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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Arc 10 Post 29: Old Scars
  • Threadmarks
    • Old Scars ​

    18th of December 2006 A.D.

    "Payment on delivery," you counter after a moment's thought of how this could leave you in debt to her if something unexpected happens.

    The Winter lady rises one pale eyebrow. "Are you not confident in your new abilities then?"

    "I trust myself in works martial and magical, circumstances on the other hand, circumstances change and I'd rather not have my feet nailed to the floor when they do."

    "That's not so bad," Maeve says, idly playing with a lock of hair that had escaped from behind her ear. "Being nailed to the floor I mean. Healing from cold iron poisoning, now that's just not worth it—" a knowing beat— "some kinks aren't worth the knots."

    Though there is no obvious flaw in her mien the subtle shifts in her aura give away the game, she is trying to shock, to get back the control she lost a few minutes ago. She's messing with me. It's your turn to raise an eyebrow now. "On your feet you say... interesting."

    The sound of small tools in small hands recedes more and more. By this point the Kabouter had decided to put half the warehouse's floor space between the themselves and the conversation, a fact Maeve seems to take some satisfaction in at least. "Fine then," she sniffs at your expression. "Payment on delivery. I hope that Vegas shall be more accommodating to you then it would be to most who pass into though gilded halls of false fortune."

    With that formal declaration the Winter Lady makes a kind of sweeping exit that's mildly impressive in that outfit and sees herself out.

    "Clippy, what time is it?"

    "17: 31: 55"

    Enough time to swing by Rosie's then.

    ***​

    "Oof, this just keeps getting more awkward doesn't it?" Your friend says getting into the back of the car. "I've just started letting things lie there when I drop them you know." She lapses into silence that grows morose as she settles in. "And mom just gives me this look like 'I never dropped things when I was pregnant with you' you know 'cause she was perfect."

    Or you are seeing things. Even if it's true though the thought's not the least helpful so you just settle on. "Welp the baby will be out soon and so will you."

    "I guess—" she trails off, then in a rush confesses: "I'm scared that I'll just mess it all up, that I'll mess her up. I don't know how to raise a kid. I've been reading books and stuff, but if that was all you needed to do there wouldn't be so many garbage parents around, would there? I can memorize all the bathing positions and feeding schedules, but that's just the bare minimum you know, the floor you are supposed to build up from to give your baby a happy healthy life. I'm not sure where all the pieces go, I don't even know what all the pieces are. " Her hands flutter flutter helplessly at her side. "That is the kind of thing you are supposed to count on family for right? When you have a kid young? But I don't... I don't want Mom around her telling her how much of a screw up I am or... or... making her feel like a burden."

    "Hey, it's OK," you reach back to hold her hand. "We'll figure it out, I can be the magic godmother. How many kids have that?"

    Rosie shakes her head, not so much in denial, but as though she does not know what to do with all the emotions she's been holding in. Finally she asks: "Can you find my dad? I want to talk to him at least, tell him about the baby."

    By itself the question makes perfect sense, but for someone who has known Rosie for as long as you have it's like she had suddenly asked to find the Loch Ness monster. Rosie does not like to talk about her father. From what little you had been able to piece together they had a messy divorce, so much so that Ms Marcella, not yet Wilson had moved from Tallahassee to Chicago around the same time your family moved in. The start of your friendship with Rosie had been based around the shared awkwardness of being 'the new girls in school', though it had quickly grown and branched out into shared interests and an appreciation for each other. From those early days you had learned not to poke at her past. But since she was asking...

    "You don't have a number?"

    "He used to send me letters from prison," she answers, looking out the window with a fixed stare. "Got the last one when I was thirteen, he was about to get out. Said Mom and me would be better off without someone like him in our lives. Doesn't really seem like it does it?"

    When you don't say anything she continues. "He was in for manslaughter. Hit a woman going eighty five miles an hour. Turns out he was drunk, turns out he was driving back from the house of a woman he was having an affair with." The words come out scarily toneless. "At least that is what my aunt Liza told me. She's the one who was passing the letters Mom won't talk about him ever. I just—" her voice catches— "wanna talk to him. He deserves to know right?"

    What do you do?

    [] Use the Crown on Rosie to find out where her father is

    [] Try to search for him online

    [] Try to find some other Crown focus
    -[] Write in

    OOC: Welp, Rosie did not roll so well in the background this time around, though it would have been much worse without all the work you guys put in to help her out.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Does Rosie have any of the letters he wrote her?

    Rosie is someone we will have in our lives long enough that burning our chance to use her as a touch is risky. The letters should not have that risk, and should be a strong link to him.
     
    Zoolimar said:
    Probably because Winter's mandate is to deal with Outsiders. They already have ways to at least harm them if not kill. Banishing them seems like the logical next step. And, in theory, something like a lesser variant of Murder is Meat should also be able to squeeze into her portfolio.
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    So? Being in portfolio doesn't mean you automatically get to be able to do it. Seeing ancient sorcery and a charm in use once and being able to copy them is ridiculous.

    uju32 said:
    Certainly less subtle than usual.

    However, Nemesis, He Who Walks Beside, is still a Great Walker, with everything that implies in power and patronage. And we know from Lord Raith that the investments that a deal with Outsiders can bestow can be very subtle until tripped, like his immunity to direct mortal magic.

    Kinda like how Nicodemus Archleone prefers to personally act lowkey, but doesnt mean he cant throw down.
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    Those are completely different types of Outsider servant.

    Modifying then adding masking magic to generic nemesis servitors defeats the whole point of nemesis, which is to have infiltrators that are indistinguishable before and after they were taken. You're flexing one example that has a reasonable alternative explanation really hard to support this theory.
     
    uju32 said:
    You get 10x Creation Points for a 5-dot manse without taking any drawbacks. Go ahead and try; I have eyeballed it.
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    Ok, let's see. We start with 10 basic points. We reduce heartstone to 0 since Demonreach doesn't actually provide one. That gives us 15 ponits. We discard everything Alfred itself does, since, in terms of Exalted mechanics, he'd be a local god / Emanation anchored to the Manse, and not part of the manse construction itself. Demonreach is maintenance 2 at least - if Alfred was slain, prisoners would eventually break out. It is habitability 2, as I understand it
    Minimally Habitable: The manse makes no
    provision at all for people to live there. At best,
    you could camp in it.
    Examples: A circle of stone pillars. A grove of
    interwoven trees. A sculpted valley with shal-
    low caves cut in the sides.
    So we are now at 19 points.
    Now, let's spend them:
    As a last resort, the manse can self-destruct.
    Only the hearthstone bearer can issue this order,
    using a means that the manse can recognize. Simple
    manses sometimes have ruby terminals to register the
    hearthstone bearer's touch for such a purpose. When
    activated, the bearer decides how much time—between
    30 seconds and 30 minutes—to allow before the manse
    is lost. Until then, the self-destruct sequence can only
    be deactivated by her, or by damaging this power. The
    roiling Essence within and eventual explosion mirror
    the unfortunate conclusion of Essence buildu
    Craft (Magitech) 5, Craft (Genesis) 5, or other
    ability to bind a Guardian
    As Bound Servitor (Power 2), save that a Guardian
    is considerably more powerful. Guardians are Second
    Circle demons or creatures of equivalent power.
    A manse with this feature creates an island of stability
    around itself. The tides of the Wyld and other Shaping effects
    originating from outside the manse cannot affect anything
    in its range, though this power does not reverse existing
    Shaping effects brought into the radius. While this power
    typically extends Creation's laws, the Wyld Revocation power
    (The Books of Sorcery, Vol. III—Oadenol's Codex, p. 77)
    might assert its rewritten nature as a cosmological constant,
    while manses with the Outside Fate power (The Books of
    Sorcery, Vol. III—Oadenol's Codex, p. 76) may be warded
    by otherworldly powers.
    Various Crafts at 5, Larceny 5
    The manse has automatic defenses so powerful that
    escape, much less survival, seems in doubt. Ultra-Deadly
    Traps are intended to kill or capture, and are cunning and
    powerful enough to defeat the Exalted. Each purchase
    of this power grants one Ultra-Deadly trap.
    Examples:
    • When the characters enter a room, huge stone
    slabs fall onto every doorway, blocking any escape. Im-
    mediately after, the room begins detaching from the rest
    of the manse. After 10 ticks, the room and everyone
    within go Elsewhere—outside Creation itself. There
    they remain indefi nitely; there will be no escape from
    the pocket realm unless the manse's hearthstone bearer
    chooses to release them, or the manse sustains damage.
    A feat of strength of at least 15 is necessary to
    lift the slabs on the doors. Stone slabs have 25 lethal
    soak, 50 bashing, and 60 health levels.
    • The manse contains a soul magnet that sucks living
    souls from living bodies. When people come near it, it
    activates with a dull gray light and a loud, low hum, and
    then swiftly drags them toward it. Nothing is within arm's
    reach for characters to catch, and once it touches them,
    the magnet wrenches their souls from their bodies.
    The soul magnet activates when the fi rst character
    approaches within 20 yards. It pulls characters fi ve
    yards per tick with a Strength of 10, -1 for every fi ve
    yards of distance. A successful (Wits + Athletics) roll,
    diffi culty 2+, lets a character fi nd some way to hold
    on; if characters who grabbed hold of something else
    have less Strength than the magnet does at their range,
    they must take a Miscellaneous Action each tick to
    roll (Stamina + [Resistance or Athletics]), diffi culty
    (magnet's Strength - character's Strength), or be pulled
    in. Characters hitting the magnet will be inactive un-
    less they summon a feat of strength greater than the
    magnet's Strength. After that, they suffer three dice
    of armor-ignoring aggravated damage on every action
    until they die. The soul magnet has 9L/9B soak; every
    three health levels of damage done to it reduces the
    magnet's strength by 1.
    • A glowing fl ambeau on the wall, that initially
    looks like a minor Essence vents, shoots serpent-headed
    bolts of deadly Essence lightning at anyone except the
    hearthstone bearer who comes within 10 yards of the
    fl ambeau and whatever it guards. The bolts have an
    attack pool of 12 dice, attack one target every tick,
    and deal eight dice of piercing aggravated damage
    when they hit.
    Various Crafts at 5, Larceny 5
    This feature duplicates Ultra-Deadly Traps (The Books
    of Sorcery, Vol. III—Oadenol's Codex, p. 74), but each
    purchase applies the chosen hazard against anyone attempt-
    ing to enter the manse's range. Should an intruder somehow
    penetrate into the manse's interior, the perimeter defenses
    cannot harm him further. With active controls or some form
    of password activation, the defenses may be safely bypassed
    by those permitted to do so.
    Iron Circle Necromancy
    The manse pulls Essence from the Underworld as well
    as its demesne. It gains the effects of an Ebon Dragnet
    (Power 3) and binds anyone who dies within it. Such
    ghosts can't leave the manse's range and must forever
    obey the hearthstone bearer's commands to the letter, just
    as if they had been summoned and bound. (For more on
    ghost-summoning, see The Black Treatise, pp. 34-35.)
    The manse can contain a unit of ghosts equal in
    Magnitude to its rating. When bought at character
    generation, Soul Prisons are stocked with weak ghosts,
    lacking equipment and Charms, but using the statistics
    of war ghosts (see Exalted, p. 318). The manse cannot
    trap ghosts whose Essence exceeds the manse's rating,
    but only very heroic ghosts will grow in power while
    under its awful infl uence.
    The hearthstone bearer may release any ghosts
    at any time.
    and 2 points for intellectus, which is kinda similar to
    So well-harmonized is the manse with its
    hearthstone bearer that, when she dreams, they "com-
    municate" symbolically. The hearthstone bearer always
    knows the condition of the manse and if anyone has
    intruded—but only while dreaming.
    This power doesn't provide a manse with any
    special intelligence or cognitive functions, but manses
    with such a sympathetic link have reacted to their
    owners' unconscious wishes. If the hearthstone bearer's
    temporary Willpower falls below 3, her manse may act
    on her secret desires without explicit orders.
    trading "only in dreams" for "only when within the manse".

    And this is a very dirt and simple build. Trade away Guardian by saying that it is made separately, and we can switch Immutable to Indestructible, which is an always-on free perfect defense:
    Every mortal Craft at 6
    The manse's walls are impervious to damage. The
    hearthstone bearer may deactivate this power. Failing
    that, it suffers harm only from geomantic attacks.
    And there are other tricks, most likely.

    And in ExvsWoD it's actually simpler to make than in canon Exalted. Here is how I would build Demonreach in ExvsWoD:
    The Splendor takes the form of something that is evocative of death. It might be a funeral
    garment, or an old bone, or decorated with skulls. It might be smeared with crematory ash. This
    Element defines the Splendor's physical form and gives it a character, and that character is
    aligned with the power of death. Other Elements may draw upon this fact.
    The Splendor can be summoned directly into the Underworld when made to manifest, if its
    owner desires. As the basis for an Adornment, it grants its user the ability to see and interact with
    ghosts on the other side of the Shroud. As the basis for a Fascination, it can interact with both the
    land of the living and the Underworld.
    The Splendor takes the form of something otherworldly. It may be a religious symbol, an overtly
    magical object such as a wand or pentacle, or a strange haze. It may be an inchoate thing of
    coalesced light which can be held and touched. This Element defines the Splendor's physical
    form and gives it a character, and that character is aligned with the power of the Spirit World.
    Other Elements may draw upon this fact.
    The Splendor can be summoned directly into the Umbra when made to manifest, if its owner
    desires. As the basis for an Adornment, it grants its user the ability to see and interact with spirits
    on the other side of the Gauntlet. As the basis for a Fascination, it can interact with both the
    physical world and the Spirit World.
    The Exalt touches a spot of land, or building or collection of buildings about the size of a manor
    house, high school, or large local park when summoning the Splendor. It exists as an
    enchantment cast over the entire structure or a large defined outdoor area ("this entire street and
    both of the sidewalks"). The Splendor is coded with conditions and instructions on how to
    interact with the affected region. Root Elements such as Beautiful Lie (see p. XX) can then go to
    work upon any valid target in the area. Realizing that there's something weird about the
    enchanted area requires a Perception + Awareness roll against difficulty (4 + Splendor's rating)    .
    If this is the only Form Element a Splendor has, the difficulty of rolls to resist it are lowered by
    one, and it manifests in the form of a feature that would make sense in the environment (a tree or
    bench in a park) but is slightly out of date or out of fashion.
    This Element does nothing at all. It is used to construct subtle or particular Splendors which
    focus on mystic elements without forcing the involvement of a powerful Root.
    The Splendor gains one extra point to spend on Mystic Elements.
    The Splendor is shrouded in a psychic ward that makes it unthinkable to even consider harming
    it in any way. Anyone attempting to do so must succeed at a Willpower roll against difficulty (4
    + Splendor's rating) and then spend a Willpower point on each turn in which they attempt to do
    harm to the Splendor.
    One of the Splendor's snares or benefits is particularly wicked or potent. Modify one roll
    associated with the Splendor by increasing or decreasing its difficulty by two, or modify one
    value associated with activating or resisting its effects (such as the number of points of
    Willpower that must be spent to shake off a Beautiful Lie) by two.
    This Element can only be part of a Fascination.
    The Splendor bends space around itself so that paths recursively lead back to it. When someone
    wishes to leave the Splendor's presence they must succeed at a difficulty (4 + Splendor's rating)
    roll of Perception + (Survival or Streetwise, as appropriate to the environment).     If this fails, they
    are lost for at least 30 minutes before they can try again. Being caught in the Splendor's web for
    one hour is a frequent activation condition for Splendors with this Element.
    If the Splendor also contains one of the location-type Form Elements, such as Form of the
    Hearth, then Entrapment may be used to rearrange the affected location's geography. Potential
    options include routing everyone who enters the afflicted area to a particular location within it,
    forcing a difficulty (4 + Splendor's rating) roll to navigate the area successfully, causing specific
    rearrangements of how space connects to itself within the area, or causing specific spatial
    anomalies that only trigger for some people who meet certain criteria.
    This is a prison that can't be escaped, because it's a 5 dot splendor with the difficulty of escape roll being 11 (9+2 from mystic fortification). It also can't be easily attacked - you have to succeed a DC9 roll to do so, and pay 1 WP each turn to keep attacking. Coupled with an animated intelligence, it mimics effects of Demonreach fairly well. And if I was really trying, I would be making it as a combination of multiple splendors and prodigies, and then things get far more ridiculous.

    For example, make each prison cell a splendor, instead of the whole complex (form of the castle to form of the hearth), and you can add Enervation to the list of features, so the prison actively drains willpower from prisoners, so escaping is doubly impossible.
    uju32 said:
    emonreach is a spirit prison with an animating intelligence thats able to mug and imprison Titans like Ethniu, and singlehandedly stood off the combined attack of both the Summer and Winter Lady and their entourages, while simultaneously fending off an attempted invasion of hundreds of Outsiders led by a Great Walker. And it did it without having to resort to lethal measures.

    It also canonically has a self-destruct that has been variously described as capable of taking out the Midwest of the United States, and damaging the continental shelf.

    In addition to all this, it gives its chosen Warden a combination of localized intellectus while on the island, top-tier magical fortifications and automated defensive measures, much deeper magic reserves to draw on, and a selection of Incarna-plus tier prisoners(think 2CD and 3CD-tier demons from Ex2) that he can release on parole if absolutely necessary.

    Thats well in excess of anything we have seen of a Solar construct in Exalted 2E.
    Even the Realm Defense Grid isnt quite on that level of Fuck You World as far as Im aware.
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    As always, you are overblowing Dresden Files to ridiculous proportions.

    We saw what dice pools Mab rolls with. A prepared 5 dot servitor with a right panoply would absolutely punk her.
     
    SCO said:
    What's the perfect defense? I'm suddenly wanting some.
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    There are multiple perfect defenses, with different costs and flaws.

    Holden also broke the primacy of defense and split perfects into soak and active by implication with his charm builds, so we need to take that into account when picking ours.

    The tldr is that some charms* can pierce typical perfect defenses perfect defense, but don't address charms that simply ignore damage. Other charms don't stop active defense but do bypass damage blocking effects. One of either type makes us safe from most things, but to close all the loopholes we need 2 perfect defenses that cover each other's flaws and operate on different ends of the defense equation.

    Our specific options are:

    Bloodless Murk Evasion (dodge)
    Ablation of Brass and Fire (soak)
    Who Strikes the Wind (dodge)
    Counter Conceptual Imposition (weird block)
    Bitter Heart Unbleeding (soak)

    * mostly Solar supernal ones
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Rolls for it to see if her mother found them at some point over the years or Rosie still has them... she does
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    DragonParadox said:
    Several, but they only count as one focus since her father is as mundane as a rock.
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    [X] Try to find some other Crown focus
    -[X] Ask Rosie for the letters and use them as the focus of the Crown to find her Biological Father if you can't figure out where he is the mundane way trough the return address.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Old Scars
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    COMMENTARY
    Maeve always tries to fuck with people. Its reflexive with her at this point.
    And because few people dare push back, she's often taken off-balance when people do react badly.

    Oof. Sucky rolls. Good thing we chose to spend some time with her.

    Tallahasee, Florida. That makes Rosie Marcella Cuban-American, Im guessing, instead of the Mexican-American I was assuming previously. And explains why we havent seen her aunt Lizza, or anyone else from her family; they are all gonna be down south.
    As is her father's family.

    Also fills out some of her background further; middle class, possibly upper middle class, is the vibe Im getting here.

    DUI manslaughter. Second-degree felony, minimum 4 years in Florida, potentially up to 15 years. Average sentence is 10 years, and Florida has no parole provisions. Which suggests that her father went to jail when she was between 3 and 9 years of age, if he was due for release when she was 13.

    5 years silence doesnt bode well though. Of course, if he was dead, Im assuming her aunt would have let her know.
    Anyway, Florida has open records "sunshine" laws. You can literally run a check for an inmate online by going to the government website, and you can look up criminal records as well.

    We have cyberdevils and a SUTRA, and money.
    Mundane methods first, before burning foci.
     
    It's extremely simple to look up convicted felons online, even back in 2006. We know his name, his crime, where he lived when it was committed and where he was imprisoned. It should be easy to track him down with all of that information, especially when you take into account the capabilities of our Cyber-Devils, IRIS, etc. Then we can use a Crown question, if we believe it necessary, to learn more important information about him, such as stuff that would perhaps convince us he doesn't need to be in Rosie's life.

    [X] Try to search for him online. Ask Clippy and IRIS to take a crack at it first.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    The returns address it no help since it just tells you what prison he was in.
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    Yes and that tells us where to find the first breadcrumb to track him down with. If nothing else it would give us a different focus than the letters themselves by say using his prison records as a focus instead.
     
    VOTE
    [X] Try to search for him online
    -[X] Start by having Clippy + Cyberdevils + SUTRA run a check on Florida criminal records and follow up from there, expanding to social media, DMV records and so on
    -[X] Only if that fails do we burn a Crown question to find him/his contact information, using this scene as a focus.


    My dude went to jail for DUI manslaughter in an open records state. You can probably spend less than a hundred dollars to pull up most of his govt info by email in five minutes. Looking at drivers license records and prisoner records is fairly straightforward, and Im pretty sure IRIS came loaded with heavy duty hacking tools anyway if that fails.
     
    Yog said:
    Ok, let's see. We start with 10 basic points. We reduce heartstone to 0 since Demonreach doesn't actually provide one. That gives us 15 ponits.
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    1)Demonreach has 0 maintenance requirements.
    2)Self-Destruct in Oadenol's Codex blows up the manse, not a good chunk of a continent like with Demonreach.
    3)Soul-Prison is for ghosts who die in the Manse. Not spirits captured or bound outside it like with Demonreach.
    Soul Prison wont do anything for an elemental, or a god, or a demon, or a raksha. Soul Prison cant hold ghosts whose Essence exceeds the Manse's rating.
    4)Sympathetic Dream-Link gives the condition of the manse, not a realtime tracker of everything in it. And it only works when you're asleep anyway. What you want is Silent Voice, and potentially a custom power to represent Intellectus.
    5)Indestructible is not a perfect defense. The manse's walls are impervious to damage, not the manse cannot be damaged
    6)Nor are you trying to represent any of the effects that Demonreach has used to discourage mortal visits/habitation

    Like I said, you have to go Manse NA in CP points to make a fascimile.

    And all that still isnt within the same league as the "summon Alfred to the shores of Lake Michigan to claim Ethniu" Demonreach. "Stand off a Great Walker and an army of several hundred Outsiders" Demonreach.
    "Gives you greater magic reserves" Demonreach.

    I stand by my point: Demonreach compares favorably to a 5-dot Exalted manse.
    You need Manse NA and original functions to compete.
    Yog said:
    And in ExvsWoD it's actually simpler to make than in canon Exalted. Here is how I would build Demonreach in ExvsWoD:
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    I quote:
    A five-dot Adornment remains manifest for one year. A five-dot Fascination remains manifest
    until some condition defined by the owner at the time of its summoning is met. If that condition
    is the passage of time, the Fascination may endure for up to a century.
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    If you work with Holden's crafting rules, your prison has a time limit before the prison itself vanishes and the inmates go free.

    Never mind all the other restrictions, like this one:
    Splendors are no more durable than their physical form would indicate (a Splendor which takes
    the form a wooden mask is exactly as sturdy as you'd expect a wooden mask to be)    . If destroyed,
    they are banished back to their owner's heart and cannot be re-summoned for the rest of the
    current story
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    Or this one:
    First, decide whether the Splendor is an Adornment or Fascination. Adornments only effect the
    character who has attuned and is wearing them. Fascinations affect everyone who interacts with
    them indiscriminately, save for their owner, who is immune to their harmful effects (but not their
    beneficial effects, if they have any).

    Fascinations always have a vector for their effects: something that people have to do, or fail to
    do, in order for the Splendor's effects to take hold. Decide on this while designing the
    Fascination. Vectors must be interesting and resonant with the form and function of the Splendor,
    and it must be possible to escape from them.     A good example of appropriate vectors would be a
    magical tree whose perfumed scent draws people to sample its fruits, which put those who eat
    them under the control of the Splendor's owner. A vector can generally be avoided or resisted
    with an appropriate roll such as Wits + Alertness to look away in time, or just a straight
    Willpower roll to resist a compulsion, generally against difficulty (4 + Splendor's rating).
    A bad vector is something like "when you breathe" or "when you blink" or "when you fail to
    recite an entire patter song from The Pirates of Penzance." Those examples are all boring, stupid
    variations on someone trying to say "you get fucked with no chance for interaction or
    storytelling." Don't try to figure out a way to do that, it makes your awesome magic item less
    awesome and less interesting.
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    Or this one:
    I'm Repeating This Because It's Really Fucking Important
    When you design Fascinations, you have to build in a way to avoid their effects.
    The Elements don't usually have those cooked in so as not to stifle your creativity,
    but this system can produce things like "A little campfire that conjures a local
    blizzard around it, and convinces people who come to warm themselves at the fire
    to take all their clothes off so they freeze to death." If that effect is cooked all the
    way down to "a cold-based environmental hazard and a compulsion to take your
    clothes off," it's an inescapable death-trap for most characters. People need to be
    able to realize there's something wrong with the fire with a Perception + Awareness
    roll, and it's your job to put that in there because the Dangerous Compulsion
    Element doesn't do it for you. If people turn to stone when they look at your mask,
    they need a roll to look away. If you've just put a Splendor together that can poison
    everyone in an area, please structure it as a tree that sprouts poisoned fruit so that
    people can potentially not eat the fruit, and also so that it's more interesting than
    just a conjured poison cloud.
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    I am fairly vocal about not liking Holden's new crafting system, just as a reminder.
    But you literally cannot build Demonreach in this system, by its rules as stated.
    Its not designed to deal with Rating NA style constructs like that.
     
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