I mean, to be clear:
Fomor snatch squads were canonically able to grab Talents and sorcerers off the street and stick them in shipping crates in the short story Aftermath, and none of the snatchers were mages. Corpsetaker's ghost was able to hold Mortimer Lindquist, one of the most powerful ectomancers ever known, in a circle in Ghost Story.
I have zero doubt that a professional mercenary unit serving the supernatural set would be able to contain a lesser skinwalker.
Alright, I didn't know this dude was an active murderer. In that case, I'll vote for using him as chaff against his compatriots and disposing of him afterwards, if we can't extract an oath from him to stop being an asshole (it might be possible! Highly unlikely, but possible). Evil means lead to evil ends and all that. Maybe chuck him to the mundane contacts we have with the US government, but if not I'm not gonna want to let an asshole like this get off.
Alright, I didn't know this dude was an active murderer. In that case, I'll vote for using him as chaff against his compatriots and disposing of him afterwards, if we can't extract an oath from him to stop being an asshole (it might be possible! Highly unlikely, but possible). Evil means lead to evil ends and all that.
He's a skinwalker. They have all killed and probably eaten parts of people.
Just like all of our old ghouls have undoubtedly eaten people, and may have killed them as well. We dont know anything about his history.The key difference here is whether he's redeemable, and we cant find that out if we kill him..
Worst-case, we can toss him at the Library, who have contacts with the Native American tribes.
And let them handle it.
I mean, I would have considered it a waste if we'd killed him in combat, but there's no ethical issue there.
Here, we have him at our mercy. Enough that we are able to interrogate him for information. There is nothing preventing us from removing an arm and handing him off to Monoc before heading off to Chicago; it will take several days to heal that injury.
We have zero excuse for murdering the dude.
Nevermind that he's a motherlode of information on skinwalker practices that we cant really get any other way, for the next time we have to fight a skinwalker.
Because there's a significant chance that Broken Seeker will get away.
He's a skinwalker. They have all killed and probably eaten parts of people.
Just like all of our old ghouls have undoubtedly eaten people, and may have killed them as well. We dont know anything about his history.The key difference here is whether he's redeemable, and we cant find that out if we kill him..
Worst-case, we can toss him at the Library, who have contacts with the Native American tribes.
And let them handle it.
First, I'm not disagreeing. Let him live to use as chaff, sort him out later and toss him in jail if it's possible, and if not kill him.
But I thought this dude was just a shape-shifter? Aren't skinwalkers the big bads of the Native American mythology, with Broken Seeker being the only one here just with a baker's dozen of these goons as chaff?
Because I ain't voting to let no skinwalker live if we have one at our mercy. I'm only willing to let this guy live for a bit longer 'cause he's just a (relative) mook, and maybe longer 'cause everyone gets second chances.
You can try things with simple circles, but the less effort and resources you put into it the less effective your leverage is and the easier a time the creature inside has screwing with it.
In the Fool Moon case containing a cursed shapeshifter involved multiple circles in an array with various runic elements, silver, gems, and other expensive working materials.
The reason for this specific setup was that circles block one thing at a time. If you set it to stop magic any physical thing that isn't nevernever goo can cross and disrupt it.
If you set it for physical force then anyone with supernatural power can cast over or at it freely.
If you put a physical blocker inside a magic blocker to keep the critter inside from doing that you cut yourself off from the inner layer and the inner circle from external power.
Making that work required some hard to come by knowledge Dresden was unwilling to share.
You don't usually have that specific problem with pure spirits, but pretty much any time Dresden summons anything in the books he mentions that you should really only do that sort of this with a dedicated ritual and containment system and that you're taking your life in your hands if you don't.
They can and will directly fight you against the leverage of your containment setup, and if you or it don't measure up blow through by main force to do whatever they want.
Harry is not very knowledgeable magically speaking. If he knew how do make thos circles in fool moon, most serious casters also know it. Like dude was a self admitted magical thug. A valkrye that has been using magic for centuries certainly knows how to make those circles.
Also, he isn't a full wizard. So he far from being strong enough to wrest control from any decent wizard plus person. Because shapeshifting sure isn't helping in counter magic.
Are you suggesting this or is this part of the source of what you posted?
Either way I think for this game we'd need to explain how Molly got the ability to use the system if we did use it, and gate it behind exp costs since it's a significant ability to get at random for free.
No the charm is just a modification so that it gells well with the new system.
As for how Molly got the ability, we are going to purchase the King and Kingdom charm which retrospectively rewrites reality so that if we choose to have people in our hell, they have existed even before we got that charm and always did so.
Given how expensive it is and how mechanically useless it is, I figure that getting a charm that allows an Infernal to shape her heart, soul, and Essence into the shape of a realm of her devising, featuring whatever oddities of geography or natural law suit her nature will allow her to use sorcery.
This is the literal fluff.
So, if learning how to shape reality to make an entirely new hell realm does not allow or act as a good gateway for Molly to learn Sorcery as I posted it, I don't know what will.
Further, due to how it is set up, Molly will not get any new Spells when she gets access other than dispel, which she mechanically has any way i.e counter magic.
So, she gets a good tool and will have to work for any further ability.
First, I'm not disagreeing. Let him live to use as chaff, sort him out later and toss him in jail if it's possible, and if not kill him. But I thought this dude was just a shape-shifter? Aren't skinwalkers the big bads of the Native American mythology, with Broken Seeker being the only one here just with a baker's dozen of these goons as chaff?
Because I ain't voting to let no skinwalker live if we have one at our mercy. I'm only willing to let this guy live for a bit longer 'cause he's just a (relative) mook, and maybe longer 'cause everyone gets second chances.
There's two types of skinwalkers: Lesser and True.
Lesser skinwalkers are humans who were trained by true skinwalker.
True skinwalkers are naaagloshii, minor angelic messengers-turned-gods of pain and terror.
These guys were essentially kidnapped and brainwashed in the 1960s, and winnowed down to around 14 or so.
Robert 'Bobby' Hall is apparently a god bit older than he looks, in no small part thanks to the power that he has been gifted with by his master, no dilettante he, between coughing, wincing in pain fawning over Lara he explains that he is part of a.. commune he calls it, but you would call it cult that had been around since the late sixties, real back to the land off the grid types who had the misfortune of trying to go off grid in a particular patch of Nevada that the Navajo people shunned and avoided, they had even tried to warn the outsides from drawing near it which Bobby now thinks of as The First Test. What the other tests are you are not sure you want to know because the 'Free Association of Independent Ranchers' had become the 'Broken Arrows'. None of the handful of goats they had with them had survived the transition and only about a third of the people.
Even with Lara doing her best to steer him away from the details it is clear the goats and the people had suffered the same fate, hunted, devoured. At the paroxysm of these hunts the victim's mind was taken from them so that they would not anything beyond pain and terror when they were finally devoured... alive.
Such were the gifts of the Great One Bobby explained in the dreamy infatuated voice of one wholly enthralled to the allure of a vampire, to break man's works and man's minds, to make hearts race with terror and then rip them from bleeding hearts. Unsurprisingly perhaps the Broken Arrows have a special loathing for the Navajo though it is taboo for them to hunt them without a direct command from their foul 'god'. All that had changed when 'that whelp Ralph' killed and devoured the heart of a medicine man. There had been open war for almost a full month kept from the outside as much by the sheer remoteness of the desert before somehow the feds had gotten involved and driven the cannibals put into what they called 'the bone wood' and which you recognize at once as a particularly macabre layer of the Nevernever. There the survivors had honed their craft, grown their power, feasting on the essence of unfortunate spirits driven into that tainted place...
Even Lara looks a little perturbed when her new admirer offers to catch a thrush to crush and chew and feel it die on her teeth, though you are not sure if it it at how visceral the description is, or just at the idea of humans devouring spirits. From there the lean ever-hungry survivors, fourteen counting Bobby himself had found another path, leading into well watered upland forest and wooded ravines. The Great One had need of his arrows for war.
None of them is less than forty years old.
Even though they may have been minors when they were kidnapped by the naagloshii.
Some may or may not be salvageable.
And the feds(ie the Library) explicitly had the power to force them to flee
I think your making a lot of assumptions when its very likely odin is the one who taught merlin who made demonreach. You know the place where skinwalker are the least powerful inmates. I'm fairly sure there are things in there that likely make Mab look like a joke in the higher security levels.
He taught Merlin magic, that doesn't mean Odin did everything his student did.
It doesn't even mean that Odin taught him prison design. Merlin got his start with Odin, but there was nothing stopping him from synthesizing his knowledge and skills into new applications.
This isnt true.
The fight has happened, and he lost it; he burned his own life force for extra Rage, and still lost it. We didnt even activate any of our armor charms, just a Melee Excellency.
We thought that the first time and he surprised us with his last trick.
We don't exactly have his character sheet to reference, see his rage pool numbers and health track isn't a substitute. He pulled two tricks we didn't know he had just now, why are you so certain those are the last ones?
And there is zero indication that he's insane.
He's already down 1 Agg HL, which will take at least a day to heal and taking off a hand would simultaneously render him incapable of transforming into a flighted form, and reduce his health further, with wound penalties.
What definition of insane are you using? Because I'd take openly and repeatedly threading someone who has you at their mercy as an indication that something is seriously broken upstairs.
I'd also say that taking sadistic joy in murder and torture are themselves a form of madness. Being willing to do those things isn't necessarily so, but if you're getting off on it like Hank you're crazy.
It IS cold-blooded murder of a prisoner who we currently hold at our mercy.
He is currently a prisoner who we just interrogated for information, and that usually comes with implicit guarantees among civilized people. And we would be murdering him in full view of the spirits who are markedly silent in the vicinity, so word WILL get about, and people will be much less willing to offer surrender or negotiations.
I fundamentally disagree on the risk profile. He surprised us once and broke through an identical level of security. Transporting him around isn't safe or particularly certain.
As to the other bit? We're basically operating in Winter's sphere of influence more or less. Most of the stuff around here is probably some flavor of winter aligned fey, and they don't do implicit outside of some specific places. Really most spirits work that way.
They are familiar predation though; we promised nothing and he didn't ask for anything. We kill his ass and it's Hanks problem for not cutting a deal while he could.
For the not spirit people they may tell there are other factors; the first being that everyone hates Naagloshii and this guy is one of their dedicated students. He isn't earning a lot of sympathy from anyone.
For factions like the red court the fact that form constantly do this paints a picture, and they aren't unaware of the impact of reputations like the one the skin walkers have built on how people react to them.
This isn't going to break our reputation, and we don't have time for this. Broken Seeker is moving right now, unless you're banking on him and his minions getting stuck in traffic we don't have a half hour to waste on this.
Yes?
Shit talking is something that a lot of entirely normal humans will do in captivity against captors with guns to their heads.
HARRY does it. It's bluster; it might not be wise, but its entirely normal human behavior.
Whether or not he's fixable is not something we can determine here.
Mentorship is the sort of thing that carries obligations both ways. You cant simultaneously indulge in serial murder and have an individual representative of a faction known for virture to mentor you, for a hypothetical example.
We have been benefitting a lot from the implicit social bonuses among respectable society that being the mentee of a Knight of the Cross brings. We'd have had shit a lot harder with humans and light side factions walking around as an archdevil without that link.
And I fail to see how executing a prisoner is the sort of thing that wont have repercussions.
No it isnt.
We should be going back to the Bare Mountain and taking an alternative path to Chicago, because going to a Way that we know is under hostile watch is frankly stupid, especially given as hostilities have begun
Indulging in serial murder isn't what we're doing here, and calling it that is pretty flagrantly ignoring all context and arguments actually being made here. The knights of the cross will kill Denarians in situations where they can't stick around to babysit them, or bring along other people to do it for them knowing what they'll do. That roughly maps to this situation.
Mentorship does involve a two way obligation; but it's to learn and make an earnest effort at communication. We aren't micro-Micheal, we aren't supposed to be.
If we started running around killing people for our own comfort or because we personally hate them that's one thing, but this is the sort of thing where you talk about it with a mentor and refine your own moral vision. Which ideally will be similar but isn't necessarily the same.
I don't see him as a prisoner right now any more than he was when we tagged him at the start, and I don't think this is unjustified or particularly heinous by the standards of the people we'll be judged by.
Nobody is going to credibly suggest we had an obligation to take an active combatant looking for the next place to take a shot to a safe prison at the expense of given his boss free reign to kidnap and torture our people.
Harry is not very knowledgeable magically speaking. If he knew how do make thos circles in fool moon, most serious casters also know it. Like dude was a self admitted magical thug. A valkrye that has been using magic for centuries certainly knows how to make those circles.
Also, he isn't a full wizard. So he far from being strong enough to wrest control from any decent wizard plus person. Because shapeshifting sure isn't helping in counter magic.
Harry is a fully trained wizard let out into the world by his senior council teacher, with Bob in staff for questions.
Basic stuff like "can you just throw a circle at it and call it a day?" Are things he should know. Especially if it's a simple shortcut that just dunks on anyone who gets caught in it.
Monoc probably has someone who can do this yeah but that doesn't mean it's simple, cheap, or easy, just that we'd be paying for quality help.
This kind of shape shifting is pretty heavy duty magic by Dresden Files standards, and we know he and his friends were killing and eating Native American talents. I wouldn't be surprised if they have ways to cheat power wise.
His lack of knowldge both magical and of the mystical casts serious doubts to his education. Like he didn't even know that teleportation is a possibility until like the last book.
Also i looked up the werewolf thing. Apparently the circle she drew was flawed a proper circle would have held it.
It pretty much is. We have seen circles in the books, they don't really have that much trouble being set up. Maybe you need some strong symbols to set up nut ultimately its just a circle, iirc you bind an archangel if your circle is strong enough. Like it can hold most foes, it is the one weird trick of the dreden files universe. All it requires is power to fuel it.
If a circle can hold the archive it can hold a shapeshifter.
He taught Merlin magic, that doesn't mean Odin did everything his student did.
It doesn't even mean that Odin taught him prison design. Merlin got his start with Odin, but there was nothing stopping him from synthesizing his knowledge and skills into new applications.
We thought that the first time and he surprised us with his last trick.
We don't exactly have his character sheet to reference, see his rage pool numbers and health track isn't a substitute. He pulled two tricks we didn't know he had just now, why are you so certain those are the last ones?
What definition of insane are you using? Because I'd take openly and repeatedly threading someone who has you at their mercy as an indication that something is seriously broken upstairs.
I'd also say that taking sadistic joy in murder and torture are themselves a form of madness. Being willing to do those things isn't necessarily so, but if you're getting off on it like Hank you're crazy.
I fundamentally disagree on the risk profile. He surprised us once and broke through an identical level of security. Transporting him around isn't safe or particularly certain.
As to the other bit? We're basically operating in Winter's sphere of influence more or less. Most of the stuff around here is probably some flavor of winter aligned fey, and they don't do implicit outside of some specific places. Really most spirits work that way.
They are familiar predation though; we promised nothing and he didn't ask for anything. We kill his ass and it's Hanks problem for not cutting a deal while he could.
For the not spirit people they may tell there are other factors; the first being that everyone hates Naagloshii and this guy is one of their dedicated students. He isn't earning a lot of sympathy from anyone.
For factions like the red court the fact that form constantly do this paints a picture, and they aren't unaware of the impact of reputations like the one the skin walkers have built on how people react to them.
This isn't going to break our reputation, and we don't have time for this. Broken Seeker is moving right now, unless you're banking on him and his minions getting stuck in traffic we don't have a half hour to waste on this.
Shit talk and that are different things. You threaten someone's life you better be ready for them to believe you.
An idiot kid might make this mistake, but decades under s skinwalker should make this sort of lesson painfully clear.
Indulging in serial murder isn't what we're doing here, and calling it that is pretty flagrantly ignoring all context and arguments actually being made here. The knights of the cross will kill Denarians in situations where they can't stick around to babysit them, or bring along other people to do it for them knowing what they'll do. That roughly maps to this situation.
Mentorship does involve a two way obligation; but it's to learn and make an earnest effort at communication. We aren't micro-Micheal, we aren't supposed to be.
If we started running around killing people for our own comfort or because we personally hate them that's one thing, but this is the sort of thing where you talk about it with a mentor and refine your own moral vision. Which ideally will be similar but isn't necessarily the same.
I don't see him as a prisoner right now any more than he was when we tagged him at the start, and I don't think this is unjustified or particularly heinous by the standards of the people we'll be judged by.
Nobody is going to credibly suggest we had an obligation to take an active combatant looking for the next place to take a shot to a safe prison at the expense of given his boss free reign to kidnap and torture our people.
Harry is a fully trained wizard let out into the world by his senior council teacher, with Bob in staff for questions.
Basic stuff like "can you just throw a circle at it and call it a day?" Are things he should know. Especially if it's a simple shortcut that just dunks on anyone who gets caught in it.
Monoc probably has someone who can do this yeah but that doesn't mean it's simple, cheap, or easy, just that we'd be paying for quality help.
This kind of shape shifting is pretty heavy duty magic by Dresden Files standards, and we know he and his friends were killing and eating Native American talents. I wouldn't be surprised if they have ways to cheat power wise.
That kinda assumes odin couldn't make something even a thousandth of the power and skillfully made a prison or prisons as merlin? Cause a thousandth is more than enough to trap a skinwalker.
His lack of knowldge both magical and of the mystical casts serious doubts to his education. Like he didn't even know that teleportation is a possibility until like the last book.
Also i looked up the werewolf thing. Apparently the circle she drew was flawed a proper circle would have held it.
It pretty much is. We have seen circles in the books, they don't really have that much trouble being set up. Maybe you need some strong symbols to set up nut ultimately its just a circle, iirc you bind an archangel if your circle is strong enough. Like it can hold most foes, it is the one weird trick of the dreden files universe. All it requires is power to fuel it.
If a circle can hold the archive it can hold a shapeshifter.
Mind you dp is ignoring the archangel thing. Like I think it makes sense the setting has horrible implications on the power of mortals over well non mortals on a lot of levels. So I think it makes plenty of sense even if it seems like a peasant beating a god even if their not actually fighting.
[X] Hank seems to have taken his master's betrayal quite personally, maybe you could be allies... he is no worse than a Count of the Red Court and his band
A rabid dog didn't ask to have rabies, but it's still a danger to everyone around it and can't practically be treated.
This guy is a threat to Molly's grade of combat ability. Trying to save him from himself when he doesn't want it is a lawful stupid level decision that will almost certainly end in tears.
A rabid dog is put down because we can't cure rabies, not for any other reason. Molly, if she puts her mind to it, should be able to heal Hank. Exorcism + social exalt's attention help with a lot of things.
I mean your kind of assuming they don't have ready made prisons? They've been around in limited power as an organization at least before the U.S. I think.
I am seriously doubting that they have prepared cells in their nearest facility, because as we have seen, that one seems to be a workshop (Santa's Workshop to be clear) and not a conventional fortress.
And there is zero indication that he's insane.
He's already down 1 Agg HL, which will take at least a day to heal and taking off a hand would simultaneously render him incapable of transforming into a flighted form, and reduce his health further, with wound penalties.
And that is assuming he works exactly like a Garou and he has no Gifts to help him heal.
We know that he has at least one Gift though, DP even gave the name in the last update:
Primal Anger (Level One) — The metis gives of herself to feed the Rage in her heart, burning away her very blood and muscle in the process. The spirits of ancient metis teach this Gift; few members of other breeds have endured enough shame and suffering to learn it. System: The character may inflict a single level of aggravated damage on herself once per scene, and gain three points of Rage in exchange (even if doing so takes her beyond her permanent Rage rating
I am seriously doubting that they have prepared cells in their nearest facility, because as we have seen, that one seems to be a workshop (Santa's Workshop to be clear) and not a conventional fortress.
And that is assuming he works exactly like a Garou and he has no Gifts to help him heal.
We know that he has at least one Gift though, DP even gave the name in the last update:
It would be irresponsible at best to assume he has no other gifts that might help him escape or hurt more people.
A rabid dog is put down because we can't cure rabies, not for any other reason. Molly, if she puts her mind to it, should be able to heal Hank. Exorcism + social exalt's attention help with a lot of things.
He isn't possessed, he's a mortal who's spent decades being molded by a eldritch sadist. This is just who he is now.
Social dice aren't a fix for everything, we've seen them fail routinely.
How curable he is ultimately isn't as relevant as the fact that innocent people who aren't active belligerents are at risk.
The Naagoloshi is a sadist with intellectus for hurting people. The canon one tortured prisoners because it enjoyed it and no one could stop it.
They just triggered their kidnapping plan , which they've been preparing for weeks at minimum, as a contingency for being spotted. Presumably that means it's intended to happen pretty quickly so that it makes for an effective response.
You're voting for a plan that leaves people in that thing's hands for a minimum of a half hour.
Probably a lot longer and a lot more people given free rein in that timespan.
They do not have time for us to drag a physical threat who we have no proof we've subdued back to Odin, negotiate a price*, travel back, and find where it took them before actually setting up something to go get them.
We need to be gone now.
* Cause Odin will take advantage. He's not going to ask us for cash when he could have favors to manipulate our positioning with instead.
That kinda assumes odin couldn't make something even a thousandth of the power and skillfully made a prison or prisons as merlin? Cause a thousandth is more than enough to trap a skinwalker.
He isn't possessed, he's a mortal who's spent decades being molded by a eldritch sadist. This is just who he is now.
Social dice aren't a fix for everything, we've seen them fail routinely.
How curable he is ultimately isn't as relevant as the fact that innocent people who aren't active belligerents are at risk.
The Naagoloshi is a sadist with intellectus for hurting people. The canon one tortured prisoners because it enjoyed it and no one could stop it.
They just triggered their kidnapping plan , which they've been preparing for weeks at minimum, as a contingency for being spotted. Presumably that means it's intended to happen pretty quickly so that it makes for an effective response.
You're voting for a plan that leaves people in that thing's hands for a minimum of a half hour.
Probably a lot longer and a lot more people given free rein in that timespan.
They do not have time for us to drag a physical threat who we have no proof we've subdued back to Odin, negotiate a price*, travel back, and find where it took them before actually setting up something to go get them.
We need to be gone now.
* Cause Odin will take advantage. He's not going to ask us for cash when he could have favors to manipulate our positioning with instead.
Not can't, hasn't bothered or is using it for something else.
Why would he have box in his basement labeled "unused solutions for Molly's problems" ?
He isn't possessed, he's a mortal who's spent decades being molded by a eldritch sadist. This is just who he is now.
Social dice aren't a fix for everything, we've seen them fail routinely.
How curable he is ultimately isn't as relevant as the fact that innocent people who aren't active belligerents are at risk.
The Naagoloshi is a sadist with intellectus for hurting people. The canon one tortured prisoners because it enjoyed it and no one could stop it.
They just triggered their kidnapping plan , which they've been preparing for weeks at minimum, as a contingency for being spotted. Presumably that means it's intended to happen pretty quickly so that it makes for an effective response.
You're voting for a plan that leaves people in that thing's hands for a minimum of a half hour.
Probably a lot longer and a lot more people given free rein in that timespan.
They do not have time for us to drag a physical threat who we have no proof we've subdued back to Odin, negotiate a price*, travel back, and find where it took them before actually setting up something to go get them.
Several points:
1) On him being evil and social dice not being everything, and him not being possessed. I am not sure, it's quite possible that he qualifies for being a fomori right now. Exorcism spell dispels all unnatural joining of mundane and supernatural. That's secondary, however, to the general intent of healing and restoring this guy to sanity. Taken objectively Hank is not even a hundredth as evil as Lash, and is infinitesimally small on the evil scale compared to Lasciel. We haven't gotten Harry rid of Lash for one primary reason - the possibility of redeeming her. Because if we wanted her gone? Exorcism + MIchael and maybe Sanya + us working together to put her down would have worked. So, in order to be consistent, we are pretty much required to help this man.
2) Naagloshii is a sadist, but it's a patient sadist that can control its urges, and we aren't its primary goal. It's keeping the hostages secure so they can be a bargaining chip. Torturing them diminishes their value. Because it knows that we know that it's evil enough to do terrible things to them, actually doing those things becomes counter-productive.
3) Normally, it would take half an hour to get to the intended exit from NeverNever anyway. Naagloshii is expecting to start negotiating with us in half an hour. We have that time as a room for maneuver. So, pop out of NeverNever, make a call to alert everyone involved (primarily Michael and Lydia, they are the only ones with a good chance), then double back in a way that doesn't get us followed. Hank is pretty much an afterthought here. The whole maneuver is to make it back to Chicago while not being under observation. Because naagloshii clearly can't just scry us, it has to send its people after us. So, we need to avoid them.
We haven't gotten Harry rid of Lash for one primary reason - the possibility of redeeming her. Because if we wanted her gone? Exorcism + MIchael and maybe Sanya + us working together to put her down would have worked. So, in order to be consistent, we are pretty much required to help this man.
I'm pretty sure we have not excorcised her yet because we don't know what to do with her.
We aren't even sure what would happen to a fragment of a Fallen if we cast it out of Harry's mind, it might stay around, as a spirit or even incarnate.
Sure, OOC redemption was a factor that played into it, but not in Molly's head.
I'm pretty sure we have not excorcised her yet because we don't know what to do with her.
We aren't even sure what would happen to a fragment of a Fallen if we cast it out of Harry's mind, it might stay around, as a spirit or even incarnate.
Sure, OOC redemption was a factor that played into it, but not in Molly's head.
"don't know what to do with her" only matters if we aren't prepared to kill her with extreme prejudice. Molly + Lydia + Michael + Sanya in a prepared location, possibly with Mab's help should be more than enough to handle Lash in a fight.
How relatively bad the guy isn't as relevant as how crazy he is. Molly does care about the ethics, but even if we could justify it he's too psychotic to trust unless you've got a knife to his throat. Even then I think he'd test the edge, after what the Naagoloshii did to these guys he couldn't help himself.
Oh he is pretty psychotic, he's a rage fueled cannibal empowered by a perversion of the natural order, Harry would put him down as a warlock without batting an eye. That said Molly at least can get through to him relatively easily thanks to DPE and just generally being powerful enough to take his flurry of rage-attacks without flinching. Whether that means he is worth preserving, that value judgement is up to you guys.
Oh he is pretty psychotic, he's a rage fueled cannibal empowered by a perversion of the natural order, Harry would put him down as a warlock without batting an eye.
And if Harry would do it, that means pretty much any White Council wizard would do it. That's just further weight against the argument that killing Hank would somehow damage our reputation. The Winter Court sure as hell wouldn't give a damn, the White Council definitely won't, the White Court would be puzzled that we've even considered letting him live, as would Cauldron, the Library of Congress, Lydia, Brother D, etc.
Basically, the only person we know of who might object is Michael, but even that is debatable.
He taught Merlin magic, that doesn't mean Odin did everything his student did.
It doesn't even mean that Odin taught him prison design. Merlin got his start with Odin, but there was nothing stopping him from synthesizing his knowledge and skills into new applications.
1)It does mean that if he was willing to take the time and effort to teach a human who went off to form his own faction?
He sure as hell gave his own soldiers the basics of identification and countermeasures regarding common antagonists of this sort.
They are international mercs and instruments of Odin's foreign policy; this is their day job.
Dude didnt invest soulfire to raise them without making sure they could actually do the job he raised them for.
2) Thorn manacles. Citation:
I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache. I was pretty sure any light that got into my eyes would hurt like hell.
My nose was filled with scents. Old motor oil. Gasoline vapors. Dust. Something metallic and elusively familiar. I knew the smell, but I couldn't place it.
I lay prostrate on some cold, hard surface-concrete, at a guess. My arms were held up above my head, my wrists bound in something cold that prickled with many tiny, sharp points. Thorn manacles, then. They were meant, along with the gag and blindfold, to keep me from using my magic. If I tried to start focusing my will, they would bite and freeze. I didn't know where the damned things came from, but Crane wasn't the first bad guy I'd met who kept a pair on hand. Maybe there'd been a sale.
I'd heard one person claim that they'd been invented by a two-thousand-year-old lunatic named Nicodemus, and I'd heard others claim they were of faerie make. Personally, I figured they were more likely a creation of the Red Court, materiel for their war with the Council. It would certainly be to their advantage to make sure as many people as possible had a set of restraints with no purpose but to render a mortal wizard helpless.
If a spoiled princeling like the late Madrigal Raith has antimagic handcuffs in his walking around equipment during the events of Proven Guilty less than six months ago?
A covert official military base of Monoc Securities sure as hell has the resources to restrain a lesser skinwalker.
Hell, given the nature of the rune magic that Valkyries use, I am pretty sure there are multiple inscribed runes at that site for use in the event that things escalate.
What definition of insane are you using? Because I'd take openly and repeatedly threading someone who has you at their mercy as an indication that something is seriously broken upstairs.
I'd also say that taking sadistic joy in murder and torture are themselves a form of madness. Being willing to do those things isn't necessarily so, but if you're getting off on it like Hank you're crazy.
This was Harry six months ago, to a guy sitting across from him with a gun that had just clocked him over the head with a crowbar:
I spat more metal taste out of my mouth and wished I had a glass of water. Glau sat in a chair nearby, watching me. The little man had a gun resting in his lap, in hand and ready to go. A briefcase sat on the floor beside his chair. "You," I said.
Glau looked at me without any readable expression. "You killed my dog," I said. "Get your affairs in order." Something ugly flickered through his eyes. "An idle threat. You will not live to see the dawn."
"You'd best hope I do," I said. "Because if I go down, I know where my death curse is going."
Glau's lips peeled back from his teeth, and I swear to God that they were pointed-not like a vampire's fangs or a ghoul's canines, but in solid, serrated triangles, like a shark. He rose, the gun twitching in his hand.
"Glau!" snapped Crane.
Glau froze for a second, and then relaxed and let the gun fall to his side.
Crane shoved the cell phone into his pocket and stalked over to me. "Keep your tongue in your mouth, wizard."
"Or what?" I asked. "You'll kill me? From where I'm standing, that isn't a worst-case scenario."
"True," Crane murmured. He withdrew a small handgun from his pocket and without so much as blinking shot Rawlins in the foot.
The big cop jerked against the cuffs that held him. His face contorted in surprised pain and he fell. The cuffs, fastened to the beam at shoulder level, cut cruelly into his wrists. Rawlins got his legs underneath him and let out a string of sulfurous curse words.
Crane regarded Rawlins for a moment, smiled, and then pointed the gun at the cop's head.
"No!" I shouted.
"It's entirely up to you, wizard, whether or not his children lose their father. Behave." He smiled again. "We'll all be happier."
Again the rage threatened to drown any rational thought in my head. Threatening me is one thing. Threatening someone else to get to me is another. I'm sick of seeing decent people suffer. I'm sick of seeing them die.
Patience, Harry. Calm. Rational. I was going to have to discourage Crane from this tactic with extreme prejudice as a deterrent to future weasels. But not yet. Keep him talking.
"Do you understand me?" Crane said.
I jerked my chin in a brief nod.
And earlier in the book, he actually threatens Maeve, Winter Lady of the Winter Court, to her face. And this is just one book.
If bluster at people who have you at their mercy, or who could murder you is insanity?
Harry is bugfuck crazy.
Sadism and sadistic joy is not diagnostic of insanity.
It may be evil depending on the context, but it is by no means insane, as evidenced by the thriving numbers of people who have a sadism kink in real life, and all the masochists who cater to them and vice versa.
I fundamentally disagree on the risk profile. He surprised us once and broke through an identical level of security. Transporting him around isn't safe or particularly certain.
As to the other bit? We're basically operating in Winter's sphere of influence more or less. Most of the stuff around here is probably some flavor of winter aligned fey, and they don't do implicit outside of some specific places. Really most spirits work that way.
They are familiar predation though; we promised nothing and he didn't ask for anything. We kill his ass and it's Hanks problem for not cutting a deal while he could.
For the not spirit people they may tell there are other factors; the first being that everyone hates Naagloshii and this guy is one of their dedicated students. He isn't earning a lot of sympathy from anyone.
For factions like the red court the fact that form constantly do this paints a picture, and they aren't unaware of the impact of reputations like the one the skin walkers have built on how people react to them.
This isn't going to break our reputation, and we don't have time for this. Broken Seeker is moving right now, unless you're banking on him and his minions getting stuck in traffic we don't have a half hour to waste on this.
I dont agree. For all his magic, he is apparently a bog standard mortal with 7 HLs, down to 6HLs after he sustained 1 Agg.
For all the talk that he surprised us, we literally didnt even bother to activate VLE or Steelskin, so Molly certainly didnt feel she personally was in much, if any danger.
A cornerstone of our operations to date has been that we dont operate like the less reputable denizens of the setting who will do shit like say akshually, I didnt explicitly promise you anything so I can fuck you over after you help me. The Knights dont play those semantic games either, which is why people trust them even when their word isnt explicitly given.
I am vehemently opposed to changing that, especially not with witnesses all around.
It is the sort of action that will rightfully damage our reputation and our ability to do business.
I mean, Dresden literally has spirits that are reluctant to talk to him because of shit he did years ago.
Stuff follows you.
Shit talk and that are different things. You threaten someone's life you better be ready for them to believe you.
An idiot kid might make this mistake, but decades under s skinwalker should make this sort of lesson painfully clear.
My dude, Harry does this ALL THE TIME.
To people who massively outweigh him, and in circumstances where the correlation of forces is adverse.
If I had to start finding citations, we'd be here all day.
Indulging in serial murder isn't what we're doing here, and calling it that is pretty flagrantly ignoring all context and arguments actually being made here. The knights of the cross will kill Denarians in situations where they can't stick around to babysit them, or bring along other people to do it for them knowing what they'll do. That roughly maps to this situation.
Mentorship does involve a two way obligation; but it's to learn and make an earnest effort at communication. We aren't micro-Micheal, we aren't supposed to be.
If we started running around killing people for our own comfort or because we personally hate them that's one thing, but this is the sort of thing where you talk about it with a mentor and refine your own moral vision. Which ideally will be similar but isn't necessarily the same.
I don't see him as a prisoner right now any more than he was when we tagged him at the start, and I don't think this is unjustified or particularly heinous by the standards of the people we'll be judged by.
Nobody is going to credibly suggest we had an obligation to take an active combatant looking for the next place to take a shot to a safe prison at the expense of given his boss free reign to kidnap and torture our people.
We are discussing killing a prisoner of war because of expedience.
There is literally nothing stopping us taking off an arm to incapacitate him, knowing that it will regenerate eventually.
Nothing besides people being annoyed that his boss kidnapped our friends.
The fact that you dont see him as a prisoner is something that surprises me.
We have beaten him down twice, we are binding him with telekinesis, and we have sufficient force superiority to interrogate him.
He's as much a prisoner right now as any.
Harry is a fully trained wizard let out into the world by his senior council teacher, with Bob in staff for questions.
Basic stuff like "can you just throw a circle at it and call it a day?" Are things he should know. Especially if it's a simple shortcut that just dunks on anyone who gets caught in it.
Monoc probably has someone who can do this yeah but that doesn't mean it's simple, cheap, or easy, just that we'd be paying for quality help. This kind of shape shifting is pretty heavy duty magic by Dresden Files standards, and we know he and his friends were killing and eating Native American talents. I wouldn't be surprised if they have ways to cheat power wise.
In Dead Beat, we see Butters, a Jewish medical examiner with no magic talent, no gear, and no information besides Harry's five minute long primer, draw and empower a magic circle(with his blood) that keeps out an attacking zombie horde and the death magics of his proximity to the center of the Darkhallow.
In Changes?
The Gucci prefab containment circle of silver, copper and iron that Harry uses for summoning in his basement was bought from the svartalfar for $3,000, which is less than 75% the cost of an M249 light machine gun, less than 50% the cost of a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle, and less than 10% of the cost of an NLAW missile launcher.
Monoc's mercs have been fighting since before the time of the Beowulf myth in this universe
They have to be able to do better because its their day job.
===
This is a Monoc base in the US. We saw a blood ward encompassing the entire base, and thats just what we saw.
Furthermore, Valkyries make rune magic tab things that can be broken by other people in order to activate the magic inscribed on it.
They are perfectly equipped to handle this sort of shit. They are an organization.
I am seriously doubting that they have prepared cells in their nearest facility, because as we have seen, that one seems to be a workshop (Santa's Workshop to be clear) and not a conventional fortress.
*points upthread*
Proven Guilty, the book where Molly Exalted in this AU, just happened in June, only five months ago.
In that book, Madrigal Raith was literally walking around with thorn manacles, which prevent magic users from using magic.
In Aftermath, the Fomor snatch operation that was kidnapping talents and minor sorcerers had magic cages to hold prisoners in a warehouse, and it was literally set up like a couple days before. Magic shit isnt often bulky or hard to move.
Odin's mercenaries in an actual military base with arsenal have the appropriate gear.
Also, this is not a workshop, its a US cold war military base that was supposed to function in a nuclear exchange.
We just happened to do our work in the motor pool area.
I dont have a map on hand, but I'd bet my eyeteeth that it has detention facilities. Those are standard on this sorta place.
And that is assuming he works exactly like a Garou and he has no Gifts to help him heal.
We know that he has at least one Gift though, DP even gave the name in the last update:
There is an angry Infernal that is currently Vader-choking him with telekinesis while holding a burning demonsword.
He sure as fuck isnt holding anything back at this point; he's already committed self-harm for a power boost., and it failed.
If he had any other combat-relevant gifts, he would have already used them.
