Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Votes tied.
Adhoc vote count started by Yzarc on Dec 28, 2022 at 11:42 AM, finished with 80 posts and 23 votes.

  • [X] Just 1 Essence, you do not want to mingle too many sorts of eldritch power in this, old Cauldron or no
    [X] 2 Essence from you and one fron Lydia, that is... proportional and if you time it right three is one of the numbers of great significance
    -[X]Molly: 1 temporary Willpower: Autosuccess
    -[X]Crown of Eyes: Focus: Cauldron contents, ladle. Aim: Optimizing safety.
    -[X]Occult Excellency: 1 mote
    -[X]Lydia: Intelligence Excellency + Mentor Background: 1 mote
    -[X]STUNT: You hesitate for a moment at the smell of ash and brine, fascinated despite yourself at how much resemblance this portion of the ritual bore to the principles of alchemy as you've been learning them. Mistress, Usum whispers a reminder, and you stop woolgathering. Extending your senses towards the magic cauldron, you focus on the ladle as it mixes the contents and look for an answer. In response, you begin to mold Essence for entry into the brew even as Usum calls out adjustments. "Ladies," you remember to warn "We are both going to glow like something out of the Old Testament, or a Japanese animation show for several minutes. Its normal. Lydia, on my mark."
    [X] 2 Essence from you and one fron Lydia, that is... proportional and if you time it right three is one of the numbers of great significance
    -[X]Molly: 1 temporary Willpower: Autosuccess
    -[X]Crown of Eyes: Focus: Cauldron contents, ladle. Aim: Optimizing safety.
    -[X]Occult Excellency: 1 mote
    -[X] Leadership excellency to inspire and motivate the coven to do their best
    -[X]Lydia: Intelligence Excellency + Mentor Background: 1 mote
    -[X]STUNT: You hesitate for a moment at the smell of ash and brine, fascinated despite yourself at how much resemblance this portion of the ritual bore to the principles of alchemy as you've been learning them. Mistress, Usum whispers a reminder, and you stop woolgathering. Extending your senses towards the magic cauldron, you focus on the ladle as it mixes the contents and look for an answer. In response, you begin to mold Essence for entry into the brew even as Usum calls out adjustments. "Ladies," you remember to warn, to all the world a reassuring picture of perfect confidence "We are both going to glow like something out of the Old Testament, or a Japanese animation show for several minutes. Its normal. Lydia, on my mark. Let's all do our best here."
    [X] 2 Essence from you and one fron Lydia, that is... proportional and if you time it right three is one of the numbers of great significance
    -[X] Use Occult Excellency
    -[X] Lydia uses Intelligence Excellency
    [X] 1 Essence from you and 1 from Lydia, that way you can both contribute
    -[x]Stunt: Drawing on your knowledge of Kakuri the Night Realm you notice a few improvements to the bad luck charm. Using your essanse you light a cold fire under the caldron. That should brew up some trouble. Not just giving bad luck, but luck with malice that makes everything feel hopeless and spiteful. Where all the world seems turned against you because it is. Every paper cuts, every tile edge stubs a toe, every drop of water causes a slip and the night does not hide them only blinds them.
    -[x]Stunt: Lydia seems to have some ideas of her own. "By the pricking of my thumb something wicked this way comes!" Lydia cackles. It isn't entirely thematic, by adding her blood to the spell Lydia managed to add a trigger that will make every dog and Crow within a football field go crazy with noise making when these wards are activated as well as directing their ire.
    -[X] Use Occult Excellency
    -[X] Lydia uses Intelligence Excellency
    [X] 2 Essence from you and one fron Lydia, that is... proportional and if you time it right three is one of the numbers of great significance
    -[X] Use Occult Excellency
    -[X] Use Crown of Eyes on the Cauldron for ways to make the power channeling through it safer
    -[X] Lydia uses Intelligence Excellency
    [X] 2 Essence from you and one fron Lydia, that is... proportional and if you time it right three is one of the numbers of great significance
 
So what are the odds any of the ordo actually know what anime is? It's be kind of funny if they gave us crap about activating shojo mode or something.

Pauline: "Well I was afraid, but now that I know you're just sailor eyes this whole thing is much less intimidating"
 
So what are the odds any of the ordo actually know what anime is? It's be kind of funny if they gave us crap about activating shojo mode or something.

Pauline: "Well I was afraid, but now that I know you're just sailor eyes this whole thing is much less intimidating"

In theory having an anima banner is not that exotic, it is the condition of your soul being too big for your body, that kind of mismatch sounds like it could happen for all sorts of reasons as far as Molly is able to intuit.
 
So what are the odds any of the ordo actually know what anime is? It's be kind of funny if they gave us crap about activating shojo mode or something.

Pauline: "Well I was afraid, but now that I know you're just sailor eyes this whole thing is much less intimidating"
Sailor Malfeas and Cure Death to the rescue! With their lovable mascot Mouse, the temple dog.

We are yet to make Lydia a transformation item. That's an oversight.
 
Too bad we don't have the full Anima from Exalted anymore.

Glowing and having some eyes around us is cool, but having the entire sky over Chicago light up with our banner would be cooler.
 
In theory having an anima banner is not that exotic, it is the condition of your soul being too big for your body, that kind of mismatch sounds like it could happen for all sorts of reasons as far as Molly is able to intuit.
That does have some interesting implications in character. I mean, it establishes that the soul has a physical size that maps to something about the body it's anchored to rather than the size/mass of a soul being something perpendicular to the properties of the physical world.
 
In theory having an anima banner is not that exotic, it is the condition of your soul being too big for your body, that kind of mismatch sounds like it could happen for all sorts of reasons as far as Molly is able to intuit.
That's... an interesting bit of knowledge to have. We should probably look those up, and maybe spend some effort disguising ourselves as one of those. Because "it's an exalt" is the "throw everything at it before it becomes too powerful" warning to powerful and old things. But if there are other beings, even if powerful ones, that have the same observable characteristics, but aren't (solaroid) exalts, we could prevent ourselves from being discovered. Let me guess - Saints' halos are a form of anima, right?
 
That's... an interesting bit of knowledge to have. We should probably look those up, and maybe spend some effort disguising ourselves as one of those. Because "it's an exalt" is the "throw everything at it before it becomes too powerful" warning to powerful and old things. But if there are other beings, even if powerful ones, that have the same observable characteristics, but aren't (solaroid) exalts, we could prevent ourselves from being discovered. Let me guess - Saints' halos are a form of anima, right?

Yes, also ancient Black Courtt vampires, certain kinds of spirit bindings that create a composite being etc... Anything that used to be mortal, retains broadly the same physical shape and even physical body while transcending he condition in some obvious way.
 
Sailor Malfeas and Cure Death to the rescue! With their lovable mascot Mouse, the temple dog.

We are yet to make Lydia a transformation item. That's an oversight.
Once she gets a hell the sailor comparison will get even stronger, even if she technically works in reverse (that is, the world is powered by her instead of the other way around).

So probably sailor fivefold courts (or maybe frozen fate?).

Maybe Daniel will get back at her for the trolling we've done by facilitating a cultural exchange between earth and her hell so that she can see it come to broadcast television in her demon empire IC. :V
 
Imagine how Lydia feels. If Molly wasn't around she would be a massively overwhelming Godblood. And she still is, but I expect that with Molly around she doesn't feel nearly so overpowered.
Probably rather relieved, actually.

Lydia's dangerous, sure.
But even without Molly around she would still be significantly outmassed by a lot of the denizens of the Dresdenverse; a lot of her native charms are optimized for dealing with ghosts and fae, and she hasnt had the time to dip outside her native charms.

I would not be generous about her chances right now if she ran solo into an incarnate demon, a prepared wizard, or a warparty of Reds right now given her current loadout.
Even a pack of malks could be serious trouble.

I mean, Corpsetaker felt bold enough to bodyjack her and keep control.
An Infernal would have ripped her limb from ectoplasmic limb for her presumption.

She didnt come storming out of the gates the way Infernal Molly did; she can absolutely become a heavy hitter, but she needs time and opportunity to grow her personal power and knowledge.
And add a couple trinkets.
What? But… she added 9 from her Excellency in the fight against Katrina. I know she did. How did that change?
I assume that her character sheet and mechanics hadnt been nailed down by then?
Im just working off what we can see on her character sheet.

You'll notice that in the latest update, when she showed up and used an Excellency on her opening, she rolled 12 dice, which is Charisma/Manipulation 3 + Empathy 3 + Excellency 5 + Stunt 1.
So thats the current state of things. One of the things we need to buy up for her.
... Do we need to have a lecture about the Laws with them? I don't want them to have their heads chopped off.
Nah.
They're clued in; Beckitt would have gotten the talk by now about the Laws of Magic and Grey Cloak choppy head.

Actually, there's a big question here that will need to be checked - if the mortal sorcery is empowered beyond its basic intent by Exalted Power, does it still corrupt the mortal sorcerer due to breaking the Laws (that only happen due to said infusion of power)? Basically, if we accumulate, I don't know 30+ successes between us and Lydia on the ill fortune ritual and engrave "Pleasing to the Ebon Dragon" seal on the apartment's door or something equally as ridiculous, with ill fortune of the attackers manifesting in "a random tear in the reality drags you into hell, never to be seen again" tier of effects, would the mortal caster of the ritual still be on the hook for Law breaking? Both politically (i.e. if they will be persecuted for it), and metaphysically (i.e. if they will suffer soul corruption for it)?
Magic does work by intent.
If your aim is non-lethal curse, supercharging it might get you superpowerful effects but it wont be deliberately lethal.

But veekie is correct that this is as much a political issue as a metaphysical one.

Dresden being the local Warden means that if he hears of it, he's not likely to reflexively jump to off with their head.
Metaphysically you should be clear with regards to a defensive ward being triggered; Dresden anchored magical landmines in his wards as of Death Masks, and upgraded them even more after Dead Beat.

So what are the odds any of the ordo actually know what anime is? It's be kind of funny if they gave us crap about activating shojo mode or something.
Pauline: "Well I was afraid, but now that I know you're just sailor eyes this whole thing is much less intimidating"
While both Abby and Anna were single in canon?
Pauline's a mom of two as of 2007. Beckitt's a mother of a daughter as well as of five years ago.

Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura, Yu Yu Hakusho, Bleach and Naruto were all Japanese animation shows that have achieved popularity and been running on children's TV between the mid-90s and 2006.
They will probably have some idea.

Even the two single ladies might have nephews and nieces.
Sailor Malfeas and Cure Death to the rescue! With their lovable mascot Mouse, the temple dog.
We are yet to make Lydia a transformation item. That's an oversight.
Gonna need the spell Benediction of the Water Dragon for that.
Either that or Exalted Crafting.
 
She didnt come storming out of the gates the way Infernal Molly did; she can absolutely become a heavy hitter, but she needs time and opportunity to grow her personal power and knowledge.
Yes her character seems less optimized. Molly started all 5s and 0s because freebe points are best used that way. Lydia's sheet looks as if she bought everything with XP. Alot of XP she is basically Omni competent by human standards despite only being 15, but she doesn't have any 5s.

Also given that the first dot in a skill only costs 2 XP which can be brought down to 1 if we have been doing activities that count as training I figured I might as well list the skills that neither Molly, Lydia or the cyberdevils have anything in.

Firearms (likely don't care)
Law
Larceny
Medicine
Performance
Survival (Likely don't care since TLF takes care of that)
 
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I mean, Corpsetaker felt bold enough to bodyjack her and keep control.
An Infernal would have ripped her limb from ectoplasmic limb for her presumption.
To be fair, this was before she took her second breath, or in the process of her taking it.

Looking at Lydia's build... Surprisingly enough, there's a classical character she suits - she's Indiana Jones, or dr. Van Helsing. She's a supernatural mystery novel investigator. Someone who will spend time in a library researching clues, before going to raid a tomb they discovered by decyphering an ancient riddle and consulting a ghost or two. In that tomb she'll fight mummies and zombies, outwit ancient evil and get out with the McGuffin.

We should have an adventure suited for Lydia's profile. Something with investigation and academics, and a murder mystery or two that we can't just crack with the Crown of Eyes because we won't know what questions to ask. Maybe visit Smith College (which I read is the most haunted higher schooling institution in the USA). Or maybe go looking for some ancient tombs.
 
Interesting take on her build.

I could see it.

She still has huge holes in the build of course, lacking in Occult foremost, but also many practical skills like driving, larency or survival.

What I intended to build her as, was ultimatly a modern teenager. A supernaturally smart one with various interests and talents, but still a teenager. (And then I added some slightly higher Brawl than she deserved because I didn't want her to be a complete non-combatant)
She will have to grow into any role she might want to take in time, be it as an adventuring academic, a hunter of restless dead as her heritage demands or any other kind of position.

She is just 15 and she will keep learning at a for mortals astounding pace. If she can survive long enough, which her friendship with the Carpenters makes more likely, she will be good at whatever role she picks.
 
We should have an adventure suited for Lydia's profile. Something with investigation and academics, and a murder mystery or two that we can't just crack with the Crown of Eyes because we won't know what questions to ask. Maybe visit Smith College (which I read is the most haunted higher schooling institution in the USA). Or maybe go looking for some ancient tombs.
If we used the Crown of eyes to find the biggest unowned treasure in the world I expect that Lydia would be to take it from there. But I don't know what to use as the focus of the question.
I could see it.



She still has huge holes in the build of course, lacking in Occult foremost, but also many practical skills like driving, larency or survival.

If we put a cyberdevil in her car she doesn't need drive. We really need to get more aggressive about getting Cyberdevils in our friends stuff.

Molly doesn't have any Larency either. So it could be useful. But if we are spending XP for Larceny I would rather Molly get it so "Theft as release" becomes useful.

TLF means that if Lydia is with Molly she shouldn't need Survival.
 
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If we put a cyberdevil in her car she doesn't need drive. We really need to get more aggressive about getting Cyberdevils in our friends stuff.
And she can have a car suumoning charm. If we make / buy and improve a small car for her, equipping it with stuff like armor, weapons, deployable cover, making it watertight, etc, that's essentially a summonable tank right there. Lydia in principle is quite suited as a summoner type combatant.
If we used the Crown of eyes to find the biggest unowned treasure in the world I expect that Lydia would be to take it from there. But I don't know what to use as the focus of the question.
Well, there's always a globe, or a worldmap. Maybe a treasure map in a museum? Yeah, probably a treasure map in a museum, or a wiki page listing treasures.

I also want to look for Atlantis using Plato's works.
Interesting take on her build.

I could see it.

She still has huge holes in the build of course, lacking in Occult foremost, but also many practical skills like driving, larency or survival.

What I intended to build her as, was ultimatly a modern teenager. A supernaturally smart one with various interests and talents, but still a teenager. (And then I added some slightly higher Brawl than she deserved because I didn't want her to be a complete non-combatant)
She will have to grow into any role she might want to take in time, be it as an adventuring academic, a hunter of restless dead as her heritage demands or any other kind of position.

She is just 15 and she will keep learning at a for mortals astounding pace. If she can survive long enough, which her friendship with the Carpenters makes more likely, she will be good at whatever role she picks.
Yeah, she could probably get better at occult to pull of the whole 'Miskatonic professor' vibe. Still, she's not bad at investigation already. Surprisingly, I think she is better suited to study under Dresden (in the art of being a noire detective) than we are.
 
Excellence of the Tireless Psychopomp (•)
The Exingent can draw on their divine Essence to fullfill its eternal duties with skill and power beyond any mortal.
System: The first time the character purchases this Charm, it may be applied to any of her Divine Attributes. At any time, the player may reflexively spend 1 Essence to add (Current Willpower) dice to all rolls using a relevant Attribute for (Essence rating + 1) turns in combat, or minutes outside of combat. This Charm can be repurchased to unlock additional Attributes, but Essence must be spent to add dice to each Attribute separately
Others have likely noted this but this is very different from Key in that it add Willpower dice. Currently that means that is worse, but if Lydia can get Willpower up to 10 then it is strictly better than Key because she will be able to add 10 dice no matter how skilled she is. Also she rebuys this per Attribute rather than skill and there are far less Attributes that skills so making every Attribute Divine is very possible. Her charms might not be as Good as Molly, but Lydia has the potential to be an around amazing skill monkey. Well as long as she still has essance. Lydia doesn't get any charm for helping her recover it.
 
And the bonus goes down if she spends temp willpower on anything. Which means that she's generally going to want to stay topped up.

But the biggest obstacle to her spamming Excellencies is her tiny Terrestial-tier essence pool, yeah. She just doesn't have the staying power of a solaroid like us.
 
Others have likely noted this but this is very different from Key in that it add Willpower dice. Currently that means that is worse, but if Lydia can get Willpower up to 10 then it is strictly better than Key because she will be able to add 10 dice no matter how skilled she is. Also she rebuys this per Attribute rather than skill and there are far less Attributes that skills so making every Attribute Divine is very possible. Her charms might not be as Good as Molly, but Lydia has the potential to be an around amazing skill monkey. Well as long as she still has essance. Lydia doesn't get any charm for helping her recover it.
Keep in mind it's current willpower, not permanent.
It gets worse as she spends WP.
 
Gonna need the spell Benediction of the Water Dragon for that.
Either that or Exalted Crafting.
There was something floated earlier about making her armor that acted like a prism under the light of her anima, which is close enough for government work.

Using Molly's potential 18-20 or so dice for crafting something mechanical we could make her a comically complicated weapon like a purse that shifts into chainsaw gauntlets* and she'd be set for a role in a gritty deconstruction of the genre.

… And incidentally the gritty deconstruction of people, but that comes with the territory.

* Possibly with matching boots that can pop chain blades out around the border of the shoe, so that she can tap her heels together and engage Mortal Kombat mode as part of her transformation sequence.
Imagine how Lydia feels. If Molly wasn't around she would be a massively overwhelming Godblood. And she still is, but I expect that with Molly around she doesn't feel nearly so overpowered.
In a way it's probably good for both of them.

Lydia is unlikely to really become an equal power to a solaroid without a lot of help and good luck**, but she can hang in the infernal peer group for most of the formative years for lack of a better term.

Having another roughly similar technical-immortal around would be grounding in the long term.

I think their respective domains will be the real interesting part.

Lydia's whole bit is related to protecting the dead and helping them move on, and even if that isn't all she is it's still a part of her nature.

So when Molly becomes a hell realm, will that be a problem? Technically it's an afterlife, but it's also a place where people can (potentially) live very similar lives to their mortal existences eternally if they so choose. It also involves creating a huge number of new souls outright, and possibly getting plugged into whatever passes for the river of souls in the Dresden Files.

That's pretty heavy stuff, and it could become a point of contention between them depending on how things go.

**As an aside, while I'd normally find functionality upgrading the type of exalt or otherwise giving them super buffs annoying there's a (very) long term idea I want to float on the topic of Lydia's advancement.

Her father called her a princess in exile in his last conversation with her before the ritual. Presumably that means his territory exists in some form rather than being wholly subsumed by Winter.

So what if we fixed the exile part of that to justify her high level advancement rather than doing something crazy like trying to dredge up a sidereal shard?

She goes from Princess-in-exile to Queen of Annwn and then gets something either directly or through access to the resources of an afterlife to make her more relevant once we're both at essence 4-5 and are back filling our charm sets.

A sufficiently epic quest to trick, trade, or conquer what remains of her father's realm (probably the first two because Winter) culminating in her reaching towards divinity as a modern age mirror of Molly's ascension towards the primordials could be a lot of fun and justify significant improvements without feeling like a cop out.
Others have likely noted this but this is very different from Key in that it add Willpower dice. Currently that means that is worse, but if Lydia can get Willpower up to 10 then it is strictly better than Key because she will be able to add 10 dice no matter how skilled she is. Also she rebuys this per Attribute rather than skill and there are far less Attributes that skills so making every Attribute Divine is very possible. Her charms might not be as Good as Molly, but Lydia has the potential to be an around amazing skill monkey. Well as long as she still has essance. Lydia doesn't get any charm for helping her recover it.
It does make her willpower economy significantly more important though.

Forcing her to spend will in social combat first would weaken her considerably since it directly reduces her dice pool. Hell, just spamming social attacks during combat that she needs to spend willpower to ignore could rapidly drain her to near human skill levels unless she retreats or ends it quickly.
 
Forcing her to spend will in social combat first would weaken her considerably since it directly reduces her dice pool. Hell, just spamming social attacks during combat that she needs to spend willpower to ignore could rapidly drain her to near human skill levels unless she retreats or ends it quickly.
That doesn't work, at least not in Exalted.

"Join Battle" is considered the ultimate social defence for a reason.
 
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