Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

The issuewith mantle crafting, as opposed to raising exigents, is that manntles are by definition, limiting. They are focusing and amplifying devices. You can act more strongly than normally, but only in certain ways. Exaltations are the opposite, increasing the range of what's possible for a host. If exigents are possible, they would be superior to mantles in a lot of ways, at least in my opinion.

Also, I didn't get the impression that igniting an exigent depowered the patron permanently. Cost a lot, potentially caused a spiritual wound, but I thought that it was something that could be healed and regained in time.
Exigernts are both dumb from a lore stand point, why would you not use those shards to make more Celestial, or DragonBlood. And also explicitly kill the god, only the Incarna forged by the power of the primordials can withstand empowering exaltation's. And even they took a permanent hit to their power. Creation did not have sunsets or night before the Solar's where created. One of Luna's lesser purposes was to eclipse the sun, because creation could not handle UCS full time.
 
The correct time to raise the city spirit of chicago is either the anniversary of its founding or its"rebirth" after the great fire.
Since we have vegan necromancy from Lydia we could also try getting the ghost of Jean Baptiste to participate.

If we take that approach, and especially if we try to align the ritual to our hell, then Halloween would work better. It's when the walls are thinnest to the spirit realm, when mantles are allowed to die, and when the dead are closest to the living.
The issuewith mantle crafting, as opposed to raising exigents, is that manntles are by definition, limiting. They are focusing and amplifying devices. You can act more strongly than normally, but only in certain ways. Exaltations are the opposite, increasing the range of what's possible for a host. If exigents are possible, they would be superior to mantles in a lot of ways, at least in my opinion.

Also, I didn't get the impression that igniting an exigent depowered the patron permanently. Cost a lot, potentially caused a spiritual wound, but I thought that it was something that could be healed and regained in time.
I just think that exaltation should be something more significant than this sort of thing. Exigents as a concept already directly screwed with the lore and create plot holes in the setting* and Dresden Files is lower power than that.

I'd also call mantles limiting in the same way power armor is limited compared to being a pure software strong AI. It's making to better than you were, and it's not nothing just because it doesn't make you into a techno god.

Which also only applies to a subset of mantles anyway, since many of them actually do make you into a something close to as strong as you can get without breaking physics just walking around. These probably wouldn't, but it's worth noting about the category.

Modeling them as exigent types is one thing, but cranking out true blue exaltations with all the background benefits that implies should be nearly impossible for things to continue making sense.

And as an aside, exigents did permanently weaken the source god. It's part of the explanation for why most gods wouldn't have many even if they had ages to recover and acquire more materials from up the chain.


* The primordials lost because the gods weren't capable of telling the exalts what to do, or making any for their masters without Autochthon. If they could, then why didn't the primordials a counter army of the same capabilities but grander in scope?
 
And also explicitly kill the god, only the Incarna forged by the power of the primordials can withstand empowering exaltation's
At least in 3e that's wrong:
Exigent: Those Exalted and empowered by the Exigence,
the Exigents are a whole category of different types of
Exalts, chosen by gods of field and river, vengeance and
hope. Very few gods possess the strength to empower
more than one Chosen, even with the power of the Exi-
gence. As such, the Exigents represent a vast array of
eclectic and unique heroes, many of whom are being
seen for the first and last time. For a time, no new Exi-
gents were created, but recently the Exigence has begun
to flow and grant new champions.
Exigence, the: The Exigence is a force of divine fire and
creative inspiration established by the Unconquered Sun
so that lesser gods might have their own Exalted champi-
ons. Gods who tap the Exigence do not learn the secret of
making Exalted, but through interaction with the Sun's
medium, they are able to exude new kinds of Chosen from
their own unique Essence. Some gods who petition to create
an Exigent are destroyed by the process; they are simply
too weak to produce a Chosen without spending their own
lives. Others are powerful enough to make a single cham-
pion, though this effort leaves them drained and vastly
reduced for a time. Still others may produce
a single Exigent without wavering, while a truly mighty
god might bring forth multiple heroes from his own Essence.

I just think that exaltation should be something more significant than this sort of thing. Exigents as a concept already directly screwed with the lore and create plot holes in the setting* and Dresden Files is lower power than that.
In principle I agree, and feel mostly the same.
I'd also call mantles limiting in the same way power armor is limited compared to being a pure software strong AI. It's making to better than you were, and it's not nothing just because it doesn't make you into a techno god.
I was talking from in-story perspective:
"I would ask whose mantle you bear, but that would be a backwards question would it not?" Arawn says at last.

Jumping down from the deck with a satisfying splash into the water that is starting to become less watery and more gooey as the magic of the portal fades you ask: "What do you mean by that?"

"A mantle is power you bear, it mediates, empowers and restrains your interactions with the world, whereas your power is contained within, leaving your hands unbound for good or for ill." He pauses, noticing perhaps that Harry is about to say something, raises a hand for silence in a gesture somehow both understated and royal . "It has been for good in this instance and not just mine own, for that you have my thanks and to each of your, fair maiden of battles, wise warden of mortalkind, and thou bearer of the seer's crown I owe a debt comensurate to your deeds."
* The primordials lost because the gods weren't capable of telling the exalts what to do, or making any for their masters without Autochthon. If they could, then why didn't the primordials a counter army of the same capabilities but grander in scope?
Yeah, that's a reasonable question. If forced to answer about that, I would guess that exigents only became possible after the Primordial War, possibly through something that Autochton passed onto Sol after their victory.
 
Also, I didn't get the impression that igniting an exigent depowered the patron permanently. Cost a lot, potentially caused a spiritual wound, but I thought that it was something that could be healed and regained in time.

It varies. Some gods extinguish themselves entirely to fuel the Exigence. Others may be permanently wounded or temporarily wounded. (Ex3 page 26.) Exalted 3e leaned a bit into rules varying as the plot demands.

Exigernts are both dumb from a lore stand point, why would you not use those shards to make more Celestial, or DragonBlood.
Because you can't. Making Celestials originally required Autochthon's involvement. Making the Dragon-Blooded required Gaia's involvement, and they already reproduce themselves.

And also explicitly kill the god, only the Incarna forged by the power of the primordials can withstand empowering exaltation's. And even they took a permanent hit to their power. Creation did not have sunsets or night before the Solar's where created. One of Luna's lesser purposes was to eclipse the sun, because creation could not handle UCS full time.
Nope.

plot holes

* The primordials lost because the gods weren't capable of telling the exalts what to do, or making any for their masters without Autochthon. If they could, then why didn't the primordials a counter army of the same capabilities but grander in scope?
The plot is getting retconned and changed significantly in 3e. Repeatedly. :p One version said the Primordials didn't want to suffer from the Law of Diminishment (I think this was when Exigence was guaranteed to permanently cripple the making god), another version said that Sol, Autobot and friends kept the Exaltation creation process a secret from the Primordials, a third says that Exigence involves the Unconquered Sun specifically for some reason.
 
[X] Yes
-[X] Empathy excellency
-[X] So, time, plus on call, plus expertise? Ballpark a rough sum. Something like 1k? Or services rendered. Want your consolation on his car, or perhaps a portable phone? You could get a Noika cellphone and make it so durable he could use it as a bludgeon.
-[X][stunt]Be completely matter of fact as if the idea that he might refuse payment makes no sense to you. If that doesn't work ask him if he enjoys keeping people indebted to him. Maybe his fairy godmother was a bad influence.
Or

[X] No, you will find some other way to make it up to him later
-[x] Maybe you can slip Murphy a 5 thousand and get her to give it to Dresden as a bonus? He doesn't seem to mind accepting tax money.
 
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I was talking from in-story perspective:
In story not all mantles are the same, and not all people find the limits unpalatable.

As an extreme example, if the Kemmlerite ritual had worked the mantle would basically have been tailored to the necromancer who cast it. They'd be "required" to act as they already felt like acting.

A lesser case can be seen in the winter and summer knights, who have impulses but can choose to resist if they put their minds to it.

Or the limits can themselves be acceptable to the person taking them on in exchange for the power, as we saw with Matthews. I think a metropolitan mantle would probably weigh pretty lightly on a mortal's shoulders simply because it's made out of the essence of mortal life.
Yeah, that's a reasonable question. If forced to answer about that, I would guess that exigents only became possible after the Primordial War, possibly through something that Autochton passed onto Sol after their victory.
That's possible, but kind of weird considering how part of Autochthon's issue towards the end of the war was concern about the exalted and what they'd do. Something that eventually lead him to flee creation and stay out in the wyld to die.

Setting aside the issues still introduced by the exalted having the ability to manufacture custom exalts from the end of the war, but it never really coming up until way later in the timeline, why would he do that?


The plot is getting retconned and changed significantly in 3e. Repeatedly. :p One version said the Primordials didn't want to suffer from the Law of Diminishment (I think this was when Exigence was guaranteed to permanently cripple the making god), another version said that Sol, Autobot and friends kept the Exaltation creation process a secret from the Primordials, a third says that Exigence involves the Unconquered Sun specifically for some reason.
Most of those retcons seem incredibly dumb, and primarily oriented around the desire to allow for custom exalts to exist for gameplay purposes even though it contradicted everything else.

Those last two don't even make sense. The point of exalts was that the gods couldn't refuse direct commands and had something like the three laws of robotics installed to keep them compliant to the primordials' rule.

The idea, as I understand it, was that humans were the largest single entities that the primordials felt were too weak to be worth the effort.

UC couldn't keep secrets or refuse a command to make more or cough up information if he knew it. Changing that would change how the entire war was fought.
 
In story not all mantles are the same, and not all people find the limits unpalatable.

As an extreme example, if the Kemmlerite ritual had worked the mantle would basically have been tailored to the necromancer who cast it. They'd be "required" to act as they already felt like acting.

Since Molly now knows about that IC, here's a bit more Usum wisdom: They would be required to act as they wanted to at the moment they took it on, eternity is a long time for even monsters to if not grow a conscience than at least grow bored.

Judge that as you will. ;)
 
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[X] Yes
-[X] Offer Harry $3,000 for his consulting services, a thousand per day of his time invested in helping you. Do not take no for an answer. If necessary, explain that you feel disrespected and treated as a child when Harry refuses our attempts to fairly compensate him for his assistance. He is providing a valuable service and very rare skill set on short notice, the least he can do is act like he values himself as much as we value his contributions.
 
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Existence of plot shields is speculative at best. It certainly shouldn't be used as an argument.
Its a game mechanic in both vanilla Ex2 and ExWoD.
ExWoD goes as far as making it an explicit feature that your Familiars can get killed but resurrect from your aura automatically, essentially giving them immortality as long as the Exalt is alive.

Pretty sure Dresden pulls out a ley
Not pulls out, begins to draw one from memory.
Then Molly finishes it.
Cold Days c28.
We definitely should, but I am fairly sure it's very incomplete, and I doubt Harry is aware of what a Dragon Nest is. Remember, Dragon Nests are supposed to be rare. As in, I doubt there are more than three or four in the whole Chicago area (I might be wrong, and Chicago is special anyway). And they are strategic power nodes. And are more than just a confluence of several ley lines. We aren't building a manse, obviously, but we'd probably need to do something to make Last Station a full Dragon Nest
Nope.
Explicitly a fuckton in the Greater Lakes region, not just Chicago. Chicago alone has at least half a dozen within easy travelling distance. I quote:
Cold Days c28 said:
After the table was clean, Molly spread the map out on it. It was a map of Lake Michigan and the shores around it, including Chicago and Milwaukee and on up to Green Bay. Molly passed me a pen, and I leaned over and started making marks on the map with my swollen fingers. It hurt but I ignored it. Karrin got up and came over to watch. Thomas joined us a moment later, freshly attired in a plain white T-shirt, which looked like it had been made to fit him. He's a jerk like that.
"What I'm doing here," I said, "is marking out all the nodes I remember."
"Nodes?" Butters asked.
My clumsy fingers made it a little hard to put the marks exactly where I wanted them. "The meeting points of one or more ley lines," I said. "I got to know all about them a few years ago."

"Those are like magical power cables, right?" Karrin asked.
"More or less," I said. "Sources of power that you can draw on to make major magic. And there are a lot of them in the Great Lakes region. I'm drawing from memory, but I'm pretty sure these are right."
"They are," Molly confirmed quietly. "Auntie Lea taught them to me a few months ago."
I looked up at her, eyed my battered fingers, and said, "Then why am I doing this?"
Molly rolled her eyes and took the pen. She started marking nodes rapidly and precisely on the map, including the Well on Demonreach (though the island didn't appear on the map).

"Whoever is going to attempt the spell on Demonreach has to do it from somewhere near the shore of the lake," I said. "They're almost certainly going to be at one of these nodes—the closer to the edge of the lake, the better." I pointed out several nodes near the shore. "So we need to send the guard out to check these six locations near the edge of the lake first. After that, they go after the next nearest and so on."
"Some of those are a good way off," Karrin noted. "How fast can these little guys move?"
"Fast," I said. "Faster than anyone gives them credit. They can fly and they can take shortcuts through the Nevernever. They can get to the sites and back before sundown."
Sundown. Which was when the big, bad immortals would come out to play.
"Any questions so far?" I asked, looking at Murphy.
She jerked her chin toward my brother and said, "Thomas filled me in."
"Good," I said. "Exposition gets repetitive fast. A spell like this takes time to set up, and they won't really be able to hide it if we can get eyes on the site. Once we know which of the sites shows signs of use, we can get to it and thwart whatever lunatic is using it."
"Do we know who it is yet?" Murphy asked.
"Answer unclear," I said.
"It's got to be those Outsiders, right?" Thomas asked.
"Stands to reason. But the real question is, who is helping them?"
I got a bunch of looks at that.
"Outsiders can't just show up in our reality," I said. "That's why they're called Outsiders in the first place. Someone has to open the door and let them in." I took a deep breath. "Which brings me to the next twist. I talked to Lily and Maeve, and they tell me that Mab is the one planning to tinker with the island."
Silence followed that.
They arent rare in this geographical area.
Just this one, and the one on Demonreach count as two, and there's at least another half a dozen within easy roundtrip distance for the Little Folk.
Which is why I suggest we use Mouse's fur / blood as the primary focus when making Dragon Nest guardian gods for any future Nest we fins. With Blessings and Warding being the primary paths for warding them.
This is one of those occasions when you're doing too much, and not considering the implications.

Mouse is a sapient being. Magic principles of sympathy and cosanguinity suggest that using his essence to make little gods would either make them count as his children, with all the ethical issues thereof, or serve as arcane links to strike at Mouse and everyone descended from him.Possibly both.
 
[X] Yes
-[X] Offer Harry $3,000 for his consulting services, a thousand per day of his time invested in helping you. Do not take no for an answer. If necessary, explain that you feel disrespected and treated as a child when Harry refuses our attempts to fairly compensate him for his assistance. He is providing a valuable service and very rare skill set on short notice, the least he can do is act like he values himself as much as we value his contributions.
 
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[X] Yes
-[X] Offer Harry $3,000 for his consulting services, a thousand per day of his time invested in helping you. Do not take no for an answer. If necessary, explain that you feel disrespected and treated as a child when Harry refuses our attempts to fairly compensate him for his assistance. He is providing a valuable service and very rare skill set on short notice, the least he can do is any like he values himself as much as we value his contributions.
Just corrected an auto-corrupt mistake in my plan that you might want to copy to avoid confusing the tally.

Skynet the Kindle strikes again.
 
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Its a game mechanic in both vanilla Ex2 and ExWoD.
ExWoD goes as far as making it an explicit feature that your Familiars can get killed but resurrect from your aura automatically, essentially giving them immortality as long as the Exalt is alive.
If so, we would likely be able to buy a familiar at a great XP discount to bind an existent animal into being one, compared to conjuring one ex-nihilo with an XP spending.
Nope.
Explicitly a fuckton in the Greater Lakes region, not just Chicago. Chicago alone has at least half a dozen within easy travelling distance. I quote:
Yes, Chicago is special. I still doubt all of those are full and proper Dragon Nests, or that all Dragon Nests are created equal. From WoD side, control of even a single Dragon Nest is supposed to be a major strategic advantage. Yes, Dresdenverse is a "higher energy" universe, but those still shouldn't be commonplace (even if it makes an E3 charm very situationally useful for its main application).
This is one of those occasions when you're doing too much, and not considering the implications.

Mouse is a sapient being. Magic principles of sympathy and cosanguinity suggest that using his essence to make little gods would either make them count as his children, with all the ethical issues thereof, or serve as arcane links to strike at Mouse and everyone descended from him.Possibly both.
No, I actually thought this out in detail. You are underestimating my ambition, you see. For it is not his children that I aim to create. It is his divine ancestors I want to recreate. I desire to forge Celestial Lions.

And no, I don't agree that making little gods based on Mouse's species would make them count as his children. There might be some arcane link there, yes. I wasn't planning to just grab his fur and run. This would obviously be done with consent.

As to "it can be used to strike at him". Possibly. Maybe. The rituals that aim at ancestors / descendants is a major working. Discarding the tangible benefits for fringe possible risks is where we always differ, so I won't even try to convince you.

EDIT: I will point out that it's likely Mouse who will be the weak arcane link, not the other way around.
 
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Honestly aginst awaking the city god of Chicago, the place has been run into the ground hard. At best we would get a broken god.

Worth keeping in mind Molly is an infernal, heir not of the Primordials whole and hale in the glory of their craft, but of the Yozis, broken, chained yet still great and terrible with the potential for rebirth in them. She has a certain affinity for broken things.

If you only want to work with unblemished materials than I have some bad news about your Exaltation.
 
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Honestly aginst awaking the city god of Chicago, the place has been run into the ground hard. At best we would get a broken god.

It has, and that's why it's perfect to be Molly's first little slice of hell on Earth.

Then, as she redeems it with her infernal majesty, she can build her new Jerusalem's, her shining city on the lake.

The fact that it shines with green balefire reflected in the chrome and glass of the skyscrapers of a wicked city is neither here nor there.
 
Yes, Chicago is special. I still doubt all of those are full and proper Dragon Nests, or that all Dragon Nests are created equal. From WoD side, control of even a single Dragon Nest is supposed to be a major strategic advantage. Yes, Dresdenverse is a "higher energy" universe, but those still shouldn't be commonplace (even if it makes an E3 charm very situationally useful for its main application).
They likely are a major strategic advantage in Europe. All the dragon nests there have likely been built up and claimed by various organizations for generations now. Meaning that all knowledge about dragon nests in Europe are carefully guarded secrets.

But then Europe invaded the U.S. and decimated the local native magical traditions. And given that all groups that understood dragon nests were not inclined to move the invaders didn't do anything with or even notice the dragon nests leaving them unclaimed with no infrastructure giving them particular purpose.

Under this interpretation the area of mount Rushmore is certainly a major magical nexus which explains part of why the indians really really want it back and will accept no money for it.
 
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Honestly aginst awaking the city god of Chicago, the place has been run into the ground hard. At best we would get a broken god.
It's a major first world city, and a, if not THE major magical focus point of the center of the universe that is Earth. the City god of Chicago would be a powerful, if imperfect, being. We won't be forging Sol Invictus, but it would still be a great being.
She has a certain affinity for broken things.
At some point we should visit Detroit.
They likely are a major strategic advantage in Europe. All the dragon nests there have likely been built up and claimed by various organizations for generations now. Meaning that all knowledge about dragon nests in Europe are carefully guarded secrets.

But then Europe invaded the U.S. and decimated the local native magical traditions. And given that all groups that understood dragon nests were not inclined to move the invaders didn't do anything with or even notice the dragon nests leaving them unclaimed with no infrastructure giving them particular purpose.
My argument was that if typical Dragon Nest density was "one every ten or so miles", they wouldn't be some deep lore or a strategic advantage. They would be a commonplace occurrence, and every wizard who was anyone would have been living on top of a Nest of their own. No, either they are useless to most magical beings, with only a true essence user (some elementals, gods, and exalted, basically) being able to use them, or they are much, much rarer than that.
 
My argument was that if typical Dragon Nest density was "one every ten or so miles", they wouldn't be some deep lore or a strategic advantage. They would be a commonplace occurrence, and every wizard who was anyone would have been living on top of a Nest of their own. No, either they are useless to most magical beings, with only a true essence user (some elementals, gods, and exalted, basically) being able to use them, or they are much, much rarer than that.
Do you realize just how small Europe is land wise compared to America? If great Britain has multiple nexuses then basically every American state should have a few. Most states of America are the size of countries in Europe.

Also Dresden could totally have decided to live on a nexus, but he seems to lack the knowledge of how to build on one and he is the Warden commander of North America. Mostly in America it seems like it's mostly the knowledge of how to use Nexuses is lacking which isn't helped by the fact that using them wrong blows you up.
 
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Personally, I have absolutely no interest in trying to create a city god of Chicago.
 
In WoD, Nodes are of variable strength. For ExWoD that got simplified into binary "is this a node, Y/N?" but it isn't true in Mage or Werewolf.

Anyway, DF side magicals definitively can use the Nodes.

On a mildly related note, if we really do have like a dozen of Dragon Nests in the vicinity of Chicago, we probably try shooting for E6 by simply taking control of all that energy. With a major geomantic working we might be able to create an environment of essence density suitable for Elder Essence ascension.
List me under "This is interesting, but IDK when we'll actually get to it" camp.
 
On a mildly related note, if we really do have like a dozen of Dragon Nests in the vicinity of Chicago, we probably try shooting for E6 by simply taking control of all that energy. With a major geomantic working we might be able to create an environment of essence density suitable for Elder Essence ascension.
Taking over Demonreach and turning a fraction of the prisoners into our thralls would also likely be enough. I think there was something like 6 Naggs there in minimum security. Throwing 6 Naggs into a Maggot pit and giving them a few extra bindings would likely be very helpful to our overall power even at essence 5.
As though that weren't enough Murphy needed help with her latest case, a spate of deaths the peppers were calling the Recluse Poisonings, in a play on the spider and the fact that all three of the victims lived alone and as far as anyone could tell hadn't hurt a fly. Toxicology had been able to tell it was a poison, though they didn't have a match on it because there wasn't any natural poison that killed not just the victim but every living thing in them and on them. Sounded to me like a warlock looking for loopholes in the First Law,.

On the topic of Harry's current case any idea what that might be? Now obviously Molly could figure it out about instantly by using her crown on a few bodies, but Harry Dresden of course is keeping the knowledge away from us to protect us'. If we knew about the case offering to use the crown on those body would be a fair way to pay him back.
 
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