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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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TheGrape said:
But why was he so desperate? I doubt he understood the true danger of Molly and Lydia, so was he just that scared of whatever Lara could bring to bear that he didn't think he could survive otherwise?
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Even without Molly and Lydia, there's obviously a purge going on and he must have known that he is on the same list as Madrigal, if he had either his hands in the talent-killings or in the dealing with the Red Court.

If Lara (or Constantine) planned a purge like this, it would be very much expected that they are ready for any force that they know the targets can bring to bear, so he must have felt like he had to pull out something very much not among his usual tricks?

Edit: This is like living in Stalin's time, having the Cheka knock on your door at three A.M. and you have recently talked to American spies. Sure, there might be half a chance that you aren't completly fucked, but realistically, you are.
 
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The issue at hand is that for an Elder Vampire who was the head of his Bloodline apparently, he immediately dropped into Panic Mode when Madrigal's decapitation attempt backfired, and immediately focused on Lara rather than, you know, the one who was doing this apparently, with his alpha strike, and immediately after this he sacrificed his son. This suggests that he already knew Lara was the actual White King despite her taking extensive steps to hide this

Long story short, his reaction makes no sense unless he already knew this was an execution ground to begin with, and who was really calling the shots here.
 
Alectai said:
Yeah, uh, wow, they really did load for bear here, which suggests that either they all saw this coming or that they could have done this at any time and just... Chose not to, for some reason.
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Presumably this is their equivalent of a wizard's death curse, a last fuck you in an attempt to produce mutually assured destruction.

The White King presumably knew about this, and was part of what kept the balance of terror between the Houses, even if the Raiths were most powerful. Lara didn't though; and her father, despite being chained by her, managed to avoid being asked about its
 
Alectai said:
The issue at hand is that for an Elder Vampire who was the head of his Bloodline apparently, he immediately dropped into Panic Mode when Madrigal's decapitation attempt backfired, and immediately focused on Lara rather than, you know, the one who was doing this apparently, with his alpha strike, and immediately after this he sacrificed his son. This suggests that he already knew Lara was the actual White King despite her taking extensive steps to hide this

Long story short, his reaction makes no sense unless he already knew this was an execution ground to begin with, and who was really calling the shots here.
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To be fair, he is a patriarch, someone ostensibly high up in the White Court. At some point everybody realizes that the White King is just a figurehead for Lara in the books, and whether or not the average Whampire knows yet its safe to say that the higher ups probably already have an idea of who's really in charge. So I can buy him knowing already that Lara is in charge.

Word of Jim:
He appears to be in charge, but he isn't, because Lara can do terrible things to him if he doesn't play along, and that's his option now. So he has to play along with Lara and wear the target on his chest while she runs things from behind the scenes. Everyone else in the White Court, it doesn't take them very long to figure out this is what's going on. But that's the play that they have going on, everyone has to pretend that Lord Raith is the one in charge even though they know better. Until it comes time to unseat Lara, and they'll have to take Raith out of his position in order to get Lara out of hers. Lara, at the same time, she's got to ferociously protect his position. It gets very byzantine in the White Court. They've basically got a figurehead emperor, and a pile of ministers with the real power. Lara happens to be on top of that pile of ministers at the moment.
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Although yeah, even then it's kinda confusing why he would focus her rather than the Infernal in the room, but maybe he's hoping with Lara dead he can rally everybody else in the room to try and take down the Exalt rather than try it on his lonesome.
 
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Alratan said:
Presumably this is their equivalent of a wizard's death curse, a last fuck you in an attempt to produce mutually assured destruction.

The White King presumably knew about this, and was part of what kept the balance of terror between the Houses, even if the Raiths were most powerful. Lara didn't though; and her father, despite being chained by her, managed to avoid being asked about its
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The real issue is that 'He should have had no reason to believe he was on the chopping block here, and the major witness just committed suicide by cop.' Again, also, the fact he targetted Lara means that he apparently knew she was the one calling the shots here.

What I'm trying to say here is. "He was too quick to resort to going to the knife for someone who shouldn't have known he was in the splash zone." Assuming she doesn't die in the crossfire, he just gave Lara a blank check to purge as hard as she wanted.
 
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fictionfan said:
What is our soak at the moment? I can't find the roll.
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I don't think DP showed it.
But 8 minimum plus the successes from Steel Skin.
We can soak a hit that would kill a human completly.

TheGrape said:
To be fair, he is a patriarch, someone ostensibly high up in the White Court. At some point everybody realizes that the White King is just a figurehead for Lara in the books, and whether or not the average Whampire knows yet its safe to say that the higher ups probably already have an idea of who's really in charge. So I can buy him knowing already that Lara is in charge.

Although yeah, even then it's kinda confusing why he would focus her rather than the Infernal in the room, but maybe he's hoping with Lara dead he can rally everybody else in the room to try and take down the Exalt on his lonesome.
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To be fair, we would have propably soaked the attack.

Killing Lara means chaos and maybe a chance to escape the room or turn all vampires against us.
 
Alectai said:
The issue at hand is that for an Elder Vampire who was the head of his Bloodline apparently, he immediately dropped into Panic Mode when Madrigal's decapitation attempt backfired, and immediately focused on Lara rather than, you know, the one who was doing this apparently, with his alpha strike, and immediately after this he sacrificed his son. This suggests that he already knew Lara was the actual White King despite her taking extensive steps to hide this

Long story short, his reaction makes no sense unless he already knew this was an execution ground to begin with, and who was really calling the shots here.
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You guys do not know how fraught things were in the white court of late, but Molly assumes very.
 
Alectai said:
The real issue is that 'He should have had no reason to believe he was on the chopping block here, and the major witness just committed suicide by cop.' Again, also, the fact he targetted Lara means that he apparently knew she was the one calling the shots here
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He must have known he was a target.
Constantine called our what he was going against here, which was killing Talents and financial subversion through the Red Court.
If elder Skavis was involved in either of those things, it would have been obvious to him that he is a target.
 
TheGrape said:
But why was he so desperate? I doubt he understood the true danger of Molly and Lydia, so was he just that scared of whatever Lara could bring to bear that he didn't think he could survive otherwise?
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Fear for his own life, I assume. That's a powerful motivator for anyone, but I imagine it's much more so for a centuries if not millennia old immortal who knows they've spent much of their long life doing reprehensible shit for fun and profit.

Whampires are Human enough to have a soul, and thus subject to judgement in the afterlife. Combine that with an absolute knowledge that Hell is a real place, and it makes sense that one would do anything within their power to avoid it.

Since the only punishment for treason in the White Court is death, he would know he's on the chopping block as soon as Lara's purge began. Madrigal's attack and subsequent death after failing to successfully use what most knowledgeable supernaturals would view as an extremely powerful and forbidden weapon was just the spark needed to catalyze him into action.
Alectai said:
The issue at hand is that for an Elder Vampire who was the head of his Bloodline apparently, he immediately dropped into Panic Mode when Madrigal's decapitation attempt backfired, and immediately focused on Lara rather than, you know, the one who was doing this apparently, with his alpha strike, and immediately after this he sacrificed his son. This suggests that he already knew Lara was the actual White King despite her taking extensive steps to hide this

Long story short, his reaction makes no sense unless he already knew this was an execution ground to begin with, and who was really calling the shots here.
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It isn't out of the question that some forces who associate with Outsiders know Lara is a True Venator, an avowed enemy of Outsiders and all who traffic with them. When a purge is obviously about to happen, it's being led by a dedicated enemy of Outsiders, and you're neck deep in dealings with those same Outsiders, it doesn't take a huge leap to assume you're on the list.
 
I'm not saying it's unreasonable, especially with the Outsiders leaning hard in trying to do a Reverse Killing Ground.

But it is a hard investment in nailing this, because if they miss, Lara has a blank check to purge as hard as she wants. Because his side got stuck in first and immediately delved into Bad Juju and self-destructive death spells. She has all the excuse in the world now.
 
Well assuming that attack at Lara was standard we should be able to get away with ignoring the guards especially if we are wet.
 
Alectai said:
The real issue is that 'He should have had no reason to believe he was on the chopping block here, and the major witness just committed suicide by cop.' Again, also, the fact he targetted Lara means that he apparently knew she was the one calling the shots here.

What I'm trying to say here is. "He was too quick to resort to going to the knife for someone who shouldn't have known he was in the splash zone." Assuming she doesn't die in the crossfire, he just gave Lara a blank check to purge as hard as she wanted.
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She's just spent the last three days gathering what's apparently hard proof on the conspirators' activity. She could very easily have not been as discrete about that as she thought she was, and tipped them off that she was up to something, so they came prepared to turn her ambush back on her after being invited through the external defences of Chateau Raith.

Lara just got very lucky their trump card whiffed.
 
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On the bright side, when this is all over, the White Court will be pretty weakened, and it will be a great time to have our hell and offer lots of favors for Lara, increasing our bargaining power and increasing the chance to control the Court with Lara.

We just have to have enough leverage, after all it's not like we're going to kill her, just be the shadow (Molly) behind the one who controls (Lara) the throne (White King) out of sight.
 
Azais said:
On the bright side, when this is all over, the White Court will be pretty weakened, and it will be a great time to have our hell and offer lots of favors for Lara, increasing our bargaining power and increasing the chance to control the Court with Lara.

We just have to have enough leverage, after all it's not like we're going to kill her, just be the shadow (Molly) behind the one who controls (Lara) the throne (White King) out of sight.
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If we take the Mana Maggot Plague, we may be better off disposing of Lara and persuading Thomas to be our puppet ruler, as he's less likely to make trouble.
 
Alratan said:
If we take the Mana Maggot Plague, we may be better off disposing of Lara and persuading Thomas to be our puppet ruler, as he's less likely to make trouble.
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Throwing the white king in there would get us a very powerful minion. Don't think that he is intact enough to act as a officer of any kinds (and we wouldn't trust him if we was), but he would provide a lot of expendible brute force.
 
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Alratan said:
Hmm. Spawning Pit Sanctification would be an interesting option for him, followed by dispelling the death curse.
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Yes then we would have a immune to magic, super fast strong creature with powerful mind effects that can kill with a touch. I don't think that any thing in the setting can ignore that. Broken Seeker would have to take it seriously.
 
uju32 said:
Im reasonably sure you are wrong about that.
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Mortals with mortal dice and whatever equipment we happen to have and training we manage to fit in our schedule they can use.

Their template from us is a passive speed/unit buff and immunity to betraying their intimacies. Maybe DPE. Basically nothing else is passive on our part.

A ghoul has a better stat block, can carry more equipment for their specific role, and can at minimum match mortal grade skill.

Clones are fragile utility systems, not some grand combat trick. Making them anything else requires more and more investment on our part that would be better delegated to actual minions.

That's why we have them.

uju32 said:
No, Alratan is right about this.
Its called a spirit killer for a reason. If you arent a spirit, you dont qualify even if you have somehow turned yourself into a hive being. In Exalted 2E, you couldnt use a spirit killer against an Infernal using their version of Splintered Gale Shintai either.
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The Abyssal one kills anything with any form of immortality, regardless of source. Molly has no age limit because there aren't primordials around to enforce one, and would add an auto res with that charm.

I only need one black swan to prove that all swans are not white.
Earth-Destroyer said:
GM has confirmed that if a clone learns a MA, or path once absorbed, all future clones will have the knowledge.
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Cite?

DragonParadox said:
[] Write in
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Lydia is right there too, have her occupy the adds so we can work over the Outsider pawn.

That or use MHM to go bowling and try getting them tangled up on the floor.
 
BronzeTongue said:
The Abyssal one kills anything with any form of immortality, regardless of source. Molly has no age limit because there aren't primordials around to enforce one, and would add an auto res with that charm.

I only need one black swan to prove that all swans are not white.
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Abyssals are uniquely good at killing things. Other Exalts get spirit killers. They get everything killers.
BronzeTongue said:
We can't scale or deliver it, and good luck getting anyone to cooperate without immediate force. You'd just destroy the court entirely pressing too hard.
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We can charge up Thomas with energy so he can be the bigger beat stick.
 
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Alratan said:
Abyssals are uniquely good at killing things. Other Exalts get spirit killers. They get everything killers.
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It's demonstrated as a possibility, and it's sorted in the same category. You're banking on it not existing elsewhere, not on a categorical defense.
Alratan said:
We can charge up Thomas with energy so he can be the bigger beat stick.
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A triple purge where we install a notoriously unpopular leader without the legitimacy, connections, or skills to do the job on the basis of how swole we can make him is stupid. Especially since giving him a mega blood pool doesn't ensure he actually has the ability to take an elder with a better build than him.

We're already basically at a breaking point here. That's the sort of thing that would shatter the court into pieces just small enough to screw mortals over without being top down manageable or capable of doing anything good for reality as a whole.

No one benefits from doing something like this other than the Outsiders.
 
DragonParadox said:
"Look at what you made me do!"
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Just like every single being who ever claimed that one, I will say this: You did this to yourself, and are the only one at fault for it, do not try and pass your treachery as nobility, or your sacrifices of others as martyrdom.

He disgust me at a visceral level.

taovkool said:
Dude, you've done that yourself.

Edit: Wait, I just noticed I quoted Obi Wan there.

Can I request that anyone with stunts include that Obi Wan line please?
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I see great minds think alike... hope someone included the Obi-wan stunting.

*A little later*

Apparently nobody did, well then:

[x] Ignore the guards, kill that thing now
-[x] [Stunt] Doing your best Obi-wan impression, you answer him with: "You did this to yourself." You then use one of the guards as a springboard to somersault right in the middle of them all, your aura promising death to all that approach, the eyes in it vigilant to any and all attacks they could try to send your way.

Boss first, rabble second.
 
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