This is a game, though. I like the idea of combat threats without the QM having to make them utterly ridiculous.
A situation where Shintai Molly can stack Boiling Sea Mastery, Faster than Sight and the Signature version of Shadow Spite Curse for a cumulative combat bonus of 6 DC at a cost of 1m Essence doesnt really have a competitive combat scene.
While she wears her Shintai form, the world around the Infernal is fractured into a jagged landscape of tortured and bleeding Essence, where all actions taken to oppose her suffer a –3 penalty
Well then you will be happy to note and I will be sad to note that it doesn't actually increase enemy DC by 3 on all actions just reduces their dice pool by 3. Good, but we aren't beating Mab with it.
Also no idea where you got the idea that it makes our actions easier (again) when you have said that is not the case less then an hour ago.
[X] Plan: For the Kingdom
-[X] Molly (16 XP)
-[X] Carry over - 16xp
--[X] Lydia (4 XP)
--[X] Righteous Lion Defense, 3 XP
--[X] Carry over - 1xp
Our hell is basically the most broken thing we'll ever have. We should defiantly save up for it and have it as our first signature. Either that or Cracked Cell Circumvention: Signature Effect: While the Infernal wears her Shintai form, all doors, all gates, all portals and other means of passage spring open at her approach, destroying their locks if they must in the process. No passage is barred to her.
Bad idea, we will never get the best charms (and I'm not talking about just King and the kingdom here, any of the ones that require 15 more xp counts) with any regularity if we burn our pockets and spend it completely everytime we gain any.
We can invest for the future, by waiting on spending.
[X] Plan: For the Kingdom
-[X] Molly (16 XP)
-[X] Carry over - 16xp
--[X] Lydia (4 XP) --[X] Righteous Lion Defense, 3 XP
--[X] Carry over - 1xp
I'd prefer to bank more over less, but we can swing 16 or so exp for next time, so 4-5 banked seems like a good minimum. With that in mind I'll add a few plans for focused acquisitions.
[X] Plan Eye Eye Captain
-[X] Molly (16 xp)
—[X] Sinner Boiling Stare (12 xp)
—[X] Carry Over (4 xp)
-[X] Lydia ( 4 xp)
—[X] Ghost Warding Glyph ( 3 xp)
—[X] Carry Over (1 xp)
The goal here being to acquire our perfect attack because it's a pretty important bit of kit for us, and would be very relevant to the next arc of play.
GWG is less immediately applicable to our biggest situation, but we still have vampire plots cooking and that sort of thing is one of the most common issues faced by the ordo.
It can be placed as a near permanent improvement on top of any building's threshold, which makes it very useful for them and a nice trade good for Lydia's currently nonexistent favor income.
Getting her in a place to buy her own sorcery tutoring or something via low investment glyph applications would be a nice way to justify pumping up her magical abilities in without using Molly or Harry's time.
Similar reasons, but for the first of what I think needs to be two perfect defenses due to ExWoD defensive primacy being compromised.
[X] Plan How Much Gel Does Sonic Need Again?
-[X] Molly (16 exp)
—[X] Rage Recast: Swift Stride (6 xp)
—[X] Carry Over (10 xp)
-[X] Lydia ( 4 xp)
—[X] Ghost Warding Glyph ( 3 xp)
—[X] Carry Over (1 xp)
Huh just had a thought can you imagine how mad the red court must of been when the empires like the Aztecs which I'm sure they were in control of shattered not even due to just better weapons and such? But, because of disease cause at the time that must of been a disaster which incredibly weakened their biggest power base.
Huh just had a thought can you imagine how mad the red court must of been when the empires like the Aztecs which I'm sure they were in control of shattered not even due to just better weapons and such? But, because of disease cause at the time that must of been a disaster which incredibly weakened their biggest power base.
My thinking is that the Aztecs or similar cultures had imprisoned the Red Court leaders and they only managed to escape when the Conquistadors and disease brought down their civilization.
I'll concede.
I might revisit this when my computer is back up.
But he isnt. There arent two archangels in Hell; he's the only one.
And its explicitly stated by Word of Jim that the Denarians are in Coins because they are the elite of Hell, and the ones most likely to stab him in the back, so he shunted them into the Coins when the opportunity arose:
Well. Not quite freely, but MORE freely, certainly. The Fallen bound in the coins are the freaking elite of Hell–everyone the big D didn't want trying to stab him in the back, basically. If they were suddenly freed it would do all kinds of horrible things to about a million balances of power, with repercussions that would last for centuries.
Which assumes that they /can/ be destroyed. I mean, don't think that in 2,000 years, no one has ever TRIED it. And there are still thirty of them kicking around.
Which isn't necessarily to say that it's impossible. But it sure as Hell wouldn't be easy. And given that, while in the coins, they ARE effectively frozen in carbonite without a human agent to assist them, containment certainly seems to be a prudent course.
Funny you should mention that whole notion about redeeming Lasciel . . . >
Jim
See above.
Yomi Wan is not really equivalent to the Christian Hell.
For one thing, Hell has an Archangel, and Archangels are benchmarked with people like Uriel who can explicitly shatter galaxies in DF canon, while Yama Kings rate below Mab.
See my reply to Yog.
Essentially this.
Keeping information from Charity about Eiko's plot is justified because if it leaks, it causes deaths and geopolitical destabilization.
Keeping information from her about Nemesis? Not so much.
Nemesis is targeting her family anyway, and Nemesis is known to pretty much all the major players in this setting, from the Archangels, Dragons and Mothers of the Fae Courts all the way down to hundred and twenty year old wizards like Donald Morgan.
If relatively young wizards like Morgan and Maggie LeFay knew about them, then its not really a forbidden topic.
Just a dicuss with care.
COMMENTS
-Whampires can suffer whats essentially autoimmune damage from their Hunger if damaged enough.
Happened to Thomas in Peace Talks after the svartalfar tortured him.
-Red Court vampires take either soak lethal damage as bashing, or take reduced damage after soak.
In the Love Hurts short story, Murphy shot one, a Baron, in the head and it kept moving.
She ended up shooting it half a dozen times in the head before it went down, and had to empty her pistol magazine in its head to be sure.
In Death Masks, Martin blows out chunks of Paolo Ortega's chest and breaks his femur with bullets from a high caliber sniper rifle and he keeps taking shots at Dresden, throws Susan so hard she smashes into a wall and loses consciousness, then makes it home even with Kincaid and the Archive throwing hands.
Chapter Thirty
"You can't," I said. I shot a glance toward home plate, but the Archive apparently hadn't noticed anything amiss. My will wavered, and the mordite sphere bobbed back and forth. "They'll hear the shot. They'll kill you."
"Quite possibly," he agreed. "As I said, I am prepared to accept that."
His words chilled me, and the mordite sphere darted at my head. I caught it a couple of feet from me and held it, but just barely.
"I told you, Dresden. There's only one way this can end. I would have preferred an honorable demise for you, but any death will do."
I stared at the hidden gun. A dot of bright scarlet light appeared on Ortega's chest, and tracked slowly up.
My expression must have changed, because Ortega glanced down too. The bright pinpoint of the laser sight settled over his heart and became still.
Ortega's eyes widened and his expression twisted into fury.
A lot of things happened at once.
There was a hissing sound, a thump, and a big section of Ortega's chest dented in. Scarlet sprayed out behind him. An instant later, a booming sound much deeper than the crack of a rifle echoed around the stadium.
Ortega let out a screech that went off the high end of the scale. Fire erupted from the hidden gun, burning through Ortega's flesh mask and shirt to reveal the muzzle of a small-caliber revolver clenched in an inhuman black hand. The bullet Ortega had taken had half twisted him, and he missed. I thought hanging around to let him try again was a bad idea, so I threw myself to one side and gave the mordite sphere another shove.
Ortega dodged the mordite, and even wounded, he was fast. A bright red dot appeared on his thigh for half a second, and with another hiss-thump-boom, the unseen gunman hit him again. I heard the bones of Ortega's leg break.
Susan threw my staff and rod to me and leapt for Ortega, grabbing his free arm and twisting as if to throw him. Instead, the vampire writhed weirdly, and she wound up tearing the flesh mask from him, peeling it away like a banana skin to reveal the slime-slick, flabby-bodied creature beneath it-the true Ortega. He still held the gun though, and he turned to shoot at me again.
I screamed, "Ventas servitas!" at the top of my lungs, throwing my will at dirt of the pitcher's mound. It whirled up into a miniature cyclone of fine brown soil, forcing the vampire to turn its head and shield its eyes. The second shot went wild as well, and I scrambled to get my blasting rod. The flying dirt slowed her down, but Susan still went for Ortega's gun hand. It was a mistake. Even with only one leg to support him, Ortega screeched again, twisted, and flung Susan from the pitcher's mound into the third row of seats behind first base. She hit with bone-breaking force and dropped out of sight.
Sudden screeches filled the air, and I looked up to see as many as a dozen of the Red Court, revealed in their true forms, coming into the stadium. Some climbed over the walls, some jumped in from the upper levels, and some came bursting out of private boxes in showers of exploding glass.
Then in Changes, we see a Reds suffering bisection from Dresden fire damage and still being alive and screaming for sustained periods of time.
-Blampires take bashing damage and/or reduced damage from gunfire.
See the fight scene in Blood Rites, where Lara literally shot one of them in the eye, and it told her it wouldnt stop him, and she replied that she knew, but that it would slow it down.
Lara Raith wasn't doing badly for herself. The wind was blowing the short little black silk robe back off of her, so it was all black lace and pale flesh that somehow did not present a contrast to the gun. One-ear had fallen on his side. Shards of brittle bone protruded from both thighs and both knees, where Lara Raith had exercised her marksmanship. One-ear pushed himself up, and Lara put a shot in the arm supporting the vampire's weight, One-ear's elbow exploded in a cloud of ruined cloth, moldy flesh, and bone splinters, and the creature fell back to the ground. Lara put a bullet through One-ear's left eye. The smell was indescribably nauseating. Lara aimed at the vampire's other eye. "This won't kill me," the creature snarled.
"I don't need to," Lara responded. "Just to slow you down."
"I'll be after you in hours," One-ear-one-eye said. "Look somewhere sunny," she responded. "Au revoir, darling."
The gun's hammer clicked down and silence ensued.
Lara had time to blink in disbelief at the gun. Then the vampire Thomas had stunned rushed at Lara's back. The creature wasn't quite a blur, but it was fast as hell. I tried to shout a warning at her, but it came out more of a croak than anything.
Lara shot a glance over her shoulder and started to move, but my warning had come too late. The vampire seized her by her dark hair and spun her around. Then it hit her with a broad swing of its arm and literally knocked her out of her high-heeled shoes. She flew at the nearest wall, half spinning in the air, and hit hard. The gun tumbled from her fingers and she fell, her eyes wide and frightened, her expression stunned. Her face had been cut on the cheek, at the corner of her mouth, and on her forehead. She was bleeding odd, pale blood in thick, trickling lines.
The vampire shuddered and leapt after her, landing on all fours. It was graceful, but alien, far more arachnid than feline. The corpse prowled over to her, seized her throat, and shoved her shoulders against the wall. Then it thrust out a long, leathery tongue and started licking her blood, hissing in mounting pleasure.
One- ear slithered over to her as well, using his unwounded arm and a serpentine writhing of the rest of his body. "Raith's second in command," the vampire rasped. "As well as the White who betrayed us. Now you're both mine."
Lara tried to push the vampire licking her blood away, but she wasn't strong enough, and she still looked dazed. "Get away from me."
"Mine," One-ear repeated. It drew Lara's hair back away from her throat. The other vampire took her hands and pinned them against the wall above her head.
One- ear touched its tongue to Lara's mouth and shivered. "I'll show you what real vampires are like. You'll see things differently soon. And you'll be lovely, still. For a little while. I'll enjoy that."
Lara struggled, but the haze of confusion over her eyes did not clear, and her motions had a dreamlike lack of coordination. Her face took on an expression of horror as both vampires leaned into her, their withered teeth settling onto her flesh. They bit her, and she bucked in terror and agony. There were ugly, slurping sounds beneath Lara Raith's screams.
Which was what I'd been waiting for. Once they had bitten down, I gathered up momentum as quietly as I could, closed the last few yards in the springing strides I would have used on a fencing strip, and drove the six-inch heel of one of Lara's black pumps as hard as I could into the space between the unwounded vampire's shoulder blades. I had the heel of my hand and the full weight of my body behind the blow, and I hit square and hard, so that the heel drove into its back, just left of its spine, directly at the vampire's withered heart.
I didn't get the response I would have liked best. The vampire didn't disintegrate or explode into dust. But it did convulse with a sudden scream, its body going into almost the same kind of spastic seizure the other one had displayed on having a turkey rammed through its chest. It staggered and fell to the ground, its dead face locked into a grimace of surprise and helpless pain.
One- ear was slow to react. By the time it tore its mouth from the gnawed and bleeding slope of Lara Raith's left breast, I had my mother's pentacle out and had focused all of my attention on it.
Now I've heard that the power of faith is simply another aspect of the magic I used all the time. I've also heard that it is a completely different kind of energy, totally unrelated to the living power I felt all around me. Certainly it garnered a very different reaction from various supernatural entities than my everyday wizardry did, so maybe they weren't related at all.
But that didn't matter. I wasn't holding a crucifix in the thing's face. I was holding the symbol of what I believed in. The five-pointed star of the pentacle represented the five forces of the universe, those of air, fire, water, earth, and of spiritual energy, laid into patterns of order and life and bound within a circle of human thought, human will. I believed that magic was fundamentally a force of life, of good, something meant to protect and preserve. I believed that those who wielded it therefore had a responsibility to use that power in the way it was meant to be used-and that was belief enough to tap into the vast power of faith, and to direct it against One-ear.
The pentacle burst into silver and blue light, a blaze as bright as an airborne flare. One-ear's stretched facial skin began to peel away, and the thick fluids oozing from its ruined eye socket burst into silver flame. The vampire screamed and threw itself away from that silver fire. If he'd had a crony left, they could have come at me from opposite directions, so that the blazing light from the pentacle could sear only one. But he didn't, and I followed after One-ear, keeping the pentacle held before me, my concentration locked upon it.
One- ear scrambled over the writhing vampire with the turkey-crushed chest, and the creature, maybe younger or more vulnerable than its leader, simply burst into flame as the pentacle glared down upon it. I had to skip back a step from that sudden heat, and the fallen vampire was consumed by blinding fire until nothing was left of it.
By the time my eyes had adjusted to the comparative darkness of the parking lot again, One-ear was nowhere to be seen. I checked over my shoulder and saw the transformed Lara Raith straddle the staked vampire, her eyes blazing silver and bright, her skin shining as Thomas's had. She drove blows down at its face, crushing it with the first few, then driving into its skull with sickening squelching sounds during subsequent blows. She continued, screaming at the top of her lungs the whole while, until she'd crushed its face and moved onto its neck, beating it into shapeless pulp.
And then she tore the vampire's head off its shoulders, killing it.
She rose slowly, pale eyes distant and inhuman. Her white skin was streaked with ichor of black, brown, and dark green, mingling with the pale, pinkish blood around her cuts and the bite wounds. Her dark hair had fallen from its mostly up style, and hung around her in a wild tangle. She looked terrified and furious and sexy as hell.
The Blampires in that scene were killed by entropy curse, impalement, True Faith, and in the case of the last, Lara Raith physically bashing its skull in with her bare hands before tearing its head off its shoulders.
-Blampires are also weak to garlic.
In the short story Its My Birthday Too, Dresden maims a master Blampire with pizza store garlic powder.
And holy water is also an issue, I think.
Hmm yeah with that statement if he's not the ceo he's probably got the equivalent of the most shares. Though given butcher said multinational and Dresden files in canon is a multiverse not that it guarantees anything hell could have more companies where he's not the big honcho. You know since multiverse big.
We really should max out craft, that is 4 more dice. Which matters a lot when rolling a ton of success lowers the time it takes to make stuff. Given we have 3 AP actions we have to spend on craft projects, it practically saving XP, as we can get it back on training action that the free AP allows.
Red court king is around 5000 years old so yeah. Also considering the creator making it so gods can directly interfere less I'm fairly sure that rule was made at least a thousand years ago.
The Red Court are not something Molly knows about inherently from having a demon in her head but according to Bob you at least know that the Red King and company were not the Aztec Gods and that they stole at least the names of said gods. The reason he says 'at least the names' is because both names and faith have power so they might have gotten a bit more out of that, depending on how their general nature (of which Bob knows little) interacted with people thinking that they are gods.