Naagloshii is strong enough that in an ambush I would give it at least even odds against us. Against Harry outside his wards with no backup? Yeah, he might be able to escape. Might.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I can't remember this, but it seems to me that just killing the wizard is unlikely to be enough for power gain. Killing Harry might not be that hard, capturing him alive to hold without interruptions might be harder.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It would probably have been even worse for Harry if the Naagloshii had attacked him while he was in jail, without (IIRC) a lot of his gear. Yet, the Naagloshii didn't do that.
[x] Uju32
Ah fuck.
Thats worse. Deeply Scary Sorcerer alert.
On the bright side, Potter can presumably tell us if the leylines that meet in our Dragon Nest is being tapped, and from where.
I still think that dude out near the Barrens is the Skinwalker.
We dont know what the job was.
But naagloshii dont come this far from their home base for their health. He might require Dresden dead under particular circumstances; sometimes just leaving a body wont do.
We see this with Lt Greene, where it went to significant effort to move the body and stage the scene
Drugs?
To an external observer, Dresden just beat a murder charge that allegedly had him on camera dismembering a police officer.
Dude has juice. To an external observer.
Perception.
Dresden's reputation as of September 2006 is that of the guy who killed a Loup Garou, a Summer Lady, two Heirs of Kemmler(Cowl is still alive, but noone knows that), wiped out a Red Court sept, beat the ex-warmaster of the Red Court in a face to face duel, and successfully raided Arctis Tor. And yet somehow still has Mab's favor.
We know how marginal those victories were; most people dont.
A very small number of people also know that he knows the Word of Kemmler enough to bootsrap an ascension ritual, and has personal access to a Denarian Coin, Hellfire, a Temple Dog and a Sword of the Cross, in this case Fidelacchius.
He is fairly scary to a large number of people.
To an even smaller number of people, he is deeply, deeply scary.
Especially after Molly started hanging out with him.
Its wholly plausible that the naagloshii is choosing to avoid direct confrontation without a lot more information.
Skinwalkers dont get to be millenia old by taking foolish risks.
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Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Yeah, makes me want to avoid it even more, at least until we do some Charm upgrades. As we are now, we couldn't fight a Skinwalker unless it deliberately handicapped itself for some reason. We need to be so much faster than we currently are.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I think we beat it in the air mostly because our flight is bullshit well the Skinwalker's flight is based on shape shifting. That very much limits what it can do in the air.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
When are we getting our Perfect Defenses?
Also, did we already get the anti-shaping one, or just the mental perfect defense?
Because if not we could get 'lol you turn into a frog/stone/what have you forever'ed, particularly if the Naag has a Perfect attack of that variety.
Also, did we already get the anti-shaping one, or just the mental perfect defense?
Because if not we could get 'lol you turn into a frog/stone/what have you forever'ed, particularly if the Naag has a Perfect attack of that variety.
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I generally agree, but this and that are different situations. The supernatural generally treats the ignorant and the informed differently, and handles the act of informing new people without a direct connection somewhat delicately.
This isn't a case where Dresden is assuming people can't do anything so there isn't any point in scaring them, it's one where the act of cluing people in is seen as an escalation and provocation by hostile factors like the Naagolshii.
The skinwalker is no fool, and it will react when it learns someone is talking shit about it.
It's a mistake in this case because Murphy could very well need to get involved with the consequences of this. She's smart enough not to try punching a something that eats wizards, but if push comes to shove she won't hide while it's torturing people to death all over the city.
This general issue applies to a lot of supernatural creatures. They aren't animals, and they react to the spread of information as they become aware of it because they know how much it can change the game. Memetic hazards don't even need to come into it for this to be a problem.
I'm not saying to keep everyone in the dark all the time, but it's worth noting that there are entirely legitimate issues with this sort of thing.
At the moment the Naagloshi can functionally go wherever it wants outside the local hearts of power for the major factions and do what it likes to the people it finds there. If it decides to send Dresden a serial killer letter on Murphy!Vellum or something equally fucked up there's precisely nothing anyone can do about it unless she's got a cadre of supernatural heavy weights in arms reach when it shows up.
[X] Uju32
I prefer this approach because it still gets the information to her and does so without causing unneeded tension.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
We have a crude personal defense using occult which let us fight off a death curse. Perfect defenses are really expensive to get unless we have strong evidence of perfect attacks that ignore soak.
The anti shaping perfect is 20 XP.
It probably doesn't have a perfect, in canon we see it fight for its life and it didn't use one when.
Something like a dragon blooded style prefect defense where you take one level of damage in order to shake off an arbitrary amount of actual harm might fit what we saw though.
It seems to prefer more direct attacks, so I think one of the lesser perfects would be a good buy if we have the space.
Though really our perfect attack would probably be more useful given how stupidly tanky skinwalkers are.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Does that gaze attack only work on people or does it also work on alarm clocks? Because I am worried about the integrity of Molly's room.
People* only. Luckily for the cyber devils Molly isn't the sort of infernal who'd stick a cyber devil in their alarm clock specifically so that they could blast it if they way up in a bad mood.
* well living/thinking things anyway.
[X] Yes, she deserves to know and who knows if those people from the Library of Congress have her back maybe she can do something about it
I believe it was an Ancestor, so Dharma 7.
[X] uju32
Not just their name, but merely about them is supposed to be enough to draw their attention.
The rest, yeah.
More like don't talk about them 'period.'
Not just their name, but merely about them is supposed to be enough to draw their attention.
The rest, yeah.
- Location
- Taken by the hand to a land that they understand
[X] uju32
Shagnasty assumed chimerical form onscreen, demonstrating that it isnt limited to real-life creatures, or even plausibility.
Citation:
At the very minimum?
It can pick and choose features from existing real animals at will and combine them without regard to biological and physical laws, like when we see a shift into a spider the size of a small car.
At worst, it can adopt the features of extinct animals like dinosaurs, saber tooth tigers and American cave lions.
Or wholly fictional beasts like the xenomorph from the Alien movies.
Or the forms of creatures that only naturally exist (anymore) in the NeverNever. Like minor dragons. Or Cornerhounds.
Furthermore, magic. Magic gives it mobility and ranged options we currently lack.
Having to fight something right now thats, say, shifted into the form of a flying, spellcasting, firebreathing small dragon that can make itself invisible would suuuuuck.
*checks*
Nah. Resplendent Crane arhat Jade Rose. Which means Dharma 10 or ∞.
The exact quote is "and its contents closed forever the third eye of the Resplendent Crane arhat Jade Rose."
Source is Thousand Hells page 108.
Imagine how bad to fuck up someone who had already achieved Enlightenment.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I think that Harry might actually miss the days when he was about impossible to reach on a phone.
Yes. Which is why I don't think that it's here to murder Dresden. Dresden might be part of its mission, but it's not as simple as "kill this wizard", even if he is its target, which I am not convinced of.
Or, far simpler, its continued presence has nothing to do with Dresden at all, and the time it did mess with Dresden was because it didn't want White Council involved in Thule Society operations. That also explains pretty much everything.
You made an assumption "It's here for Dresden", and are now interpreting everything to fit this hypothesis. But it's still a hypothesis, there's both supporting and conflicting evidence.
- Location
- Germany
Since it can only gain new magic from eating practicioners and as far as I know some mythological skinwalkers had to keep a fetish of an animal's hide with them to transform into that animal, my guess would be that the Skinwalker can mostly just turn into things it has actually killed.
That can certainly include creatures of the Nevernever, but at least his choice of forms would be limited.
Also this is propably not the same Naagloshii that Dresden fought later in the series (might be, but that would be a coincidence), so it might be weaker or stronger or simply have access to different magic or forms depending on his prior diet than Shagnasty.
1)No, that makes no sense.
Dresden had no obvious involvement with the Thule Society besides Gorfels arrest and processing. He didnt even capture the man; that was Molly and Michael. Mab had him looking for Arawn.
Furthermore, this entire thing was done in a way that screamed shapeshifter to any White Council team or informed supernatural.
Even the Deadalus newbies recognized it smelled.
It was in framing Dresden that they actually drew Dresden and Molly's attention.
If they'd simply kept the naagloshii in reserve at the museum, Kattrin would have had backup, and Dresdn would have had no warning before he showed up there
2)Its not an assumption. Its a theory informed by the available facts.
The naagloshii went to the trouble of moving Greene's body from the Murder Site A to Studio Site B for dismemberment underneath a set of cameras and then to dispose of it at Dump Site C under another set of cameras.
All of this to frame Dresden. Significant amount of effort.
You dont do all that shit, whiff, and still hang around in the same city for cocktails.
Dresden might not be the ONLY target of the naagloshii; its quite likely that he has other goals to accomplish as well.
But he was a target from the very beginning.
EDIT
By the way?
We need to remember to ask Thomas for the receipt for the warehouse, and find out if its sufficiently relevant focus to finding out who set up the cameras at the warehouse.
1)Correction: it grows in permanent power with each magic user it kills. Sorta like how Nicodemus Archleone has grown in power with every Knight he has killed. And like Nicky, each naagloshii has a career lifespan of thousands of years. A White Council-level wizard or shaman every century adds up when you're working on a timespan of millenia.
Especially if garnished with a minor talent every decade or so.
2)That requirement for fetishes might be true for human skinwalkers, who were taught by naagloshii.
True naagloshii dont appear to share that limitation in the Dresdenverse.
Note that Listens to Wind doesnt carry fetishes around to mediate his shapeshifting either, nor do the Alphas, or the other theriomorphs in the Dresdenverse RPGs, where we see a mouse and weregator.
If we're really unlucky, it can do that thing that fetches do to assume arbitrary shapes.
3)My personal bet/working theory is that this is Shagnasty from the series.Why?
Because this entire affair involves Madrigal Raith, and in canon it was his sister Madeline that called in the naagloshii strike on Raith Manor in Turn Coat to create cover for her to run away before Dresden could get Lara to detain her and question her about her involvement in the whole Morgan/La Fortier assassination affair.
Madrigal and Madison's branch of the Raiths tried to betray the main branch Raiths in the books White Night and Turn Coat.
It seems a little beyond the bounds of probability that there's two different naagloshii involved with that family branch and their backers; true naagloshii arent that thick on the ground as I understand it.
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- Location
- Germany
I know that it doesn't carry fetishes around and that whatever restriction it has on shapeshifting are propably looser than for mortal Skinwalkers.
But I still think it's a reasonable assumption that it can't turn into literally anything, and having the need to kill real animals or magical beasts first before taking their shape is a decent limitation, though for a millenia-old being it's not much of one.
Something similar to the Lunar Heartblood-trait.
Wizards and most other shapeshifters don't have these limitations, but they do have others. Like many only being able to turn into one or two specific animals.
And Listens to Wind presumably had to learn about the forms he shifts into at some point, it's just that as a Senior Councillor we can assume he has a pretty huge repertoire.
Possible.
Unfortunatly Jim never disclosed what exactly Shagnasty got for this job, AFAIK, so it might just be that the Raiths have something Naagloshii in general are interested in that they can trade for a service.
In canon they did so for the job in Turncoat, now they have some other priority.
And Madrigal is still in deep shit with Lara if it ever comes out how much of the Raith's network has been exposed by an agent he was handling.
I'm pretty sure if we ever use all that evidence the first reaction will not be a counterstrike against us, but a housecleaning among the Raiths.