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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Yog said:
Again, NWS is dangerous:
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Negative reaction =/= Danger.
Relevant portions of your quote are bolded:
Yes. Your charms to have filters to keep from harming you, but when it is the thing you asked for, the sin in this case, actually inflicting the discomfort there is nothing that can be done. That said the thing the shikome is most ashamed of does not have to be upsetting, it might even be something like an act of kindness or mercy. This is a being that has done plenty of terrible things, but you do not know if her greatest shame is among them. Basically unless and until Molly becomes a lot more hardened to getting an eyeful the sins of ancient immortals she will continue to have to roll willpower not to show a reaction to particularly nasty memories.
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I dont believe we paid 3xp for a social charm which costs 1m Essence per use, and which would cripple us to use.

The danger here is showing a visible reaction to particularly vile shit(which is only a danger if not showing a reaction is important), and even then we get a Willpower roll to keep a straight face.
And Molly is Willpower 9.


===
As an aside
engineering.princeton.edu

Princeton Engineering - Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

Researchers at Princeton University and the University of Washington have developed an ultracompact camera the size of a coarse grain of salt. The new system can produce crisp, full-color images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 500,000 times larger in volume.
engineering.princeton.edu engineering.princeton.edu
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Molly's next cellphone camera(s).
 
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uju32 said:
*looks at winning vote*
*sigh*
Not to relitigate a past vote, but this was dumb as hell.
We walked into a diplomatic meeting without Empathy Excellency or All Things Betray or Naked Wicked Secrets. We left not one but every information gathering charm unused, and left everyone who could have helped give us alternative viewpoints behind.
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This is relitigating it.

And for the record, I don't think this went that poorly. Not well, but not so bad that we're losing ground.

She was clearly trying to slip something to us, which indicates to me that she's open to being convinced to cooperate. Not a guarantee, but the important thing here is to reach the person behind the rules.

She botched in the middle of the first attempt to reach out, there isn't a plan that is immune to being complicated by botches*.

Some of the additional charms would help, but we're on a very strict budget here. If she hadn't shat the bed here we'd have gotten more out of the motes we did spend.

Remember that even a nearly perfect negotiation could still end in combat to some extent, say if we flip most but not all of the Akuma here, and we've still not a major fight ahead of us.

The single most significant weakness exalts have that they're actually likely to encounter is getting mote tapped. We need to be good enough to make things work all day, not perfect right now and useless later.

We've got five essence coming our way at dawn, which is great, but we're already at five right now. Every mote we spend past this point is coming from our murder-a-greater-Akuma combat budget.

uju32 said:
In not having All Things Betray up to buff our Perception, we screwed ourselves in more than one way.
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Bullshit. ATB is a straight perception buff, if Emma-O is live streaming her location via her soul there shouldn't be physical traces to observe in the first place. If we had Hellscry chakra or something to actually let us see supernatural things I could see it helping, but not while we're unable to look at the relevant stuff in the first place.

Micheal could have been helpful, but he's also not exactly a helpful presence for a recruitment. We do have Gard with us though, she literally entered the building before we did.

* This seems to come up a lot. Sometimes the dice aren't in your favor, that's a consequence of using a system where you roll them. Failing doesn't implicitly mean trying was a bad idea.
 
uju32 said:
The danger here is showing a visible reaction to particularly vile shit(which is only a danger if not showing a reaction is important), and even then we get a Willpower roll to keep a straight face.
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A reminder that spending a WP for a +1 sux is always an option.

Outside of WP-paid charms and infinite-WP spam-on-every-action environments, guaranteeing base level success on Willpower rolls is pretty much primary purpose of that mechanic.
 
BronzeTongue said:
This is relitigating it.
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1)My apologies if it came off that way.
Its not my intent.
Rather to make a point for next time about false economies, and there will be a next time.


2)Its not yet dawn. At dawn we get our daily regen of (3+Essence level =)5m Essence.
Add to that:
+2 Essence for regen while soaking during the 30m drive to South Works
+2 Essence for uncovering an occult secret or binding an unwholesome spirit in a scene

There's 9m of Essence on the table.
What I was trying to avoid was burning too much WP.
BronzeTongue said:
Bullshit. ATB is a straight perception buff, if Emma-O is live streaming her location via her soul there shouldn't be physical traces to observe in the first place. If we had Hellscry chakra or something to actually let us see supernatural things I could see it helping, but not while we're unable to look at the relevant stuff in the first place.

Micheal could have been helpful, but he's also not exactly a helpful presence for a recruitment. We do have Gard with us though, she literally entered the building before we did.

* This seems to come up a lot. Sometimes the dice aren't in your favor, that's a consequence of using a system where you roll them. Failing doesn't implicitly mean trying was a bad idea.
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1)You are mistaken. We need no physical senses.

All Things Betray applies to ALL Perception rolls, not just social Perception. That also means Per + Occult. Perception + Awareness.
And Demon Guide gives us -2DC to Awareness rolls.
With ATB + Demon Guide, Molly is rolling -5DC to Awareness rolls. That brings a DC9 roll down to DC4

Rolling 4 dice(Perception 2 + Stunt 2) at DC4 or lower is excellent detection odds.


2)Michael has a good chance of blinding a watcher. So does Dresden.
And Gard canonically blocked Mab performing remote surveillance on Marcone at the beginning of Small Favor, once she detected the snooping.

We just need to roll good enough to detect snooping.
 
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[X]Plan Brighteyes
-[X]Use Naked Wicked Souls + Empathy Excellency: 2m
-[X]Trigger All Things Betray in the hopes of understanding what Eiko is trying to get across : 1WP
 
People are really paranoid about flaring the anime but it is way way less of a thing in the crossover. With even max anime only lighting up a room. It not like in exalted where anime flaring is a tell to others, here it is expected you will use your powers.
 
uju32 said:
2)Its not yet dawn. At dawn we get our daily regen of (3+Essence level =)5m Essence.
Add to that:
+2 Essence for regen while soaking during the 30m drive to South Works
+2 Essence for uncovering an occult secret or binding an unwholesome spirit in a scene

There's 9m of Essence on the table.
What I was trying to avoid was burning too much WP.
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I accounted for dawn in my post. I'm not going to take the other bits as certain since we already got bit by thinking the Akuma would wait to act until we went for them.

It's entirely possible that we walk out of here with an agreement good enough to use but not quite full subordination yet too.

uju32 said:
1)You are mistaken. We need no physical senses.

All Things Betray applies to ALL Perception rolls, not just social Perception. That also means Per + Occult. Perception + Awareness.
And Demon Guide gives us -2DC to Awareness rolls.
With ATB + Demon Guide, Molly is rolling -5DC to Awareness rolls. That brings a DC9 roll down to DC4

Rolling 4 dice(Perception 2 + Stunt 2) at DC4 or lower is excellent detection odds.
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Occult is a knowledge skill, it doesn't actually give us special abilities inherently. A complete muggle could get high occult in the course of becoming a supernatural investigator for example.

Perception works on what senses we actually have. A dead guy can't roll so well that he briefly hears someone's voice.

As far as I understand it, Perception + Occult would be noticing things like lightning strike being an assassination attempt from a powerful weather worker instead of bad luck, or that a wizard is showing signs of trying to subtly cast something.

If a phenomenon happens where we can sense it then I'd buy it, but something happening to the souls of the people around us without a tell where what senses we have can catch it doesn't fit.

The same way perception + technology would let you notice hidden electronics in an area, but not let you know if the cell phone hidden in someone's backpack is on or what it's doing unless it beeps.

uju32 said:
2)Michael has a good chance of blinding a watcher. So does Dresden.
And Gard canonically blocked Mab performing remote surveillance on Marcone at the beginning of Small Favor, once she detected the snooping.

We just need to roll good enough to detect snooping.
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Gard is right there, so we have the option. Harry is a good second choice, but I still think that Micheal would make recruiting Eiko to work for us more difficult than it already is.

It seems very likely that he'll provoke a complicated reaction just standing there.
 
One thing you guys might want to keep in mind is that if you fail the social combat you would have to face a fight with Eiko and probably her own pose of vampires with only Lydia and Gard for help, so you have to balance how much you spend vs how likely you feel Molly is to pull it off. From that PoV sunrise which is in less than an hour does not really enter the calculation because social combat is measured in minutes and actual combat in rounds
 
[X] Cut to the chase, make your offer

Personally I kind of want to just kill her.
 
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DragonParadox said:
One thing you guys might want to keep in mind is that if you fail the social combat you would have to face a fight with Eiko and probably her own pose of vampires with only Lydia and Gard for help, so you have to balance how much you spend vs how likely you feel Molly is to pull it off. From that PoV sunrise which is in less than an hour does not really enter the calculation because social combat is measured in minutes and actual combat in rounds
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We did arrange our entourage blocking the exits, right?
They could propably come in a matter of a few turns if a fight breaks out.
 
[X] Trigger All Things Betray in the hopes of understanding what Eiko is trying to get across

At least it helps in the combat to come by giving us initiative. Don't understand wanting to drain all our essence right before the fight. Hopefully if the other plan win there will be essanse gain from learning a secret.
 
BronzeTongue said:
accounted for dawn in my post. I'm not going to take the other bits as certain since we already got bit by thinking the Akuma would wait to act until we went for them.
It's entirely possible that we walk out of here with an agreement good enough to use but not quite full subordination yet too.
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Fair enough.

BronzeTongue said:
Occult is a knowledge skill, it doesn't actually give us special abilities inherently. A complete muggle could get high occult in the course of becoming a supernatural investigator for example.
Perception works on what senses we actually have. A dead guy can't roll so well that he briefly hears someone's voice.

As far as I understand it, Perception + Occult would be noticing things like lightning strike being an assassination attempt from a powerful weather worker instead of bad luck, or that a wizard is showing signs of trying to subtly cast something.

If a phenomenon happens where we can sense it then I'd buy it, but something happening to the souls of the people around us without a tell where what senses we have can catch it doesn't fit.

The same way perception + technology would let you notice hidden electronics in an area, but not let you know if the cell phone hidden in someone's backpack is on or what it's doing unless it beeps.
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Occult may be a Knowledge skill, but so is Investigation. And Medicine. Both of which are used for Perception rolls.
My understanding is/has been that Awareness is something you can use unconsciously or consciously for supernatural phenomena. But Occult requires active intent.

Remember that we are an Exalt who used to be a wizard talent. We have supernatural senses by default.
Mundane humans in the Dresdenverse generally have enough of the Gift that when soulgazed by a wizard, they look back at him. That Fomori drugs will work. The difference is training. And Exalted dont suffer untrained penalties.

My working assumption has been:
=Passive or active mundane perception roll: Alertness
=Passive or active supernatural perception roll: Awareness
=Active mundane perception roll: Investigation
=Active supernatural perception roll: Occult

But I could be wrong.
Need to dig up V20 and compare with ExvWoD.
BronzeTongue said:
Gard is right there, so we have the option. Harry is a good second choice, but I still think that Micheal would make recruiting Eiko to work for us more difficult than it already is.
It seems very likely that he'll provoke a complicated reaction just standing there.
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Dont agree.

The Swords were designed to save mortals from the binding/imprisonment of Fallen Angels; mortal souls in Yama King bindings may well qualify as well. And Sword bearers have a reputation in the Dresdenverse for fair dealing; Shiro's and Fidelacchius' regular beat was canonically Asia and the Jade Court.

Do recall that in Death Masks, Michael and Sanya let Cassius go when he surrendered and handed over his Coin, despite the surrender being insincere, and Cassius having been involved in Shiro's murder.
But its a moot point. Michael is not here.
DragonParadox said:
One thing you guys might want to keep in mind is that if you fail the social combat you would have to face a fight with Eiko and probably her own pose of vampires with only Lydia and Gard for help, so you have to balance how much you spend vs how likely you feel Molly is to pull it off. From that PoV sunrise which is in less than an hour does not really enter the calculation because social combat is measured in minutes and actual combat in rounds
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Accounted for.
I am expecting Naked Wicked Secrets of a shikome of Emma-O to trigger the Essence regen clause of our power.
The secrets of a medium tier servitor of Yomi Wan defintely qualifies.

Worst case, we have 3m left and have spend 4m in the scene, with All Things Betray up and running.
Spending 1m for VLE activates our anima and Aspects and adds soak; spending a 2nd in the same turn gives us Melee Excellency. Then having the cyberdevils in the hospital network hit the fire sprinklers for Boiling Sea Mastery.
 
Aeondrac said:
Just my opinions on the paths and our Green Sun Princess.

Alchemy - This Path offers access to effects, like healing, that are hard to get in her charms and great versatility with the sheer range of things it can produce. It also synergises greatly with crafting as at 3 dots and above it can produce impossible materials to make things from.
Conjuration - While it is an ability not found in the Infernal charmset it really doesn't offer much of value for Molly, for a Green Sun Princess it's mostly a party trick.
Conveyance - I am of mixed opinions on this path, it can provide rapid short range transport, but like most paths it requires a good chunk of xp to learn to an actually useful level
Divination - Note that Divination below 4 dots is pretty much useless for us, it is simply too vague to produce results worth the cost. However 5-6 dots of this Path would be incredibly usefull, especially as it synergises with Molly's urge and the Crown of Eyes, plus it seems really in character for Molly to become even more adept at pulling secrets out of thin air.
Ephemera - As the social based version of summoning this Path is great for us, especially given Molly's enhanced influence over creatures of darkness.
Enchantment - Great path learn when we can, the ability to manufacture a broad range of magic Talismans both for our use and to hand out to others is great, Talismans at high levels can provide defenses for locations making this the path of defensive magic as well.
Fascination - Not only is this black magic it directly hits Molly's issues due to harming Rosie and Nelson. Avoid.
Fortune - Potentially very valuable for blessing and protecting others, would allow us to pull similar tricks as the angels do for the Knights.
Healing - somewhat usefull in itself, but cost wise we a probably better off learning alchemical healing recipes and just stocking them.
Hellfire - Pretty useless. Molly has access to more powerful attacks for cheaper with her native charms. The only part of this Path that would be somewhat worthwhile is the ability to store precast offensive spells at 5 dots and alchemy can produce equivalents to that.
Illusion - Very much a path of subtefuge, while it can be pretty devasting if used cleverly we are better off using the xp elsewhere.
Mana Manipulation - Geomancy, countermagic and magic manipulation, potent and functional. Very much something we should get xp permitting.
Necromancy - Nope, this Path is all about enslaving the dead, it is socially and morally bankrupt.
Necronics - Nope, this path is all about harming the dead, if we want to mulch spirits charms are better.
Onieromancy - Exotic, but treads close to black magic and has limited utility.
Shadows - Weak and we have native charms that blow it out of the water. Worthless
Shapeshifting - Interesting, but we have longer lasting disguise options and better combat transformations.
Starlight - The means to open ways, even basic levels would be quite useful.
Summoning, Binding and Warding - The not nice form of summoning, despite the name not actually that good at protecting things, requires a lot of xp to usefully purchase as you have to acquire specific rituals for each type of thing you want to target. Honestly think sticking to Ephemera for summoning and Enchantment for protection is better. (I am assuming DP will remove the Craft Problem with this path)
Weather Control - This Path can produce effects on a scale the Exalted generally struggle to
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Let me present you with an alternate hypothesis:

Advanced techniques allow you to forgo the 1WP cost for linear sorcery two levels below your current level in return for raising the DC by 1. Mentat Stones reduce DC by 1.
Ergo, Hellfire Path + Mentat Stone means you can cast [current Tier -2] hellfire magic at normal difficulty without needing to spend WP.

That means at Hellfire tier 3, you can cast Hellfire tier 1 sorcery without spending willpower at normal difficulty.
At Hellfire tier 4, you can cast Hellfire tier 2 for free and so on.

And thats before Boiling Sea Mastery. Particularly useful when fighting mobs of hostiles, or places where you dont want to throw Agg around. Especially since you can buy different varieties of Hellfire, with different effects, from fire to lightning to water to ice to death lasers and entropic effects.

Being able to fire sunlight blasts for free, for example, or just make your sword glow with sunlight, would do interesting things to those supernaturals vulnerable to sunlight. Or even just to destroy evidence and bodies.

===
=Conveyance is longrange teleportation of party members and loot at the high end, and high speed transportation at the low end. Stick six or eight people in a minivan or fullsize three row SUV like a Yukon or Suburban or custom vehicle, and you can move them at much faster than highway speeds.
=Divination appears to be a Perception roll, and we have ATB as a difficulty adjuster. Aside from thematics, having 1 dot in it and Scrying might serve as a workable cover for Crown use.
=Healing is for stuff where you dont have preptime for alchemy. Potions dont appear to keep indefinitely.
=Low-tier Shadows might be useful for disguises?
=Shapeshifting works on other people on a temporary and permanent basis. Our disguise charms dont. Mostly.
=Summoning/Binding/Warding is literally how you keep unwanted supernaturals out of a location, and bind big shots like the Erl King. If there had been wards at Last Station, Adam might still be alive. Its a fairly priority Path, and potent enough that it and Hellfire are the two Paths that Harry had hesitation about teaching Molly.

Most of these arent shortterm, mind.
Enchantment probably gives discounts on Exalted Crafting, though.
Yog said:
Just a nitpick, it's Naked Wicked Souls.
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Thanks.
I keep making that mistake.
 
Current tally:
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Mar 17, 2023 at 5:43 AM, finished with 50 posts and 11 votes.
  • [X]Plan Brighteyes
    -[X]Use Naked Wicked Souls + Empathy Excellency: 2m
    -[X]Trigger All Things Betray in the hopes of understanding what Eiko is trying to get across : 1WP
    [X] Cut to the chase, make your offer
    [X] Trigger All Things Betray in the hopes of understanding what Eiko is trying to get across
    -[X] Using Willpower
    [X] Trigger All Things Betray in the hopes of understanding what Eiko is trying to get across
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uju32 said:
The Swords were designed to save mortals from the binding/imprisonment of Fallen Angels; mortal souls in Yama King bindings may well qualify as well. And Sword bearers have a reputation in the Dresdenverse for fair dealing; Shiro's and Fidelacchius' regular beat was canonically Asia and the Jade Court.
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Yeah, but they aren't just about saving in the generic sense of getting the mortal away from their master. The knights answer to corporate and are trying to save people to specific ends.

He's useful for some approaches, but if we want to try recruiting then we aren't really saving Eiko that was even if we're certainly rescuing her.
uju32 said:
=Conveyance is longrange teleportation of party members and loot at the high end, and high speed transportation at the low end. Stick six or eight people in a minivan or fullsize three row SUV like a Yukon or Suburban or custom vehicle, and you can move them at much faster than highway speeds.
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Once we have our hell we can just drop people in there, then pop back out alone and teleport via RVD.

Better range, larger group size per single instance, and it costs motes instead of willpower which makes it easier to regenerate resources for.

We also only pay to shift people, so we can do multiple teleports for free to get to exactly where we want to go before paying the retrieval price if we need to.

That's not even getting into the possibilities of our allies with the ability to open nevernever portals mapping out routes. I'm not sure if Molly's hell will be accessible in the same way faerie is since it's inside her soul, but if it is some shenanigans are possible.

Given the tendency for Ways to move around and the conceptual association rules it'd make a lot of sense if opening one standing in Molly's throne room, for example, always opened a path to wherever she is at the moment.

If we have more fixed passages* then we could have Harry (Or whoever we can get that has the ability) pay for gas on supernatural road trips for us.

Just portal in, pass through customs, and take a train ride to the palace to portal out once we reach our destination.

So much more convenient than running through forests of giant spiders on your third of six layovers in some convoluted path.

* Like a magical subway station in a city strongly associated with travel with connections all over the place that we manage to take over or something silly like that. :V
 
The problem we have is that we still have literally no idea how to align our pitch to wriggle through whatever loopholes Eiko is trying to exploit on her standing orders.

Neither Naked Wicked Souls nor All Things Betray do anything whatsoever to help this.

Also, Naked Wicked Souls is as likely to reveal why the mortal Eiko went to Hell in the first place.

[X] Use the Crown to learn the details of Eiko's plan to escape service to Emma-O.

That should reveal how she's planning to evade her orders as well as the rest. It gives us the context we need to continue this negotiation, and probably understand the message she was trying to pass on.

It's cheaper as well.
 
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