Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Real question I guess would be what generation Thomas is going to be modeled as. I would guess a fairly low one considering his pedigree and that he is generally shown as naturally gifted rather then someone that has worked hard to improve his vampire powers.

If we say the White king was 4th generation as head of the most powerful white court clan that would make Thomas 5th. Which would be a max blood pool of 40 and able to spend 8 per turn.
 
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That doesn't make sense the me; the theme shifts mostly seem to be in how they look than in their fundamental function.
I meant this part:
Those who exist on a primarily mag-
got diet become creatures of darkness after (Stamina
rating) weeks, and may display subtle changes such as
growing pale or soft-skinned over time; or may man-
ifest features befitting the Infernal's personal Hell, if
she has one. The Infernal's social actions against such
beings reduce their difficulty by three.
 
That would be aesthetic change. So after we get the our personal hell the maggots become fast food and instead of becoming pale or soft skinned those that eat it grow anime hair colors, piercings or maybe a tattoo.

If our hell is your 5 fold court idea I expect that human looking people would start looking like the humans in the court.
 
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Mana Maggot Plague becomes Mana Marshmallow Party!
Well, we prolly couldn't alter them into something non-biological, but it could be, idk, mushrooms. Or crab. Or hell shrimp.

Taste prolly could be altered, too.
Effects on those who eat it
We probably could make people who it them go blue and snake'y or something instead of getting pale and worm'y, but that's prolly as far as it goes without additional charms.
 
Real question I guess would be what generation Thomas is going to be modeled as. I would guess a fairly low one considering his pedigree and that he he general shown as naturally gifted rather then someone that has worked hard to improve his vampire powers.

If we say the White king was 4th generation as head of the most powerful white court clan that would make Thomas 5th. Which would be a max blood pool of 40 and able to spend 8 per turn.
That seems like a mechanic tied too closely to WoD lore; not sure how to exactly mess with the details to fit the DF, but I think they'd have special rules that make them stronger or weaker than a generation label implies.

Stuff like how white vamps can't use their power for mental boosts.
 
Yeah, we are using oWoD kindred because they actually do map to DF vamps reasonably well and it is an already prepared extensive system, but Whamps aren't actually oWoD Kindred.
 
I would not use the Generation in the usual sense.

Power seems more dependant on a mix of age and talent in Dresden Vampires, not in bloodline alone.
So I would look at the powerleve a vamp is supposed to have and model the generation after that, rather than working from the other side and deciding on a fixed generation and then fitting that into the character.
 
I would not use the Generation in the usual sense.

Power seems more dependant on a mix of age and talent in Dresden Vampires, not in bloodline alone.
So I would look at the powerleve a vamp is supposed to have and model the generation after that, rather than working from the other side and deciding on a fixed generation and then fitting that into the character.
Just saying if you put Thomas as someone with low generation, but no disciplines it generally matches his in story feats as well as explaining inconstancy in his power by saying he is starving a lot of the time.
Hellscry Chakra (maybe)
Not maybe. I put that at lower priority then everything else I mentioned before we got all things betray now we need it even less. 8 Xp to be able to detect CODs when we already do that fairly reliably and our empathy is already good enough to just about read their minds. Seems like just throwing away XP.
 
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I've been thinking about Bella's interlude and I think that her primary motivation is that she want's to be someone who matters. She sought out her current mentor because he was a big scary elder vamp, and her expectation was that she'd get rejected but that she'd get cred for having tried. When Molly interrupted her feeding and stopped them from killing Mrs. Greene, her first objection was "isn't she an enemy of the court?" It looks to me that she wanted her reaping to be meaningful, in the sense that it had a broader impact on her political faction.

I think if we want to keep Bella as a minion, and to keep her happy, we will need to address this need in her. We can try to encourage her to find more "mortal" sources of value; such as friends, charity, love, etc. Molly could also take her on her quests, which would let Bella apply her supernatural abilities in a hands-on fashion and also show her that she can make the world a better place regardless of what she was born as.

My preference is option 2, because Molly is herself having a hard time connecting to her purely mundane friends. Trying to guide a baby vampire to emotional stability is not really within her area of expertise right now. Plus we are accumulating a good squad of magical girls: Magical Girl Verdant Inferno, Magical Girl Sepulchral Silence, and Magical Girl Shining Despair. Together they fight super crime and have sleepovers.

On a semi-related note, how do wampires effect the emotion they are eating? For example, when a Raithe feeds on a person, does that person get hornier as their life drains away, or does the wampire have to keep the victim in a state of lust through other means as they consume the emotion? If it's the second situation, then a Skavis wampire would ironically make for a good therapist. They know what causes despair and could presumably help people manage that. Plus when people come in while in crisis, they just nom on that despair, leaving the patient feeling exhausted but emotionally stable. People would pay for that.
 
Not maybe. I put that at lower priority then everything else I mentioned before we got all things betray now we need it even less. 8 Xp to be able to detect CODs when we already do that fairly reliably and our empathy is already good enough to just about read their minds. Seems like just throwing away XP.
Well, personally, Essence Dissenting Stare in combination with RVD is way more interesting to me, as far as sensory charms go, but Hellscry chakra could be useful in finding those possessed by Nemesis, if nothing else.

In general, I am most interested in RVD, and Alchemy 2. Prince of Ruin Attitude, Naked Wicked Souls, Technology excellency and a number of other charms are attractive, but aren't a priority.
 
Essence Dissenting Stare
I can't find that one and it isn't ring a bell. Is that in the download?
As for Naked wicked souls. I really like the idea especially since it only costs 3 XP. Also now that we have all things betray we should not have a problem passing Perception + Empathy against a difficulty of the target's (Wits + Subterfuge). Only thing I don't like about it is that it costs any essence to use which means it has to compete with all other things we might want to use essence for.

Technology excellency doesn't seem as important now that we are able to put together a more proper workshop.

I love prince of Ruin. I can see us finding use for it every scene if we try.
 
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I can't find that one and it isn't ring a bell. Is that in the download?
Aplogies, Essence-Dissecting Stare (3 dots):
The Infernal's stare rips away the pretenses of pro-
saic reality, allowing her to see through to the truth of
the cosmos.
System: Roll Perception + Occult against difficulty
7. Success allows the character to see the aura of power
emanating from Dragon Nests. These appear as rising
auras of Essence, visible from up to (Essence rating)
miles away. Spending 1 Willpower permits the Infernal
to attune her senses to the vibrations of another realm
of existence for a scene, seeing through the Gauntlet or
Shroud and into the Penumbra or Shadowlands, or to
behold reality's chimerical aspect.
Technology excellency doesn't seem as important now that we are able to put together a more proper workshop.
It's needed / important / useful for design stages. Craft is for making stuff. Technology, as I understand it, is for designing advanced technological stuff. If we want to make the most out of the Last Station, we might want it.
 
I hope people who voted for social resolution are satisfied with your new minion. I fully understand how upbringing and social circle influence a person, but does it excuse them? I don't think so.
No you dont. You really, really dont.

Gotta love super-perception.

As an infernal who's pet projects are all about trying to lift people out of the darkness, we'll continue encountering the occasions where we discovered that seemingly innocent minion X did something super-fucked up. I kind of expected Jade dogs to be the first "oh, wait, these aren't actually good people" incident, but somehow we avoided focusing on the fact that they must have eaten a bunch of people.
^^^
I doubt they ran down and ate people, just because of how dangerous it would have been for a pack of ghouls with no patron to try that in a major city. And the majority of members are young enough outcasts from human society that actively hunting people probably triggers taboos.

But I certainly wouldnt be surprised if human carrion was just another source of meat on the menu if found.
And the old ghouls who used to work for Bianca almost certainly ate human meat as part of the old Red Court base's means of disposing of inconvenient bodies.

There is great difference between bunch of supernatural predators that live in the Undertown and a willing member of organization that aims to infiltrate institutions of society to create farms and hunting grounds. As there is difference between mugger and those who run a human trafficking operation. Do ghouls have a choice to abstain from their Hunger in Dresden files? The White Court vampires do, and it is not Inari Raith situation, our new friend knows what she was going to do.
No there isnt.
Else we would be beating down Marcone's door right now to stab him and everyone in his organization to death.

Do you understand that almost every crime (we are not talking about criminals who are mentally ill) happens because of economical and cultural reasons? Does indoctrination really absolve a person from guilt, if their will is not impaired by physical or psychological violence?
I invite you to ponder the problem of 1970s Cambodia. Or 1990s Sierra Leone.
Or post-apartheid South Africa.

I still think we should have killed the elder. Whats the fuck the point of being a heroes if we let fucking human trafficking fucks just ply their trade. Do i need to repeat the pithy line about evil winning when a good (wo)man does nothing. We are doinh nothing right now.
There are pragmatic and ethical reasons why this should never have been on the table.
The smart thing, a lot of the time is to know when to do nothing.
They've been mentioned at length at this point. Often by me.


I know about exploitation and alienation, but does it mean that modern people from West cannot persecute literal murderers because their lifestyle was based on exploitation of other nations? The thesis seems absurd. And our new friend lives in Chicago, you know. Every criminal, even privileged ones have economical and cultural reasons for their behaviour, does it mean that they do not bear responsibility?
You really dont want to go there.

I mean, by the Seven Laws of the setting, Molly was due to have her head cut off for mind-bending two of her friends.
Sure, she had good reasons, but the law is the law right?
Her ducking that sentence is largely a political determination, not because she was thought not to be likely to reoffend.

In that vein, Dresden killed a man with magic at 16.
Sure it was self defense/defense of others, but the law is the law, right?
His grandfather pulled strings to keep him alive.


Judge not, so you be not judged.
As a kid from a devout Catholic home who went to many, many years of Sunday School, with a parent and priest who actually walk the walk, that message isnt actually new to Molly. Neither is the concept of redemption.

And it has particular personal resonance for the girl who injured her best friend and drove her ex at least temporarily insane by sticking magical fingers in their noggins. Good intentions, sure, but you know what the route to hell is paved with.


Does anyone think discussing the subject with Greene may open ourselves or our minions to legal risk?
No. She has no witnesses as to the content of our discussion.

I don't know if the slang is universal, but I know a Molly as a Molotov Cocktail, so that nickname is taken.
Molly is also slang for the illicit drug ecstasy.



More broadly, I think its worth a general reminder that this setting has a lot more nuance than a lot of players appear to have noticed or give it credit for. Sure there are apparent absolute evils, like the Outsiders who want to destroy Reality, and apparent absolute goods like the angels and their boss.

Everyone else is shades of gray.

The fae defend the Outer Gates and keep the Outsiders outside. The Whampires are a core part of the Oblivion War, and their burning a favor for a medevac is why Molly survived Changes in canon. Marcone's mafia keeps lesser organized supernatural predators out of Chicago. Mavra the Black Court vampire gave Dresden a headstart on preventing Cowl et al from murdering hundreds of thousands of people and destroying the White Council in Dead Beat.



There's a reason that the Knights of the Cross always offer forgiveness, and a chance to stop whatever behavior drew their attention
Even to Denarians. Especially to Denarians; Quintus Cassius, after a thousand plus years of murder and mayhem, notably got to walk away by giving up his Coin, even though his insincerity was seemingly obvious.

He only died because he insisted on coming back.

■■■
I mean, to go through some random names:
===
Ebenezar McCoy, Senior Council and Blackstaff, is by his own testimony, responsible for the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.
That killed between 36,000(official death toll) and 120,000(unofficial estimate) people.
That's direct deaths, not counting knockon effects on agricultural harvests and food availability.

The current Blackstaff has killed more human beings than most vampires.

===
Sanya Ivanovich, Knight of the Cross and wielder of the Sword Esperacchius, was a Denarian. Willing, not by mistake.
He was recruited at the age of 16, and he was in the life for Five. Years.
He was the boyfriend of Lartessa's 2IC. His Fallen was Magog.

His personal bodycount in that period probably rivals or exceeds some old vampires just in the number of dead, because Magog was characterized as a bloodyhanded brute, even for a Fallen.
And his recruiter was deliberately grooming him to desensitize him.

The archangel Michael personally delivered Esperacchius to him a couple days after he quit.

===
Helen Beckitt, current member of the Ordo Lebes, along with her husband were the financial backers and magical assistants for the black magic sorcerer Victor Sells in Storm Front.

They bankrolled the mass production of the occult drug Three Eye which was used to flood the streets of Chicago during that period, fuelling a crime wave, and destroying the lives and sanities of people who used a drug that opened your Sight as a hallucinogen. She assisted Sells in his occult murder of at least three people.

Her actions got people killed, and ruined lives in new and interesting ways. Because she wanted revenge on Marcone.
Today she's a brothel madam health club manager, trying to keep her girls alive and healthy.

====
Odin was, well, Odin. He trained the Merlin, and allegedly taught the Scandis how to resist a racist, genocidal faction of Yetis.
His pantheon used to help defend the Outer Gates. Today he's Santa Claus, and an advocate of human independence.
He's helped Dresden seemingly unprompted.

But he is still Odin One Eye. A cursory look at the stories in his mythology will remind you of the oceans of blood he has spilled or caused to have spilled when he ran the Norse pantheon, and even today he hires out valkyries to people like a Chicago crime lord and the Queen of the White Court.

===
There are ongoing themes of unintended consequences and redemption running through much of the series.
You can just tell that Butcher is a Lord of the Rings fan, just based on the number of times that someone who is to all intents and purposes a hostile turns out to be critical in foiling some plot by something worse.


Basically, shit is complex. By authorial design.
Engaging with the themes of the setting requires nuance. Not reflexive homicide based on what someone may or may not have done before you met them.
 
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VOTE
[X] Question Agent Greene to get her side of the story


We do best in face to face interrogation because our Social is stronk.
And we have around 8/12 Essence left IIRC.
There's no reason not to take advantage of it.

Commentary on the update later.
 
There are ongoing themes of unintended consequences and redemption running through much of the series.
And Infernal Molly is a redemption machine. I would like to say that she is better at it then Solars but they are likely better at redemption using mechanic with their ungodly huge dice pools and DC reductions on social checks.

However favor wise and thematically Infernals are the best at prompting redemption arcs.

We are going to follow the example of Jesus so much that Jesus will look like a second rater.
 
Basically, shit is complex.
I don't disagree with you precisely, but I also don't think we should let this deter us from acting.

The situation is complicated; but that just means our response itself should be nuanced, not that we shouldn't have one at all.

A national scale slaving operation that is backed up by the supernatural muscle of the white court is not equivalent to most of your examples, and it's not the sort of thing Molly would shrug off after looking it in the eye.

Purging the court or something would be crazy, but attacking operations we don't like because screw those guys is business as normal for the supernatural.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Goldfish on Jan 25, 2023 at 8:49 PM, finished with 108 posts and 6 votes.

  • [X] Question Agent Greene to get her side of the story
    [X] Question Agent Greene to get her side of the story
    -[X] Have the cyberdevil in Sarah's computer transfer the data it saved to Clippy, without restoring Sarah's access to it.
 
[X] Question Agent Greene to get her side of the story
-[X] Have the cyberdevil in Sarah's computer transfer the data it saved to Clippy, without restoring Sarah's access to it.

I feel like both votes are the same thing since I don't think that those not doing the subvote are in any way against us having the blackmail materials. They are just against adding stuff to votes that should happen by default. But just in case.
There are ongoing themes of unintended consequences and redemption running through much of the series.

You can just tell that Butcher is a Lord of the Rings fan, just based on the number of times that someone who is to all intents and purposes a hostile turns out to be critical in foiling some plot by something worse.

This is a very good reason to spread knowledge of Mercy in Servitude as far and wide as we can. We want to make redemption as smooth and easy a process as possible.
 
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