- Location
- Germany
@DragonParadox
Minor note, but I'm pretty sure at this point Molly doesn't know that Ebenezer is the Blackstaff?
Harry certainly doesn't.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Minor note, but I'm pretty sure at this point Molly doesn't know that Ebenezer is the Blackstaff?
Harry certainly doesn't.
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
-[x] Activate ATB
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the forces that are currently considering attacking or fully intending to attack those sitting at this table within the next three hours? (Focus: Table people are siting at, alternatively, "the set of [chairs the four people meeting here are sitting on]")
-[x] Activate ATB
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the forces that are currently considering attacking or fully intending to attack those sitting at this table within the next three hours? (Focus: Table people are siting at, alternatively, "the set of [chairs the four people meeting here are sitting on]")
Fixed, thanks.
- Location
- Germany
Also too bad we kinda forgot OOC that it's mundane halloween too.
We definitly should have activated Steel Skin before the meeting, a bronze-bodypaint look would not be too out of place.
We definitly should have activated Steel Skin before the meeting, a bronze-bodypaint look would not be too out of place.
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
- [X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
- [X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
-[x] Activate ATB
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the forces that are currently considering attacking or fully intending to attack those sitting at this table within the next three hours? (Focus: Table people are siting at, alternatively, "the set of [chairs the four people meeting here are sitting on]")
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[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[x] Spend Willpower for an auto success.
[X] Activate All Things Betray with Willpower and Hellscry Chakra to look for possible ambushes and better read Lara. And because you're curious what the aura a White Court Vampire that can ignore your Demonic Primacy looks like.
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[x] Spend Willpower for an auto success.
[X] Activate All Things Betray with Willpower and Hellscry Chakra to look for possible ambushes and better read Lara. And because you're curious what the aura a White Court Vampire that can ignore your Demonic Primacy looks like.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the details of any attack vectors that are to be used on any of the people present in this meeting (focus: current scene [i.e. event]) within the next three hours?"
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the details of any attack vectors that are to be used on any of the people present in this meeting (focus: current scene [i.e. event]) within the next three hours?"
Crown Questions cost Essence, and you're using up our mote limit before we start flaring Anima.
And I fail to see why; figuring out whether or not someone is trying to watch is not a time sensitive matter.
If you want to ask about surveillance, do it AFTER the meeting. Use her seat as a focus.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the details of any attack vectors that are to be used on any of the people present in this meeting (focus: current scene [i.e. event]) within the next three hours?"
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Crown Question: "What are the details of any attack vectors that are to be used on any of the people present in this meeting (focus: current scene [i.e. event]) within the next three hours?"
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Activate IPM
-[X] Activate Etiquette Excellency
-[X] Activate ATB with willpower
-[X] When next possible after the above active Hellscry Chakra
If Lara gets upset or tries to flex on us then it's probably going to be via mental influence, let's head that off at the pass. Resisting isn't as impressive as ignoring her efforts entirely and we need to project strength.
Excellency because we don't want this to go poorly and even in the best case she's probably going to up her game a little in response to our explanation.
None of the current crown questions make much sense to me. We don't have specific cause to believe we're being looked at or about to face an ambush.
It's still possible, but that rationale doesn't have a bottom. We could make that argument for almost any scene we're in, and waste all our questions on shots in the dark.
And it would be wasting them; an opponent planning to attack 5 hours from now, or who genuinely hasn't decided yet*, would slip right on by.
*because one of the crown's limits is free will, we've been warned predicting the future is fuzzy.
-[X] But that service is not binding. Service grants protection, but those under your protection can leave at any time.
-[X] Activate IPM
-[X] Activate Etiquette Excellency
-[X] Activate ATB with willpower
-[X] When next possible after the above active Hellscry Chakra
If Lara gets upset or tries to flex on us then it's probably going to be via mental influence, let's head that off at the pass. Resisting isn't as impressive as ignoring her efforts entirely and we need to project strength.
Excellency because we don't want this to go poorly and even in the best case she's probably going to up her game a little in response to our explanation.
None of the current crown questions make much sense to me. We don't have specific cause to believe we're being looked at or about to face an ambush.
It's still possible, but that rationale doesn't have a bottom. We could make that argument for almost any scene we're in, and waste all our questions on shots in the dark.
And it would be wasting them; an opponent planning to attack 5 hours from now, or who genuinely hasn't decided yet*, would slip right on by.
*because one of the crown's limits is free will, we've been warned predicting the future is fuzzy.
Good night guys, see you tomorrow with more Halloween Hijinks 
VOTE
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
[X]Activate All Things Betray: 1 WP
[X]Activate Hellscry Chakra: 1m
[X]Activate IPM, Etiquette or Empathy Excellency if necessary
[]STUNT:
RATIONALE
ATB: -3DC to Perception rolls, +Perception to Initiative
Hellscry Chakra: Aura detection, emotional monitoring
We bought Hellscry Chakra for a reason. We should use it, especially since it explicitly gives insight to the person's emotional state, and whether they are possessed or under any influence. Dealing with a centuries old Whampire who is worried about Outsider influence, we could use the help.
Its a DC6 Per + Occult roll; with ATB also active, it becomes a DC3 roll, which is on the edge of auto successes.
And it gives us field experience OOC before Mab later in the day.
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
[X]Activate All Things Betray: 1 WP
[X]Activate Hellscry Chakra: 1m
[X]Activate IPM, Etiquette or Empathy Excellency if necessary
[]STUNT:
RATIONALE
ATB: -3DC to Perception rolls, +Perception to Initiative
Hellscry Chakra: Aura detection, emotional monitoring
We bought Hellscry Chakra for a reason. We should use it, especially since it explicitly gives insight to the person's emotional state, and whether they are possessed or under any influence. Dealing with a centuries old Whampire who is worried about Outsider influence, we could use the help.
Its a DC6 Per + Occult roll; with ATB also active, it becomes a DC3 roll, which is on the edge of auto successes.
And it gives us field experience OOC before Mab later in the day.
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Free will violation; the Crown does not work when asked to define the future actions of creatures with free will.
The question also makes assumptions about physical attack in a given timeframe.
And is probably too broad a question to be of use anyway.
AND its burning one of the four motes we can spend in this scene before our anima starts glowing, for a question that isn't urgent.
Please, Im not specifically picking on you.
You're just the last person to have voted for it, so I'm using your vote as a convenient quote.
I didn't bother with the mental influence thing because diplomatic meeting, and offensive use of mental influence is frowned on.
And Lara actually has a reputation for minding her reputation for fair dealing.
Boosting herself? Fine. But attempting to mind whammy us for advantage in a meeting she requested would be against her characterization, and also against her interests if she expects to ever have to deal with us again in any sort of non-hostile context. And she wouldn't do it in front of her brother, who is also Dresden's brother.
Besides, IPM is reflexive, so we can pop it as soon as any influence comes up.
No need to spend the WP or Essence if its not necessary.
Wholly agree about the irrelevance of the Crown questions Ive seen so far.
Normally wouldn't care, but if we dont want to flare our anima banner here, we can only spend 4m in this scene.
So all the speculative questions are doing is reducing our flexibility for no return.
There's a broader point to be discussed about using the Crown as a crutch, but that's something to discuss some other time.
White vamps hit people with overt supernatural emotional manipulation all the time. Lara does it to Dresden in half of their conversations, including at formal events where he was acting as a representative of the council.
They don't go all the way to domination, but the supernatural world clearly considers not being able to make a certain basic level of will save as a basic requirement for going out in public.
This is also fairly back alley as far as these meetings go, pressing at least a little would be unusual.
This has come up several times now.
Regardless of what the charm says in practice we've had multiple instances of reflexive not being good enough. Things like that warning that Mab would have rolled us if we hadn't had it up before she even started talking, that nazi sorcerer's forget-me field.
We've also seen that when it does work we still visibly grapple with whatever we're guarding against before shaking it off. Which doesn't have a mechanical effect on terms of being influenced, but is notable in a social situation.
When talking to vampire I think it's better to show no vulnerability at all; not just tough enough to resist, but inedible from the start.
I do not recall this being a thing. Whites? Yes. Lara? No.
Dresden being a horndog in the earlier books is a very real thing that is called out in the narration, and the passive impact of Lara Raith boosting her allure when entering a room is explicitly signposted in Blood Rites.
But I do not recall any diplomatic occasions where Lara has ever knowingly, actively projected overt emotional manipulation at Dresden, or someone else she's supposed to be meeting for formal talks. I cant vouch for informal social events, mind; I dont think we saw any of them with Lara onscreen.
Her control isn't perfect, but Dresden has never worried about this to my recollection.
The only time I recall its been ever pointed at him was in the Raith Deeps when he asked Lara for it to boost his spell casting.
===
The supernatural world certainly considers a minimum level of passive mental and emotional defense a basic requirement for going outdoors. But they clearly differentiate between passive boosting of your own allure, and actively fucking with other people's heads. Especially at a diplomatic meet.
And Lara Raith explicitly has too much on her plate to be pushing the boundaries now, even if she wanted to.
Nor would she be doing it in front of three people.
Big brass ovaries on that woman, but she hasn't lived this long by taking unnecessary risks.
There is the early onscreen weirdness with Gorfels, yes, but that's it.
We preemptively had IPM active rather than check if it would activate on its own with Mab, which is not the same thing as it not being able to activate reflexively. If you want, we can clarify with the QM.
Anyway, these are different circumstances.
Lara Raith is not our friend; might be an ally, and is an important factor among the people who dont want the world to die, but we aren't friends. At least not at the moment.
However she isn't going to ask her only brother to host a diplomatic meeting where she intends to flagrantly break the basic customs of diplomacy among the night people. Especially not when the people she is fucking with have sufficient connections and ability to make an issue of it.
And she is most definitely not going to go out of her way to antagonize an outside actor of unknown power and allegiance when she's supposed to be trying to flush out Outsider-linked traitors in her own house and Court.
She's not Constantine Raith, she's the smart one.She isn't going to start a fight on two fronts.
I mean, she's sitting across from two martially-talented Exalts with no escort or protective detail in sight.
And Molly is wearing fucking chainmail.
That is in itself a show of good faith, and not a woman here to test boundaries.
EDIT
Now that I think of it, we should have brought Mouse.
Maybe we'll borrow him as additional security for the meeting at Mac's place, just to see her reaction
One of Marcone's parties and that one white court rave off the top of my head.
And for white vamps enhancing their allure is an active mental effect. They don't have a suite of different sorts of buffs, they have refinements of their hunger/feeding mechanisms.
Sure, but this was something that was called out and reaffirmed at the time, before being relevant again with the Mab encounter.
It's not the first or last thing that works differently here. Reflexive and automatic aren't the same.
Because you can choose not to turn it on and mind magic effects how you make choices there's a chink in IPM's otherwise absolute active armor mode.
I'm not saying we can't activity reflexively either, just that we've seen that from a narrative perspective that involves grappling with the effect and we don't need to show that weakness to Lara of all people.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Bluntly, all those who serve you are granted control of aspects of inner darkness that would be otherwhise outside their control
[X]Activate All Things Betray: 1 WP
[X]Activate Hellscry Chakra: 1m
[X]Activate IPM, Etiquette or Empathy Excellency if necessary
[]STUNT:
[X]Activate All Things Betray: 1 WP
[X]Activate Hellscry Chakra: 1m
[X]Activate IPM, Etiquette or Empathy Excellency if necessary
[]STUNT:
I dont recall the party you are referring to.
The only White Court rave I can think of was the scene in Club Zero, which was explicitly a sex/drugs nightclub owned and run by the White Court and full of willing attendees. White Court territory, no diplomacy involved. And Lara wasn't there, just Thomas and Madeline. The one who was infamous for a lack of control, who was working for Dresden's ops, and is now dead
I dont think that's how it works.
I cant swear to it, but my recollection of the White Court scenes in Blood Rites and Turn Coat suggest that Whampire powers work differently.
Remember, only Raiths feed primarily through sex.
Malvora and Skavis feed differently, and there probably are other, smaller clans with their own preferences.
They have to have an allure/attraction buff that works independently from their feeding mechanism.
The fact that Madrigal Raith went from feeding via lust to feeding via fear supports that.
I think you are misreading that. My opinion only, mind.
If this interpretation of [Reflexive] was true, our shaping defense Ego-Infused Pattern Primacy would not work.
It too is a reflexive charm, but is only activated after the Infernal comes under attack.
Same principle.
We can choose not to turn something on, but the effect we are supposed to be defending against cant prevent a charm activation that's supposed to negate it.
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GM wording makes it crystal clear that IPM, only can be used reflexively if you notice the attack before it lands.
No it doesnt. At least not to me. We'll ask the QM for clarity when they show up.
Because iirc that's not how its supposed to work for defenses.
Especially not social defenses, because social surprise negators do not exist in ExWoD.
Social combat here appears to rely on mechanical transparency on both sides.
If it wasn't so, any Fae, god, Outsider or Fallen who snuck up on you without warning and deployed UMI would skullfuck you without lube. And given that all the wizards in this setting manage to somehow operate without getting their brains twisted inside their skulls, they have to get time to put up mental defenses as necessary.
Are not White Council wizards explicitly in universe are known to be bad at mental defenses. So yeah I expect they lose a fair few wizards to mental attacks every decade.