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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Infernals are great at dealing with creatures of darkness. I don't think that any other exalted type gets something like Demonic Primacy of Essence as a one dot charm. So they would almost certainly have had to fight the Malk. However when it comes to dealing with mortals on a day to day basis I really do envy them.

Sidereal just don't. Whatever they do the mortals will forget about them so no need to be subtle. Or they can just method act to be a healthcare professional or something.

That isn't to say that Infernals can't dominate mortals like no one else. Because they totally can. But dominating mortals and making them our minions comes with so much baggage. We don't want this guy to be our minion.

[X] Stare him down, you are pretty sure you do not need to talk to get Jared out of the way (+1 to Intimidation DC to make it more subtle)

Not spending an essance on this. I doubt this guy is a heroic mortal. Also if it falls we should be able to find some other way to get around him.
 
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[x] Explain that you have some books Rosie asked you to get for her, that sounds suitability responsible right? And it's not even a lie, you did get some books from Harry to show to her in addition to your notes from talking to Bob

Let's at least try to be polite, shall we?
 
I remembered that a long time ago @DragonParadox said that Mercy in Servitude would patch over the mental contamination that comes from breaking the laws of magic. I didn't think much of it at the time, but do you think that actually might tempt Dresden to want to become our minion if he learned about that? It's weird because it feels like a temptation that he normally resists out of reflex, but at the same time not. He resists any temptation that might possibly lead to his life getting better, but would this register as that or as helping to protect people from him?

Edit: Forget that. Just realized that Desden likely does not actually count as a creature of darkness.
 
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fictionfan said:
I remembered that a long time ago @DragonParadox said that Mercy in Servitude would patch over the mental contamination that comes from breaking the laws of magic. I didn't think much of it at the time, but do you think that actually might tempt Dresden to want to become our minion if he learned about that? It's weird because it feels like a temptation that he normally resists out of reflex, but at the same time not. He resists any temptation that might possibly lead to his life getting better, but would this register as that or as helping to protect people from him?

Edit: Forget that. Just realized that Desden likely does not actually count as a creature of darkness.
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Well you do have means to turn mortals into creatures of darkness, but he is unlikely to take them to say the least. :V
 
Commentary later.
DragonParadox said:
OOC: And on to the next action... and the next intimidation if that is how you guys want to play it.
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Mrs Wilson knew Molly as a kid in this quest.
Rosie was a guest at the Carpenters; they used to play up in the treehouse.

@DragonParadox
QUESTION
1)Did Molly call ahead?
2)How have her relations with Rosie's mother been previously?
3)Where are Rosie's half-siblings?

EDIT
14th of August is a Monday. Shouldnt this dude be at work?
 
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uju32 said:
Commentary later.

Mrs Wilson knew Molly as a kid in this quest.
Rosie was a guest at the Carpenters; they used to play up in the treehouse.

@DragonParadox
QUESTION
1)Did Molly call ahead?
2)How have her relations with Rosie's mother been previously?
3)Where are Rosie's half-siblings?
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  1. Kind of, she texted, her last text from Rose was 'sure, come up, not like they will let me get out. Sick again.'
  2. Good, though getting colder as they got older and Rosie started getting mixed up with sex drugs and rock and roll not in that order
  3. Presumably home, it's a big house
 
uju32 said:
EDIT
14th of August is a Monday. Shouldnt this dude be at work?
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Not @DragonParadox ,but good question. Maybe we should try and work that into our stunt somehow? Maybe he is working for home and a chime will come from his computer forcing him to run away allowing us to just walk in.

Although I don't think that working from home was very common in this day and age.
 
uju32 said:
EDIT
14th of August is a Monday. Shouldnt this dude be at work?
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Maybe, Molly is not clear on what he does, she vaguely recalls he has some kind of a military industrial complex job. Only reason she remembers that is because Rosie once made the joke of 'he's warning us about Jared, Jared is going to take over the country and that's terrible' when they had the Eisenhower speech on in history class.
 
DragonParadox said:
From Sewer to Suburb
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COMMENTARY
-Missed opportunities with the malks. C'est la vie. Lets hope that doesnt come back to bite us.

-Twice the number of malks that I estimated.
And there's no guarantee that is ALL the malks in that particular pack.
Goes some way to explaining why this dude was so mouthy.

And raises questions about why this pack was so anomalously big.

Sure we could have taken them still, but there would have probably been casualties among our minions.
I hope this goes some way towards cautioning the next time people think that we should just apply force in the absence of information.

-Hinsdale suburb of Chicago. Median household income $245,000. Median home value $765,000.
Rosie's household is top 5% income. Possibly 1% income.
Majority non-Hispanic area, though; only 5% Hispanic of any ethnicity live here.

Whatever else, Rosie doesnt seem to have been materially neglected.

-I am going to preface everything here by noting that Molly is not an unbiased observer.
She is loyal to and gets her information from her friend, and her friend has blatant mommy issues, and really doesnt like her stepfather. Whether that dislike is deserved remains to be seen.

-Its a Monday during summer vacation.
Mrs Wilson might be a stay at home mother, and Rosie's sibs should be enjoying their vacation, but shouldnt Jared be at work?
Unless he is himself on vacation, meeting him near the door to the house on a weekday is quite strange.

If he's actually taking time off work because of his stepdaughter, thats actually more concern than a lot of Rosie's comments imply.

-To be fair, in the family's eyes Molly is associated with the group of friends where Rosie began using heroin.
Its entirely reasonable for them to worry about her associates and try to isolate her from people associated with drug use; Molly's mother tried the same thing.

Its hard to tell the difference between "isolation for your own good" and "isolation for my own purposes" from the outside.
DragonParadox said:
Rolls
Intimidation... yeah this is just plain terrifying
Malk Willoower, does not mitigate enough not to turn tail, though the insults are free
Nightmare roll
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Molly rolled 13 successes on her Intimidation roll. Thats 8 successes above Legendary.
The malk rolled 1 success on WP to resist.
Im surprised they had the mojo to drop insults even when fleeing.

DragonParadox said:
Maybe, Molly is not clear on what he does, she vaguely recalls he has some kind of a military industrial complex job. Only reason she remembers that is because Rosie once made the joke of 'he's warning us about Jared, Jared is going to take over the country and that's terrible' when they had the Eisenhower speech on in history class.
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Huh. I thought he was a car salesman?
MIC job in Chicago first brings to mind Boeing, whose corporate HQ is in Chicago.
Looks like the Cyberdevils Background is about to come into play again.

@DragonParadox
QUESTION
Im assuming Rosie's boyfriend(as in, not Nelson, but her actual boyfriend, who got killed by the fetches) has had his funeral?
Do we know anything about the boyfriend's family?
 
uju32 said:
COMMENTARY
-Missed opportunities with the malks. C'est la vie. Lets hope that doesnt come back to bite us.

-Twice the number of malks that I estimated.
And there's no guarantee that is ALL the malks in that particular pack.
Goes some way to explaining why this dude was so mouthy.

And raises questions about why this pack was so anomalously big.

Sure we could have taken them still, but there would have probably been casualties among our minions.
I hope this goes some way towards cautioning the next time people think that we should just apply force in the absence of information.

-Hinsdale suburb of Chicago. Median household income $245,000. Median home value $765,000.
Rosie's household is top 5% income. Possibly 1% income.
Majority non-Hispanic area, though; only 5% Hispanic of any ethnicity live here.

Whatever else, Rosie doesnt seem to have been materially neglected.

-I am going to preface everything here by noting that Molly is not an unbiased observer.
She is loyal to and gets her information from her friend, and her friend has blatant mommy issues, and really doesnt like her stepfather. Whether that dislike is deserved remains to be seen.

-Its a Monday during summer vacation.
Mrs Wilson might be a stay at home mother, and Rosie's sibs should be enjoying their vacation, but shouldnt Jared be at work?
Unless he is himself on vacation, meeting him near the door to the house on a weekday is quite strange.

If he's actually taking time off work because of his stepdaughter, thats actually more concern than a lot of Rosie's comments imply.

-To be fair, in the family's eyes Molly is associated with the group of friends where Rosie began using heroin.
Its entirely reasonable for them to worry about her associates and try to isolate her from people associated with drug use; Molly's mother tried the same thing.

Its hard to tell the difference between "isolation for your own good" and "isolation for my own purposes" from the outside.

Molly rolled 13 successes on her Intimidation roll. Thats 8 successes above Legendary.
The malk rolled 1 success on WP to resist.
Im surprised they had the mojo to drop insults even when fleeing.


Huh. I thought he was a car salesman?
MIC job in Chicago first brings to mind Boeing, whose corporate HQ is in Chicago.
Looks like the Cyberdevils Background is about to come into play again.

@DragonParadox
QUESTION
Im assuming Rosie's boyfriend(as in, not Nelson, but her actual boyfriend, who got killed by the fetches) has had his funeral?
Do we know anything about the boyfriend's family?
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Yes he died and had a funeral while you were in Cleaveland. As for his family struggling middle class, single mother nurse. You have never met her.

Good night guys, it's almost midnight for me, will answer more questions in the morning.
 
VOTE
[X] Explain that you have some books Rosie asked you to get for her, that sounds suitability responsible right? And it's not even a lie, you did get some books from Harry to show to her in addition to your notes from talking to Bob
-[X]Empathy Excellency
-[X]Make mental note to have cyberdevils look up Jared



RATIONALE
Friends try to avoid contributing to other friend's family drama unless absolutely necessary.
Rosie is our friend, and we're not abandoning her, but her being unhappy enough to take up heroin use is not necessarily her parent's fault. At least not based on the information at hand.
 
So what are we going to do if they want to look at the books and/or ask us to leave the books with them?
DragonParadox said:
Yes if you somehow roll 10+ successes and they have heart problems they have to roll stamina.
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How many more successes are needed for them to be intimidated OUT of the heart attack on grounds of being aware that we haven't given them permission to leave :p
 
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DragonParadox said:
Yes he died and had a funeral while you were in Cleaveland. As for his family struggling middle class, single mother nurse. You have never met her.

Good night guys, it's almost midnight for me, will answer more questions in the morning.
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Single mother. Ouch.
Thats another family broken. And he definitely has siblings.
Gonna have to keep them in mind post-lottery; Molly hasnt met her before, so financial arrangements can be handled anonymously.
 
I would prefer going all-in on intimidation. I have no respect or care for these two, and they have made of themselves obstacles.
 
[X] Explain that you have some books Rosie asked you to get for her, that sounds suitability responsible right? And it's not even a lie, you did get some books from Harry to show to her in addition to your notes from talking to Bob
-[X]Empathy Excellency
-[X]Make mental note to have cyberdevils look up Jared
 
Shane_357 said:
I would prefer going all-in on intimidation. I have no respect or care for these two, and they have made of themselves obstacles.
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I mostly don't feel like they are worth the essance that going all in would cost. Also no need to cause a heart attack. Even if we fail the check somehow which seems unlikely against a not heroic mortal we can still get around him in other ways.
 
Not so sure on the whole claiming to have books thing, they might decide to ask to see them.

It's also worth considering a few additional factors about this situation.

Firstly, as @uju32 points out, they do have some potentially legitimate reasons to be suspicious of Molly and her association with Rosie. For all they know she could be the person who talked their daughter into trying heroin or something.

Secondly, whatever Jared thinks Mrs. Wilson probably loves and cares for her daughter. She's hurting Rosie, but it's fairly likely that she's thinks she's being supportive and ultimately is interested in doing what she thinks is in her daughter's best interests.

Finally, we're the only person in the room with social super powers and the emotional distance to not break out the word shivs when someone touches a nerve.

While verbally smacking them around for being shitty to Rosie would be satisfying, it's worth considering that it may be more productive to try fixing the problem.

Getting them to stop hurting Rosie would be worth more than just getting them to step out of the way.


Give me a bit and I'll put something together, just to see what our options might look like.


DragonParadox said:
With that he is gone into the dark... and from the sound of many claws scratching above it is clear he had even more company than you had assumed. The usual Malk pride runs at about a score to two dozen. This sounds like there are about twice than many up there. Still you had gotten a promise out of them, wrapped in insults as it may have been, and more to the point you had made it clear just how bad things could go for them if they meddled with the Jade Dogs.
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Yeah, glad we didn't try to dance with that at a half tank of gas. Gard is in the same weight class as Holt, and she hesitated to fight twenty of these guys. Forty could have gotten unpleasant.

fictionfan said:
I have often thought that intimidate is an odd skill. Sometimes it's bluff, but other times it's actually just a warning. Sometimes resisting a intimidate check is actually bad for you.*

The irony is that in most RPGs the characters best able to do effective intimidate checks are generally the ones least able to back them up and via versa.

We just happen to be one of those happy exceptions.

*Edit I wonder if there is a charm for that somewhere. Whenever someone successfully resists an intimidation check from you they take X damage.
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It'd also be kind of fun to come at it from the other angle and homebrew a melee-> intimidation substitution charm. Something that works by the fluff of giving the target a vision of or phantom pains from what the combat result would have been if the user decided to trade word shivs for real ones.

DragonParadox said:
According to the internet ginger is good for that so you had brought some ginger flavored lollipops for her to talk about oneiromancy and the wisdom of a particular haunted skull.
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We should make these for Rosie instead of using store bought next time we visit her; super cooking problems are too good a cheat not to abuse at every opportunity.
uju32 said:
And raises questions about why this pack was so anomalously big.
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My bet is that it wasn't so much his pride as it was him and his nearest neighbors showing up together since they had a day or so to coordinate.

I don't agree on their being a noteworthy opportunity there; getting them to screw off was in the upper percentile of resolutions to that encounter.
 
A counterpoint to the 'Rosie's parents can't be that bad' camp - one of her stepfather's golfing buddies molested her, and her mother refused to believe it when she told her. They're pretty bad.

DragonParadox said:
When Rosie had been fifteen one of said 'golf buddies' had put his hands on her and he had only taken no for an answer when she had smashed a glass over his head. Some monsters are all too human. Her mother hadn't believed a word she said. Maybe that is why she'd been so eager to be with Ken from the start, at least that was something she chose even if it had ended... poorly.
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This doesn't feel like a case of unreliable narrators to me.
 
Lurker of Urk said:
A counterpoint to the 'Rosie's parents can't be that bad' camp - one of her stepfather's golfing buddies molested her, and her mother refused to believe it when she told her. They're pretty bad.



This doesn't feel like a case of unreliable narrators to me.
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That's a good point, I'd forgotten about that part of her history.

That said, being trash people doesn't mean they can't be pushed towards being better. It wouldn't even be the most impossible thing Molly had done with exalted excellency powers in the last week.

Not for their sake so much as for Rosie's; the worse they are the more they'll hurt her in one way or another, even if we smuggle her out of here tomorrow morning.

We've just got to channel Molly's inner Micheal and see if we can't pull their heads out of their asses for them.

… which is admittedly harder than I thought it'd be when I started trying to write a stunt for it earlier.
 
Can someone give me idea of what we can expect from leadership checks in battle? We have enough DC reductions that eventually if we are leading a army of darkness we should be able to roll more successes then we have dice consistently.

That being the case the Crowned with fury sig which gives 5 extra social dice might be very powerful. Assuming that tones of successes leading an army of darkness actually does anything useful.

Trying to figure out if Crowned in fury is in the running.
 
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