Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[X] All of the above

We either tell none of our followers/friends or all of them.
And some know already. A delay might make sense, but the information is already out there, I honestly doubt it would make much of a difference.
 
Perhaps amenities? Some digital/spiritual libraries and learning tools wouldn't be costly but would do the jade dogs some good.
Amenities goes without saying.
The Nest already has cable, internet and phone service; with her putting in computers, they can just hook up to the Internet.
Books they'll have to buy as normal from normal bookstores.

COMMENTARY
Interesting that we didnt talk to Lydia. I was half-expecting her to call us due to feeling whatever the fuck happened in Chicago.
The fact that she didnt, and that Anna doesnt appear to have asked us, and that Isabella said nothing, suggests that the Brass Courts showing up didnt make the magical earthquake I was expecting.

Loling at Isabella being a Conan fan.
Who do you tell about your inner world?
The cyberdevils know, because Clippy was there, and because IRIS will presumably talk to them.

IC? Thomas, as Molly's financial manager, absolutely has need to know.
Molly is probably going to exploit some of her access to stuff in her Hell to build her realworld financial holdings, and to repatriate stuff like biological samples and media(books, movies etc) to the Brass Courts.

Unfortunately, his girlfriend Justine, who we havent met, is canonically infected by Nemesis, and I dont know how much they talk about his entanglement with Molly. And Molly has had no IC reason to look in that direction yet.


Isabella doesnt have need to know. She is junior White Court, and an obvious target for White Court elders looking to get further information on the Exalt who personally decapitated House Skavis and Madrigal Raith for trying to kill her and hers.
But Molly does need people to talk to.


The Jade Dogs dont need to know YET. IRIS is currently a one-off, and none of them need specialty medical care at the moment.
When Molly brings people through from the Brass Courts, then yes.
But not yet.



@DragonParadox
QUESTION
Do we have any sort of reasonable idea just how obvious the Brass Courts are?
I mean, Uriel knows because archangel, but what of anyone else?

I was assuming they were at least as flashy as Molly going shintai for the first time, or when she exorcised Maeve, or the Will of Akuma throwing around large-scale magics.
But apparently not.
 
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
Do we have any sort of reasonable idea just how obvious the Brass Courts are?
I mean, Uriel knows because archangel, but what of anyone else?

I was assuming they were at least as flashy as Molly going shintai for the first time, or when she exorcised Maeve, or the Will of Akuma throwing around large-scale magics.
But apparently not.

The Order of the Cauldron did not notice anything as for Lydia... yeah she noticed, that is going to be in a future update when she gets back to the city, as did the White Council, that is going to be in a future Harry interlude. The fey courts you would have to go out and ask.

One thing to keep in mind is what while it was momentous for you Sanctuary itself floats deep in the Spirit World and it only briefly touched in Chicago both times and both those times had to do with Molly's direct presence which is loud on its own
 
Nope they couldnt. Strongly disagree.
The very history of the First Age would be very different if your elder Sidereal had anything like the foresight an angel is supposed to. Given the lack of restrictions on the Exalts and the Incarna, Creation's would have looked very different.
Essence use disrupts precognition (which can take into account Free Will, from my understanding). Absent Essence users of any kind, precognition would be much more complete.

And Maidens have Samsara:
Charm concept: Samsara
The Maidens see a fate beyond fate, the ebb and flow of the shinmaic substrata defining existence.
Termed samsara, this pattern is arbitrary but never random, sublime in its beauty and horror. The
design has neither guiding intelligence nor coherent moral imperative behind it, but it empowers
the Maidens with knowledge that enslaves their actions. What they see in it, they cannot help
but act to bring about. If destiny and fate are the grand architecture that the Maidens and their
servants construct, samsara is the ultimate blueprint which defines the "as things should" in each
Maiden"s Motivation. It is also more, because samsara can predict events not normally subject to
divination, such as the actions of beings outside fate and events the Maidens cannot influence.
In this, it is a numinous mystery that contains an infinitude of otherwise inaccessible truths.
Not all things are contained in samsara. Some events happen that the Maidens do not fore-
see. In part, this is a limitation of each Maiden"s purview. Mars no more knows where things
must go than Mercury discerns future conflicts. The highest levels of the Perfected Lotus and the
divinatory Charms of the Sidereal Exalted see even less, touching and manipulating the pattern
without truly perceiving it. Jupiter theorizes that the sleeping Yozi Sacheverell truly sees the shape
of things to come, and so lies trapped in hopeless inaction by the futility of predestination, but
samsara itself is silent on the matter. Ultimately, the Storyteller chooses whether a given event
is even eligible for divination in samsara and needs not apply any measure of consistency beyond
whether it serves his story to have the Maidens aware of and working toward a particular outcome.
For example, if a future plot in the series involves the death of the Unconquered Sun, that event
could be excluded from samsara to catch even Saturn by surprise. If she knows, however, then
she becomes part of the conspiracy.
Obviously, samsara cannot directly account for the actions of protagonists whom the Sto-
ryteller does not control. While Storytellers can work around this limitation by modifying the
script, such as killing the Most High tomorrow if the heroes save him today, doing so would di-
rectly attack the core principle of Exalted that protagonists always matter. Unless the Storyteller
has established great trust with the players such that they can be sure a scripted event will give
them more options to matter than it takes away, taking this approach will most likely bring the
game to a screeching halt. A more elegant solution is to keep the Maidens" knowledge of samsara
largely invisible to the players, allowing the goddesses to anticipate how the story actually plays
out rather than tying them to a specific vision. Where it appears at all, samsara best serves stories
as the inscrutable rationale for the Maidens" actions, no more intrusive than the weird agendas
of other mighty spirit

@DragonParadox did Molly / Charity keep the cup of coffee Uriel drank from? And other stuff he touched. I am not asking about it as a focus for the crown, but as a possible esoteric crafting component.

[X] All of the above

This is too big to stay a secret.
 
The Order of the Cauldron did not notice anything as for Lydia... yeah she noticed, that is going to be in a future update when she gets back to the city, as did the White Council, that is going to be in a future Harry interlude. The fey courts you would have to go out and ask.

One thing to keep in mind is what while it was momentous for you Sanctuary itself floats deep in the Spirit World and it only briefly touched in Chicago both times and both those times had to do with Molly's direct presence which is loud on its own
Okay.
The White Council noticing means that Simon Peabody, secretary to the Senior Council and Black Council mole knows.
Which means that the Red Court will find out whenever its profitable for the Black Council to tell them.

The White Court doesnt know what happened. They may or may not have noticed that something happened though.

If Lydia noticed, I think its safe to assume that the Fae Queens noticed.
Odin and the Erl King as well.
They arent given to blabbing though.

The Denarians know.
This is the sort of thing Fallen would pick up on, and Lash's reactions suggest they know what Exaltations are.
But they dont blab either unless its profitable to them and their goals.

The Archive probably knows as soon as Alec and Izzy showed back up with Brass Court infotech; I dont know if her authority over human communications extends to the Brass Courts, but the computer stuff on Earth will probably give them away.
Especially if either of them keeps a diary.

There's a better than even chance that Broken Seeker has some idea; he was in the same city, probably less than a mile away when the Charm triggered.
But I dont see why he should know the details.
 
Essence use disrupts precognition (which can take into account Free Will, from my understanding). Absent Essence users of any kind, precognition would be much more complete.

And Maidens have Samsara:


@DragonParadox did Molly / Charity keep the cup of coffee Uriel drank from? And other stuff he touched. I am not asking about it as a focus for the crown, but as a possible esoteric crafting component.

[X] All of the above

This is too big to stay a secret.

Yes, Charity would have no reason to throw them away.
 
VOTE
[X] Thomas


You cant unsay shit.
The more time before this becomes general supernatural knowledge, the more time the Brass Courts have to prepare for potential hostiles and explorers probing their borders.

We can ask Thomas not to mention it to anyone else for the time being, and he has sufficient mental defenses for it to stick.
Not sure about Isabella.
 
Essence use disrupts precognition (which can take into account Free Will, from my understanding).

There's a caveat to that, Solar Exaltations are still consistent with Fate and the Loom. Solar Exalted are still subject to the Arcane Fate of Sidereals and will believe any Resplendent Destiny a Sid adopts.

Infernal Exaltations are Outside Fate entirely, as are the Infernal Exalted. (As a Baby Primordial, Infernals have their own Mythos, which is why they can't be predicted or influenced by the Loom, being as the Loom is basically Creation's Mythos, an artifical Mythos created by the collaboration of multiple Primordials)
 
This is too big to stay a secret.
Indefinitely a secret? No.
Staying a secret long enough for the Brass Courts to prepare for the prospects of unwelcome guests? Yes.
The point is to delay their reveal, not to prevent it.

If you blab and the Courts get hit by a passel of ambitious Yama Kings before they are ready?
That doesnt really help us.
See what happened to Yen Lo in Kindred of the East as a cautionary tale.
[X] All of the above

We either tell none of our followers/friends or all of them.
And some know already. A delay might make sense, but the information is already out there, I honestly doubt it would make much of a difference.
It makes a difference to the five billion people in the Courts, who arent really expecting to deal with Incarna-tier interlopers.
And it buys us time to hopefully do something about the Rebellion in the Hell build that we voted for.
 
Last edited:
Indefinitely a secret? No.
Staying a secret long enough for the Brass Courts to prepare for the prospects of unwelcome guests? Yes.
The point is to delay their reveal, not to prevent it.

If you blab and the Courts get hit by a passel of ambitious Yama Kings before they are ready?
That doesnt really help us.
See what happened to Yen Lo in Kindred of the East as a cautionary tale.
From utilitarian perspective Thomas is likely to be local liaison at least initially, arranging for stuff. Isabela is our... personal attendant? Friendly monster confidant? Friend? Something like that. She's the one we are likely to take clubbing in the city of Fountains at some point. Jade Dogs are our dependents, essentially. Sanctuary is, well, a sanctuary at least in part. We should offer them the option at some point at least. And from a utilitarian perspective, we are most likely to put Court stuff into the Last Station first.
 
From utilitarian perspective Thomas is likely to be local liaison at least initially, arranging for stuff.

It's early days yet, but I'd say Thomas is set-up nicely to become something of a Seneschal to Molly eventually. He's intelligent, politically savvy, loyal but not fawning, and his ego isn't staked onto Molly (has a happy relationship with his girlfriend and independent success).
 
[X] Thomas

It's worth considering that noticed and understood what was happening are different things.

The big names probably got some understanding of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them need to put in actual effort to put the pieces together.

It's not like they were sitting around waiting for this to happen, with their senses set to maximum and pointed towards Chicago.

In any case, we should probably tell the FCF to quietly start preparing defenses and observational stuff. Drones and remote viewing spec'd diviners would be very helpful to start with.

It would also be interesting to get some border control advice from various powers if we can swing it. I wouldn't call it high priority because the returns are uncertain, but the fey have to deal with this problem and are a lot easier to get at than we are.

On a tangentially related note, I'm curious about the wheel will do with invaders. It's supposed to incarnate you somewhere survivable and relevant to you, while also taking account of if the environment can support you.

If you aren't connected to anything does it punt you to the border? If everyone wants you dead and you're not "supposed" to be present per whatever the environmental standards are will it just put you on ice until conditions change? Do we get some sort of claim on them after forging them a new body and binding their soul to it by our own power?

Some of those are a reach, but it seems to me that dying inside an infernal's hell when they've invested in a specific tool for enhancing the soul containment properties of the place would have Consequences.

It almost certainly would in the other Thousand Hells at least.

One thing to keep in mind is what while it was momentous for you Sanctuary itself floats deep in the Spirit World
I thought it was inside Molly's soul though.

Mortals connect to the (shallower parts of the) nevernever while dreaming, so shouldn't it be closer to wherever that happens?

Or rather, sitting like a gated community behind its own gauntlet bordering whatever areas Molly's soul was previously touching.
 
I thought it was inside Molly's soul though.

Mortals connect to the (shallower parts of the) nevernever while dreaming, so shouldn't it be closer to wherever that happens?

Or rather, sitting like a gated community behind its own gauntlet bordering whatever areas Molly's soul was previously touching.

It is both, it is not as though the soul of an Exalt fits inside their body, much less that of an incipient primordial. The areas it was previously touching post Exaltation were incredibly distant and alien because again that is how infernal exaltations roll.
 
To expand on why Thomas needs to know immediately?
A large number of voters wanted to bring people into Chicago from our Hell in the last vote, and we are probably going to do so in the next three to six months.

That means we need fake IDs for anywhere from five to twenty people, possibly more; this is a First World country, not Somalia.
Flats/houses/residences for them to stay. Cars for transportation. Credit cards.
Period-appropriate clothes to blend into 2006 America.

Thomas is the only person in Molly's circle who has the connections for that sort of thing.
And the earlier we let him know, the more lead time he has to arrange that sort of thing. We tell him not to let anyone about it besides Harry or our parents, dump some money on him, give him a phone line to IRIS, and let him work.



But besides the people who already know, and Lydia? Noone else needs to know, not right now.
Not before the Brass Courts have had some time to gather information on the world via IRIS, and time to prepare for what potential trials may come as a result.

Remember that this is valuable information, which makes those who know about it a target.
Its not just talking about personal stuff, there are implications for the lives and safety of other people as well as Molly herself.
The Carpenters dont tell their children the details of what their father does for the White God.

From utilitarian perspective Thomas is likely to be local liaison at least initially, arranging for stuff. Isabela is our... personal attendant? Friendly monster confidant? Friend? Something like that. She's the one we are likely to take clubbing in the city of Fountains at some point. Jade Dogs are our dependents, essentially. Sanctuary is, well, a sanctuary at least in part. We should offer them the option at some point at least. And from a utilitarian perspective, we are most likely to put Court stuff into the Last Station first.
Like I said, eventually.
This is literally the day after. I cant see any reason why they must know about it today, or this week, or prior to IRIS going back to the Brass Courts with a complete dossier on the current situation, and the first parties showing up from our Hell.

The Jade Dogs in particular, for all their loyalty, dont currently have much of a defense against being ambushed on a grocery run and hit with notPresence or notAuspex for interrogation.
We dont give them more than they can bear.


Remember that Molly's circle is more expansive than just the named people.
Potter has an interest. Rosie has an interest. Brother Devisimar has an interest. Some members of Cauldron, are closer than others, and our promise to Olivia is probably going to start with some actual training from a Brass Courts citizen.

Even Murphy might have an interest in an explanation if we suddenly pull half a dozen heavy tactical teams out of nowhere next time shit gets heavy in Chi-Town.
 
Back
Top