They dont have to be so, individually.
Not if they have numbers on their side. And that plane is big enough to hold anywhere from three to half a dozen Blood Packs (18-36, judging from Cleveland) while transporting the principal in luxury.
You still have yet to explain why her entire security force and Ortega herself should be geared around this scenario despite never showing a hint of it in canon and it not actually being a power red vampires have even if WoD ones do.
Ways are specific routes, the concentrations of force present in a major military operation can feasibly interdict them when they know who's trying to access them and where they are.
That is an entirely different animal from charting and conquering all of the nevernever area loosely around your sphere of influence to the point that you feel safe making blind jumps from a flying aircraft.
Places across the street from each other can lead to completely different realms on the other side. Mundane places could dump you into the Erlking's feasting hall or that of his peers.
Every ten feet being a new challenge in areas that can't support each other and are already occupied besides make it so impractical as to be impossible. Especially since red sorcerers are surpassingly rare, and regular ones can only cross under very specific conditions that don't always allow for work arounds to reach other locations. The logistics for it simply don't make sense.
Concentrated force on narrow corridors in an ultimately temporary effort to blockade a specific target doesn't imply the ability to sustain a broad occupation of that kind of territory. Nobody in the DF does this because they fundamentally lack the ability to for a number of different reasons.
They can secure the footprint of key facilities, but not regions as a whole much less entire countries.
VOTE [X]Plan Information Control
-[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him
--[X] Use the recording of the call with Merlin as a focus for the crown to compile the list of White Council traitors before the meeting
RATIONALE Get the information before going into the meeting with the Merlin.
DONT tell him. We cannot provide bona fides for this information without revealing the Crown, and we cant guarantee that the traitor(s) dont have dupes on the Merlin's staff; one high-placed traitor in canon was the secretary to the Senior Council, the ruling body of the White Council.
We can try and launder it later.
We have Dresden, and through him access to Ebenezar McCoy.
We can talk to Odin, even; he has some idea we have some level of enhanced perception and foresight.
But its not the sort of thing you give to someone on first meeting without a check.
Unfortuently the recording is not a good enough focus for that, it goes Recording -> Single wizard -> White Council ->Traitors to the council. You need to burn either the White Council or the Merlin for this if you want an actual list of names. Either that or get a large proportion of the Council together and then record that
RATIONALE Get the information before going into the meeting with the Merlin.
DONT tell him. We cannot provide bona fides for this information without revealing the Crown, and we cant guarantee that the traitor(s) dont have dupes on the Merlin's staff; one high-placed traitor in canon was the secretary to the Senior Council, the ruling body of the White Council.
We can try and launder it later.
We have Dresden, and through him access to Ebenezar McCoy.
We can talk to Odin, even; he has some idea we have some level of enhanced perception and foresight.
But its not the sort of thing you give to someone on first meeting without a check.
At the very least explain to him that you have what you believe credible information that traitors exist. Not who they are, but that they exist at least. Not just stonewall him with no explanation.
Unfortuently the recording is not a good enough focus for that, it goes Recording -> Single wizard -> White Council ->Traitors to the council. You need to burn either the White Council or the Merlin for this if you want an actual list of names. Either that or get a large proportion of the Council together and then record that
So, I am guessing my vote / focus is also non viable? What about "a list of wizard associates of Merlin who are betraying his interests / acting counter to his interests covertly"? Essentially cur out the "White Council " link from the chain by banking on Merlin being genuine in his desire to uphold Council's values.
OK, so what would you propose? We have one essentially free focus (maybe more if we run social security numbers on Merlin's real name, and use popular media foci for Merlin thr name). Both spilling the guts and withholding information are less than optimal. How do you thread the needle?
I would ask the question, then shut up and follow up.
Dresden is a regional Warden commander. McCoy is Senior Council and Blackstaff.
Odin is trying to keep them alive, is offering us training, and knows
Even the Church via Father Forthill has connections.
We have options to prosecute this.
We do not have to personally pass a note to the Merlin like we're in class.
The Vampire War is not an isolated conflict. Look to the silent partners.
The chemical weapon that slaughtered Warden injured in Africa was made by a Fomori sorcerer. Cowl and Kumori were personally involved with gift-giving the Leanansidhe the Nemesis-tainted athame.
You dont think they got access to mass Outsider summons by accident do you?
And yet, a millenia old white court elder didn't notice us from less than a hundred meters away. A millenium old valkyrie seer mistook us for a mortal in direct face-to-face confrontation. We were able to enter Mac's without everyone clearing out long before we approached it. We were able to walk up to a reception of a fomori stronghold installation with several sorcerers on the property without them noticing us and raising an alarm.
When people look at us, they might notice. But in general? We are not a constant bonfire of dark power. Not in the night sky, when they have no reason to really look.
1)Leinth is not a sorcerer. His Awareness rating is not necessarily as high as his Occult.
2)Kattrin didnt mistake us for a vanilla mortal, she just didnt know what the fuck we were. And we were lower Essence then.
3)Mac's place is shielded; not with heavy duty wards, but strongly enough that it kept Mab's aura inside the bar when we met
4)We walked onto the nursing home grounds in the company of a Knight of the Cross on mission.
We have been repeatedly described as an archdevil out on vacation.
1)Winter Knight Dresden is variable, depending on the situation and preptime.
With preptime, h nuked several thousand bloodslave Rampires in an area of most of a square mile; without preptime or tools, he had trouble against an Ick.
2)No we didnt slaughter a greater akuma trivially.
It wasnt trivial, and we needed support to draw off his mooks.
Go read that fight again.
At the very least explain to him that you have what you believe credible information that traitors exist. Not who they are, but that they exist at least. Not just stonewall him with no explanation.
Dude, literally every Warden has known they have traitors since Dead Beat.
Luccio's face twisted in sudden and bitter grief.
"It was a lure," I said quietly. "Wasn't it?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "We moved out and took our wounded to the hospice in Sicily."
"What happened?" "We were betrayed," she said, and her words carried more sharp edges than a sack of broken glass. "Someone within our ranks must have reported our position to the Red Court. They attacked us that night."
"When was that?" I asked.
Luccio frowned, then glanced across the table at Ramirez.
[SNIP] "More important," Morgan growled, "the mortal wizards who betrayed us, whoever they are, fear the Senior Council. That is why their first move was an attempt to destroy them."
Luccio nodded. "If we can hold on until the Faerie Courts mobilize for action, we can recover from this attack. Which brings us to today," Luccio said, and studied me, tired and frank. "Every other Warden able to fight is currently either engaged against the enemy or safeguarding the Senior Council. Our lines of support and communication are tenuous." She gestured at those seated at the table. "This is every resource the White Council has to spare."
That is the first and second in command of the Wardens speaking.
He knows they exist.
He even has suspicions about some leaks; after LaFortier was murdered in canon, and CRistos blackmailed his way onto the Senior Council, the older members avoided telling him sensitive stuff.
When Arianna came to Edinburgh in Changes, the only Senior Council members who met her were Cristos and McCoy; all the rest were decoys, and they didnt tell Cristos about it.
Grant them a little credit.
So, I am guessing my vote / focus is also non viable? What about "a list of wizard associates of Merlin who are betraying his interests / acting counter to his interests covertly"? Essentially cur out the "White Council " link from the chain by banking on Merlin being genuine in his desire to uphold Council's values.
[X]Plan Information Control
-[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him
[X] Plan "Limited Gift Giving"
-[X] Use the recording of the call with Merlin as a focus for the crown to compile the list of White Council leaks in regards to Red Court
-[X] Give the list of leaks to Merlin. Explain how you did you due diligence when preparing for an ambush as a reason you have the list.
-[X] Put your money where your mouth is and show yourself to be a friend of the Council, after extracting the promise that the information won't be leaked
-[X] Excellencies as needed to sell this: Subterfuge to explain the source of the list, Empathy and Etiquette for the introduction, etc.
[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him
Nothing. Disrupts. This hunt. Nothing. We'll see fear in this creature's eyes before it dies by our hand or by Seeker's more extended grace, a terrible aeronautical accident by any account. Then we'll have a nice and private conversation afterwards.
Yog's plan is jumping the gun so bad I don't even know where to start.
You can't just do this sort of thing at the first given opportunity without planning it out. Its too impulsive. Merlin has no reason to believe us over the people he has fought and bled with for literal centuries. Worse still, he has every reason to distrust us with the sheer amount of demonic energy we give off and everything else. Our mentor is the only practical reason for him to not distrust us but even then, we aren't taking him with us and the word of a knight only stretches so far besides.
We can't tell him about the crown but he will obviously ask for our sources so how exactly does Molly bullshit her way into making him take those "leaks" at face value?
Keep in mind, Arthur is hundreds of years old and like the majority of the Senior Council, set in his ways. I really don't think that vote would end well for anyone involved and he's not likely to believe some bs excuse about getting that info from bs. Saying we got it from a naag would make us look even more sus.
This is a gamble with a very high risk and rather questionable payoff.
[X] Plan "Limited Gift Giving"
-[X] Use the recording of the call with Merlin as a focus for the crown to compile the list of White Council leaks in regards to Red Court
-[X] Give the list of leaks to Merlin. Explain how you did you due diligence when preparing for an ambush as a reason you have the list.
-[X] Put your money where your mouth is and show yourself to be a friend of the Council, after extracting the promise that the information won't be leaked
-[X] Excellencies as needed to sell this: Subterfuge to explain the source of the list, Empathy and Etiquette for the introduction, etc.
[X]Plan Information Control -[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him --[X] Use the recording of the call with Merlin as a focus for the crown to compile the list of White Council traitors before the meeting
[X]Plan Information Control -[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him
[X] Plan "Limited Gift Giving"
-[X] Use the recording of the call with Merlin as a focus for the crown to compile the list of White Council leaks in regards to Red Court
-[X] Give the list of leaks to Merlin. Explain how you did you due diligence when preparing for an ambush as a reason you have the list.
-[X] Put your money where your mouth is and show yourself to be a friend of the Council, after extracting the promise that the information won't be leaked
-[X] Excellencies as needed to sell this: Subterfuge to explain the source of the list, Empathy and Etiquette for the introduction, etc.
[X]Plan Information Control -[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him --[X] Use the recording of the call with Merlin as a focus for the crown to compile the list of White Council traitors before the meeting
[X]Plan Information Control -[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him
Yog's plan is jumping the gun so bad I don't even know where to start.
You can't just do this sort of thing at the first given opportunity without planning it out. Its too impulsive. Merlin has no reason to believe us over the people he has fought and bled with for literal centuries. Worse still, he has every reason to distrust us with the sheer amount of demonic energy we give off and everything else. Our mentor is the only practical reason for him to not distrust us but even then, we aren't taking him with us and the word of a knight only stretches so far besides.
We can't tell him about the crown but he will obviously ask for our sources so how exactly does Molly bullshit her way into making him take those "leaks" at face value?
Keep in mind, Arthur is hundreds of years old and like the majority of the Senior Council, set in his ways. I really don't think that vote would end well for anyone involved and he's not likely to believe some bs excuse about getting that info from bs. Saying we got it from a naag would make us look even more sus.
This is a gamble with a very high risk and rather questionable payoff.
[X]Plan Information Control
[X] No, you know there are high placed traitors in the White Council, keep the secret of your plans even if it means you have to stonewall him
Assume we can convince Langtry that the list is accurate without providing any bona fides.
Its not impossible, because while he has the Willpower of a top tier senior wizard, we have the social stats to pull superhuman social bullshit if we put our mind to it.
Now question: How does he explain this to the other six members of the Senior Council, none of whom were there to be razzle dazzled by Molly's social chops? What evidence does he present them with? Or does it look like he just got whammied into taking the word of an unknown archdevil that these people are traitors, honest?
I mean, we laundered the Big Book of Yomi Wan through Dresden specifically so we wouldnt have to answer this sort of question.
We didnt reveal the identities of the Thule Society board to the White Council, only Dresden because of this.
We didnt tell them about Nemesis' weaknesses because we didnt want to answer these sorts of questions.
The idea that we should throw away all caution now seems ill-thought out.
Assume we can convince Langtry that the list is accurate without providing any bona fides.
Its not impossible, because while he has the Willpower of a top tier senior wizard, we have the social stats to pull superhuman social bullshit if we put our mind to it.
Now question: How does he explain this to the other six members of the Senior Council, none of whom were there to be razzle dazzled by Molly's social chops? What evidence does he present them with? Or does it look like he just got whammied into taking the word of an unknown archdevil that these people are traitors, honest?
I mean, we laundered the Big Book of Yomi Wan through Dresden specifically so we wouldnt have to answer this sort of question.
We didnt reveal the identities of the Thule Society board to the White Council, only Dresden because of this.
We didnt tell them about Nemesis' weaknesses because we didnt want to answer these sorts of questions.
The idea that we should throw away all caution now seems ill-thought out.
We don't need to convince him that our list is accurate. We need only to convince him we don't truat these people and the condition of sharing our information with him is that they are not informed until it's too late to leak.
He can do investigation later.
On the last part - we were working on ignoring White Council as much as possible. That ship has sailed. Now is the time to adjust.
We don't need to convince him that our list is accurate. We need only to convince him we don't trust these people and the condition of sharing our information with him is that they are not informed until it's too late to leak.
And whats to stop him from saying what we want to hear and then telling them anyway? He trust these people more than he does us and frankly infosec in the WC is so nonexistent that I wouldn't trust him with that info even if he 100% believed us.
And whats to stop him from saying what we want to hear and then telling them anyway? He trust these people more than he does us and frankly infosec in the WC is so nonexistent that I wouldn't trust him with that info even if he 100% believed us.
His promise? Promises are important in the supernatural society, as people keep telling me. You don't get to climb to the top of human magical faction by being known as an oathbreaker.
Yog's plan is jumping the gun so bad I don't even know where to start.
