Went to bed before posting this; posting it anyway because, well, since it's already written....
You're missing my point. The svartalves have been in the business for a long time, the basic observations of what they're up to aren't worth much because at that level what you want is utility and not fact finding.
I don't expect him to learn grand secrets if the universe or how to copy our work. I do expect him to get more insight into what exactly we are and how we do things, which is valuable to him because the other sources for that information are limited.
A one off order of custom equipment like this just isn't that valuable when you work at scale.
1)You are misunderstanding me.
If this was something that Odin was known for, or was capable of, the svartalfar wouldnt have been trading with the pantheon he was known to have headed because it would have exposed all their secrets.
After all, they both come from the same area; the only svartalfar store is supposed to still be in Norway.
2)I dont buy it.
I dont think he'll get more information than he otherwise would from watching us finish Last Station or hear about us creating least gods to guard apartment buildings or expanding our interaction with the rest of the supernatural world.
I mean, do recall that Watchful Bane guards Helen's apartment, and Helen works for Marcone, who has Gard as a magical contractor and bodyguard. There's going to be a lot of passive intel gathering.
You say that like it refutes my point. I was highlighting that having a good reputation doesn't mean people can't screw you and come out smelling like roses when they're done. Which is unquestionably what they did there.
Odin doesn't have a motive we're aware of to do that, but it doesn't need to be a deliberate hit to be damaging to us.
Your plan rests on the assumption that he'll play nice and try to cultivate our relationship in a particular way despite not really knowing anything about how he works outside of the narrow scope we see with Dresden in canon.
If something on the board changes before he calls in the favor, or you're wrong about the unfounded assumptions you're working with then we have to deal with an unknown amount of trouble.
Thats the point: They didnt screw him, he screwed himself.
This is having an enemy shoot himself with a gun he stole from your house, after you displayed it in the window of your house when you knew he would see it.
No, my assumptions rest on Odin's self-interest.
All this talk about what he could potentially do with a favor are all stuff he can already do, and more, if he's hostile.
Not worth worrying about unless he turns hostile.
PTSD that should be a warning about the consequences of taking a deal that looks good at the time but ages poorly.
Harry isn't the best example here, since for every deal he manages to defuse another two go off in his face.
Agreed that Harry is not the best example.
Arawn isnt a better example either, though; dude made an unprompted deal with Mab and Winter for fealty, then tried to screw her on it. At least Harry has the excuse of being 16, alone and desperate at the time.
Plenty of people trust Harry after he became the Winter knight without that trust going upstream to Mab. At least, not the same kind of trust.
I have no doubt that Gard and Odin keep their sworn word. That doesn't mean I trust them not to do what's best for their interests even knowing that it's a problem for us.
Harry has a strong and distinct reputation, a brand identity in the supernatural.
Gard, as far as I know, didnt.
She kept a low profile by design; Dresden didnt even know she was a Valk until maybe a month before Small Favor iirc.
She represents Monoc and Odin; Harry always represents himself, even when working for other organizations.
I am not saying give Odin a blank check. Or even trust.
I am asserting that even if they tried to get the best deal they can, their best interests do not lie in a screw job or unnecessary friction, especially if said person is presumably going to be around for a while.
One Call For Aid/battlefield intervention card is a marker you only get to play once, and whether or not you get others depends on subsequent relations.
1) That particular example was just an illustration of how loosely defined this favor is. Go raiding with them against someone who doesn't deserve it, defending someone from revenge they've earned, or other distasteful stuff are all on the table.
Odin works with all sorts, including people like Marcone, it's entirely possible that we end up fighting on the side of people we think objectively qualify as assholes.
2) So now you're suggesting that we spend 15+ exp so that we can pay off a favor? Some of those are things we want for other reasons, but opportunity costs are a thing. Giving Odin a slot in the knife fight for exp is a real cost.
1)Remember that <loosely defined> works both ways.
2) Looking at the Dresdenverse books, Harry has worked with or for people he considered assholes in *checks, deep breath*
Grave Peril(then!Thomas threw Susan to the Reds as a distraction),
Summer Knight(Mab, Maeve, Winter, the Merlin),
Death Masks(Marcone, Martin),
Blood Rites(Lara Raith,Kincaid)
Dead Beat(Marcone, Mavra, Morgan),
White Night(Marcone, Lara),
Turn Coat(Morgan, Lara),
Small Favor(Mab, Marcone),
Changes(Mab, Lea, Martin),
Cold Days(Winter),
Skin Game(Nicodemus, Deirdre, Binder,the Genoskwa),
Peace Talks and Battlegrounds(like half the supernatural world).
And thats just the novels. Even the Knights have had to work with the support of Marcone and his organization in Chicago.
Im suspecting we dont get the luxury of being picky about allies when the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller.
3)No, I am pointng out that we have easy options and always have, some of them inside our own charmset.
Some of those charms we want anyway.
This particular trick was a back up for a back up, I doubt that it was as well set up.
Some additional hero units might matter, but the mooks aren't going to matter if the greater Akuma is taking magical spite shots.
1)By what standards? Kattrin was a renegade Valkyrie dodging that showed up a couple days before the Red Room Murders.
She kidnapped Cindy and imprisoned her in between our initial visit to Old Man Mathews on Friday afternoon and our return on Saturday morning.
Cindy was imprisoned in an improvised Undertown cell with magic bindings and a spectre on overwatch.
All Kattrin had helping her (we are aware of) was EvilBob and Corpsetaker, a handful of neoNazi goons and a bunch of ghoul contractors she paid in stray dog.
By comparison, the Greater Akuma serves a Yama King, with the polity-scale resources Emma-O was willing to spare, and has been here for two and half weeks or so, since September 16ish at least. He had 18 akuma(Eiko + 17 lessers) at his disposal and 4x bakemono. He has the resources and time to have spent more on his unused backup plans than Kattrin did on her Plan A.
2) I dont agree.
As demonstrated canonically in the Raith Deeps fight in White Night, and in our first fight with Corpsetaker in Undertown, minions very much have their place in defending against magical or distraction measures.
Whether its fending off mobs for the hero to act, or just speeding up evacuation of HVTs.
See the bolded underlined parts? Gard (and valkyries in general) get to know the whole life of the honored dead. So, every scene Murphy witnessed, every secret she was privy to? Gard knows. She knows (if she thinks about it) every secret every honored dead knew. All the soldiers, the firemen, the wardens of the white council, venatori, and quite possibly knights of the cross who met their end fighting a good fight? Gard knows all their secrets.
I wouldn't call that "very limited focus". There are a lot of the dead people in history. It's far more than what a naagloshii gets. And, besides, and importantly, we don't know (I think) if all naagloshii get Intellectus, or if that one was a bit special.
I think you are definitely reading too much into that.
Both the definition of the Honored Dead(which seems to apply specifically to people picked to be einherjar), and the fact that she says she knows their
deeds, not their secrets.
The things they did that qualified them to be Honored Dead, not the story of their lives.
===
That's assuming you get the other party to listen, and they believe you, and they care. Not everyone is rational. And that doesn't address "get Molly to not be where she would otherwise be at a critical time" proble
Supernatural custom.
Thats apparently how it works: contractors act in the name of the person who called/hired them, and the primary takes credit or blame for their actions
🤷
Hence Toot-Toot and the Za Guard were the people who actually wielded the knives that killed Summer Lady Aurora, but the blame and credit fell on Dresden. Or how Murphy was the person who actually put a bullet tnrough Winter Lady Maeve, but it was Dresden who took credit and blame.
Or how Binder's demons actually killed a Warden in Turn Coat, but it was Madeline Raith that took credit and blame for it.
Odin is a creator deity in
his own mythology. The one to give humans spirit and life. One of the three to make the world as we know it - the earth, the sky, etc. It's not a unique thing.
True.
But apparently not here. No idea why; its not my worldbuilding.
This is what it says:
Assuming the finer details is how you get in trouble with these things.
Thank you for the quotation.
Free passage into. If we were Fae Id note it says nothing about free passage out
More seriously, nothing about immunity for infractions in said territory. Its like getting safe passage through Winter and then assuming that dumping cold iron there wont have Consequences.
Not sure why we're arguing over it anyway, since no plan has included it.
Another thing that Donar/Odin could use to screw us over (as could Mab, for that matter)? Linguistic Drift.
The meanings of certain words shift and change over time, and they might well choose to interpret whatever agreement we make as using whatever definition is most advantageous to them.
Couple points worth making.
1)Nobody makes those kinds of deals that we've heard of.
2)Thats something that would actively hurt Odin more than us, because he is the dude with international security work and multiple clients. If potential clients hear reports of that sort of chicanery, and have to worry about you fucking around with reinterpreting contract provisions, they'll look for other, more predictable contractors to work with.
Remember that Monoc is considered trustworthy enough that two rivals in the same city, Marcone's Organization and the White Court, hired them for security advice and contractors. By the Peace Talks/Battlegrounds books, both Marcone and Lara Raith have a Valkyrie in their personal security detail.
3)Thats a game that both sides can play.
For the record, I am assuming that we are still very much on Mab's shitlist for Arctis Tor; at the Museum there may have been too many unknowns for her to take action against us more directly; I suspect that she will have no compunctions when next we meet.
Enemy(Winter) 1. No Enemy(Mab).
Nuisance level at best. If we were on Mab's shitlist, believe me that we would know about it, even with the Winter Knight out of commission.
@Yog
According to the latest Dresdenverse short story
Fugitive(Mouse and Cerberus team up to recover the Nemean Lion after he was broken out from Hades's underworld), Mouse's missing brother My Shadow works for Cowl.
So cross him off your list of recruits.
