Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Basically expression is craft, but the emotional response. We can easily paint a exact portrait of someone with our craft skill, but if we wanted painting to be ugly, dashing or any special emotional response we would need expression.

We could likely manage a studio with leadership so long as the studio already has all the needed talent available leadership is the skill to get it all working together in the right way and make an effective organizational flow chart.
 
[X] Yes (Obtain Red Star Productions)

Petition to rename this Green Sun Creations!

Really, I want this just so we can thin out the idiots who think to use it against us. Someone who picks a fight with an Exalted who just annihilated an Outsider with a single scratch is either very stupid or very powerful, and it would be doing a favor for the world if we proactively thinned out the population of both from the supernatural world.
 
The average movie production allegedly has almost 300 people involved according to Google. I have no idea how many permanent or temporary staff a studio employs. We cant even begin to protect them all if someone, from the Red Court to the Fomor to some Outsider affiliate, chooses to attack them as a proxy for us.

We saw this shit happen in Blood Rites.
When Lord Raith and the witches chose to attack Arturo Genosa's porn movie studio with ritual magic, they murdered people with impunity and ended up bankrupting the studio. Dresden only managed to track down the perps after the fact.

Dont adopt responsibility for people you cant protect. Limit your exposure.
That's just silly we are trying to protect as many people as possible weather or not they fall under our employ. We are likely to respond similarly if we hear about anywhere being attacked even if we don't own it. Honestly, like having a studio makes us more vulnerable is basically just giving up before we even start.
 
@uju32 I think you are seriously overestimating how hands-on we are going to be running this studio, instead of delegating it to competent minions.

Also, if scandals are something you're worried about… Night Swallows Secrets is a favored charm for us. We can bury anything we want to have buried far deeper than anyone less than a full-blown Heroic Mortal can possibly uncover for relatively little effort.
1) I know Im not.

Look at the history of Miramax, or how the Weinstein Company collapsed in the aftermath of Harvey Weinstein being forced out; he was an asshole and a rapist, but he was also the one guy with the mixture of business knowhow and eye for talent that actually held the business together. This is not a business for absentee owners.


2)Fair point about Night Swallows Secrets.
But we're not dealing with just mortals. Like I said, our enemies will come at us through our exposed attack surfaces.
That will be one of them. And they will be able to mitigate or work around the effects of a 3 dot charm.
 
That's just silly we are trying to protect as many people as possible weather or not they fall under our employ. We are likely to respond similarly if we hear about anywhere being attacked even if we don't own it. Actually like having a studio makes us more vulnerable is basically just giving up before we even start.
We arent able to protect random people against targeted attacks. Thats currently beyond us.
It may always be beyond us.

Look at how much effort we had to put in to protect Cauldron, and they are people in the know who are willing to listen to Molly when she asks they take certain precautions or to leave everything behind and move elsewhere.
Not muggles who will ignore you.

Someone attacking Rosie will hurt Molly more than attacking a random person on the other side of the city.
Someone attacking a Jade Dog will hurt Molly more than attacking a random cop.
Thats how people work. Thats what our enemies will operate on.
 
We arent able to protect random people against targeted attacks. Thats currently beyond us.
It may always be beyond us.

Look at how much effort we had to put in to protect Cauldron, and they are people in the know who are willing to listen to Molly when she asks they take certain precautions or to leave everything behind and move elsewhere.
Not muggles who will ignore you.

Someone attacking Rosie will hurt Molly more than attacking a random person on the other side of the city.
Someone attacking a Jade Dog will hurt Molly more than attacking a random cop.
Thats how people work. Thats what our enemies will operate on.
And I say that trying to go that way is just setting yourself up to lose we live in society it's impossible to cut ourselves off entirely just because we are afraid of being hurt. The bad guys can attack Murphy's sister, mother, older bother, our old teacher, our friends at school, their families, people that go to our church, their families, etc.

I have told you this before and you keep bringing up this stupid idea as another excuse to do nothing.
 
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@uju32 You should consolidate your posts.

@fictionfan It would be tragic and we'd presumably try to do something about it if somebody asked us for help in a situation like one of our school friends getting attacked. But caring about somebody isn't the same thing as formal responsibility. We haven't formally declared ourselves responsible for them or done the essential equivalent of that. If we were forced to choose between the life of a subordinate who didn't sign up for violent work and a stranger we are practically obligated to choose the subordinate in the absence of a convenient third option. Tangentially, let's hope we don't ever end up with a subordinate or family/close friend trolley problem.

Someone from Winter or a White Court random would take a brief look at the dynamic between us and the Order of the Cauldron and consider it a patron/client relationship. The Jade Dogs are actual subordinates. Ignoring attacks on subordinates/clients loses face/reputation.
 
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There's no real way that ownership of a movie studio is transferred to an unrelated 18-year old without looking sketchy as fuck.
Why would we actually own it in our own name?

I'm still on the fence because I care more about this in terms of if it takes us too far from the perspective of other supernatural powers or not.

On a purely practical level I don't see why we should own most of our own property directly.

Get Thomas to hire a guy we have leverage on to manage a cutout operated as a private trust. Use cyber devils for everything and keep the stooge at the "signs things but doesn't know the bank passwords" level.

The court covers up the death however they usually do and the studio gets instructions to find a new producer independent of us like it'd do anyway.

Financially the transfer would externally resemble a will executing for the idle rich or someone divesting assets they don't want privately. Maybe interesting, but not unusual for Hollywood stuff.
Fair enough I guess, though harvesting it for IP is still a thing.
But Im immediately concerned with the complications of owning a horror movie studio previously run by a sex/fear/despair vampire who, according to Thomas in Proven Guilty, had a distinct record of killing his victims.

Its like taking over a casino previously run by the Mafia, or an airline run by a drug cartel.
Or a youth group run by a pedophile.
Yeah, that could be a problem. I think we can be disconnected from this officially, but Molly would care if it was her responsibility.

The cash isn't enough to actually do anything for us, and we're already probably close to as entangled with the whamps from the perspective of the broader community that will hear about this later as we want to be at this point.

We don't need to do chores for chump change.

If we're going to insist on a bribe, ask for the minion we already took. Preferably with polite vamp speak on how we won't just do something horrible to him for fun when we get home.

Maybe something like asking for a century or two of the smartest skavis bodyguard's time to make a point that we aren't an impermanent mortal element or a crazy spiritual bugbear out to collect souls or whatever.

In fact, let me write that in just to get it on the board.

[X] No

[X] [Write-In]
-[X] Etiquette Excellency
-[X] Ask for the surrendered vamp's intermediate term services instead.
—[X] [Stunt]: " The offer is appreciated, but I think I wear his blood better than I would fill his shoes" Molly says in a voice of a subtly self satisfied fire.
—-[X] Glancing back significantly at her hanger on Molly continues "If I might ask your indulgence in another matter however; this one drew steel on me, but was wise enough to surrender rather than proceed" with an evaluating tone she asks "A century or two of his time perhaps? If that satisfies your sense of justice?".

Dodge a complication we don't need, and tie up the situation with that guy we took responsibility for without jumping in during his execution or whatever later. Cause that whamp is probably going to die if we don't take him on as something before leaving. He was too close to the craziest actor on the stage from multiple angles.

It also has a hint more independence to it, since we're negotiating our bribe and not taking a cash prize like hired help.
 
[X] No

[X] [Write-In]
-[X] Etiquette Excellency
-[X] Ask for the surrendered vamp's intermediate term services instead.
—[X] [Stunt]: " The offer is appreciated, but I think I wear his blood better than I would fill his shoes" Molly says in a voice of a subtly self satisfied fire.
—-[X] Glancing back significantly at her hanger on Molly continues "If I might ask your indulgence in another matter however; this one drew steel on me, but was wise enough to surrender rather than proceed" with an evaluating tone she asks "A century or two of his time perhaps? If that satisfies your sense of justice?".
 
Could we just agree to do a questions vote after this one?

Trying to hang it on everything just has us connecting issues that aren't related. Voting for or against the bribe shouldn't be predicated on what unrelated follow up actions are or aren't being collected with it.
 
And I say that trying to go that way is just setting yourself up to lose we live in society it's impossible to cut ourselves off entirely just because we are afraid of being hurt. The bad guys can attack Murphy's sister, mother, older bother, our old teacher, our friends at school, their families, people that go to our church, their families, etc.

I have told you this before and you keep bringing up this stupid idea as another excuse to do nothing.
There's a difference between cutting yourself off, and making yourself unnecessarily vulnerable.
Between accepting that you cannot protect yourself against everything, and deliberately going out to streak through a gunfight.

Noone has suggested we drop our friends, or that we stop going out
But it does matter that we do this stuff with deliberation, and not just willy-nilly.
That the risks being taken are commensurate with the benefits.

We're currently pulling aggro from Walkers now, and being the target of major foreign policy moves by supernatural nationstates now: the Red Court is just the second hostile nationstate to try its luck after Kakuri.
It wont be the last. Especially since we havent seen the Denarians yet, or the rest of Yomi Wan.

Why would we actually own it in our own name?
I'm still on the fence because I care more about this in terms of if it takes us too far from the perspective of other supernatural powers or not.
On a purely practical level I don't see why we should own most of our own property directly.

Get Thomas to hire a guy we have leverage on to manage a cutout operated as a private trust. Use cyber devils for everything and keep the stooge at the "signs things but doesn't know the bank passwords" level.

The court covers up the death however they usually do and the studio gets instructions to find a new producer independent of us like it'd do anyway.

Financially the transfer would externally resemble a will executing for the idle rich or someone divesting assets they don't want privately. Maybe interesting, but not unusual for Hollywood stuff.
1)We may own it through shell companies, but the IRS still knows that.
Which means a lot of people do. The point of US shell companies is a little privacy, not secrecy from the players who actually matter. See how quickly Marcone dug up Chicago Synthetics, and it wasnt even a major effort.

I have zero expectation of our ability to keep our ownership secret in the supernatural world, especially since Madrigal was the previous owner and was thus being kept tabs on.


2) I dont think that works.
There's businesses where a literal cabbage could run things in maintenance mode; real estate, agriculture, healthcare et cetera. Movies and the entertainment business are too dependent on ongoing personal and public relationships for that to work IMO.

Even Madrigal had to do horror conventions with the hoi polloi, and its not like he lacked business financing.


3)He's a movie director with apparently popular movies. A public figure.
Its going to be a LOT harder to coverup the deaths of public figures than it is an apparently random one percenter or trust fund baby. There's a reason I dont want Molly or her family in the vicinity of any such thing.


4)Wills are public information once they are probated.
Like I said, we dont wanna be here.
Its not like we need the money.
 
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Could we just agree to do a questions vote after this one?

Trying to hang it on everything just has us connecting issues that aren't related. Voting for or against the bribe shouldn't be predicated on what unrelated follow up actions are or aren't being collected with it.
Huh?
You can vote against accepting the studio and still vote for the questions, or am I misunderstanding you?
 
1)We may own it through shell companies, but the IRS still knows that.
Which means a lot of people do.
The point of US shell companies is a little privacy, not secrecy from the players who actually matter.

I have zero expectation of our ability to keep our ownership secret in the supernatural world, especially since Madrigal was the previous owner and was thus being kept tabs on.
I wasn't expecting secret ownership supernaturally either. The only thing this transaction actually offers us is supernatural reputation change; at our level of abstraction we literally can't spend the money.

I only cared about protecting our public connections, and that can be fooled around with. The IRS getting paid and seeing parts of both end of the chain aren't an issue for us in most cases.


If we really, really, wanted to we could fire break by having a cutout rent properties and the like from other holding companies outside of the country or something, as long as we trust our informal measures of control. Our revenue would be his personal expense.

His death is the court's problem, I don't really care how hard it is to cover up for them. As long as we don't make a personal connection whatever happens on the other side of the cutout doesn't matter.

I wrote it off as an idea because cleaning up the operation isn't worth the rep change, which itself may be hazardously large at this point anyway.

Infallible legal/reputational defenses on the mundane side won't stop Molly from feeling responsible if she owns the place, and that puts a near term AP price on this.

That said, a whamp good enough to be a ducal guard would probably be the most capable minion we actually have, and this is an opportune moment to get him working for us instead of feeding worms without more issues with the court over interference with their laws or taking their dudes.

He didn't scratch us, but even with those partial armor piercing weapons the Duke Mooks had to be able to beat 14 soak to actually do what they did manage. The guy would could probably eat the Jade Dogs by himself as things stand.

Why not use the favor here to neaten up a problem we're going to have to deal with in like 20 minutes IC anyway?
Huh?
You can vote against accepting the studio and still vote for the questions, or am I misunderstanding you?
My point is that people name vote for mixed reasons.

I mean @Yog 's original vote post only mentions the actual studio as an afterthought to the questions, with no non-crown follow up. It's clearly not the focus.

So competing plans that want to even out with that for people who don't care that much about one aspect either need to clone the questions anyway or actually open up an argument on them instead.

It's like when Congress has a bill on corn prices or something and people start sticking random amendments on it. The original thing easily becomes diluted.
 
It isnt.

Molly has Expression 0, and it isnt a Key ability either, which means she is worse at this than a mortal professional. Molly does not have any inclination or ability or the Backgrounds to run a movie studio, nor does she have anyone who knows how to. Nor does she have the time to learn.

Not everything you are offered is something you should take.
Its worth knowing and respecting our limits.
I did not necessarily mean that Molly should get involved personally, just delegate with stated goals.
The people already present seem to be capable, there shouldn't be a need to micromanage too much.
 
There's also the fact that this is primarily a horror movie studio, and we have Skavis minions who are natural fear-eaters and can probably handle it pretty well. And we're probably likely to get a bunch more Skavis minions since House Skavis is sorta collapsing in on itself after the death of both the Lord and his Heir and the White King seizing a bunch of their blackmail and other assets. The studio is a good place to dump any who come flocking to our banner in the wake of suddenly becoming the least of the three major Whamp families.
Just a note, Skavis are the Despair Vampires.
Isabela is a Skavis-type.

The Fear-eaters are Malvora and that's what our sewer-minions are.
 
Arc 4 done, and now I've caught up to this year. Nice to see doing good isn't all about smiting the bad guys. Sometimes it's about helping the little guys. Littler at least. Also nice to see that networking and organization building getting started. I wondered if Molly might get in on the ground floor of forming the Paranet. Cyber-demons can definitely help an organization based heavily on the internet.
 
[X] Yog

Yog's plan sounds good, plus it could be a fun little side quest to produce some cheesy horror flicks (conveniently containing clues to the weaknesses of various supernatural entities to better protect the public, as Dracula was to the Black Court in universe).
 
Also with regards to manpower, keep in mind that once we get the Kingdom charm, we will get all the manpower we need. If it is an advanced society then all the SKILLED manpower we want/need.

So we can fill it with actors or technicians by the end of this arc.

If we choose Advanced technology, then it translated to improved movie visuals.

We will be spoiled for choices.
 
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Organizations

The Jade Dogs
Affiliation: Rogue Undertown Ghoul Gang
Hook: Mercy in Servitude, so long as they serve the will of the infernal their Hunger shall not trouble them.
History: The Red Dogs were formed around a core of three ghouls formerly serving the Red Court in Chicago before the start of the War with the White Council. To the extent then have a leader it is 'Adam' a name he took after fleeing to Undertown. what his name was among his former clan the others either do not know or refuse to speak. 'Bones' and 'Lockjaw' are the other two experienced ghouls in the gang and generally the ones who hold back Adam's temper from 'the children'.

The latter group includes six younger ghouls with ages ranging from 18 to 25 who were raised in by mortal parents or other caretakers, though it is clear none of them had a happy childhood. Given the overwhelming nature of the hunger on first awakening you are not sure you want to ask them about it. What is clear is that in spite of Adam's volatile and possibly abusive behavior they all see him as their proverbial port in the storm, as one who understands their nature and can help them live with it and with themselves. The elders of the clan have been teaching Sumerian, which is the formal language of the ghoul clans to their fellows as well a impressing upon them some measure of supernatural etiquette, mostly so they can deal with such predators as cannot be frightened away with threats of violence.

Of all the ghouls Sarah seems to have retained the most human mannerisms, though that might just be a function of her being the newest addition to the gang

Skills:
  • Adam, Bones and Lockjaw all possess Firearms 3 and Brawl 3 Subterfuge 1
  • Younger ghouls possess Brawl 2 Melee 2 and from the scraps of their previous lives can be counted as possessing Academics 1
  • All Ghouls Possess Stealth 4
@DragonParadox the organization page is very outdated, Adam is already dead and we got more members, the Wampires, and their skills are also missing. Also, I have questions:

a) Each turn we was supposed to have random recruitment from UnderCity, but it's been a while and I haven't seen any changes mentioned in the narrative. Did you just forget about it or did I miss it?

b) after we fought the Formor one of the loot was:
Gained
  • Materials for Alchemy Laboratory ● ; Also provides a 50% XP discount in buying Alchemy ●●●●
  • Stash Sufficient to upgrade the Dragon's Nest in Chicago to Dragon's Nest ● ; Must be recovered as part of a later action to use.
But there was never an action to do that and I think everyone has forgotten (and I doubt it's still there after that time), what happened to that?
 
Really that feels like minion work.
I agree, but we didn't send anyone to do that either, and considering that ours are relatively weak (apart from the possible new ducal guard) I wouldn't want to send some of them alone to another city just yet...

Speaking of which, we don't even have the function to order our minios to do something in the monthly/turn plans.
 
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