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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Goldfish said:
I thought there were quite a few Merits we could grant that confer varying degrees of supernatural power/ability?
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I thought the ruling we got for that was that you had to be a little supernatural to get supernatural stuff, and/or that supernatural people could get more out of it.

Like a life extension wish making a wizard outright ageless but being way less effective on a vanilla mortal where it works at all. Though I could be misremembering that.

Assuming I'm roughly correct, I think the real benefit would be giving them buffs that aren't explicitly about supernatural power. Like legendary attributes or iron will (which gives 3 extra dice to resist manipulation and the ability to shake off vampiric mind control with one temp willpower).

Being like Murphy is still impressive, even if it doesn't stack up to being a wizard. If they're willing to pass up being human three wishes isn't a bad deal. Slower than becoming fomori, but also less painful and with fewer drawbacks.

Yog said:
We are at a point, where we are starting to unintentionally roll legendary successes. Until we develop some charm that lets us limit our successes (something with a mechanic of "set the maximum amount of successes, if you exceed them, the excess goes into bank / burns away / gives you essence / produce some other effect") so we can safely interact with mortals without changing their whole view on life with casual jokes, we need to have someone around that'll be able to tell us "Molly, you are causing SAN damage. Stop it".
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Or we make it a goal to shape our behavior so as not to be alarming.

Successes go towards what you're trying to do, and Molly isn't yet moderating that. If he goal is "(verbally) cut down scrub" she should get different results than she would for "(verbally) cut down scrub without seeming unusual or causing lasting harm".
 
Yog said:
Important question that has been talked about, but not asked before: do only mortal humans count? Could we, for example, teach elephants? Chimps? Dolphins? Even less intelligent animals (like @uju32 said, our teaching charm can easily make ninja turtles)? I won't ask about plants, because that's cheese (unless at least some fomori making charm isn't? I mean, it would be making hell dryads, basically), but animals, I think, is a valid question, especially with Lydia having a lot of familiar mechanics.
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Animal fomori are a thing in WoD lore so yeah you can make those.
 
[X] Find a private place and just show Izzy and Alec your Crown, time to pull back the veil. A little knowledge is more dangerous than one at all
 
Yog said:
There's an important reason to tell our friends. We need someone who can tell us "Molly, I am your friend, and your infernal majesty is starting to leak out and scar the poor mortals. Reign it in". People who are Molly's social peers in the mortal world, who can see how she changes, and provide feedback to Molly honestly. Someone, who is not supernatural.
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Huh. Yeah, that scans -- and it's worth pointing out, again, that the Dresden Files universe is not one where mortals are safer if they don't know anything, because the things that go bump in the night primarily eat random mortals who don't know to avoid the big local threats.

[X] Yog
 
Iny said:
Huh. Yeah, that scans -- and it's worth pointing out, again, that the Dresden Files universe is not one where mortals are safer if they don't know anything, because the things that go bump in the night primarily eat random mortals who don't know to avoid the big local threats.

[X] Yog
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I don't really buy it. For one thing, Molly has her family for this. Charity's willpower memes aside, Micheal is the best person in the world for the role of going "remember thou art mortal" when Molly gets going too hard.

For another, it demands a pretty steep price for her friends. Ignorance can be dangerous, but I don't think it's nearly as threatening as knowing just enough to get in trouble but not enough to get out again. I'm inclined to believe that Molly would see it that way as well, since it's functionally what happened to her.

Telling them right now carries the risk of significant complications, and gives us very few ways to actually mitigate them.

It also puts some hefty pressure on what are effectively random kids.

If we're going to tell them at all it'd make more sense to me if we built an off ramp first so they don't have to stew in their helplessness while we juggle priorities.

I mean, what are they supposed to do or think about this if we say something now. "Whelp, looks like I'm the bottom of the food chain. Hope my acting skills are good enough to avoid reacting to the signs of a nearby predator and inadvertently marking myself as interesting" .

Cause they're rolling babby's first dice pool; I'm skeptical of their ability to do anything with the knowledge we give them. I mean, remember Rosie rocking her what 2 willpower score? That's the league we're talking about here.

About the only benefit is that they'd know to call us if they were in trouble, but our response time isn't exactly great so I'm not convinced that balances anything out.

[X] Deflect, tell them nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could put them in danger
 
BronzeTongue said:
Or we make it a goal to shape our behavior so as not to be alarming.

Successes go towards what you're trying to do, and Molly isn't yet moderating that. If he goal is "(verbally) cut down scrub" she should get different results than she would for "(verbally) cut down scrub without seeming unusual or causing lasting harm".
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Basically when at school Molly is going to have to practice feeling goodwill towards her fellow man trying her best to follow in Jesus's example*.

*Jesus's example as the better Christians think of it not as described in the Bible**.

**Really I should have said her Dad's example. Might even help her Regen willpower from fulfilling that intimacy.
 
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fictionfan said:
Basically when at school Molly is going to have to practice feeling goodwill towards her fellow man trying her best to follow in Jesus's example*.

*Jesus's example as the better Christians think of it not as described in the Bible.
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Yeah, though I don't think she has to passively accept stuff, or be unfailingly kind. Just be aware of her abilities and aim to for very specific things instead of general ones.

That way her over success would be channeled to selling the illusion of normalcy rather than winning harder.

Leaning into her faith would be a good way to channel that IC, though I'd probably lens it through proverbs instead if stunting for it: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits."

And therefore, implicitly, pay attention to what exactly you're using it to do.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Yeah, though I don't think she has to passively accept stuff, or be unfailingly kind. Just be aware of her abilities and aim to for very specific things instead of general ones.

That way her over success would be channeled to selling the illusion of normalcy rather than winning harder.

Leaning into her faith would be a good way to channel that IC, though I'd probably lens it through proverbs instead if stunting for it: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits."

And therefore, implicitly, pay attention to what exactly you're using it to do.
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I don't care about Molly acting normal, but in cases like this it might be better if she is aiming for impromptu therapy rather than cutting down scrubs. This is definitely a place where we can afford conceptually goodwill towards those that would be our enemies. Otherwise there isn't much point in us being in this school.
 
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[X] Find a private place and just show Izzy and Alec your Crown, time to pull back the veil. A little knowledge is more dangerous than one at all

[x] Find a private place and just show Izzy and Alec your Crown, time to pull back the veil. A little knowledge is more dangerous than none at all
-[X] Empathy excellency not to frighten them
-[X] STUNT: For a moment, you hesitate - aa desire to laugh it off, to lead them away from the truth with skill beyond their mortal ken swelling up to you. Then you remember your own advice to Maria. It seems it's time to prove you are not a hypocrite: "You are surprisingly much closer to the truth than you realize. Ok, this will need to be show-and-tell. After classes, we'll have to find a quiet unocuppied classroom, and I'll totally shatter your mind. Hopefully, not literally."

There might be an argument that pulling back the curtain puts them in danger, but I think that being near Molly is danger enough. If they are going to possibly one day be in the line of fire, they at least deserve to know why.

Also, it's more likely to actually preserve Molly's friendships if they know why she is sometimes out of contact. This is after all why we went back to school, right!
 
[X] Write-in: "Worse, parental supervision. Mom got my money's locked down tight so I'm trying something unique for my teenage rebellion. I'm going to start a business."

Nah, this is better.
 
[X] Deflect, tell them nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could put them in danger

[X] Write-in: "Worse, parental supervision. Mom got my money's locked down tight so I'm trying something unique for my teenage rebellion. I'm going to start a business."

Well, I tried coming up with better write in than my first one. After a few hours my mind just went blank. So I guess I'll add the winning vote that doesn't go full disclosure.
 
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fictionfan said:
Actually her willpower was unusual low from her addiction and mind control experience. Scrub kid we just cut down had 4 willpower. Unless he had an intimacy he was using.
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Fair point, though I wouldn't call 4 that impressive either. Especially since we're talking people who probably don't have a heavy stat block, set of traits, or backgrounds to lean on.

If I understand the system correctly, then even one three dot skill anywhere would be a surprise for vanilla high schoolers, and they probably don't have something like that in combat or social stuff.

Random people off the street would be more mechanically survivable than anyone other than Molly in that scene.

Which is the root of my concern.

If I understand it correctly, they're basically not going to win contested rolls without a lot of luck on their side.

Izzy, say, recognizing a white court vamp in a food court and failing the rolls to conceal that fact could easily be the last mistake she makes.

fictionfan said:
I don't care about Molly acting normal, but in cases like this it might be better if she is aiming for impromptu therapy rather than cutting down scrubs. This is definitely a place where we can afford conceptually goodwill towards those that would be our enemies. Otherwise there isn't much point in us being in this school.
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Eh. I'd like to help where we can, but I'd prioritize social stealth most of the time for a wide variety of reasons.

A major one being that with Molly's history I'm twitchy about stuff that looks like long term campaigns to change people.

It's not the same as what she was doing in a lot of fundamental ways, but I do think it's leaning into the same sort of bad habits that ended in mind control.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Eh. I'd like to help where we can, but I'd prioritize social stealth most of the time for a wide variety of reasons.

A major one being that with Molly's history I'm twitchy about stuff that looks like long term campaigns to change people.

It's not the same as what she was doing in a lot of fundamental ways, but I do think it's leaning into the same sort of bad habits that ended in mind control.
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I don't feel like hiding our light under a bushel. It's skill not any sort of unnatural mental influence and we have learned our lesson about aiming for good outcomes when we live in a world of cardboard.
 
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We are a high Empathy Infernal it is going to be fairly common for us to know our enemies better than they know themselves. Of course that is mostly because our enemies are not the sort to indulge in introspection.

Name of the next charm in the Hell of the 3rd act breakdown; "We aren't so different you and I"
 
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Great quest!
Had a very enjoyable time catching up.

Now on to the vote:
Molly is an Exalted. An important thing about the Exalted is that they were always meant to be generals, leaders, and not to act alone.
Here we have Molly's friends, who could be better candidates to include in whatever Molly/the questers will be building in the future.

[x] Yog
 
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