There is an Yin Prana power called Semblance of the Ebon Dragon, you become intangible to the physical world but still able to interact with spirits. It taps into the the deepest taint of Kakuri, the places where the darkness is not still but all consuming void, where Emma-O sits and plots upon an ebony throne.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
There is an Yin Prana power called Semblance of the Ebon Dragon, you become intangible to the physical world but still able to interact with spirits. It taps into the the deepest taint of Kakuri, the places where the darkness is not still but all consuming void, where Emma-O sits and plots upon an ebony throne.
- Location
- Germany
Not all of the Yin-Spirit world is connected to Kakuri or the Yama-Hells in general though, I think?
There are non-evil spirits of either Chi-alignment too.
I really, really, really think we should be digging into the akuma that want to defect from serving Emma-O and try to persuade them to flip to serving working with us.
The Crown is ideal for this now we have enough knowledge to find more foci for better questions.
The Ebon Dragon in the Wan Kuei's cosmology is the embodiment of the principle of Yin.
He and the Scarlet Empress, the embodiment of the principle of Yang, were deputised by the August Personage of Jade (God) with empowering the trials that made the later generations of Wan Xian after He personally Chose and enlightened the first generation.
The Crown is ideal for this now we have enough knowledge to find more foci for better questions.
The Ebon Dragon in the Wan Kuei's cosmology is the embodiment of the principle of Yin.
He and the Scarlet Empress, the embodiment of the principle of Yang, were deputised by the August Personage of Jade (God) with empowering the trials that made the later generations of Wan Xian after He personally Chose and enlightened the first generation.
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It is not, but the Ebon Dragon does not represent the nice Yin.
IIRC, the Ebon Dragon in WoD does, it's the embodiment of all of Yin, just as the Scarlet Empress is the embodiment of all of Yang.
They're basically fundamental cosmological principles. When you sleep, that's the Ebon Dragon at work, when you're awake, it's the Scarlet Empress. In the verse, Tao begot One; One begot Two, Two begot Three, and Three begot Ten Thousand, in Wan Kuei cosmology the Two it's talking about are those two. They're responsible for making literally everyone in existence except for Tao and One, which are arguably God.
Now, being WoD, both have have their bad characteristics strengthened and their good ones weakened, but the latter are still there.
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- Location
- Germany
Gotta agree with Alratan here.
As far as I remember the Ebon Dragon and Scarlet Empress were even behind the Hunters in WoD, not that that's a thing in an Exalted-crossover.
As far as I remember the Ebon Dragon and Scarlet Empress were even behind the Hunters in WoD, not that that's a thing in an Exalted-crossover.
- Location
- Terror Australis
I am inclined to get Bùshì Tùzǐ to safety and then go loud with Harry spiking their ritual. As it seems we are rapidly approaching the point where they have everything set up. Especially as fighting them during the day would be really helpful in closing off escape routes.
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Indeed. So:
1) Use J's fake body or photo of lady Eiko as a focus to find traitors. Maybe two questions - one for traitors, another for a way to contact them without notifying loyalists? Try and subvert those.
2) Send Harry (with Mouse and maybe some SI as backup) to mess with the leylines - he should have the supply of our super coffee, so he should be good to act without sleep and be ready by dawn.
3) Send SI after bakemono? Not sure if they can handle those.
4) Go loud.
The issue is that if we go loud, lady Eiko might try to cut her losses. Not that we couldn't pursue...
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
First and foremost, we need to inform Harry of what's going on. The more time he has to prepare,the better off we'll be, so any delay in getting him involved is unacceptable.
[X] Get Harry in an attempt to turn the ley line trap around
[X] Get Harry in an attempt to turn the ley line trap around
We have SI to do some investigate legwork as well. With the information we can give them they may be able to find some additional foci today. Just sending them to the crime scenes to lift some additional pieces of 'evidence' would help,
If we know the faces of the opposition, with Tool Transcending Constructs we can sketch the Wan Kuei and Bakemono very quickly. That at least gives them a heads up of who the bad guys are.
This is another example of why we need to subvert Chicago's CCTV and similar networks. Could we use this as an excuse to get Murphy to take us inside on the pretence we're a witness on an urgent case and they need us to review the footage more easily than can be done remotely?
[X] Plan: using what we know v 0.1
-[X] Get Harry in an attempt to turn the ley line trap around
-[X] Make him take Mouse with him as a bodyguard
-[X] Using TTC make portraits for all the opposing forces, distribute them to your allies, including SI.
-[X] Using J's fake body and Lady Eiko's photograph learn the identities of would-be traitors in her midst, and a way to contacting them without notifying loyal Kakuri forces
--[X] Contact them just before going on the attack. In exchange for turning on their comrades, and bending the knee, without surrendering their souls, you'll extend your protection and guar them against Kakuri's wraith
---[X] Excellencies as appropriate
-[X] 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
--[X] To the Last Station
-[X] Enough playing around, go straight to South Works as soon as the sun is up and clear out the enemy
--[X] Spend as much time as possible dispersed in a bleach bottle while travelling to restore your essence levels
Really, really unsure about this. Not sure essence economy works. We have 6 essence points right now. The plan calls for use of at least 4 points. We can probably spend 2 hours in a bleach bottle. That gives us +8 points. So we enter combat at 10 EP. Not bad. Should be doable.
-[X] Get Harry in an attempt to turn the ley line trap around
-[X] Make him take Mouse with him as a bodyguard
-[X] Using TTC make portraits for all the opposing forces, distribute them to your allies, including SI.
-[X] Using J's fake body and Lady Eiko's photograph learn the identities of would-be traitors in her midst, and a way to contacting them without notifying loyal Kakuri forces
--[X] Contact them just before going on the attack. In exchange for turning on their comrades, and bending the knee, without surrendering their souls, you'll extend your protection and guar them against Kakuri's wraith
---[X] Excellencies as appropriate
-[X] 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
--[X] To the Last Station
-[X] Enough playing around, go straight to South Works as soon as the sun is up and clear out the enemy
--[X] Spend as much time as possible dispersed in a bleach bottle while travelling to restore your essence levels
Really, really unsure about this. Not sure essence economy works. We have 6 essence points right now. The plan calls for use of at least 4 points. We can probably spend 2 hours in a bleach bottle. That gives us +8 points. So we enter combat at 10 EP. Not bad. Should be doable.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
A lot of this can be accomplished while we're in a bleach bath. There is no reason not to go into combat with full Essence.
Side note on gear. We want to take the greater akuma 'alive' if we can. They're potentially an invaluable source of intelligence if we want to turn wan kuei.
We need some wooden stakes. Peach wood preferably. Particularly as we may be able to get traitor Wan Kuei to sandbag so we can stake them more easily than have them openly betray Emma-O.
I think we have more time than this before we have to hit them, so can spend more essence/time.
I'd prefer finding a way to privately contact the traitors first, but that's risky.
If we had enough Essence I'd say that before going in we burn a Crown use on the building to get the layout, locations of everyone and of any wards or traps.
Because let's be honest, a greater akuma is possibly a fair match up for Molly alone. Add on eighteen other akuma with enough investments to lose their souls on prepared ground and we're likely to get our asses kicked.
Greater akuma are a particularly nasty threat as they're literally min-maxed when their master remakes them. A combat focused greater akuma is truly, truly nasty. And that's partially because greater akuma are usually made from particularly talented Wan Kuei elders.
We need some wooden stakes. Peach wood preferably. Particularly as we may be able to get traitor Wan Kuei to sandbag so we can stake them more easily than have them openly betray Emma-O.
I think we have more time than this before we have to hit them, so can spend more essence/time.
I'd prefer finding a way to privately contact the traitors first, but that's risky.
If we had enough Essence I'd say that before going in we burn a Crown use on the building to get the layout, locations of everyone and of any wards or traps.
Because let's be honest, a greater akuma is possibly a fair match up for Molly alone. Add on eighteen other akuma with enough investments to lose their souls on prepared ground and we're likely to get our asses kicked.
Greater akuma are a particularly nasty threat as they're literally min-maxed when their master remakes them. A combat focused greater akuma is truly, truly nasty. And that's partially because greater akuma are usually made from particularly talented Wan Kuei elders.
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Very true. Dawn is at 6:22 AM, almost exactly 3 hours away. We should be able to restore essence enough to go in with a full tank.
Oh, we definitely will want the exact enemy positions and building layout. Just no need to vote for this now, I think. In fact, the layout can probably be grabbed by cyberdevils looking for building plans.
Yeah, the numbers and the force of opposition make me a lot weary. I want to turn at least some of them against others, and we probably want to bring as many allies as possible. Not sure if sending Harry and Mouse away is better than taking them with us. I mean, the ritual would work as what +2 DC? That's huge. Maybe +1 DC for everyone not Kakuri. Backfired ritual either drops apart or inflicts +1 DC on Kakuri. We'll need to do the math here.
...
I am tempted to call in Winter's favor to send in some muscle to help us deal with these guys.
Think we have the time for more alchemy? Some healing potions could be very important going into this. If we can swing it speed might be useful as well.
Some of our charms can control demons who don't technically answer to us, so it seems worth asking. Even if some want to keep the demon powers pulling them out and sticking them back in with our authority to tell it to play nice this time would probably make for a more pleasant long term arrangement.
I've spoken against getting that charm for the purposes of empowering Molly's muggle friends and angry minor talents without any prior training, but if they're already around and we can use it medically then it's a factor worth considering for the charm.
Only tangentially related, but did we get a ruling on MiM-Akuma interactions? I don't recall one, and a quick search doesn't show anything promising.
If we kill an Akuma, can we erase it so that it can't report on us or does the charm only apply to things that can come back to life rather than "simply" being ageless?
That way we can give some closure to their family if it is actually real corpse.
Bit of a stretch, but if we had Inner Darkness Unchained could we pull Kakuri demons out of people that we didn't place into them?
Some of our charms can control demons who don't technically answer to us, so it seems worth asking. Even if some want to keep the demon powers pulling them out and sticking them back in with our authority to tell it to play nice this time would probably make for a more pleasant long term arrangement.
I've spoken against getting that charm for the purposes of empowering Molly's muggle friends and angry minor talents without any prior training, but if they're already around and we can use it medically then it's a factor worth considering for the charm.
So Eiko still has some control of her soul then, kind of surprised.
Only tangentially related, but did we get a ruling on MiM-Akuma interactions? I don't recall one, and a quick search doesn't show anything promising.
If we kill an Akuma, can we erase it so that it can't report on us or does the charm only apply to things that can come back to life rather than "simply" being ageless?
If we don't use this now we should take a look after the case to confirm if it's artificial, or if they gave someone magical plastic surgery and then killed them to make the fake.
That way we can give some closure to their family if it is actually real corpse.
- Location
- Germany
We don't have a favor from Winter though.
Formally, Harry does, for telling Mab about her redcap being subverted.
That can't tell us about later modifications or additions, or wards, or where people are the moment we attack are though. Using the plans as a focus for a question on wards or traps in advance and then the building for information right before we attack wouod make sense though, so we can combine preparations with near real time information.
Greater Akuma can have ten dot disciplines. The ones with names like 'Plot Device'.
Unfortunately the elder powers in the KotE:Companion book are shit and from a point in the game line when they weren't meant for PCs so are incredibly variable in power so aren't a good guide, but they're meant to like up to Kindred discipline powers that had a lot more material.
One that is strong, as an example, is the six dot Kiai power Cry of Blood. You shout and roll Stamina + Occult, and it does dharma (virtually 7) levels of aggravated damage per success. Note not dice, levels. Doing levels of damage directly means it's unparryable and unsoakable*, if I recall the system right. A combat optimised greater shikome could scream at you, roll 20+ dice, and then hit you for 70 levels of damage.
* You don't soak levels of damage, you soak successful dice of damage. Post-soak you apply levels of damage. Cry of Blood skips past the stages where you hit and where you soak.
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- Location
- Germany
Could have, if they were great and enlightened before becoming Greater Akuma maybe.
But by default a Greater Akuma gets access to 7-Dot traits and is generally treated as if that were his Dharma-level for most matters.
Exept perfect control over his shadow-soul and a bigger pool of Chi, I think.
They get access to 7 dot traits as a base line max and then can bust that limit with Soul Treatments and lesser Investments.
Say that we face someone whose had the:
Graceful Reed Angel treatment for extra four dots of Yin and Yang Prana, so has Yin Prana 10 and an extra Yin Prana 8 power, as well as having four bonus dots to each of Dexterity and Martial Arts, to make them 10 (or eleven of that's possible).
As well as;
Beatifically Enlightened Tutor Treatment, giving four extra dots to perception, six extra dots to rituals, and two dots to Internalise giving them Internalise 9 and Chi'uh Muh 9. You then apply the Unfolding Scarlet Lotus Investment to push them both to 10.
As mentioned above, you then add on a whole pile of lesser investments of the Unfolding Scarlet Lotus which gives you an extra cap-breaking dot in a discipline. A greater akuma is likely to have been an extraordinary enough character that they could have this applied to quite a few additional disciplines to push them up to level 8.
As a result, when rebuilding a greater shikome Emma-O could easily give them three ten dot disciplines.
If he wanted to be more optimised, he might be able to go with Saint of the Godbody and Beatifically Enlightened Tutor Treatment plus Unfolding Scarlet Lotus to raise four of the Shintai plus Internalise and Chi'uh Muh to ten dots, although that may be challenging because of Attribute prerequisites needing lots of Iron Hand investments.
Basically, a Greater Akuma can be relied on to have 10 on any attribute or ability particularly relevant to their job and rank ten in three to six disciplines.
Greater akuma are rare and they're the kind of thing you want a circle of experienced celestials or multiple war-wu of ancient vampires to face.
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- Location
- Germany
That's like a full Antedeluvian.
Not gonnahappen atthis stage of the game.