Any sort of organizers of a "holy war" have usually found ways to suspend any sort rules against killing, wars or "holy wars" their respective religion has, because otherwise they can't fulfill their goals.
It's however harder to try to suspend the rules against suicide "just" to escape interrogation, because it's not "as necessary". After all, the canonical martyrs endured horrible tortures without breaking, why can't you?
The thing is, however, does that also apply to "mind control witchcraft" - something that IRL religious fanatics doing a holy war have never had to deal with, and so we have no examples of how they would react? If it's not just a matter of enduring pain, but "satanic witchcraft" taking over your mind and/or body and no mortal will or faith (that they know of) can resist it?
I can see even religious fanatics starting to make exceptions then. "if the Devil takes over your body, then it's not a sin to strike at the new servant of the Devil, even if it's your own flesh" or some such justifications.
Christianity has always had a strong strain of mysticism.
From Moses against Pharaoh's wizards, angel visitations in the Old Testament, visions, Samuel consulting the Witch of Endor, Daniel being thrown in the den of lions and being untouched, Christ turning water into wine, feeding thousands of people with a couple fish and a few loaves, Christ and his apostles exorcising the demon-possessed, Paul vs Simon the magician.
One of the more famous(especially in pop culture) instances in the Bible was Christ's encounter with the demon hivemind Legion.
None of this shit is new to the Christian tradition, its just less emphasized in modern theology.
And Christian theology doesnt make exceptions for suicide in the face of that stuff either
The closest I have seen with regards to suicide is with apocalyptic cults.
Second and third might be arguable, but the first one is definitely wrong. Hellscry chakra doesn't let us see magic full stop. Hellscry chakra only works on CoDs. Mortals aren't CoDs. Being under the effect of magic cast by a CoD won't make the target CoD. Hellscry chakra won't work on them at all.
I quote:
Hellscry Chakra said:
Opening her inner eye and attuning it to spiritual desolation, the Infernal gains the ability to detect potential servants or rivals, and to weigh the souls of those she meets.
System: Reflexively spend 1 Essence. For the rest of the scene, the Infernal becomes aware when she stands in the presence of any creature of darkness, though she doesn't inherently know what sort of supernatural being any given individual may be. Furthermore, by concentrating on a specific individual for a few moments and making a successful Perception + Occult roll against difficulty 6, she can behold the subtleties of their anima and learn their current emotional state, as well as some clues about their nature. If you wish to embellish this with aura colors and the like, a chart can be found on page 136 of V20.
Advanced Aura Perception in V20 p140 said:
Pay attention to 3 successes.
Dark/CoD magic that works fundamental change on a person is stuff I would expect to see with HC.
If someone is Dominated or turned into a rough thrall by vampire magic, I would expect to see it in Hellscry Chakra.
If they were transformed to ice by Mab's magic(and still alive), I would expect to see it. If they were mindcontrolled by the Infernal charm Crowned With Fury, I would expect to see it. This is all stuff with effects on the victim's nature.
And there are edge cases, because magic is like that.
When Dresden tried to free Mick Malone from the Nightmare's spells in Grave Peril, the damn spell turned around and bit him in the neck. Attacked him and tried to jump hosts.
I would certainly expect something like that to ping Hellscry Chakra as well.
Total will power is supposed to 10. 5 on that scale is not exceptional.
And killing yourself is the cowards way out so not high conviction I think.
WP 5 is the minimum requirement for a Kuejin to fight its way out of Yomi Wan back to the real world.
Its actually pretty good.
Note that Lydia is still Willpower 5. Which we should fix.
COMMENTARY
Loling at the seven year old going to watch rat races.
I suspect we're going to be encouraged to encourage the teens here to at least get their GEDs.
Forthill is pissed. And he's one of the more temperate people we've heard.
I suspect there's going to be quiet conversations in quiet rooms for the next several months, as well as enhanced scrutiny of up and coming religious organizations. The Catholic death squads of the RPG usually operate in the Third World though.
For what do to? You can chose some combination of both, though if Lara doe agree to pay restitutions of some kind it is practically inviting her to spy on whatever organization you dream up
I assume she can already identify the people who were killed by this conspiracy and their surviving family with minimum effort, so no new secrets involved here. Ensuring their surviving family receive restitution shouldnt expose anything.The problem is the political implications; its one thing if its the families of the perps paying weregeld, and another if the White Court as a corporate body has to do so.
Dresden used the money to set up the Paranet in canon. We dont need their funding for it though.
Just the planning and people; we dont have Elaine Mallory to help do a lot of the footwork outside of Chicago.
Not a fan.
If we want to ultimatly control Lara we need her more in our debt, not less.
1)We dont want to control Lara.
We want the White Court to stop hurting people.
Those are not quite the same thing.
2) If the Ants have been killing people, there is an argument for exacting a financial penalty as well as a prestige one on the House of "Reverend Miles" and his backers as well as everyone involved in this conspiracy.
To help act as a deterrent so the next time someone thinks its a bright idea, other Whampires are incentivized to think of the potential effect on themselves and intervene instead of shrugging and letting them fuck around until they get shanked.
Weregeld is an established supernatural tradition to that effect.
I just dont know if its the best idea here.
It only implies that Lara should've kept tighter control of her faction.
Which she damn well should have.
Even the White King was not an absolute tyrant, and Lara isnt uncontested inside the White Court at this point of her career.
The White Court, like many supernatural nations, appear to act akin to feudal states, not modern federal states.
Its individual units and nobles have a lot of autonomy.
See, for example, Madrigal Raith kidnapping Dresden, a regional commander of the Wardens and auctioning him on Ebay, inviting bids from the Red Court and White Council. In the modern world, kidnapping a senior military officer of a nuclear nationstate for ransom would be an act of war. In this setting, nothing happened.
Is it? Does the White Court normally pay were-geld over the death of mortals?
Depends on who the mortals are affiliated to.
When one of Marcone's guards was killed by Nicodemus's party in Skin Game, Dresden made sure to see that his family received weregeld. If you unintentionally killed a mortal affiliated to Winter, damn sure you'd be paying weregeld, and be thankful if that squashed the case.
Harry canonically got her to pay it in canon over these events right now.
Different situation.
The people who did it were all dead, along with most of their nobility, and Lara was the most senior person left.
And Dresden's intervention saved her life as well as that of her House's nobility.
