grab the Dragons Nest components. But Drive 2 isnt urgent.

Hmm.
 
Last edited:
Ya but I don't want "Random mortals are treated better than dragonblooded, because at least that random mortal might exalt as a solar." Levels of disparity coming back up.
Solars - and other Solaroids - don't get to become perma-invulnerable omni-capable golden gods anymore, so the extremes of Second Edition are somewhat less relevant.

Anyway, there are options to empower Lydia beyond limitations of her charmset. There is already considerable enthusiasm about crafting and such. VEE. Martial arts, paths.

Finally, we actually could make her into a Bakemono; terrestrials make for very powerful Bakemono, while Mercy in Servitude takes care of drawbacks. ExWoD version of Akuma, essentially, except instead of forced perfect obedience and access to Molly's charms she'll get access to some other busted things from Fomori ruleset and no limitation on her free will.
 
Last edited:
1)We are preparing for Mab, primarily. But Etiquette is hardly niche.
Brother Divishmar and Mouse come to mind as two important social encounters where social Etiquette turned out to be critical and is still giving us dividends.

I dont remember what the roll for Porter was. Maeve is just a matter of time. We've already got Lily's attention.
And its not like CoDs are all there is.

The Winter Court are Creatures of Darkness, but we have no idea if the Summer Court is, just that they exist. We have a business card from Odin. And Chicago is enough of a major hub that we are bound to run into other beasties, like the Twylyth Teg. The Svartalfar. Loup garou. Bigfoot. All sorts of scions.
And we have a good amount of Etiquette in general. 3 is not bad. Depending on what attribute we roll with it, we have 5 to 7 dice, which become 10 to 14 dice with excellency. Add in modifiers, and we shouldn't do badly in most situations. 5 is for when we absolutely have to do our best.
Technological Excellency has very little applicability to most of the things you've rattled off.
Figuring out a way around the Techbane is primarily a Occult problem. The Dragons Nest does not seem to need a Tech Excellency to build, and certainly not at Month 1.
We aren't just building the Nest. We are renovating the Spirit's dwellings. And it's a mystical railway station. Renovating that almost certainly involves technology. Getting power to it, setting up climate control, stuff like that. I am almost certain that the amount of XP we'll be getting will depend on how well we do.
2)I dont think thats how it works.
RVD's primary use is Essence regen, and secondarily spying. The transportation effect is huge, but not really useful to Molly in the next couple months.
Transportation effect is huge, when couple with the Crown. "The location of Atlantis", "the location of the msot mystical uninhabited island on the planet", "the location of the oldest magical sunken treasure", etc, are all quests (and, thus, XP) which are made available by RVD and the Crown combination. Basically all of those are quick-to-accomplish (in a weekend or so) XP grabs that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
 
RVD: opens up the world, or at least Great Lakes area for us to travel, strongly expanding our operational range. This allows us to travel (alone) and do stuff for XP. Also simplifies essence recovery a lot with a simple pendant filled with bleach.
Did we get a ruling about this? Cause if we can effectively teleport around following water sources we can basically zoom around the continental US with as much ease as the great lakes. The US has an absolutely crap ton of rivers and water routes, especially if you don't need to worry about navigating them with a boat.

Historically exploiting even the subset that can be traveled by boat was critical to the economic development of the United States.
1) She's not getting high power charms, as I understand it. Literally just one charm here in dispute, and its a research charm.
It doesnt make minions or train soldiers; its a mechanical representation of a fact introduced mid-story arc.

As for Arawn, be fair. We didnt actually see him do anything. When you're on Mab's shit list, you keep a low profile.
Or you end up like the trickster god Anansi, who is currently frozen in the middle of Arctis Tor.

2)The argument for MiS is that working on the Dragons Nest will inevitably bring us into contact with inhabitants around the area.
And unless we have plans to kill or mutilate a bunch of people to keep them from pilfering or defacing stuff we're working on while we arent there, we need to establish an ongoing relationship.

3)I was actually considering putting a second dot into Lydia's Finance for thematic reasons.
Alternatively, raising her Alertness.

Right now Im leaning towards giving it to Molly for either Athletics 2 or Drive 2.
Athletics 2 for maneuverability/ranged attack, or Drive 2 for when we have to rent a UHaul and return to Cleveland to grab the Dragons Nest components. But Drive 2 isnt urgent.
1) This isn't the first time it's come up, her first perfect attack was better than any other terrestrial, the celestial exigent sample, and infernals get.

Arawn didn't do much true, but his life story paints him as a failure. He was a god and somehow got stuck in a position of needing to work for winter or die despite almost all of his peer group avoiding the same fate. Then he makes a bad deal that basically put him on the clock for an inevitable failure and kills or worse than kills countless people.

If we hadn't saved him he'd have ended up in Mab's garden, assuming he didn't fuck up and empower the necromancers of the world for again in his desperate flailing to get out from a deal he had to knowingly make with more knowledge than any mortal gets.

That whole thing was against the people he's supposed to be at his best fighting, so color me unimpressed.

2) Seems wasteful to me. We've already seen how good our socials are against coherent opposition with a reason to contend with Molly. If we had some other goal in mind for them that's one thing, but just keeping them off our lawn is something we can already do.

3) Drive probably isn't that useful for us at the moment since we can fake it with cyber devils.
Ya but I don't want "Random mortals are treated better than dragonblooded, because at least that random mortal might exalt as a solar." Levels of disparity coming back up.
Yeah. I don't want to go that far, but the division should still be clear in my opinion.
 
Finally, we actually could make her into a Bakemono; terrestrials make for very powerful Bakemono, while Mercy in Servitude takes care of drawbacks. ExWoD version of Akuma, essentially, except instead of forced perfect obedience and access to Molly's charms she'll get access to some other busted things from Fomori ruleset and no limitation on her free will.
I probably wouldnt offer the bakemono option; she frankly doesnt need it.
And it isnt free; they arent compelled but they are vulnerable to influence by their patron. In this case, us.
Anyway, I would be very surprised if her father's library did not contain study volumes for multiple Paths.

And we have a good amount of Etiquette in general. 3 is not bad. Depending on what attribute we roll with it, we have 5 to 7 dice, which become 10 to 14 dice with excellency. Add in modifiers, and we shouldn't do badly in most situations. 5 is for when we absolutely have to do our best.
Good, not great. Cha/Man 3 + Etiquette 3 is 6 dice. With Excellency, 12.
Remember Charity beating us at social combat? There is a non-zero number of people in our vicinity whose social offense is so-so at best, but whose social defenses are top-tier for one reason or another.

And we wont often get warning when Players rock up to play social combat.
We aren't just building the Nest. We are renovating the Spirit's dwellings. And it's a mystical railway station. Renovating that almost certainly involves technology. Getting power to it, setting up climate control, stuff like that. I am almost certain that the amount of XP we'll be getting will depend on how well we do.
Even assuming this is something we need to do? Rebuilding the spirit's dwellings doesnt require technology.
Porter is older than Modern Chicago. Older than electricity.

Its adding in mortal niceties to the mortalside where modern technology is important.
And thats not something that is done at the beginning of construction work, but rather near the end.
You dont lay cabling while you're still waiting for concrete to set; you just leave space for the conduits.

Transportation effect is huge, when couple with the Crown. "The location of Atlantis", "the location of the msot mystical uninhabited island on the planet", "the location of the oldest magical sunken treasure", etc, are all quests (and, thus, XP) which are made available by RVD and the Crown combination. Basically all of those are quick-to-accomplish (in a weekend or so) XP grabs that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Sure, its huge.
But none of which is relevant to Molly's shortterm aims prior to November, when she turns 18.

We arent going diving, or travelling across the ocean, or crawling random treasure wrecks. We get nothing from it that would help, and might draw unnecessary aggro either by poking in claimed territory, or when we try to dispose of whatever we recover.
And we're nowhere near strong enough to be confident of soloing strong mobs in their home territory.

Maybe when we have unlocked magic crafting or Alchemy and Enchanting, there might be a need. And hopefully we'll be stronger.
RVD's travel options are largely irrelevant right now.
 
Did we get a ruling about this? Cause if we can effectively teleport around following water sources we can basically zoom around the continental US with as much ease as the great lakes. The US has an absolutely crap ton of rivers and water routes, especially if you don't need to worry about navigating them with a boat.

Historically exploiting even the subset that can be traveled by boat was critical to the economic development of the United States.
Apparently so.
Given that Molly cant bring anyone with her, thats not really something she can exploit at the moment.

1) This isn't the first time it's come up, her first perfect attack was better than any other terrestrial, the celestial exigent sample, and infernals get.

Arawn didn't do much true, but his life story paints him as a failure. He was a god and somehow got stuck in a position of needing to work for winter or die despite almost all of his peer group avoiding the same fate. Then he makes a bad deal that basically put him on the clock for an inevitable failure and kills or worse than kills countless people.

If we hadn't saved him he'd have ended up in Mab's garden, assuming he didn't fuck up and empower the necromancers of the world for again in his desperate flailing to get out from a deal he had to knowingly make with more knowledge than any mortal gets.

That whole thing was against the people he's supposed to be at his best fighting, so color me unimpressed.

2) Seems wasteful to me. We've already seen how good our socials are against coherent opposition with a reason to contend with Molly. If we had some other goal in mind for them that's one thing, but just keeping them off our lawn is something we can already do.

3) Drive probably isn't that useful for us at the moment since we can fake it with cyber devils.
1)I dont recall Lydia having a perfect attack. Can you recall the page?

2) We dont know what happened. While I certainly am not inclined to be charitable, I think I should point out Dresden summoning the Erl King and binding him in a circle during Dead Beat as a reminder that under the right circumstances, mortals enjoy certain advantages over deities with assigned roles.

Still wondering who Lydia's mother was.

3)Thats my understanding.
Like I said, I would personally prefer RVD, but I understand the reasoning. And I admit that losing that Alchemy stuff would be quite aggravating.

4)Rented U-Haul though, not the Beige Wagon.
I would vote for that. It also pings off charms we need, line that multj attack one.
Fair enough.
Anyone have any other comment one way or the other?
 
Arawn didn't do much true, but his life story paints him as a failure. He was a god and somehow got stuck in a position of needing to work for winter or die despite almost all of his peer group avoiding the same fate. Then he makes a bad deal that basically put him on the clock for an inevitable failure and kills or worse than kills countless people.

Most of his peer group did not survive, like the super-majority. Think about how many gods exist in just the the Norse Pantheon, since we know Odin made it, what about all the other Asir and Vanir? There were literally two whole branching clans of them, not counting local and tribal gods yet here we have Odin and his Valkyries his Einherjar... and that is about it. Most of the Old gods are gone, like dust on the wind.
 
During Battle Ground, one of the Jotun Boasts that he "fought the Odinson and lived to tell the tale", and he does not make it sound as if it was millennia ago. So Thor may also still be around in some form.
 
Most of his peer group did not survive, like the super-majority. Think about how many gods exist in just the the Norse Pantheon, since we know Odin made it, what about all the other Asir and Vanir? There were literally two whole branching clans of them, not counting local and tribal gods yet here we have Odin and his Valkyries his Einherjar... and that is about it. Most of the Old gods are gone, like dust on the wind.
Canonically they are asleep, in reclusion or abroad, not dead.
Thor is allegedly a professional wrestler for example, and we're going to see him in a future book. Loki is out there doing....something. Hades has fingers in the financial industry. And so on.

The dead include people like Oberon, King of Fairie.
Who allegedly got between Mab and Titania, and didnt make it.
Of course, that may not be true in your universe.
 
I probably wouldnt offer the bakemono option; she frankly doesnt need it.
IDK, I don't think that physical and mental attributes in excess of 6 would really go amiss for her. There is also a couple of really good, charm-tier powers in Werewolf and Riot of Flesh; good to the point where they actually would look pretty good in a Solaroid charmset.

But yeah, shoveling a spirit into your soul is a big commitment, and she'll probably refuse if we were to offer tomorrow.

@DragonParadox
I have been wondering about Path of Mana from Sorcerer; a bunch of its powers allow the user to store energy or quickly regenerate it. Would Lydia be capable of using to accelerate her essence regeneration and store additional energy?

Mana is not essence, but IIRC Molly converts it pretty easily.
 
Canonically they are asleep, in reclusion or abroad, not dead.
Thor is allegedly a professional wrestler for example, and we're going to see him in a future book. Loki is out there doing....something. Hades has fingers in the financial industry. And so on.

The dead include people like Oberon, King of Fairie.
Who allegedly got between Mab and Titania, and didnt make it.
Of course, that may not be true in your universe.

The way I see it being 'asleep' is the first step on the road to the grave. Gods need worship, not only to have mortals to interact with but to define and anchor their mantles. In energy terms there is no such thing as a free lunch, which means that you can only last in a coma for so long before you slip from slumber into non-existence. This feels consistent with canon and it has nice parallels to how gods work in Exalted as well. Not everything has changed after all.... just most things.

IDK, I don't think that physical and mental attributes in excess of 6 would really go amiss for her. There is also a couple of really good, charm-tier powers in Werewolf and Riot of Flesh; good to the point where they actually would look pretty good in a Solaroid charmset.

But yeah, shoveling a spirit into your soul is a big commitment, and she'll probably refuse if we were to offer tomorrow.

@DragonParadox
I have been wondering about Path of Mana from Sorcerer; a bunch of its powers allow the user to store energy or quickly regenerate it. Would Lydia be capable of using to accelerate her essence regeneration and store additional energy?

Mana is not essence, but IIRC Molly converts it pretty easily.

I think that would be too strong, especially given the things Essence can do. Molly cheats because she has access to 'all that is impure' as a reservoir of essence, most Essence users do not get to scavenge like that
 
Last edited:
The way I see it being 'asleep' is the first step on the road to the grave. Gods need worship, not only to have mortals to interact with but to define and anchor their mantles. In energy terms there is no such thing as a free lunch, which means that you can only last in a coma for so long before you slip from slumber into non-existence. This feels consistent with canon and it has nice parallels to how gods work in Exalted as well. Not everything has changed after all.... just most things.
Not really. At least not in the Dresden Files.

Dresdenverse Gods dont appear to need worship to live; it might make them powerful to begin with(seems a reasonable assumption, but no textev IIRC) but they dont need the empowerment to live or maintain power levels.The Hecatean Hag that was trying to ascend had no worshippers and was seeking none.

They just need to be remembered to affect the mortal world as gods, but they dont need worship to live.
The Oblivion War, for example, is being fought to lock a whole bunch of gods away from our reality; noone involved seems to think it will kill them, just stop them being able to affect the mortal world.
 
Last edited:
I think that would be too strong, especially given the things Essence can do. Molly cheats because she has access to 'all that is impure' as a reservoir of essence, most Essence users do not get to scavenge like that
Understandable. Could she use it to power Path magic, at least?

...Do I understand correctly that it does actually work perfectly fine for Molly?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top