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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Yog said:
That's arguable. If the aztec gods are still alive, we could free and restore them. That would probably at least mitigate the power vacuum issue.
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If the aztec gods are still alive after all this time I fully expect them to be in a state that requires us to use False Springs Beckons on them constantly to keep them functional. Which basically means Molly has taken over.
Yog said:
We could also start crafting city gods everywhere we go.
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Same thing.
 
The Aztec Gods wouldn't fill any vacuum.

The issue with the Red Court is not just the few powerful Elders hanging out in Mexico, it's the influence and power-projection everywhere else.
The return of ancient gods in the south wouldn't stop Formor or Whampires from taking over the niches of the Reds in crime, prostitution, smuggling, etc. all over the rest of the Americas.

Maybe in a few decades these gods could build up a powerbase to rival the Red Court, but that's not relevant to the quest.
 
Yog said:
Most of these are your suppositions. Death is almost certainly not casual, but how much knowledge of the Wheel the courts have, and how predictable it is, is very, very arguable. We know that there are entire species that directly take advantage of the Wheel mechanics to sustain themselves. I find it entirely plausible that intelligent residents of the courts also do.
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I went back and checked the Wheel writeup before my previous reply.
There is nothing about their understanding it well enough to be predictable, and euthanasia-based treatment regimes are described as very radical, which is not how you describe therapies based on predictable circumstances.

Besides, even when resurrection cures the overdose?
It wont cure the addiction, because the addiction was not the cause of death. A drug overdose was, and the writeup appears pretty clear about what that sort of resurrection will fix.

Addictions arent lethal.
They may be life-destroying, and will often expose you to hazards that might kill you.
But an addiction wont directly kill you.

Not unless you happen to be one of those people with lethal withdrawal reactions like alcoholics with delirium tremens.
Artemis1992 said:
The Aztec Gods wouldn't fill any vacuum.
The issue with the Red Court is not just the few powerful Elders hanging out in Mexico, it's the influence and power-projection everywhere else.

The return of ancient gods in the south wouldn't stop Formor or Whampires from taking over the niches of the Reds in crime, prostitution, smuggling, etc. all over the rest of the Americas.
Maybe in a few decades these gods could build up a powerbase to rival the Red Court, but that's not relevant to the quest.
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^^^^
Not to mention that the White God's edicts are still in place with regards to gods.
You immortal? Stay in the NeverNever. You hang out on Earth, you have to shed power, and any lucky bastard with the right shank can kill you.

And based on canon, I dont think the Mayan pantheon has the same attitude towards risktaking as Odin.

More broadly? The Red Court runs Latin America.
ALL of Latin America, not just Mexico, and its tentacles reach north into parts of the United States; Chicago used to have a Red Court seethe in residence, and in the RPG Las Vegas has a Red Court presence.

Arianna Ortega's childe and legal husband Paolo's public identity(before Ebenezar sniped him) was as a university professor in Brazil, and his personal manor of Casaverde was in Honduras.
He used to show up on TV shows as as a skeptic of magical/paranormal phenomena; we see him on a US talk show.

When they were wiped out, there was chaos. Governments fell. Wars broke out.
Changes chapter 49 said:
Everything changed the night the Red Court died. It made the history books.

First, for the unexplained destruction of several structures in Chichén Itzá. A thousand years of jungle hadn't managed to bring the place down, but half an hour of slugfest between practitioners who know what they're doing can leave city blocks in ruins. It was later attributed to an extremely powerful localized earthquake. No one could explain all the corpses—some of them with dental work featuring techniques last used a hundred years before, some whose hearts had been violently torn from their chests, and whose bodies had been affected by some kind of mutation that had rendered their bones almost unrecognizable as human. Fewer than 5 percent of them were ever identified—and those were all people who had abruptly gone missing in the past ten or fifteen years. No explanation was ever offered for such a confluence of missing persons, though theories abounded, none of them true.

I could have screamed the truth from the mountaintops and blended right in with all the rest of the nuts. Everyone knows that vampires aren't real.

Second, it made the books because of all the sudden disappearances or apparent outright murders of important officials, businessmen, and financiers in cities and governments throughout Latin America. The drug cartels took the rap for that one, even in the nations where they weren't really strong enough to pull such tactics off. Martial law got declared virtually everywhere south of Texas, and a dozen revolutions in eight or ten different countries all kicked off, seemingly on the same night.

I've heard that nature abhors a vacuum—though if that's true, then I can't figure why about ninety-nine zillion percent of creation is vacuum. But I do know that governments hate 'em, and always rush to fill them up. So do criminals. Which probably tells you more about human beings than it does about nature. Most of the nations in South America proper kept their balance. Central America turned into a war zone, with various interests fighting to claim the territory the vampires had left behind them.

Finally, it made the books in the supernatural community as the night of bad dreams. Before the next sunset, the Paranet was buzzing with activity, with men and women scattered over half the world communicating about the vivid and troubling dreams they'd had. Pregnant women and mothers who had recently delivered had been hardest hit. Several had to be hospitalized and sedated. But everyone with a smidge of talent who was sleeping at the time was troubled by dreams. The general theme was always the same: dead children. The world in flames. Terror and death spreading across the globe in an unstoppable wave, destroying anything resembling order or civilization.

I don't remember what happened when the ritual went off. There's a blank spot in my head about two minutes wide. I had no desire whatsoever to find out what was there.
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Just the mundane turmoil would have the death toll in five figures
And thats not counting what happened when the Fomor came out to pursue a supernatural land grab.
 
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Vote closed, onward
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 25, 2023 at 3:54 AM, finished with 65 posts and 11 votes.
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uju32 said:
Just the mundane turmoil would have the death toll in five figures
And thats not counting what happened when the Fomor came out to pursue a supernatural land grab.
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Though all that is still better than just leaving things as they are.
KIlling our way through the Red Court and any successors won't be easy, but it would be worthwhile.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Though all that is still better than just leaving things as they are.
KIlling our way through the Red Court and any successors won't be easy, but it would be worthwhile.
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But killing and subordinating would be better. There are plenty of Infernal charms for forcefully taking over an organization. Would we really mind enslaving a bunch of Red court elders or throwing them into maggot pits?
 
PS
Kukulkan is not Aztec. He is Mayan.
Chitchen Itza was a Mayan city, and the Lords of Outer Night usurped the Mayan pantheon.
Artemis1992 said:
Though all that is still better than just leaving things as they are.
KIlling our way through the Red Court and any successors won't be easy, but it would be worthwhile.
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I disagree.
See Iraq IRL for an example of why getting rid of an obvious evil without preparation for what comes next can be worse than the incumbent situation; for a reference,the Lancet medical journal published a study estimating >600k excess deaths as of July 2006. And thats just the deaths.

Noone currently knows what the mediumterm results of overthrowing the Reds are in canon, because the situation is still evolving. That already kicked off another war, with the White Council entirely too weak to even establish a serious presence in Latin America, and the Fellowship of St Giles being close to wiped out en masse.

If you overthrow the Red Court and allow the Black Council or the Cult of the Black Goat or the Stygian Sisterhood or some Black Court fuckhead or whatever run riot and put down roots? Have a free hand recruiting?
Everybody gets to feel it.
 
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uju32 said:
I went back and checked the Wheel writeup before my previous reply.
There is nothing about their understanding it well enough to be predictable, and euthanasia-based treatment regimes are described as very radical, which is not how you describe therapies based on predictable circumstances.

Besides, even when resurrection cures the overdose?
It wont cure the addiction, because the addiction was not the cause of death. A drug overdose was, and the writeup appears pretty clear about what that sort of resurrection will fix.

Addictions arent lethal.
They may be life-destroying, and will often expose you to hazards that might kill you.
But an addiction wont directly kill you.

Not unless you happen to be one of those people with lethal withdrawal reactions like alcoholics with delirium tremens.
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I didn't invent "cure for drugs is an OD" thing either:
DragonParadox said:
I made a world where the cure to drug addiction is to OD. The realization hits you like a ton of bricks.
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Drug effects on the nervous system would be the cause of death by an overdose. Physiological addiction symptoms are also highly likely to be corrected by the turn of the Wheel.
 
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Arc 9 Post 32: Divine Debrief
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    • Divine Debrief ​

    21th of November 2006 A.D

    Seven vampires in new-grown skin, eight mortals struck with strange luck, three of the infected, worshipful and confused and one of you all bound together hand in hand arrayed as though by the power of the darkness in them, though in truth it's just so that no human has to hold the hand of those who have until less than hours ago treated them like things to be used and discarded. The brass and crystal had long since faded, but as you close your eyes, music familiar and beloved echoing around it is the simplest thing to reach the gates within. Downwards, inwards, though...

    As you cross the threshold Broken Seeker does not move from his perch, not even so much as a breath. If he had not guessed about your domain already from your projecting it he knows now. But that is not your concern now.

    ***​

    This time around you do not show up in the middle of the throneroom. One of the things you had arranged with Warden Ameli was to have a secure Entrance Chamber. Maybe you should have mentioned some other qualifier than secure... Stark black stone and gleaming brass make up the walls, floor and ceiling, the contours broken up only by the barrels of ceiling mounted plasma guns.

    "Guardian of the Brass Flower," you call to the SUTRA. "Summon a security team and Warden of the Inner Halls Ameli, this is going to take some triage."

    "Executing Command."

    Something tells the prisoners had not been expecting a guard detail made up of armored dragon men and cybernetically enhanced operatives tagging and processing them with cool courtesy without a hint of fear, hatred or the longing that their flesh-masks are meant to impart in mortal men. So, later that day, once they had gotten the introductory package, they all clump up under the dome of the conference chamber, fearful and curious, entranced and uneasy all at the same time.

    You do not mince words. By their oaths of surrender to you they are your prisoners, a responsibility you aim to live up to, seeing to it that their physical and mental needs are met, but one of the conditions of their imprisonment is the study of their nature and condition to hopefully make up for all the harm they have caused. To be honest part of you had been expecting shouts and accusation or at the very least deepening dread. Instead the seven of them seem to relax into their seats and you realize it is because your actions finally make sense as these vampires see the world. They had not been granted a reprieve for mercy's sake but because you had use for them. For their part the infected... think you are divine. Speaking to them separated from their former masters seems moot when all three of them jump to their feet before you had even finished making the offer of seeking a potential cure...

    "Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes! Let the work of false gods pass to dust in me! Let me be proven worthy of bearing the flame of the Empress!"

    "Do not presume that you will be blessed!"

    "Silence, both of you! You are interrupting the Goddess!"

    You can feel a headache coming on.

    ***​

    Thankfully the Red Court's former victims are not as enthusiastic, though they are surprised, stunned at their sudden turn of fortune might be a better description. According to their preliminary interviews six of them either have no family to return to or they do not wish to return and endanger their family and have been thus snapped by various intelligence agencies in the Five Cities as source of information into the Beyond . The remaining two, including the man who had spoken up on the plane desperately wish to return... for a reason that has you bending the armrest of your chair in anger.

    The Ortegas, both of them had been unusually blunt about the utility of their human slaves, who was worn out, who was on the chopping block who would be eaten save for the exceptional service of their kin. Both the people who feel they must return have a family member who had preciously displeased their masters and who only lives by their toil, a daughter in one case, an uncle in another.

    "You do not know who will follow La Dona Pedro, they would have no reason to follow her threats" Sophia Martinez, the woman who would have been Arianna's snack on the way down, says gently. Already dressed in the manner of the cities, in flowing garments designed to show off physical and artificial assets alike it's clear she is not going anywhere.

    But the elderly man just throws her a dirty look and spits: "She had it all written down in her ledger of pain."

    The other person who wants to return, a woman maybe fifteen years older than you still wearing her barman's uniform from the plane, does not speak up, but it is clear she is of a mind with Pedro

    What do you do?

    [] Promise you will get their families out

    [] Offer to send them back once things quiet down

    [] Write in

    OOC: A bit more of a glimpse into the awfulness that is the Red Court. Mind games are the idle entertainment of immortal monsters.
     
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    • [X] Promise you will get their families out

    This is not (just) mercy or security. Powerful entities do not just go in to save mortals. This is a way to mess with Red Court. Right now "she tried to attack us, so we killed her in retaliation" is a logic they understand. Rescuing mortals in her service? That's going to look bizarre.
     
    Damnit, this is going to be one neverending clusterfuck of assumed responsibility on our parts. Whose next, BS' surviving lesser Skinwalker disciples? Nicodemus' tongueless cultists?

    I really, really don't want to try to rescue these people's families. We've already done too much to kick up the shitty hornet's nest that is Rampire territory and politics, so going even deeper into that mess to retrieve more muggles is just asking for unnecessary trouble.

    And Hell, the burny one, will freeze over before I would vote to let these people out of our own Hell, at least not before the Reds have been eliminated and our power on Earth significantly increased.
     
    It's probably too late now even if we did want to send them back.

    The reds are exactly the type to punish people for simply being nearby when something they don't like happens, and as potentially valuable as what little information they have is I doubt the reds will let them trade it for the status quo instead of taking it by force.
     
    Let's be realistic here. We cannot afford to get bogged down. Not yet.

    [X] Offer to send them back once things quiet down
     
    Yog said:
    [X] Promise you will get their families out

    This is not (just) mercy or security. Powerful entities do not just go in to save mortals. This is a way to mess with Red Court. Right now "she tried to attack us, so we killed her in retaliation" is a logic they understand. Rescuing mortals in her service? That's going to look bizarre.
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    We do not have the time to take a detour though. We first need to establish ourselves and thd Court before we can go after the Reds in Ernest.
     
    Yzarc said:
    We do not have the time to take a detour though. We first need to establish ourselves and thd Court before we can go after the Reds in Ernest.
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    Sending them back is kind of a problem now. They don't know a lot, but they do know some things.

    The idea that we're looking to cure their infection in mortals for example is a moderately valuable bit of intelligence.

    Beyond that, turning them back in - and telling them that's what we're going to be doing -creates an environment where they're incentivized to look after the red court's interests and collect information to trade for their lives and those of the hostages.

    People can be very resourceful under that sort of pressure.
     
    What would sending them back soon(ish) accomplish? Beyond giving away all kinds of information we don't want anyone to know about, and to deadly enemies at that?

    And what would happen to those we released? Their last known location was on the plane with Arianna and her posse. Now that posse is dead or missing and the plane is about to be resting at the bottom of the sea in a million pieces.

    The only way they could possibly hope to save themselves and/or their families would be to spill their guts about everything they saw us do, everything they experienced during and after the assault on the plane, where they went, how they got there, etc.

    And knowing the Reds, they would still end up tortured to death, along with their families. Good chance their neighbors would end up getting axed, too, just for the sake of bloody mindedness.

    @DragonParadox, does the FCF have the magical or technological know how to permanently remove memories from willing subjects?
     
    Goldfish said:
    What would sending them back soon(ish) accomplish? Beyond giving away all kinds of information we don't want anyone to know about, and to deadly enemies at that?

    And what would happen to those we released? Their last known location was on the plane with Arianna and her posse. Now that posse is dead or missing and the plane is about to be resting at the bottom of the sea in a million pieces.

    The only way they could possibly hope to save themselves and/or their families would be to spill their guts about everything they saw us do, everything they experienced during and after the assault on the plane, where they went, how they got there, etc.

    And knowing the Reds, they would still end up tortured to death, along with their families. Good chance their neighbors would end up getting axed, too, just for the sake of bloody mindedness.

    @DragonParadox, does the FCF have the magical or technological know how to permanently remove memories from willing subjects?
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    Yes as a refinement of the rites they use to awaken past life memories in those for whom they are weak/fuzzy. Sometimes one's past life memories are things you do not want. Using that to remove memories from this life can be tricky and dangerous though
     
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