Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

More broadly on this @Yog even if we do want to get involved in this hunt* we benefit more from being a partner than a hireling. We have a lot less say in what happens with them if our presence is in payment for a debt than as someone brought on board for a slice of the spoils.

Making sure the good guys get it or not I'm not interested in helping other people get them just because they're nice sometimes.

* Which I'm still against because on a meta level I think if we go looking we'll eventually find something but it will be slower if left cooking alone.
 
2. Is that lore included in Big Book of Yomi Wan? Actually... How much would the Big Book of Yomi Wan be worth?
4. Could you elaborate on that last part? Is that a part of agreement we would be making?
  1. No, it is one of those things that are not safe to expose mortal minds to. Odin thankfully is not mortal, but he is rather famous from claiming wisdom from all sorts of places
  2. After you do the investigations if it looks like the exaltation can be reached without undue danger and Molly might provide useful insights on side she will be asked to come. If it looks dangerous or if they want more active help in recovering the thing that would be negotiated as part of a later deal
 
  1. No, it is one of those things that are not safe to expose mortal minds to. Odin thankfully is not mortal, but he is rather famous from claiming wisdom from all sorts of places
  2. After you do the investigations if it looks like the exaltation can be reached without undue danger and Molly might provide useful insights on side she will be asked to come. If it looks dangerous or if they want more active help in recovering the thing that would be negotiated as part of a later deal
What about the Big Book of Yomi Wan. Is it worth anything? It's mortal-safe knowledge, but it's still a lot of rare knowledge. You said that, if given to a wan kuei elder, it would be enough to pay for an army once. Is it worth anything to Odin?
More broadly on this @Yog even if we do want to get involved in this hunt* we benefit more from being a partner than a hireling. We have a lot less say in what happens with them if our presence is in payment for a debt than as someone brought on board for a slice of the spoils.

Making sure the good guys get it or not I'm not interested in helping other people get them just because they're nice sometimes.

* Which I'm still against because on a meta level I think if we go looking we'll eventually find something but it will be slower if left cooking alone.
Mostly, I want to prevent exaltations from falling into the hands of others. If there are to be other exalts (and I still hope for Twilight Dresden, he rather deserves it; as well as Dawn Charity), I'd rather we were the ones who is at least somewhat involved in their initial selection.
 
Mostly, I want to prevent exaltations from falling into the hands of others. If there are to be other exalts (and I still hope for Twilight Dresden, he rather deserves it; as well as Dawn Charity), I'd rather we were the ones who is at least somewhat involved in their initial selection.
I think you're jumping too far ahead and looking at just the conclusion you want instead of at the other impacts of what you're proposing doing.

It would consume the rest of the quest and drown out a lot of neat DF stuff if we jump to the late game stuff now, and I'm reasonably confident that absent our involvement the task won't be any easier now than it has been for countless ages.
 
Bro, exalted are famous for getting mobbed early so they don't snow ball, so that won't change even if shards are revealed. Lets just keep them away from the quest.
[X] Plan Brass Tacks
-[X] Offer:
—[X] Money 2 points
-[X] Receive:
—[X] The aid of one of Odin's valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain who have walked battlefields uncounted (Can be chosen up to seven times)
-[X] A rune-caster 2 points



Because people may irrationally want to do more so i am voting here.
 
[X] Plan The forges of war
-[X] Offer
--[X] Money 2 Point (1 Base +1 From Legenday Social Roll Success)
--[X] Your skillful craft in:
---[X] Forging baneful weapons for his einherjar 1 point
---[X] Crafting vehicles worthy to carry them in battle in this age of iron and flame 2 points
-[X] Receive
--[X] The aid of one of Odin's valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain who have walked battlefields uncounted (Can be chosen up to seven times)
---[X] 2X A warrior 1 Point
---[X] A rune-caster 2 points
--[X] Einherjar: These warriors have died once, a glorious death with drew the eye of the Wanderer they wander the world still honing their skills until Ragnarök comes (Can be taken up to 7 times)
---[X] Frontline squad 1 point ( 5 Riflemen)


Reasoning: Weapon forging is advertising, essentially. I am not opposed to seeling weapons to Odin - if he likes what he sees, he'll probably be willing to negotiate for more of those. With coffee coming next month, we should be able to afford craft spending. Essentially, this is the maximum we can afford without giving intelligence away. We need help, but I am loathe to trust the god of the gallows. And forge duty gives us practice for when we make our own car. And doesn't reveal anything new about us. Gard already knows we are a forge master.

On the force composition, it's essentially a pyramid. At the bottom a squad of five riflemen - those are mooks. The middle tier is two valkirie warriors - elite mooks. Then we have a rune caster, to ward off civilians, and act as a mini-boss. I might be convinced to exchange Einherjar squad for Gard (to swap her for a rune-caster).

Basically, this is "the maximum help we can get without giving away anything of true value".

Plus, the unnamed valkiries almost certainly can be used as foci for the crown to learn what Odin knows about the exaltations.
 
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[X] Plan Brass Tacks
Simple and easy. We felt alright going with no support before.


[X]Plan Green fire
-[x]Money 2 Point (1 Base +1 From Legenday Social Roll Success)
-[X] Share your wisdom regarding
--[x] The flame that burns upon your blade 3 points
-[x] The aid of one of Odin's valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain who have walked battlefields uncounted (Can be chosen up to seven times)
--[x] 3 warriors 3 Point
--[x] A rune-caster 2 points


Odin can likely use our knowledge of the green sun to make some terrible weapons, but they will be weapons that Molly is well suited to defend against.

I don't like the idea of having to spend all our future AP on making weapons for Odin. We still need to equip our own guys.
 
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[x] Yog

This plan seems to me like a nice balance between getting very limited support for just money and turning this operation in a monoc operation in all but name more extensive options suggest.
We are also parting with replaceable things - money and products of our craft, without offering something where neither we nor Molly can be sure about long term consequences. I also agree about advertising - our craft is something we can bargain with in the future, getting samples out there should be good for us.
 
@Yog
Trading some of those in for Hard might be a good idea
But still...
[X] Yog
I thought about asking for Gard, without the mook squad. Here's the reason I didn't:
1) Numbers. The five man squad us bodies. If nothing else this strongly increases the chances of Murphy to survive. And they take heat off actual fighters that matter, like MIchael, Dresden and Mouse.
2) Unnamed valkiries are more useful as crown foci, without using up Gard herself. I kinda want to know what Odin knows about exaltations. Just to know if we need to worry.
 
This still reads like you overhyping naagloshii and severely nerfing Yama Kings. At the very least, cosmologically a Yama King would be equivalent to Erlking. If a naagloshii is a fallen semi-divine messenger, then Yama Kings are corrupted divinity. Nothing semi about it. And need I remind you that Mab considers Erlking a peer? A being with great power.
-I dont think I am, but we can agree to disagree.


-Naagloshii are the second or third most terrifying combat antagonists we've seen in the Dresden Files, short of Ethniu and Drakul.
They have broad-based Intellectus dedicated to how to fuck you up, in a setting where information superiority is a crushing advantage, and non-geographic intellectus is usually the preserve of the really Big Boys.

There are entities who are more broad-spectrum threats, and have done more damage. Strategic scale dangers.
There's also one-off combat abominations like the Coin-bearing Genoskwa.
But for an entire class of non-unique beings you might run into in an alley, you're gonna be hardpressed to do worse.


I mean, its worth recalling that Donald Morgan, second in command of the Wardens of the White Council, was willing to attack the Red King in open battle, cutting his way through multiple high-tier Reds on the battlefield to do so before the Red King ran.
This just happened like three months ago in-quest.

But his reaction to getting hunted by a naagloshii was to run the fuck away and risk a freaking nuclear test site in the 1950s/1960s, when they were cooking off cans of sunshine aboveground in the Nevada desert.


-Some Yama Kings are corrupted divinities. Some are uncorrupted divinities, like Yen Lo and Haha no Fukami.
But most do not appear to have ever been even minor gods prior to being YKs, including some of the most prominent and powerful, like Mikaboshi and Emma.

And we have text evidence for their being crippled just fine by material creatures.

Dont get me wrong, you can kill Dresdenverse Fae royalty. Its very hard, it requires timing and location, but its done.
The Courts promote someone and march on without loss of power. Yama Kings get killed, not regularly, but enough to be notable, and their Hells usually die with them, ripped apart and claimed by others. No timing issues involved



-Word of Jim states that the Erl King is a peer, but nowhere near an equal of Mab.
For the purposes of this quest? Naagloshii, Yama Kings, Mab and the Erl King are all Incarna-class entities.
Some are just a lot more Incarna than others.


WoD sorcerers can do everything on that list. "Can, theoretically, do the same as X" does not make someone X or equivalent to X.
/broadly uninterested in the debate, but my eye stumbled upon this passage
*checks*
Some, not all.
Of course WoD often has higher tier magic feats than the Dresdenverse at the high end.
Still, no WoD sorcerer is getting into dustups with Dresdenverse Dragons, which are apparently Incarna-tier entities.

Bella still has the invulnerability of youth, I see.
And what kind of party was she going to at 5-6 AM on a Tuesday?
Man, rich people live different.

What we need is going to be dependent on what we think our worstcase projections are, plus a safety margin for recovering our people. 17 akuma.
Can they summon spirits/demons from Kakuri? Thats the question here.

I would love to send a message with our choices here.
Not enough to hire Odin himself, mind, (LOL) but enough that anyone else who chooses to go after Molly's people, and Molly's people themselves know that she will pull out the stops for them.

Need to look at the budget.
 
Given that I am actually interested in really meeting Odin, voting for a plan that will potentially lead us to do so and has some chances of winning:

[x] Yog
 
VOTE
[X]Plan Sledgehammer
-[X]Offer: 9 points
--[X]Money 2 Point (1 Base +1 From Legenday Social Roll Success)
--[X]Aid Monoc Security in one battle of their choice[Lydia + Molly together]: 4 Points
--[X][Craft] Forging baneful weapons for his einherjar 1 point
--[X][Craft] Crafting vehicles worthy to carry them in battle in this age of iron and flame 2 points
-[X]Receive: 9 points
-[X][Valkyries] A rune-caster 2 points
-[X][Valkyries] Gard herself 3 points
-[X][Einherjar] Frontline squad 1 point (5 Riflemen): x3
-[X][Einherjar] Heavy squad 1 point (1 Heavy Machine Gunner and 1 Mortal Team): x1



RATIONALE
Remember?
This is now a hostage rescue scenario, so the math is different.
Just killing Daddykuma isnt the primary goal any longer; if the jailers get the opportunity to murder our minions when we're winning, its still a failure state. Basically:

Primary Goals
-The True Death of the Greater Akuma
-Rescuing our people with as little additional damage as possible

Secondary goals:
-Reassuring our people that we will pull out the stops for them.
-Deterring other people from trying this against people we're affiliated with for a while by gratuitous overkill of this lot

===
Runecaster + 1x frontline squad to get the hostages out.
If noone else is dead besides Adam, we have 15x people down there, and there might be magical shit to deal with like when we rescued Cindy, hence the runecaster.

Gard + 1x frontline squad + 1x heavy squad for actual combat; a caster/warrior, a an allround squad to screen and a DPS squad.
Thats 11x people to back Molly + Lydia + Michael + Murphy + Dresden + Brother Devsimar + (Thomas + Mouse, assuming they are available).

1x Frontline squad as reserve, to be committed to either the extermination or hostage rescue depending on the situation as we see it when we show up. I could be persuaded to make this another Valkyrie instead, but I suspect we'll need more hands rather than more firepower.

===
As for what we're giving up?

Like Yog said, we dont have a problem giving up weapons or vehicles. We're gonna be making stuff anyway, we get additional actions when we start drinking Malspresso next month, and we have no way of guaranteeing any gear we give to, say, Cauldron, wont find its way into other hands.

And I think, thematically, its IC for Molly to put herself on the line by offering 1 battlefield card to play.
Not to mention tnat it gives the QM a narrative card to play later.
 
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VOTE
[X]Plan Sledgehammer
-[X]Offer: 9 points
--[X]Money 2 Point (1 Base +1 From Legenday Social Roll Success)
--[X]Aid Monoc Security in one battle of their choice[Lydia + Molly together]: 4 Points
--[X][Craft] Forging baneful weapons for his einherjar 1 point
--[X][Craft] Crafting vehicles worthy to carry them in battle in this age of iron and flame 2 points
-[X]Receive: 9 points
-[X][Valkyries] A rune-caster 2 points
-[X][Valkyries] Gard herself 3 points
-[X][Einherjar] Frontline squad 1 point (5 Riflemen): x3
-[X][Einherjar] Heavy squad 1 point (1 Heavy Machine Gunner and 1 Mortal Team): x1



RATIONALE
Remember?
This is a hostage rescue scenario, so the math is different.
Just killing Daddykuma isnt the primary goal any longer.

Primary Goals
-The True Death of the Greater Akuma
-Rescuing our people with as little additional damage as possible

Secondary goals:
-Reassuring our people that we will pull out the stops t
-Deterring other people from trying this against people we're affiliated with for a while by gratuitous overkill of this lot

===
Runecaster + 1x frontline squad to get the hostages out.
If noone else is dead besides Adam, we have 15x people down there, and there might be magical shit to deal with like when we rescued Cindy, hence the runecaster.

Gard + 1x frontline squad + 1x heavy squad for actual combat; a caster/warrior, a an allround squad to screen and a DPS squad.
Thats 11x people to back Molly + Lydia + Michael + Murphy + Dresden + Brother Devsimar + (Thomas + Mouse, assuming they are available).

1x Frontline squad as reserve, to be committed to either the extermination or hostage rescue depending on the situation as we see it when we show up. I could be persuaded to make this another Valkyrie instead, but I suspect we'll need more hands rather than more firepower.

===
As for what we're giving up?
Like Yog said, we dont have a problem giving up weapons or vehicles. We're gonna be making stuff anyway, and we have no way of guaranteeing any gear we give to, say, Cauldron, wont find its way into other hands.

And I think, thematically, its IC for Molly to put herself on the line by offering 1 battlefield card to play.
Not to mention tnat it gives the QM a narrative card to play later.
It's not quite bringing down the hammer of the gods on them like I was hoping for, but this is probably the best I'm going to get.

[X] uju32
 
And I think, thematically, its IC for Molly to put herself on the line by offering 1 battlefield card to play.
Not to mention tnat it gives the QM a narrative card to play later.
Not totally comfortable with the idea of giving that sort of marker to someone we don't really know, especially because you're also putting our other ally on the line with us. That's a form of debt on its own.

When he calls it in we won't really be able to refuse, and I doubt it will be as simple as beating up vampires for him.

I don't expect him to necessarily screw us on purpose, but that doesn't mean he won't maximize his profits or that something might change his mind.

Getting burned by supernatural debt in unexpected ways is something of a theme in the DF. It happens to Harry, it happens to various random creatures, and it happens on occasion to people like Mab. Cash and carry only is safer.

Money and crafting projects are more than enough to buy us help above and beyond what we thought was necessary earlier.

Edit: autocorrect
 
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