Inner devils would have solved a lot of the current story arc. Still, we make do. Still, how do we maximize the chances of everyone's survival? I think we should at least spend a little time brewing health potions for everyone, maybe with auto-injectors or something like that.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
- Location
- Germany
Turn J and Murphy into harder-to-kill creatures than they are.
I don't think it would particularly help right now, but as a general idea I can see why it might be useful.
It's supposed to be a "turn into a bakemono" charm, which we were hinted would not produce horrible misshapen monsters, but work as a functional upgrade. My guess is that it would turn people into Wan Xian or something like that, but with CoD and some manner of dependence on our exaltation.
- Location
- Germany
No, it's still gonna be Bakemono, just less fucked-up ones.
DP made a post on it ages ago.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files) Crossover - Fantasy
Molly Carpenter... neophyte wizard, prisoner of the fey and technically a warlock, now champion of the forgotten Hells whose masters have faded from the universe long ago. If the Yozi could laugh from beyond oblivion they would. Also Harry Dresden did technically set the green fire....
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
No, it's still gonna be Bakemono, just less fucked-up ones.
DP made a post on it ages ago.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files) Crossover - Fantasy
Molly Carpenter... neophyte wizard, prisoner of the fey and technically a warlock, now champion of the forgotten Hells whose masters have faded from the universe long ago. If the Yozi could laugh from beyond oblivion they would. Also Harry Dresden did technically set the green fire....
You could make people into beings capable of learning the Demon Arts of the Wan Kuei by awakening their Po with the Inner Devils charm, others would open up other upgrade paths. The charms for making minions are more than just the raw mechanics of melding spiritual power to mortal flesh, they are like Molly's own transformations the path to making something new and something old, something of the world transmuted by the alien, achingly familiar power of the Exaltation
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Can't afford the willpower. We are going to want to be in tip top shape for the fights.
- Location
- Terror Australis
The only charms we have that can be fueled by willpower are Impervious Primacy Mantle and All Things Betray which are both scene-longs. We can absolutely afford to spend willpower points on prep.
Edit: Oops forgot that Shintai cost 2 willpower, still plenty spare though.
Edit: Oops forgot that Shintai cost 2 willpower, still plenty spare though.
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- Location
- Germany
We can still spend WP for an auto-success, that might come up.
Shintai also uses willpower. We need at least 4 willpower available. Likely we want to have 6 WP ready for making sure we succeed on critical roles. This still allows us to use 2 WP for crafting.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
There is always the chance that we get attacked by Broken Seeker right after we deal with the hungry dead.
Possible, but unlikely. The risk of serious injury among our allies is higher than the risk of naagloshii attack. Thus, it should be mitigated.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Been seeing you reaction your way through the thread. Congratulations and welcome to the quest.
- Location
- florida
Welcome! Good to see more faces.
1) Karrin Murphy is an officer of the law. There are laws she is responsible for upholding.
Informing her that there is a supernatural murderer of Native American origin running around killing cops, and to watch her back and that of her officers? Thats one thing.
Informing her that we are about to attempt an extrajudicial murder of a capital D demonic assassin cum diplomat for a supernatural nationstate and their entourage in the heart of a major city, and that we want her to control the civilian population while we do so, is quite another.
Nevermind the other potential complications with the US natsec state, part of which she is now working for, and the other part that has tagged her a Collaborator for investigation.
2)This isnt infantilizing Murphy so much as recognizing her limits.
We are roleplaying a 17 year old with phenomenal cosmic power but no real track record with her.Before she came to trust Dresden, she twice almost got herself killed, and once did result in a mass casualty event of an entire police station by putting a loup garou in police lockup during a full moon.
3)You are under a misapprehension as to SI's role in the Chicago Police Department. First quote that came to mind:
This time I didn't bother to hide the wince. Taking money from the city government was one thing. Taking money from the cops in SI was another.
Special Investigations was the CPD's version of a pool filter. Things that slipped through the areas of interest of the other departments got dumped on SI. Lots of times those things included the cruddy work no one else wanted to do, so SI wound up investigating everything from apparent rains of toads to dogfighting rackets to reports of El Chupacabra molesting neighborhood pets from its lair in a local sewer. It was a crappy job, no pun intended, and as a result SI was regarded by the city as a kind of asylum for incompetents. They weren't, but the inmates of SI generally did share a couple of traits-intelligence enough to ask questions when something didn't make sense, and an inexcusable lack of ability when it came to navigating the murky waters of office politics.
When Sergeant Murphy had been Lieutenant Murphy, she'd been in charge of SI. She'd been busted for vanishing during twenty-four particularly critical hours of an investigation. It wasn't like she could tell her superiors that she was off storming a frozen fortress in the near reaches of the Nevernever, now, could she? Now her old partner, Lieutenant John Stallings, was in charge of SI, and he was running the place on a strained, frayed, often knotted shoestring of a budget.
Hence the lack of gainful employment for Chicago's only professional wizard.
I couldn't take their money. It wasn't like they were rolling in it. But at the same time, they had their pride. I couldn't take that, either.
"Per diem?" I told her. "Hell, my bank account is thinner than a tobacco lobbyist's moral justification. I'll go hourly."
Murphy glowered up at me for a moment, then gave me a grudging nod of thanks. Proud doesn't always outweigh practical.
"So what's the scoop?" I asked. "Arson?"
She shrugged. "Explosion of some kind. Maybe an accident. Maybe not."
I snorted. "Yeah, because you call me in on maybe-accidents all the time."
"Come on." Murphy pulled a dust mask from her coat pocket and put it on.
I took out a bandanna and tied it around my nose and mouth. All I needed was a ten-gallon hat and some spurs to complete the image. Stick 'em up, pahdner.
She glanced back at me, her face hard to read under the dust mask, and led me to the building adjacent to the ruined apartment. Murphy's partner was waiting for us.
Rawlins was a blocky man in his fifties, comfortably overweight, and looked about as soft as a Brinks truck. He'd grown in a beard frosted with grey, a sharp contrast against his dark skin, and he wore a weather-beaten old winter coat over his off-the-rack suit.
"Dresden," he said easily. "Good to see you."
I shook his hand. "How's the foot?"
"It aches when I'm about to get asked to leave," he said soberly. "Ow."
"It's better if you've got deniability," Murphy said, folding her arms in what an astute observer might have characterized as a tone of stubborn argument. "You've got a family to feed."
Rawlins sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I'll be out by the street." He nodded to me and walked off. He'd recovered from being shot in the foot pretty well, and wasn't limping. Good for him. Good for me, too. I'd been the one to get him into that mess.
"Deniability?" I asked Murphy.
"There hasn't been anything specific," Murphy said, "but people up the line from SI have made it very clear that you are persona non grata."
Special Investigations was the CPD's version of a pool filter. Things that slipped through the areas of interest of the other departments got dumped on SI. Lots of times those things included the cruddy work no one else wanted to do, so SI wound up investigating everything from apparent rains of toads to dogfighting rackets to reports of El Chupacabra molesting neighborhood pets from its lair in a local sewer. It was a crappy job, no pun intended, and as a result SI was regarded by the city as a kind of asylum for incompetents. They weren't, but the inmates of SI generally did share a couple of traits-intelligence enough to ask questions when something didn't make sense, and an inexcusable lack of ability when it came to navigating the murky waters of office politics.
When Sergeant Murphy had been Lieutenant Murphy, she'd been in charge of SI. She'd been busted for vanishing during twenty-four particularly critical hours of an investigation. It wasn't like she could tell her superiors that she was off storming a frozen fortress in the near reaches of the Nevernever, now, could she? Now her old partner, Lieutenant John Stallings, was in charge of SI, and he was running the place on a strained, frayed, often knotted shoestring of a budget.
Hence the lack of gainful employment for Chicago's only professional wizard.
I couldn't take their money. It wasn't like they were rolling in it. But at the same time, they had their pride. I couldn't take that, either.
"Per diem?" I told her. "Hell, my bank account is thinner than a tobacco lobbyist's moral justification. I'll go hourly."
Murphy glowered up at me for a moment, then gave me a grudging nod of thanks. Proud doesn't always outweigh practical.
"So what's the scoop?" I asked. "Arson?"
She shrugged. "Explosion of some kind. Maybe an accident. Maybe not."
I snorted. "Yeah, because you call me in on maybe-accidents all the time."
"Come on." Murphy pulled a dust mask from her coat pocket and put it on.
I took out a bandanna and tied it around my nose and mouth. All I needed was a ten-gallon hat and some spurs to complete the image. Stick 'em up, pahdner.
She glanced back at me, her face hard to read under the dust mask, and led me to the building adjacent to the ruined apartment. Murphy's partner was waiting for us.
Rawlins was a blocky man in his fifties, comfortably overweight, and looked about as soft as a Brinks truck. He'd grown in a beard frosted with grey, a sharp contrast against his dark skin, and he wore a weather-beaten old winter coat over his off-the-rack suit.
"Dresden," he said easily. "Good to see you."
I shook his hand. "How's the foot?"
"It aches when I'm about to get asked to leave," he said soberly. "Ow."
"It's better if you've got deniability," Murphy said, folding her arms in what an astute observer might have characterized as a tone of stubborn argument. "You've got a family to feed."
Rawlins sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I'll be out by the street." He nodded to me and walked off. He'd recovered from being shot in the foot pretty well, and wasn't limping. Good for him. Good for me, too. I'd been the one to get him into that mess.
"Deniability?" I asked Murphy.
"There hasn't been anything specific," Murphy said, "but people up the line from SI have made it very clear that you are persona non grata."
A significant proportion of SI dont really even believe in the supernatural.
Murphy's current partner in this quest John Stallings canonically didnt even after becoming SI head, even though his predecessor got dismembered by a loup garou in a police station.
4) She is in no evident danger from these guys. Neither are her officers.
And I would like to know if Daedalus has someone in her department feeding information back to them about the, and I quote, "Lawmaker Collaborator".
Cooperation with local law enforcement has been uneven, on the one hand Chicago's Special Investigation Unit has proven very knowledgeable, even possessing certain 'tried and true methodologies of dealing with what goes bump in the night'. Given previous association of their Lieutenant with Dresden we suspect it is Lawmaker-sourced information. I suggest that Karin Murphy be assigned a Lawmaker Collaborator tag and flagged for later investigation. All information gained from Chicago SI has been attached for verification and potential use.
Remember I voted to tell Karrin about the naagloshii.
Specifically, I voted to pressure Dresden into telling her, but the end point was supposed to be the same.
This is different.
1)Im not saying they lack agency in normal conditions.
I am saying that in a situation where a supernatural seducer with preptime has profiled and targeted one with supernatural powers, that said agency is fatally compromised. And Uriel agrees.
2)Kattrin et al needed Mathews active collaboration and his skills as a spirit binder during the Museum stuff while Corpsetaker was off playing footsie with Lydia, up till when they decided to expend him as a sacrifice. By contrast, the akuma just need J as a chassis to stuff an Exaltation is.
Different situations.
1)The Summer Lady gave him a tool, she didnt do anything else besides sit beside the portal he opened.
She couldnt have, without it being an act of war between the Courts.
Ditto in the other situations. He did the heavy lifting. Same for Molly here so far.
2)The danger is not to us, its to the human shields they have surrounded themselves with. Here is the site:
One hundred suites. Heart of Chinatown, great access to food and tourist sites.Jaslin Hotel. 261 West Cermak Rd. Chicago. IL said:
300m from a metro station, four minutes from an airport.
A hundred suite three star hotel like the Jaslin Hotel will average 60-80% occupancy rate and potentially up to a hundred staff.
Given an akuma with Obligation has been using it as an operating HQ in hostile territory for more than two weeks, Im assuming most of the staff and potentially some of the guests have been programmed for contingencies.
And thats assuming there isnt an extra one or two dozen mortal thralls grabbed off the street, whammied and stuffed in the basement with ARs and ammo and iron crowbars. After all, its not just Molly she has to worry about; Dresdenverse Chi-Town has a very strong Fae presence, from both courts, neither of which are friendly.
This situation makes things difficult on both a practical and ethical level for Molly and her allies.
Hence the need to pry them out of there before hostilities.
3)Because they had the option of luring us out with soft words and our guard potentially down.
Going full "I will eat a baby every hour until my demands are met" both puts the target on their guard and introduces a lot more moving parts into the situation, any of which can trip you up.
Not what you want in Plan A, but as a Go To Hell option....🤷
The difference is that we told her about a supernatural murderer that was a threat to her and hers.
Here we are asking her to be an accomplice to a premeditated homicide, after informing her of it ahead of time. At very best we put her in legal jeopardy where she lacks deniability, at worst she insists on putting a bunch of muggles in the line of fire of a mind controller. Nevermind the Library and Daedalus situation.
And this is at a time we have other options that dont involve compromising her.
Like I said to Yog, I voted to inform her about the naagloshii.
This is different.
1)This is not vanilla ExWoD though. Forget the Black Vault.
In ExWoD its canon that every other Infernal Exaltation autonomously reactivated at the same time as the first did.
More concerningly, so did the Abyssal Exaltations.
If there were several dozen Solaroid Exaltations of the Infernal and Abyssal flavor loose in the world, we sure as heck would know about it, just by seeing the craters on TV.
2)Yama Kings only became a thing at the end of the Second Age/Beginning of the Third Age.
There were no Exalts running around then.
Vote Closed, this still looks really clear
You are conflating cause and effect and drawing erroneous and unfounded conclusions based on zero evidence. Again. In canon Infernal exaltations reacted to a simultaneous release of the whole of celestial exalted host (if I recall correctly, abyssals were also in black vault) as a result of a great ritual.
That they didn't similarly react to one exaltation being unearthed, then spending a lot of time chained, so the echoes of its unearthing fade, and then exalting one person, is not at all evidence that Black Vault isn't there. In fact that Emma-O, who, whole hubristic, is not stupid, is convinced that there are more black seeds out there, is a tangential evidence that there are other jnfernal exaltations buried deep in the NeverNever and, from there, that Black Vault is also there.
Informing her that we are planning to murder a USA citizen (I am fairly sure naagloshii qualifies) is more problematic than informing her that we are working to prevent an act of international terrorism (poisoning of leylines) and a theft of a nuclear weapon equivalent (our exaltation) by a rogue state (Kakuri under Emma-O).
In both these cases we are acting as either vigilantes, or independent nation states. Only naagloshii is small potatoes compared to akuma operation.
Not trusting her to recognize her own and her people limits and acting to the best of her ability when informed of the situation is the very definition of infantilizing her.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, now that we've done this, I kind of want our own version of Little Chicago in the Dragon's Nest. Not even as a scrying focus, but as a strategic map with Dragon Lines and other sites of supernatural importance clearly marked for planning purposes. And as a Craft flex to show that we can. Anyone else want that for our War Room in the Last Station?
Sounds like a good future keystone for the god of Chicago.
Winning Vote
Arc 6 Post 16: Chasing Shadows
Chasing Shadows
3nd of October 2006 A.D.
"So what's an akuma?" Lieutenant Murphy asks with the weary air of one who knows she is not going to like the answer, or maybe it's just the car. Black Rider does have the air of something a mob boss might ride around in.
Briefly you consider a detailed explanation, but realize it would do about as much good as the taxonomy of felines would to someone on one of those islands where cats ate all the birds and reptiles. "You know the movie Spawn, he one with the guy sent back to Earth to be Hell's assassin? The one with the clown demon? They are like that only Hell isn't run by morons unfortunately for us...."
Despite himself dad cracks a smile at the comparison, or maybe at the memory of taking the whole family out to see with Daniel practically bouncing off the walls with excitement while Brother Divisimar just looks mildly confused, not a fan of dark comic book movies apparently. With a tilt of your head you invite the monk to step in if he feels like it so you can ask your questions.
Thankfully he does so, looking over the heads of the other officers you allow your attention to wander into the depths of the flashing red and blue lights. "How do I get to the current HQ of the group that had the owner of this apartment killed? The hotel passes again before your mind's eye, but that is not all.
A slow and narrow river, it course much altered by the work of human hands flows past a polygon of abandoned streets and rusted rail before flowing into the river. Long grey halls of industry now hollow lie separated from the city at their back by chain-link fences, now the abode of rats that feed on the refuse of the city even as they are fed upon by mangy strays. Like a shadow a new hunter had come to live among them, down the rusty ladders, prying open doors welded shut by time and by neglect that even in their time had not been for the eyes of the public to see...
"They are at the old South Works Steel Mill, at lest the ones who are not at the Hotel."
Now it's the detective's turn to look at you funny. "You can just tell that? Harry always had to go back to his place, get out the magic string and crystals."
"Different paradigm. How many people are likely to be around the Steel Mill during the day?"
"I think there is a developer looking to bulldoze the old buildings and put up housing, but they've been saying that for a decade and change, not sure how many would be on site, I'll have to make some calls. What kind of opposition are we looking at here?"
"I'm gonna need another focus, can you tell the others to follow us...?"
Detective Murphy radios in to her partners and pretty soon you have a trail of three squad cars on your trail in what looks a little like the world's slowest car chase.
***
So you ask again looking up at the distant window of the small studio apartment where a old lady who owned an antique shop used to live, now dark and empty as the heart of the one that devoured her: "What forces, in terms of personal, material and immaterial resources, are available to the orchestrator of this apartment's owner's murder?"
Faces flash before your mind's eye, some familiar, pale puffy-eyed, some not still cut of the same cloth, armed and armored in like manner, the fingers of a long black hand, but the whirl of color does not stop with them or with the familiar chill gaze of lady Eiko. Eyes like plaid lanterns, like some insect's gaze, look out of a face made gaunt with worry and lined with deep resentment past the windscreen of a taxi and into the night. There is more than mortal rage there, more than the spite of a broken like curdled to darkness. A demon of Kakuri squirms inside flesh now borrowed soon to be stolen.
Three more follow after that, a tabloid photographer who takes particular joy in the discomfort of his female 'quarry', an old man man so obsessed with UFOs and conspiracies that he now obsessively tracks his neighbors convinced that they are spies from the beyond, a girl nine or ten maybe passed through so many foster homes and so ill used that she now thinks behind every smiling face is a monster resolved to destroy them all.
For all of them a single word, a single dark fate: bakemono
But as the girl fades from the edges of Sight Beyond Sight, you hear rather than see the last piece on the board, an emptiness not silent but howling as it drinks in the night air: Kakuri's Will on Earth
It is perhaps fortunate for Detective Murphy's peace of mind that she does not see you go pale and throw up in your mouth a little. Never a good sign when your primary source of information feels nauseous on getting said information. "Seventeen lesser Wan Kuei, four bakemono acting as spies, Lady Eiko... and whatever the hell Kakuri's Will on Earth is," you mutter to yourself.
"Greater Akuma, one without will save for the will of their Master," Usum provides.
That's... OK that is helpful, scary as hell, literally but helpful in terms of knowing who your enemies are.
"There are demolition crews in site at South Works," the lieutenant interjects coming off her call. "I can get them off premises during the day no problem, but if anything nasty lives there they will notice. Or we can go in at night with all the risks that implies." Clicking her phone closed she gives the old monk a once over, as though he is not quite sure he's 'go in at night to fight vampires' material.
"There's another wrinkle in the case I'm afraid," you quickly change the subject, explaining Bùshì Tùzǐ, J and what you had learned about the latter's 'death'.
"There's a fake corpse at the morgue?" she does not sound as surprised as you had expected her to, though the way her hands move to her temple indicate she'd probably not say no to an aspirin about now. Unfortunately for her you had stopped keeping pills in you purse since... a few months ago.
Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 8/12 (Crown Questions)
***
What the rest of SI think when you get out of your car by the Pink Swan and start meandering around looking at the stray cats you are not sure you want to know, but eventually you come upon the right one and as you speak the words you reach inside yourself and pull over your eyes threads of all-seeing darkness.
Lost 2 Essene -> now at 6/12 (ATB and Excellency)
"J's not dead."
Shock, hope, budding, horror at the implications, you can read all these in the lines of her body, in he sudden stilling of her tail as though you had just become a world leading expert on cat body language, but beyond that, behind that there is a sort of cringing reflex, drawing back her paws tensing her back to leap, that you had not seen her before. You open your mouth to ask what happened, but before you can speak the truth passes like an icicle down your spine: The Akuma had found her, interrogated her, maybe even turned her.
"I don't believe you, I saw him dead, I found him, I saw the body!"
Truth again, in the heart as much as on the lips. So you decide to keep going: "They promised him that he could be with you without fading and the alternative was just killing him like all the others."
"I can't... I can't deal with this anymore... I'm sorry," she says as she leaps to the wall of the alley and starts to bounce back into the darkness.
Calmly yet with the same certainty you have for the earth under your feet you respond: "It does no good to run, the akuma will follow, whether in flesh in spirit, or just in the fears of your own mind, that's what shadows do."
There is a scrambling of soft paws on concrete, a pause... and then Bùshì Tùzǐ's eyes glitter at you out of the darkness: "He came like a shadow out of the dark, like a spirit himself draped in the Wings of the Ebon Dragon. He said there is going to be an attack on Lán Hè tomorrow after sunset... or well I guess it's today now isn't it?"
A glance at Clippy shows 3:21 AM. "Yeah, that's today."
"I was supposed to call you and made sure you chased the guy in the black van all the way to Ping Tom Memorial Park. Once you were these my task would have been done."
What do you do next?
[] Investigate the body, you might still get something useful out of it
[] Get Bùshì Tùzǐ to safety, it might give away the game, but making sure she does not get another visit from the Akuma is more important
-[] To the Last Station
-[] Your House
[] Stake out the Hotel, maybe you can get your own chat with Lady Eiko before things get... uncivilized
[] Enough playing around, go straight to South Works as soon as the sun is up and clear out the enemy
[] Get Harry in an attempt to turn the ley line trap around
OOC: Welp, that was a long one.
She said the name! *Squeeing noises* So, more seriously - who and what does she mean when invoking that name? As a local expert in Kakuri, does Molly get the reference?
- Location
- Germany
I think in WoD the Ebon Dragon is just the biggest Yin-aligned spirit around, not necessarily the same as the Yozi that shares the name.
The opposite of the Scarlet Empress, the biggest Yang-Spirit.
Or maybe it is a remnant of that Yozi, but it doesn't seem to have the same weight in the stories, just a reference in the backround.