Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
That's only because in real world, we can't make super magical rifles worth a damn out of cadavers.
I don't think it's very relevant. If we exorcise them, they should be humans, and have human soaks.
Which is solved with in-game effort of negotiating, bribing, and, yes, in some cases intimidating or murderizing the claimants into our service. It is a good plot aligning well with Molly laying claim on the territory of Chicago.
This I just disagree with. Dragon Nests shore up our weaknesses, and boost our companions, instead of breaking the curve.3)And the Doylist argument is that the QM wont allow it because it trivializes the rest of the setting if we can simply pile on external buffs by collecting Nests. If GSNF breaks the challenge curve by dealing post-soak damage, consider the implications of being able to stack uncapped dice on our stats from controlling multiple Dragons Nests.
Besides, the Dragon Nest Background gives access to ONE Nest, not just arbitary numbers you can collect ab infinito.
Its not supposed to be a Pokemon game
I don't expect it to be trivial, but it's a good route to develop, instead of spending XP. I find in-story effort to become more powerful more engaging than buying points.
Earth is very, very empty in real life. Total surface area of Earth's land is 148940000 kilometers. Taking average city population density, and low balling it to 10 thousand people per square kilometer that's 1.48 trillion people. That's technically an ecumenopolis, but in actuality it's a suburbia spread across the world. Proper Ecumenopolis with thousands of layers? That's quadrillions easy. It's daunting to think how much of the world is actually empty and how little of it we are actually using.
In any case, a compromise number of 5 billion was reached.
Infernals are larval primordials, especially in this thin world.
They'd be getting that soak from the demon, the removal of which is the thing hurting them. At that point it seems unreasonable for the human part of the fomor to be able to soak that way.
We're also talking about nearly filling someone's health track. Consider that IC it isn't a game where only your last HP matters. Getting hurt that badly messes people up, even after they've recovered.
I'm not suggesting walking away. What I'm saying is that this situation requires more delicate handling than simply throwing around power till everything that scans as spooky is gone.
If you force a horrifically painful medical procedure on a traumatized child who doesn't trust you or believe they need it then there will be consequences for them. We should do it right the first time instead of making a mess the kid will spend the rest of her life cleaning up if it doesn't kill her first.
"Move fast and break things" is for tech bros, for people you need to be slow and precise.
Edit: autocorrect
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Kindred of the East pg 95 said:
These are the canon penalties.Thousand Hells pg 87 said:
@Artemis1992
Thats why I dont even want them looking at an akuma.
Nevermind the ethical issues of feeding on prisoners, even feeding on them in combat is to be avoided.
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[X] [AKUMA] Destroy them
We really need to get the Exorcism ritual. Would really like to expriment here seeing if it can free the Yama Kings hold on them. As it is they are to big a security risk.
We really need to get the Exorcism ritual. Would really like to expriment here seeing if it can free the Yama Kings hold on them. As it is they are to big a security risk.
VOTE
[X] [AKUMA] Reattach their limbs and let them go back to Lady Eiko
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in: Creative Omissions
-[X]J and the girl were apparently kidnapped by parties of unknown allegiance, likely the same involved in the Recluce Murders, who went to the trouble of faking J's death. J and the girl were just the latest set of victims; there are other dead bodies on the site, including at least one elderly woman. The kidnappers got in a gunfight with law enforcement and deputies acting on a tipoff of suspicious activity on the site and were killed. They were apparently meddling with substances that made most of their bodies decompose after their deaths, which may have some connection with the substances used in the apparent poisonings in the Recluce Murders. Investigations are ongoing.
Good suggestions are likely to earn back some goodwill with Murphy
RATIONALE
Our PC's beloved father is a Knight of the Cross and our Mentor 5, and Molly is a Catholic girl.
Im pretty sure it would not even be a valid vote for her to kill prisoners.
Kill them mid-combat, sure. Execute them after a determination of guilt, possibly.
Shank them while they are helpless? No. And torture, reprehensible as it is, is not a capital crime. Morals and ethics are not just fluff to be ignored when they are inconvenient. Getting to call on a Knight of the Cross as backup and character reference has costs.
These are lesser akuma. They havent sold themselves completely. There's still a chance for them.
No to recruitment though.
While I cannot see Molly killing prisoners, I cant see her asking her people to put up with akuma who were just done torturing them, and who were involved in murdering Adam.
[X] [AKUMA] Reattach their limbs and let them go back to Lady Eiko
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in: Creative Omissions
-[X]J and the girl were apparently kidnapped by parties of unknown allegiance, likely the same involved in the Recluce Murders, who went to the trouble of faking J's death. J and the girl were just the latest set of victims; there are other dead bodies on the site, including at least one elderly woman. The kidnappers got in a gunfight with law enforcement and deputies acting on a tipoff of suspicious activity on the site and were killed. They were apparently meddling with substances that made most of their bodies decompose after their deaths, which may have some connection with the substances used in the apparent poisonings in the Recluce Murders. Investigations are ongoing.
Good suggestions are likely to earn back some goodwill with Murphy
RATIONALE
Our PC's beloved father is a Knight of the Cross and our Mentor 5, and Molly is a Catholic girl.
Im pretty sure it would not even be a valid vote for her to kill prisoners.
Kill them mid-combat, sure. Execute them after a determination of guilt, possibly.
Shank them while they are helpless? No. And torture, reprehensible as it is, is not a capital crime. Morals and ethics are not just fluff to be ignored when they are inconvenient. Getting to call on a Knight of the Cross as backup and character reference has costs.
These are lesser akuma. They havent sold themselves completely. There's still a chance for them.
No to recruitment though.
While I cannot see Molly killing prisoners, I cant see her asking her people to put up with akuma who were just done torturing them, and who were involved in murdering Adam.
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Way too overcomplicated. And invites a ton of unwanted questions. We shouldn't connect this battle to J at all. Definitely not say that Molly, a minor, was deputized to go into a gunfight (without a gun).
This definitely doesn't respect the K.I.S.S principle, the other proposition is way better and has less moving parts for it to fail at, we don't need to try and explain everything, in fact, we don't want to, induce too much scrutiny.
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.
Not sure on the Akumas.
Yeah. Complicated lies are bad lies, and ignorance is always an option. "Dunno officer, weird shit happened" is a valid response. To punish they can't just spin theory, they need publicly acceptable explanations about what happened and evidence that they're true.
J absolutely should be there.
He's already involved by virtue of the fact that there's a body in the morgue thats believed to be him; having it explained that he was kidnapped and another body substitued explains it, and is hardly the first time law one dead body has had mistaken ID.
It also has the virtue of being true.
Hostage rescue justifies the gratuitous use of automatic weapons. And is also true.
Who said anything about Molly being in the report?
Or Lydia? Harry and Michael have backed up SI before, and they dont show up in the reports either.
If any deputies show up, its the mercs.
That entire writein was crafted so as to avoid telling any lies.
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The body in the morgue isn't connected to this incident by any evidence they have or are likely to find.
The problem with establishing stuff like this is that people aren't stupid. If we place a narrative in front of them they're going to pick at it and see how it sticks together.
In this case Murphy's bosses are going to want to know who the specific officers and deputies were and who authorized a raid. This isn't a news piece we're writing, they have every reason to have know about something like this in advance and Murphy doesn't have the authority to run an operation like this alone in any case.
Then we get into them actually digging into the meat of things with an eye towards bullshit.
This story creates unnecessary attack surfaces for investigators to work with.
In the real world, harvesting organs from executed prisoners has reputational Consequences.
Ask the Chinese.
And organs are much more valuable than supermagical rifles in a world where Reaper drones and Hellfires are a thing.
Eh. QM has ruled in your favor.
This is not DnD and we're not murderhobos. Its not unclaimed real estate.
This is the Dresdenverse, and Molly is a Christian kid of one of the most moral people in the setting. She isnt about to go around attempting to intimidate or murderize people with previous claim to valuable real estate. With a very few exceptions.
Furthermore, worth remembering that in the ExWoD backstory, Infernals got beatdown by a coalition and the shard buried in Yomi Wan. Not necessarily true in this setting, but the idea that
Agree to disagree.
There is a reason why you only get 1x Dragons Nest Background.
This is supposed to be an RPG, not Risk.
The Earth is not empty.
All that surface area is an active part of an interconnected ecosytem, and even large empty spaces like the Sahara are critical components to the biosphere of the Amazon, seven thousand kilometers away.
We can get a lot more people into given surface areas with much more urban living, but attempting to do so requires a lot more compromises to standards of living.
And probably offworld resourcing.
Yeah, thats at least an order of magnitude more than I think is reasonable for the setting.
More than in my writeup at least.
If I can just get it finished.
Primordials are not a thing in this setting, and there is as of the moment nothing in Molly's charmset that says she will, or even can evolve into an Exalted-style Primordial post-E5. Or even that its a desirable endstate to strive for.
Do not assume the Exalted 2E paradigm is whats in play.
Half their health track.
The same amount of damage the Einherjar supporting us suffered mid-combat.
And I dont see how its worse than leaving a demon of Kakuri in place that has already tried to get her killed once today.
Move fast is also a thing for emergency medicine.
And its been strongly suggested that we are on a timer here. Soul-deep exposure to a demon of Kakuri for a nine year old cannot be a good thing.
For the girl in particular here, she has the option of Michael taking a hand on behalf of the White God.
Future victims wont necessarily have Michael around.
Anyway, its October 3.
We arent even looking at buying Ancient Sorcery before the end of the month anyway.
So moot point.
- Location
- Taken by the hand to a land that they understand
[X] [AKUMA] Reattach their limbs and let them go back to Lady Eiko
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.
The Einherjar isn't a ten year old, and half a health track in lethal is still being beaten half to death.
I'm not suggesting we let the demon run wild. MiS collared a white court demon partner mid frenzy and made it behave. That should also work here. The situation would start off rocky, but all* we need to do is keep the kid somewhere safe and establish enough trust to help her recover mentally to the point where we can perform whatever medical procedures we need to.
* this is admittedly a delicate thing to handle
We have a perfect counter to its presence that we can keep up for as long as the kid is minimally willing to work with us.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I'm voting to destroy the Akumas because that's the sane response, rather than some misguided attempt at mercy, but wouldn't true mercy be to not only destroy them but their souls as well?
Fixing them up and turning them loose just leaves them on the board, not only making them vulnerable to whatever punishment Emma-O decides to mete out upon them for failire, but also creating generations of future victims who will suffer at the hands of the potentially immortal monsters we are allowing to go free.
If you really want to be merciful, you should be choosing to annihilate them utterly.
Fixing them up and turning them loose just leaves them on the board, not only making them vulnerable to whatever punishment Emma-O decides to mete out upon them for failire, but also creating generations of future victims who will suffer at the hands of the potentially immortal monsters we are allowing to go free.
If you really want to be merciful, you should be choosing to annihilate them utterly.
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.
-Creative writing exercises are apparently a regular feature of even RL police work in a regrettably large number of cities.
Thats how you have bodycams saying one thing, and entire units of police saying something else. And bodycams dont exist yet, and wouldnt be useful anyway if a lot of magic is flying.
-No they arent, if Dresden canon is to be believed.
Thats how Dresden and Michael got to go on SI raids, where Michael would kill a demon with a sword, and none of them would show up on the paperwork despite being there, and all the other cops knowing they were there.
How the loup garou murdered its way through most of a police station, with Dresden blowing a hole in the wall to knock it out across the street, without anyone having to answer any detailed questions in the aftermath.
How the FBI team of serial killers got brushed under the carpet.
And its not limited to police either; this is the aftermath of a fight scene in Ghost Story, where a Catholic priest had to be medevacced:
Remember, this is Chicago.
The Chicago Police Department have a reputation.
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Note that in those cases they either don't appear in any way or are listed by name as doing something else. The official police ops also presumably go through existing channels, which is why they need creative writing at all.
Your write in involves claiming a number of mundanes who actively work for the department did some stuff, but doesn't name names or use the appropriate channels.
You cant pull those sorts of details from behind your ear after the fact and have the people who are in charge of these things buy it or look away.
The point of doctoring these sorts of reports is to move the bits people can't accept out of sight. What you're doing is admitting to a crime* they can't ignore.
* or at least serious policy violation
1)Literally three hours ago:
We explicitly recognize they have limited free volition, but that they can claw back some free will.
That they arent lost yet.
So why would we turn around and kill these and call it mercy?
2)Our father and his colleagues in Death Masks canonically let Quintus Cassius walk after more than a thousand years of being a Denarian, and most recently his involvement in killing their friend Shiro and the Vatican official Father Vincent.
They regularly try to talk down Denarians, some of whom have been doing this for longer than there has been a Catholic Church.
There are costs and requirements to taking a Knight of the Cross as Mentor 5 and a core Intimacy.
And for being the first daughter of Michael Carpenter.
Rules of engagement. Ethics.
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Not really? I mean, the intersect of the nations where organ donation is opt out and death sentence exist is not that large, but I don't see this as a non-fabricated issue.
I wasn't talking about people. People very rarely claim Dragon Nests. Beings like elementals, naahloshii, and fomori claim dragon nests. At least two out of three categories we are very much free to murderize, or at least to intimidate away.
Nature can be complicated, but by no means it is efficient. It's not supposed to be - evolution has no purpose. Earth bioshpere supposedly can support at most 100 million hunter gatherers. I doubt you'll argue that our standards of living are higher now than when they were in pre-history. The same argument applies here. Vertical farms, solar, wind, nuclear, fusion and other energy generation, artificial atmosphere scrubbers, etc, are all things that are possible.
Black Court was made by a Neverborn. Neverborn is a (wishing to be) dead Primordial. Primordials are a thing in this quest's setting.
King and Kingdom, which, according to text, exists in our anima and soul, is a giant hint towards "Yeah, you are developing a world body".
J absolutely shouldn't be here. The story is full of holes, and we shouldn't be giving potentially hostile forces ammunition. Akuma are very likely in the country illegally. That's FBI, or NSA, or whatever involvement immediately. Hostage rescue is not done by a single cop and deputies. You have SWAT or negotiators for that - Murphy would absolutely be busted for procedure breaches that endangered the hostage. Crime scene investigators would quickly determine that there were more than mercs here (and, by the way, mercs that are associated with a known crime boss - say hi to organized crime investigators at this point).
Best case scenario is that Murphy is buried in tons of internal investigations, and likely thrown from the force.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
They killed our people. They kidnapped our people. They tortured our people.
They killed many other, innocent people. They tried to kill us.
Fuck them.
We're not Michael and we're not a Knight of the Cross. Every decision we make can't be first fed through a WWJD morality engine.
Most of that stuff already exists here.
Murphy cordoned off this area, so she already has to have provided justification for that.
Yes?
The mercs work for Odin. They were in the area and ran to the sound of the guns. They'll be out of the country before anyone gets around to asking them questions, especially if people drag their feet.
In the vote you are voting for, you are explicitly making for a much weaker story, and one thats much easier to check.
J went out of town for how long? To where? He didnt hear of his own death on the news? None of his coworkers called his cellphone? Why was his car still at his apartment? He took a flight with what ticket?
You are explicitly going with a much weaker alibi, and relying on J being able to sell a story instead of crumbling when pushed, whether by cops or journalists.
The difference was that mine didnt rely on the testimony of someone else.
J was kidnapped, J was in a hole for all that time. He saw nothing, knows nothing, If pushed, the only further things he can say are too fantastic to be believed by rational people.
Thats my two cents.
Then you shouldnt have voted for a Knight of the Cross as Mentor 5.
We are not a random warlord Infernal, we are Molly Carpenter. First daughter of Charity and Michael.
That comes with prior characterizations and social links and investments.
If you choose to blow it up for satisfaction on a couple mooks, it comes with costs and consequences.
Emma-O, who is ultimately responsible for the events here, is nowhere in the vicinity. Killing lesser akuma is not goimg to bother him much, especially since these appear to be the cheap ones duped as babies. More where that came from.
We already killed the boss akuma permadead; gg no rez. He isnt coming back, and Emma will have issues replacing him.
5 of 8 lesser akuma here are also confirmed dead. We looted his fancy sword.
Let it go. Thats my opinion.
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[X] [AKUMA] Destroy them
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters.