Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

1)Deter us from acting where necessary? No.
Being sure of what the effects of our actions are before acting? Yes. Especially when there is no time pressure. Im not advocating running across actual slaves and kidnappings and turning a blind eye. Or walking away from a murder.

And yes, shutting down operations we dont like/approve of is par for the course.
That's fair, and essentially what I want to do. My impression has been that this is much larger than you're making it out to be, and much darker than you're implying though.
Most of the people being used this way are in some way beholden to their 'benefactors', whether they are in the country illegally or had some other reason to leave their old lives behind. Hooks behind hooks....
I won't quibble over the definition of slavery here, because that's a derail we probably don't want to get into. I will say that compelling people into sex work is screwed up, and that the way it's being backed here makes it incredibly difficult for mundane authorities to manage.

My (probably somewhat unrealistic) hope is that the library is run by competent people interested in protecting mortals, with the subtly to oppose this sort of thing, but lacking in the power to really make it sting for the vampire courts.

If that's the case we can hand the evidence off to them and they can coordinate law enforcement in a way that won't instantly turn into a shit show*. Once we have RVD we could break tricky hard points for them to fill in for their weak point.

I don't expect to be able to roll the whole thing up, because the white court isn't exactly a pushover, but we could help a lot of people who are being victimized. If we're clever about it we could even push them towards being less awful.

In any operation some triage is necessary, and not all white court establishments will be run the same way. If there are people running on recruitment by way of offering piles of money then they go on the bottom of the list. The guys doing things like smuggling people into the country and using their immigration status to keep them trapped go towards the top.

Even if the library can't help we can still do something, if in a less effective way.

We probably can't stop them from being assholes regardless, but we can make being a huge one more dangerous and less profitable.

* Looking at you Daedalus.
My short response is that they weren't very absolute if they got overthrown, now were they? ;)

For a long response, I don't know what the QM has planned, so the following is highly speculative, and I might even advise the QM that maybe this is one of those topics we shouldn't poke too much because a four-way crossover between Exalted, WoD, Dresden Files, and reality is likely to result in weird edge cases and contradictory setting facts. Focus more on punching vampire face, less on cosmology. :D

With that caveat in mind...

Christianity is committed to worshiping the absolute good.
Some other religions have ancestor-worship, sun-worship, pantheons of small gods and personal patrons, or other kinds of finitude that can "play nice" with crossovers.
But the core Christian creeds, the community of saints, the catechism that Molly has as a Catholic, these things are about the absolute good Himself (notwithstanding a few fringe heretics). He who has made all things; He who will judge all things; He who is the final authority on what good and evil are. If you disagree with Him, you are wrong.

A lot of people have objections to this, ranging from schismatic quibbles to complete disbelief, and IRL we mostly have an uneasy truce over it. But it's hard to check cosmological facts one way or the other.

Exalted introduces weird superpowers for checking cosmology directly, like the Crown of Eyes that we've been politely asked not to use on the White God. :whistle: If it's discovered through cosmology-checking superpowers that the White God of this setting is not the absolute good but merely a Primordial or similar very-big mostly-good, then that implies Christianity is false and all Christians should cease worshipping the White God. Your interpretation of Exalted themes seems sharply at odds with my interpretation of Dresden Files themes, then.
You make some interesting points here, though I don't totally agree with them.

It's worth noting that in the Dresden Files the Outside isn't part of creation, and the white gods policies towards them are very different than he has towards anyone else. Denarians get the whole redemption thing, and the knights only kill as a last resort.

Outsiders don't even get a warning; the knights don't try to hunt them, but when it does come up they universally oppose whatever they're up to and make with the stabbing.

On the religious element; I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest that learning the white god is anything less than an absolute is grounds for dissolving the faith.

To start, at a certain level of this sort of system 'absolute' becomes a matter of perspective.

To suggest one possible scenario, it could be the case that the white god is a primordial that emerged after the fall of creation and made a new version inspired by it. The whole thing wasn't his original idea, but he did produce it himself and presides over it as judge.

That would allow for everything he's claimed to be true, but also incomplete, and therefore the catechism to be incorrect because of a lack of human understanding.

Which is something of a recurring theme in Christian thought: knowing the mind of god is impossible, and people get it wrong all the time.

Which is where people would probably go with it IC if they knew.
 
We're not at the point where we can reasonably use the information to make a real impact on White Court power brokering operations. Reasonably being the keyword here. We need more power of our own before we try to play those cards, not to mention the resources to weather the shitstorm we would probably be kicking up by doing it.

It's not just the White Court that would have a vested interest in keeping a lid on this, but a great many wealthy and powerful mundane assholes.

Also, we need to take into account the stabilizing influence the White Court has on the supernatural community. They're hardly Winter when it comes to enforcing some degree of order, but they fill a niche, they fill it very well, and they've done so for a very long time. Damaging their operations might be a short term win for us, but too much damage could weaken them to the point where other factions can shoehorn themselves into areas they haven't been able to exploit previously. The Reds would happily taken over whatever roles they could snatch from the Whites, and they wouldn't do it half so cleanly or quietly.

If we use the evidence to target the White Court at all, it should only be the worst abusers, the most exploitive of those who prey on mortals. Better to quietly target the mortal side of the equation, the politicians, CEOs, etc. It's easier to anonymously ruin them without repercussions, at least if we're careful not to make direct use of the evidence Sarah gathered in a way that tips the Whites off to our interference.
 
To suggest one possible scenario, it could be the case that the white god is a primordial that emerged after the fall of creation and made a new version inspired by it. The whole thing wasn't his original idea, but he did produce it himself and presides over it as judge.
White God makes a terrifying amount of sense as a devil tiger. A virtuous 10+ essence post-Infernal whose heretical charms are centered around Free Will, and Compassion. Someone who indeed surpasses the previous generation of Primordials.
 
Changing Essence rules mid-quest does not seem like a good idea, more likely to be confusing then anything. Wholly new things I would be more game to integrate
Not that much though. We have only spent 8 + 16xp on Essence and our total xp is 12xp + 18xp + 30xp + 27xp +23xp = 110xp.

I am mainly asking because Holden himself put it best.

But I got to be honest: Essence progression fucking sucks. In this game, I did it the way EX1 and EX2 did it: you save up a bunch of XP, and you cash it in to raise your Essence rating. I did it that way because it's the most similar to raising power stats like Arete or Glamour in other WoD
games. But I did it knowing it was a subpar piece of game design, and that's always bothered me. I don't think banking XP for session after session after session is fun. I think the payoff for finally cashing it in is even lower than it was in EX1 or EX2, since your Charms aren't generally gated off behind Essence benchmarks. I think it's congruent with the larger goals of the rest of the game's design ethos... but I don't love it.

So, fuck it, here's a better set of rules. They're optional: I make that disclaimer so I can still have my cake (I put in stuff that felt like authentic 90s-2000s rules design) and eat it too (I gave you a better alternative). Use them if you would rather have fun Essence progression that feels good rather than artistically consistent Essence progression. Combine with the new anima banner rules, and you will probably have a better time.

Holden himself flat out considers the update a better and more importantly, a more fun alternative that does not require us spending xp to unlock more things to spend xp on.

Even otherwise, the disruption is minimal. Only a handful of charms are locked behind Essence requirements and it makes gameplay much, MUCH easier if we do not need to spend a ton of xp on raising a dot of essence. It also makes thematic sense for essence to raise as you buy more charms, especially for an Infernal.

If you are worried about balance, there is a very easy way to solve this. Say this is implemented and we immediately qualify for E5.

Rather than just jump to E5 we wait to the next xp spending turn and instead go up one Essence automatically. So E2 to E3. Then in the next xp spending turn we go E3 to E4 and after that E4 to E5.

So we do not jump multiple Essence ratings in one go and @DragonParadox can keep things balanced. If you are worried about the 8+16 xp already spent on Essence, just consider it non-refundable at this point and move on.

As I said, I am mainly asking because the whole sink a ton of xp to hit E5 only for not much to happen mechanically is painful.
 
Changing Essence rules mid-quest does not seem like a good idea, more likely to be confusing then anything. Wholly new things I would be more game to integrate
I think it would be possible to be a vote to see what people want.

But you should definitely increase the amount of XP needed for each level. Like 100 for essence three and 200 for essence 4.


Because you give way to much exp if we use a new system.
 
I think it would be possible to be a vote to see what people want.

But you should definitely increase the amount of XP needed for each level. Like 100 for essence three and 200 for essence 4.


Because you give way to much exp if we use a new system.
We can use the 3E system.

Essence Rating - Experience Points needed
Essence 2 - 50 experience points
Essence 3 - 100 experience points
Essence 4 - 200 experience points
Essence 5 - 300 experience points

This does scale with the xp we get.
 
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Not that much though. We have only spent 8 + 16xp on Essence and our total xp is 12xp + 18xp + 30xp + 27xp +23xp = 110xp.

I am mainly asking because Holden himself put it best.



Holden himself flat out considers the update a better and more importantly, a more fun alternative that does not require us spending xp to unlock more things to spend xp on.

Even otherwise, the disruption is minimal. Only a handful of charms are locked behind Essence requirements and it makes gameplay much, MUCH easier if we do not need to spend a ton of xp on raising a dot of essence. It also makes thematic sense for essence to raise as you buy more charms, especially for an Infernal.

If you are worried about balance, there is a very easy way to solve this. Say this is implemented and we immediately qualify for E5.

Rather than just jump to E5 we wait to the next xp spending turn and instead go up one Essence automatically. So E2 to E3. Then in the next xp spending turn we go E3 to E4 and after that E4 to E5.

So we do not jump multiple Essence ratings in one go and @DragonParadox can keep things balanced. If you are worried about the 8+16 xp already spent on Essence, just consider it non-refundable at this point and move on.

As I said, I am mainly asking because the whole sink a ton of xp to hit E5 only for not much to happen mechanically is painful.

If I were playing around a table and the players had gotten in the habit of trying to speed-run their way to high Essence I would certainly change the system, but we are not doing that. We are playing a forum game where all of you guys have a far greater effect on the narrative than any single player in a 5-4 player PnP Game. Given that I do not think we need the added complexity of parallel progression, both spending XP and keeping track of XP spent.
 
[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 and restore Sarah's access to it.

It's obviously right thing to do.
 
If I were playing around a table and the players had gotten in the habit of trying to speed-run their way to high Essence I would certainly change the system, but we are not doing that. We are playing a forum game where all of you guys have a far greater effect on the narrative than any single player in a 5-4 player PnP Game. Given that I do not think we need the added complexity of parallel progression, both spending XP and keeping track of XP spent.
We kinda are keeping track of xp spent though? In the end of each arc we get a total xp earned.

Also the argument is not, we are rushing to E5 but rather, we need to dump 24xp + 32xp into raising essence that does very little, if anything at all. The actual effect of raising essence is minimal since most charms no longer has a Essence requirements.

My argument is that there are a lot of cool things to buy and raising Essence takes away from that.
 
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My argument is that there are a lot of cool things to buy and raising Essence takes away from that.

Yeah, basically, the current system makes it a choice between buying more charms or buying essence, but essence costs so much, and does so little past essence 2 and shintai that it's not really a choice for essence 3 and definitely discourage ever trying to get essence 4, since at this cost we can even get one five dot unfavored charm + something else.

With the new system, you don't have to have this constant struggle between what is supposed to represent you getting stronger (getting higher essence) and what actually makes you stronger (getting more charms), actually, it makes getting stronger a consequence of, well, getting stronger, which makes sense and is more pleasing.
 
I could put it up to a vote next chapter, though I would also have to figure out how it interacts with companions... maybe just have them share your Essence level because otherwise they would quickly fall behind.
 
I could put it up to a vote next chapter, though I would also have to figure out how it interacts with companions... maybe just have them share your Essence level because otherwise they would quickly fall behind.
To be fair, under the current rules they would fall behind anyway. We could spend xp on them in the new system as in this one, and they wouldn't fall behind. Tying the essence levels directly... I don't think it works, especially if . Especially later, if/when we het to higher levels and get new companions.

Edit: and it would be hard to justify in-universe. This would be a clear narrative / mechanics seapration.
 
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If we do change the way we increase our Essence, which does seem like a good idea, IMO, I wouldn't mind if we weren't able to recoup the XP we've already spent to reach Essence 2. Maybe that could be banked and spent on Lydia or something?
 
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If we do change the way we increase our Essence, which does seem like a good idea, IMO, I wouldn't mind if we weren't able to recoup the XP we've already spent to reach Essence 2. Maybe that could be banked and spent on Lydia or something?

Logically yes you should and you will if you vote for that

Anyway vote closed, let's interrogate the FBI agent
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jan 26, 2023 at 11:23 AM, finished with 154 posts and 11 votes.

  • [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] 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 and restore Sarah's access to it.
 
Arc 5 Post 20: Out the Window, Through the Door
Out the Window, Through the Door

8th of September 2006 A.D.

Did I do the right thing, or just the easy thing? you wonder as the mismatched pair both vault out the window. On the one hand you had prevented the chaos of exposure and all the conflict and bloodshed that would go with it. More than just the White Court would want those secrets to never see the light of day and you had gained a new.. contact? Someone you could talk to among the retainers of House Skavis, you had prevented at lest one death. But not because the girl, Isabela actually cared about killing, if anything the gleam in her eye when she had spoken of taking Agent Green's life had been the same one when she had been contemplating theft. It was OK, more than OK because it was an enemy of the Court? One might at least hope she would not drive some poor soul down on his luck to death of despair, but something tells you she would find it not so much immoral, but distasteful, below her hopes and ambitions.

To her you are a new object of fascination, like the elder... and to the elder you were a riddle. Perhaps that is why he had a soft spot for the girl to begin with, because he saw something of himself in her. It is so easy to put yourself in their heads, though that is a far less comfortable place to be than Thomas's whose greatest desire is to be with the woman he loves without hurting her.

Thomas had killed at least once though and now, thanks to your patronage Isabela had not so how fair is it to count her worse than him, because she did not have his experiences. How easy would be be to see and to deny the evil of family, known and loved since childhood, for all you know they had been loving in turn, Lenith had certainly been protective of her. It had never occurred to you before that 'no one is entirely evil' has a dark side, but you seem to be very good at finding dark sides of late. That's me Molly Carpenter Sith-whisperer.

With that last bit of self-pitying you return to Black Rider and do some laps around the neighborhood, get an ice cream, not wanting to show up at the door of an FBI Agent after she has just had an episode of magically induced despair followed by unconsciousness, while also waiting for the frantic energy of your power to quiet down. The last thing you need to do is start blazing with green flame.

As you drive back to the house there's a part of you that wonders if you are still going to find Agent Greene alive after dropping the Wan Kuei guise. The elder had seemed sincere, but what if he got a call from the Raith he was doing a favor for or..?.

You ring the doorbell and a few moments later there is the rattle of a chain being undone and Sarah Greene opens the door, looking harried and tried, still smelling slightly of wine from the broken bottle, but very much alive. Biting back a sigh of relief you would have a hard time explaining

Between one heartbeat and the next your senses expand, the smell of wine is no longer 'slight', you can read the creases in her blouse well enough to guess how it had been laid and in the lines upon her face you read her character. This is not a woman who gives up, not on her wardrobe, not on her job, not on herself... yet as far as she knows she almost just did.

It feels uncomfortable to leverage the moment like this but the first words out of your mouth are: "Hi, is this a bad time, I can go...?" You trail into a question, peppy but unsure.

"No, what's this about?" She answers as you knew she would.

That's the run isn't it? The answers you had previously thought of giving her, enlisting her help to find what had killed her husband are complicated by the fact that you had trespassed in her home, invested her computer with a demon and wiped what must have been months of work if not more off of it. In the act of saving her life, you remind yourself firmly.

How much do you reveal of yourself?

[] Claim you are working for a school paper (Least problematic identity, will also get the least collaboration)

[] Claim that you are a friend of Harry Dresden who had been framed for her husband's death (Reveal some occult connections)

[] Explain that you are one of the people who cleared Harry Dresden and that you know how her husband died (Most likely to get her on board, reveals the most about your powers)

[] Write in


OOC: I went back and looked at the stunt you guys used to talk to Agent Greene initially and given how much you learned about her it did not seem entirely fair to lock you into that way to engage with her. I mean you know she is a rogue agent of the White Court not just a purely mundane human who knows nothing, I figured you might want a chance to work this out differently.
 
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I figured that we would just let her know that we just saved her life.

[] Explain that you are one of the people who cleared Harry Dresden and that you know how her husband died (Most likely to get her on board, reveals the most about your powers)

For this one the easiest lie would be that we interrogated his ghost. Who was less helpful then we might have hoped which explains both our knowledge and lack of it.
 
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