It's not that she did not have non Sight power so much as you have to believe in magic to do it. Since her first expression of power was the Sight and she did not believe that really, she could not to anything else consciously until she wished herself out that window.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
It's not that she did not have non Sight power so much as you have to believe in magic to do it. Since her first expression of power was the Sight and she did not believe that really, she could not to anything else consciously until she wished herself out that window.
VOTE
[X] Yes, they are family and like Mom said there are worse out there, some of which you have spoken to and allied
RATIONALE
There are several reasons in play, both general morality and more practical reasons.
1) Its been twenty years. People change.
And given Charity's age, her parents are going to be getting on in age.
There isnt all that much time left to them on Earth.
And if Molly could repair the relationship between her mother and her mother's parents, its a gift to her mother beyond anything she can buy.
2) Even if they dont change? Havent changed?
Charity herself called them out not as evil, just inadequate.
And thats from the PoV of her teenage self. The PoV of an adult at the time might have been different.
Molly has been hit in the face multiple times with this, most recently with Rosie's mother and father's situation.
All the Whampires in her entourage have killed at least one person, intentionally or not.
The ghouls were cannibals.
Molly has been able to live with that. She can afford to check this.
2) Then there is the entirely selfish part of this entire equation: Bloodline magic and the laws of sympathy.
The entire plot of Changes was an attempt to use Dresden's daughter to kill his grandfather with bloodline magic, and Dresden himself used a similar link to wipe out the Red Court, from the youngest Rampire to the oldest to all his progeny.
Given as we're aggroing supernatural nation-states and heavy hitters with the capacity to research their opponent and to make big moves of this nature? It is kinda mandatory that we take a look at our mother's living family for potential attack vectors.
And our father's for that matter, but I think Michael has no living family.
Especially since apparently the financial circles that her father moves in includes the occasional Rampire.
Ignoring that is how we get a reenactment of Changes.
And while we have a personal shaping defense, no one else in our family does.
[X] Yes, they are family and like Mom said there are worse out there, some of which you have spoken to and allied
RATIONALE
There are several reasons in play, both general morality and more practical reasons.
1) Its been twenty years. People change.
And given Charity's age, her parents are going to be getting on in age.
There isnt all that much time left to them on Earth.
And if Molly could repair the relationship between her mother and her mother's parents, its a gift to her mother beyond anything she can buy.
2) Even if they dont change? Havent changed?
Charity herself called them out not as evil, just inadequate.
And thats from the PoV of her teenage self. The PoV of an adult at the time might have been different.
Molly has been hit in the face multiple times with this, most recently with Rosie's mother and father's situation.
All the Whampires in her entourage have killed at least one person, intentionally or not.
The ghouls were cannibals.
Molly has been able to live with that. She can afford to check this.
2) Then there is the entirely selfish part of this entire equation: Bloodline magic and the laws of sympathy.
The entire plot of Changes was an attempt to use Dresden's daughter to kill his grandfather with bloodline magic, and Dresden himself used a similar link to wipe out the Red Court, from the youngest Rampire to the oldest to all his progeny.
Given as we're aggroing supernatural nation-states and heavy hitters with the capacity to research their opponent and to make big moves of this nature? It is kinda mandatory that we take a look at our mother's living family for potential attack vectors.
And our father's for that matter, but I think Michael has no living family.
Especially since apparently the financial circles that her father moves in includes the occasional Rampire.
Ignoring that is how we get a reenactment of Changes.
And while we have a personal shaping defense, no one else in our family does.
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From what Molly can tell with her 14 successes that is very much from the perspective of adult Charity looking back, at the time she would have been less charitable (pun not intended but inevitable
).
fictionfan
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Actually 16 successes 1s don't subtract. We are looking on her with the eyes of god basically.From what Molly can tell with her 14 successes that is very much from the perspective of adult Charity looking back, at the time she would have been less charitable (pun not intended but inevitable
True, but also not really important, Molly only needed 5 maximum to get all the nuance, it would have been 10 to figure out Charity was holding something back if she had been holding something back, but she had not, she made the willpower roll.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Ugh... Sounds like fear mongering to me. If the RC could just do that with only prep required then they shouldn't even have enemies at this point since shaping defenses are rare.
How would we even counter that? Realisticly speaking Molly must have a lot of people related to her we'd have to start kidnapping relatives to actually deal with that attack vector entirely. Or we could just focus on killing the Red Court off. As we are.
Sort of an aside, but I was thinking some more about Lily's splendor.
Not sure if it's the best idea, but it occurs to me that we have the reagents to make more than the minimum here. Doing that would make it more valuable, potentially getting us a higher return and a better advertisement. It's not like the opportunity to sell to a high roller comes every day after all.
Though I will admit I also just like playing with different designs.
We have to spend 4 points on SP and form of dreams for the mind control stuff, and possession immunity is so good that adding it is a no brainer. That takes us to the end of what can be made directly with a single sacrifice.
It can be improved 1 dot by another reagent of similar value though, the cost per dot doesn't spike until you're buying the 4th dot.
One more reagent gets us an additional 2 points to spend.
There's a lot we could do with that, especially if we leverage SP since we're already paying for it.
Adding an earth element would make her immune to all damage from stone and metal. Which should remove the fey weakeness to iron*. An additional one for air would protect her from wind, cold, and electricity related harm - something a Summer fey would find useful.
Cold immunity is potentially a bit contentious politically speaking though, so we could also plan with mystic elements. Most other things are barely worth the cost.
The most practical would be elongation of the curse. As it stands a 2 dot splendor stays active for a day and a 3 dot for a week. This isn't a huge deal because there isn't a cool down between uses, so the user can just turn it on with a turn of concentration. It is a weakness though, and the longer the active period the fewer opportunities there are to exploit it. EotC would take it up to a month per activation.
Another good option would be to drop both new immunities and pick up Mystic Fortification for the mixed attack roll on SP. That way even if Lily does run into something weird enough to count as both.
Or we could make something a little more entertaining and take EotC and Sovereign Elemental Sway. She should already be able to shape the spirit world, but SES acting on the form of dreams and form of spirit seems like it should synergize well with that authority.
Probably better to just double down and make it even better at protecting her mind, but I do like the idea of adding iron immunity purely for the reactions it'd get out of the fey.
* Additional emotional damage to Titania included free of charge.
Though I will admit I also just like playing with different designs.
We have to spend 4 points on SP and form of dreams for the mind control stuff, and possession immunity is so good that adding it is a no brainer. That takes us to the end of what can be made directly with a single sacrifice.
It can be improved 1 dot by another reagent of similar value though, the cost per dot doesn't spike until you're buying the 4th dot.
One more reagent gets us an additional 2 points to spend.
There's a lot we could do with that, especially if we leverage SP since we're already paying for it.
Adding an earth element would make her immune to all damage from stone and metal. Which should remove the fey weakeness to iron*. An additional one for air would protect her from wind, cold, and electricity related harm - something a Summer fey would find useful.
Cold immunity is potentially a bit contentious politically speaking though, so we could also plan with mystic elements. Most other things are barely worth the cost.
The most practical would be elongation of the curse. As it stands a 2 dot splendor stays active for a day and a 3 dot for a week. This isn't a huge deal because there isn't a cool down between uses, so the user can just turn it on with a turn of concentration. It is a weakness though, and the longer the active period the fewer opportunities there are to exploit it. EotC would take it up to a month per activation.
Another good option would be to drop both new immunities and pick up Mystic Fortification for the mixed attack roll on SP. That way even if Lily does run into something weird enough to count as both.
Or we could make something a little more entertaining and take EotC and Sovereign Elemental Sway. She should already be able to shape the spirit world, but SES acting on the form of dreams and form of spirit seems like it should synergize well with that authority.
Probably better to just double down and make it even better at protecting her mind, but I do like the idea of adding iron immunity purely for the reactions it'd get out of the fey.
* Additional emotional damage to Titania included free of charge.
If that worked I suspect more people would try it. Sending bloodline rituals after the family of a knight is the sort of thing that would get you on Uriel's List.
From the perspective of adult Charity then.From what Molly can tell with her 14 successes that is very much from the perspective of adult Charity looking back, at the time she would have been less charitable (pun not intended but inevitable
Not the perspective of either of the adults in this situation. I am reading the update again, and seeing how easy it is to misread an frustration and helplessness as anger at the situation.
I've got personal knowledge of families with children that have seeming mental health issues.
Its not fun. For anyone involved.
This isnt a family that didnt care.
Whatever else, they were invested in her to keep pursuing further medical care options for what was a seemingly mysterious issue. Its not like they couldnt have exiled her off to a care home or even a house in the country; in the early 1980s when Charity would have been in her teens, a wealthy family had options for that sort of thing.
To extend the point in my previous post; the knights are definitely annoying and poweful
enough to draw this level of fire from multiple angles. The fact that nobody even tries implies some heavy stuff.
I see two possiblities; either people who do this get Mysterious Way'd off of the mortal coil, or Uriel makes the sort of examples that burn their way into institutional memory whenever someone's dumb enough to try it.
Unless they find a way to only target Molly, since she's given up that protection by being active in the community, they're going to run into that problem.
If they do work that out, then the best defense is that it won't work. They'll stop trying once it becomes obvious that shaping magic isn't effective. They don't know about our defenses, but nothing like this has even come close to sticking yet because of good rolls. As long as we keep deflecting poweful attempts to curse Molly and people are aware of it the odds of an attempt go down.
1)You evidently havent read the books.
Sympathy is a strong magical principle in this setting, as are blood relationships.
After the fetches kidnapped Molly in June, Dresden found Molly by using Charity as the focus.
And that was the entire plot of Changes.
Thats why Dresden's daughter was kidnapped, and it was also how the Red Court was destroyed when Dresden used the prepared ritual to kill the youngest Red Court vampire at the time.
2)You dont counter it.
You disrupt attempts to use people to work the ritual, but that requires that you know the potential victims that could be used.
McCoy didnt know that Maggie was a thing when the Red Court were trying to use her to kill him.
Actually countering something like that is probably outside Molly's current capabilities.
Maybe if we get Ancient Sorcery's Counterspell, but while it would counter any such ritual coming at Molly, I dont think it would counter stuff she wasnt present for.
fictionfan
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I doubt it is just prep time. More like a mega project done by an international level organization. I don't know how many other things the Red Court didn't do in order to prepare that ritual, but I assume that there were substantial opportunity costs. In fact that might be a big reason that the Red Court tried to feign peace talks to buy time. Also why Harry Starting the war early was a problem. I bet that they much would have rathered that killing McCoy with a bloodline curse was the opening move of the war.
Which shows that killing McCoy was a high priority mission. The black staff seems to be a huge concentration of white council military power.
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It's obviously something only done at great expense. But Molly is the sole celestial exalt of the setting. And is actively fighting in the war. Getting her (and also Michael) is worth at least as much as getting Blackstaff. It removes her, and it removes Brass Courts.
Form of stone and Mystic Fortification. That thing becomes the must have for fae nobility.
On Charity - who says that she remained the only child? Further - who can guarantee that any of her potential siblings didn't also get the gift?
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The Knights families(well, Michael's family, since we havent seen any for Shiro or Sanya) arent usually targeted by magical means. They arent involved, and the potential for Heavenly retribution generally makes villains mind their p's and q's when considering moves.
That doesnt actually render them immune from the potential of collateral damage
In this case?
Any attack would be aimed at Molly, and everyone else, both her immediate family and any extended family, would be "unfortunate" collateral damage.
Like when they sent the fetches after Molly in June to commit a home invasion.
Or before then, when Nicodemus attempted to murder the entire city of Chicago with plague magic in Death Masks.
Or when Cowl tried to sacrifice Chicago for an ascension ritual.
Neither attracted particular intervention for the Carpenters, because it wasnt aimed at them personally.
So it seems at least.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
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And you will notice that all those plots failed. Now did they fail with the help of mysterious ways or not is something that can never be certain. But I would not discount the possibly.
Further more no one else is certain either. Which goes a long way towards discouraging attempts.
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- Location
- Germany
A curse can't touch us, so the only remaining target's would be a Knight's family.
It's not our duty to protect those, someone is already on the job.
It's not our duty to protect those, someone is already on the job.
I'm not so sure about that.
Sympathy magic can be blocked and weakened by thresholds and wards. We see Harry hide from entropy curses and the like targeted the same way.
The ritual in changes was so ridiculously powerful precisely because they wanted to kill McCoy through his wards and lesser spells, like the one Helen and her husband were using to explode hearts, would have pinged off the side.
Heaven isn't an insurance company, and Uriel is rules lawyering as hard as he can on behalf of the knights.
Those Fetches didn't get smote, but Harry was basically an Uriel plot in that case. None of them had a good time from the point they messed with the Carpenters onward.
Those other AoE plots also didn't get to the point of actually hitting the Carpenters. I would be surprised if the result wasn't the family miraculously surviving.
The idea that Heaven would just go "Sorry, acts of incidental malice aren't covered in the company health plan" is ridiculous.
Depends.
The bloodline ritual in Changes required a major ritual, because they wanted to wipe out the bloodline entirely, and because Ebenezar McCoy, the primary target, lived behind the ward arrays and millenia old protections of Edinburgh.To get through that, they needed hundreds of human sacrifices to prime a major ritual powered by multiple leylines at Chitchen Itza.
However, the same basic ritual was used for a string of murders in Storm Front without a requirement for all that.
So it can scale up and down.
Killing someone behind the Carpenter threshold is either easier or impossible than killing someone living at Edinburgh.
Easier to get through the threshold, impossible to get through any angelic wards.
Assuming every potential victim is behind the wards when the ritual is used.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
On another topic. Splenders are supposed to be one off creations right? So if we make an anti Nemesis one for Lily do we become unable to make another?
Because if we make one for Lily you can bet that Mavae is going to ask if she hears about it.
Then again we could make minor differences. Mavae doesn't seem to worry about the influence of her mantel at least anymore.
It is likely much like launching a missile you need to know where the target is going to be.
Because if we make one for Lily you can bet that Mavae is going to ask if she hears about it.
Then again we could make minor differences. Mavae doesn't seem to worry about the influence of her mantel at least anymore.
Ebenezar hardly stays inside all the time. He is an active guy. If it worked like that the red Court would have just done the ritual well he was out and about.
It is likely much like launching a missile you need to know where the target is going to be.
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BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Wrong, and even if I hadn't I do read post in thread and it's been brought up multiple times before now. I think we talked about Changes when discusing if we should buy the shaping defense or the crafting charm way back aswell. I don't need to be informed.
Edit: After rereading my post I can see how you would assume that though.
This doesn't provide a good answer either. The best counter for this sort of thing should still be to attack the Red Court and disrupt major undertakings. So really just making them a higher priority seems the best course of action here.
How is researching and contacting relatives distant and otherwise going to help with this? And again if it were so easy how does the Red Court still have so many enemies at this point? It cannot possibly be so easy or the setting would look different.
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No, that's Arcana, splendors and prodigies don't have that restriction.
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That seems like a good mix to me. I think we have at least 2 vamp bodies to work with from the raid on Ortega's plane. We might also be able to use that Fomorian wizard's shell for one of the reagents instead.
Really the iron thing is probably necessary for Lily to properly engage with mortal stuff anyway. There's too much iron around for her to be comfortable hanging around in mortal spaces. It frees her from needing to track something that separates her from humanity all the time.
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[X] Yes, they are family and like Mom said there are worse out there, some of which you have spoken to and allied
[X] BronzeTongue
[X] BronzeTongue
Yeah, this is shaping to be "can live as a mortal" splendor that would be very, very liked by the fae, especially those that have only recently became fae. Like, old man Matthews is probably going to bring us some necromancers to make him one at least. And probably a lot of others too.
@DragonParadox what grade of splendor could Lily's tears power?
Fairly sure "you can only make one of X, and everything must be unique" was waived, because it was stupid.
Which is going to be fun beyond just playing with crafting and profiting from it. We can play politics too.
Getting too complicated from the start would be bad, but there's plenty of simple stuff to do that would be fairly effective.
Just selecting commissions based on which fey meet our standards and giving discounts if they harvest reagents from groups we don't like would do a lot to move the courts in a useful direction.
It was, but only applied to Arcana and gadgets in the first place.
I was just skimming the rules and I don't see anything about it for prodigies or splendors.