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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Goldfish said:
[X] Graciously thank Titania

I wonder what they could accomplish working together if we cashed in a Summer and Winter favor and asked Titania and Mab to collaborate on a project?
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They would do it. They wouldn't like it but they don't have to be happy to fulfill an obligation.


[X] Graciously thank Titania
 
DragonParadox said:
I'm not sure where you got that, but it would be really odd seeing as even in canon Mab knew the original Merlin. In any case in this quest as presented by Bob they have both been queens for 1500 years to match up with the Arthurian numbers.
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Knew the original Merlin BEFORE she became Queen.
Thats why King Corb of the Fomorians said this, at the dinner where Ethniu first showed up:
Peace Talks said:
The room grew colder yet. Anxious, quickened breaths began to plume in front of tension-tightened faces.
"Old woman," Corb taunted. "I remember you as a bawling brat. I remember your pimply face when you rode with the Conqueror. I remember how you wept when Merlin cast you out."

Mab's face… twisted into naked, ugly, absolute rage. Her body became so rigid, so immobile, that it could not possibly have belonged to a living thing. "Tell me," Corb purred. "If he was yet among the living, do you think he would still love you? Would he be so proud of what you've become?"

Mab did not descend from her high seat so much as reality itself seemed to take a polite step to one side. One moment she was there; the next there was a trail of falling snow and frost-blanketed floor in a laser-straight line, and Mab stood within arm's length of Corb. "Your maggot lips aren't worthy to speak his name," she hissed.

"There you are," Corb said, his tone approving. "I knew you had to be inside all of that ice somewhere. Gather all the power you wish, old woman. You know who you are, and so do I. You are no one."
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Battle Ground c28 said:
"Stay behind me," Mab murmured as the unicorn's deadly presence brushed between Butters and me and took position between us and Ethniu. "Be ready."

I knew precisely how scary Mab was.

I gotta say, it felt pretty awesome to watch that creepy unicorn plant its feet as if it intended to hold its ground before an onrushing train, bracing between that threat and us. Mab lifted her chin, faced Ethniu, and raised her slim pale hand.

Her voice snapped out over the ground, sharp and threatening, like sudden crackling sounds from the face of a glacier. "Hold, crone. You will come no farther."

Ethniu faced that statement in silence and stillness for a moment.

Then she simply smiled and strode a step closer.

The two monsters faced each other for an endless beat, before Ethniu's voice throbbed through the air, vibrating painfully through my bones, making my teeth buzz unpleasantly.

"You began a mewling mortal," Ethniu replied. Her voice was as loud inside my head as outside, infused with sheer undeniable power. When that voice spoke, reality itself would bow to suit it. "You will end the same way. Powerful as you are, you come of a younger world. A weaker world."

"A world that left you behind," Mab said, mockery ringing in defiance of the power before her.

Ethniu took a further step forward, the Eye glaring brighter, now cowling her head in scarlet light. "Treacherous little witch. The one who would not bow to my father. You will bow to me or face the Eye."

Mab pulled a play from my book.

She threw back her head and laughed.

It was a silvery sound, one that somehow shattered the stillness and closeness of the night. Scorn rang in that laughter, and genuine amusement—the cold, alien amusement of a spider. The laughter made the Fomor troops suddenly clutch at their heads. Their lines wavered as the heavily armored troops dropped their weapons and tried to wrap their long arms around their helmeted skulls.

"You do not know me very well," Mab said, that ear-shredding laughter still lurking in her voice, "do you?"

Ethniu rolled another threatening pace forward. "Your pathetic alliance has abandoned you or waits for death. Your bodyguard is reduced to a pair of beasts. And the mortals will arrive only in time to mourn their dead."

Butters gasped at the force in that voice and staggered a step to one side. Blood had begun to trickle from one of his nostrils. I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him a little more into the shelter of Mab and the unicorn's shadow.

"Harry," he whispered raggedly. "What the hell are we doing standing here? We should not be here."

I felt exactly the same way. These were powers older than the modern world of Chicago, beings that had seen years pass beyond the imagining of mere mortals, borne witness to events of myth and legend with their own eyes. To them, this night had simply been a skirmish, not a major metropolitan-scale apocalypse. Tens of thousands of people had died already this evening. Hundreds of thousands more might follow.

And my daughter was somewhere behind me.

The fear and rage I'd been keeping safely bottled all evening, all centered around that one little figure, probably sleeping in the safe room at Michael's house, flickered with the most infinitesimal of sparks. That spark found ample fuel and began to burn like a tiny star inside me.

Maggie.

This bitch was not going to hurt my little girl.

And with that flicker of knowledge, the kindling of will inside me, the knife at my hip throbbed with a slow, steady, quiet pulse.

It had a heartbeat.

"Steady," I growled. "We're right where we're supposed to be."

Ethniu began striding forward, her giant form taking steps that would have made mine look like a toddler's. "Yield!" she bellowed, and the force of it sent the skirt of Mab's battle-mail dress flying backwards along with the unicorn's unreasonably silken mane and tail, and Mab's bloody starlit hair. "Bow!"

The force of will that condensed on Mab in that word was so dense that I thought it was going to break something. Like maybe the universe. It was a sphere of pure psychic pressure so intense that I knew that if it had been directed at me, it would have compressed my mind into something too dense and inert to function, like a tiny diamond formed from crushed coal.

I'm what you might call oppositionally defiant to authoritarian figures. Someone who doesn't always do as he's told. Maybe even a little bit of a troublemaker.

That will would have crushed mine, flat.

Period.

It wasn't a question of weakness or strength. This was simply power orders of magnitude beyond my ability to contest. The force of that will wasn't even directed at me, and it was everything I could do not to fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness in the face of that terrible rage.

Butters had an excellently ordered mind, but he hadn't had the training I had in mental defenses. He let out a sob of utter despair and would have fallen if I hadn't had his shoulder. I dropped to a knee with him, steadying him as he swayed, his entire body trembling violently.

Except for one hand. It stayed steady on the Sword.

I do not know what power she had won, what knowledge she had gained, what experience she had suffered, or what sacrifices she had made that enabled Mab to defy the absolute force of the Titan's will.

But though her shoulders bowed as if under enormous weight, though the Winter unicorn staggered beneath her, Mab was Mab. She steadied the beast, and her expression locked into a cold, steady mask. She drew in a breath, barely visible as a blur in the air compressed by the Titan's will, and said, simply, "No."

The word rang out in pure silvery truth, her breath condensed into a Wintry plume.

Ethniu's will recoiled, shattering like a sphere of immaterial glass.

The Titan roared her fury.

And with a shriek of power meant to unmake the world, Ethniu turned the Eye upon Mab.
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That more or less states that Mab is of mortal origins, dated Merlin, and was alive when Balor died.
Make of it what you will.

DragonParadox said:
  1. Yes
  2. None, they were just shards and Nemesis was doing its best not to put too much of itself into doomed links, the only reason it did not just pull its tendrils out entirely is that it is psychologically incapable of doing that as it is an act that goes against both its intimacies.
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Thanks.
So we can hopefully use one scene to peg every current Nemesis Nfested person inside the Outer Gates.
Ive been looking for an excuse to stumble across Justine.
 
DragonParadox said:
[] Ask that for one of her favors she forgive Harry for his his part in Aurora's death
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Bad plan.

Her grudge is an emotional thing, not the sort of point she can actually justify under her rules, asking for her to forgive as a favor puts her mantle against her mind.

[X] Graciously thank Titania
TheGrape said:
the supernatural in a way that sparks panic and fear. Heck, all it has to do is reveal the truth that many South American nations are being influenced by literal blood-sucking monsters, and we're looking at civil war and internal unrest within those countries with international clamor abroad and a negative global view of the supernatural.
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Civil war? You're thinking too small.

Take some people in the media and political circles among the world powers if it doesn't have them already. Pierce the masquerade, but only partially. Reveal the reds but work to make it easy for as many other factions to hide as possible.

Do it that way and you split the community between those who are out and those still hidden while stoking hate/fear across regional lines in the mortal world. It's a problem over there that could come over here.

That's how you stir up a world war. Then once the fighting is fully underway and people have made their hatred personal through loss smash the rest.

Suddenly it's a thousand times scarier and harder to understand and it lives in your house. The recoil would catastrophic.

If I was them I'd actually do it with the Wizards as part of the narrative too.

Don't make them monstrous, but inflame the war and play up how they knew but didn't share with everyone else, paint them as hoarding humanity's best answer to the vampires and then being incompetent about using it. Done right you could pressure mortal nations into trying to work with the council while simultaneously undermining them, maybe even treating the laws of magic as a bullshit control mechanisms so they start massive warlock training programs.

The goal of all of this being to sow as much bitterness and death among humanity while expending their material resources before shattering their focus.

… we need to speak to the library.
 
Artemis1992 said:
One of the rules I'm annoyed at is for example, that the Mantle goes to a descendant and it looks like it doesn't allow Archives to just give it to a volunteer.

But even if it were only the most minimal and light rules possible, I'd want to break them on principle.
The creator of the mantle simply has no right to tell any human living today shit.

Same for the Fey Mantles and so on.

No gods, no masters
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It has to be of the same bloodline, but as long as they have heirs they can pass it off to whichever one they want.

It's not ideal but you're asking for a lot out of old school blood magic.

And to be blunt, if they hadn't then at some point between then and now a madwomen with magical lore to match god would have tried her hand at building an empire. I don't like it, but the consequences of not doing it are kind of significant.

Tell me, suppose you're one of the seven wizards that made the Archive. What do you do to ensure the Archive is around, won't be abused, and above all else always ensures its true job is done?

Bearing in mind that they evidently had to tie it to a bloodline to make it work, already gave the holder the ability to pass it off to a valid target, and that the bearers are in charge of the rule update mechanism to at least some extent.

Artemis1992 said:
I believe that the Oblivion War as a concept exists only because there aren't enough ways to permakill things around.
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Not exactly. Again, some of these guys never show up, they reach in. The old gods just hanging around aren't the top of the food chain, and there are plenty more where those came from.


Artemis1992 said:
That whole thing becomes completly obsolete when the Old Ones have to play by the rules that a defeat can lead to them getting killed for good.
There's simply no need for an Archive anymore, at least not with its current tasks.

In fact it should be possible to go through the list of ancient evils and put down any that are still chained or sleeping for good as a little side-activity for Exalted or Circles of them.
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Show me your dedicated and unified exalted deliberative and I'll show you a change to the situation that matters.

If nothing else the transition period would need her more than any other period in history when the chaos of the new exalts makes the world vulnerable to renewed subversion.

Edit: errors
 
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BronzeTongue said:
And to be blunt, if they hadn't then at some point between then and now a madwomen with magical lore to match god would have tried her hand at building an empire. I don't like it, but the consequences of not doing it are kind of significant.

Tell me, suppose you're one of the seven wizards that made the Archive. What do you do to ensure the Archive is around, won't be abused, and above all else always ensures its true job is done?

Bearing in mind that they evidently had to tie it to a bloodline to make it work, already gave the holder the ability to pass it off to a valid target, and that the bearers are in charge of the rule update mechanism to at least some extent.
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Oh, I don't think they were wrong.
But their time is over and the next Archive can now choose her own path.
BronzeTongue said:
Show me your dedicate and unified exalted deliberative and all show you a change to the situation that matters.

If nothing else the transition period would need her more than any other period in history when the chaos of the new exalts makes the world vulnerable to renewed subversion.
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The chaos of Exalted fighting each other will be bad for mankind, no doubt.

But if enough are around there will always be some going after ancient monsters and some more being willing to work together as long as it takes if something actually threatens the world.

A planet with Exalted on it is not worth attacking, unless it is literally the only planet that matters like Creation was, maybe.
 
Artemis1992 said:
The chaos of Exalted fighting each other will be bad for mankind, no doubt.

But if enough are around there will always be some going after ancient monsters and some more being willing to work together as long as it takes if something actually threatens the world.

A planet with Exalted on it is not worth attacking, unless it is literally the only planet that matters like Creation was, maybe.
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If one side runs an organized, subtle, effort and the other is a chaotic mess that's only paying attention when something prods part of it and the former will run circles around the latter.

The earth appears to be the closest planet to the outside or something, because all the people who matter to the defense of reality have a history there despite all the hypothetical aliens.
 
Right so this does mean that the Archive should push back against Nemesis because he has thoughts of breaking the masquerade now and probably spreading Outsider knowledge too.

We should probably let the Archive know what we just learned.
 
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BronzeTongue said:
If one side runs an organized, subtle, effort and the other is a chaotic mess that's only paying attention when something prods part of it and the former will run circles around the latter.

The earth appears to be the closest planet to the outside or something, because all the people who matter to the defense of reality have a history there despite all the hypothetical aliens.
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I think we'll have to disagree on that.
Random groups of Exalted will always be enough to save the setting, just like random bands of adventurers and such in other RPGs, or a snarky Wizard that happens to be in all the right and wrong places here.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I think we'll have to disagree on that.
Random groups of Exalted will always be enough to save the setting, just like random bands of adventurers and such in other RPGs, or a snarky Wizard that happens to be in all the right and wrong places here.
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OOC or IC? Cause from the perspective of it being a product line maybe, since they'd lose the setting otherwise, but in ExWoD Creation the exalted ultimately failed. The world died, fragmented, then had to be remade over and over again by other parties.

Relying on the literal power of plot to save you is the worst sort of meta gaming, plainly failed in setting, and even in the case where it works doesn't protect against really awful side effects short of total failure.

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[X] Ask that for one of her favors she forgive Harry for his his part in Aurora's death

Can't think of a better use for the favor.
 
[X] Graciously thank Titania

Can you imagine if Molly did as Lydia suggested and used a favor from each Court as a failsafe? Not only would trying to kill Molly necessitate going against someone who's literally never lost a fight and killed every immortal that's tried, if somehow you succeed now you've got Summer and Winter on your ass.

Of course, given her current power trajectory eventually it'll be at the point where someone who could gank Molly would by nature not care about Summer and Winter's combined enmity, given the sheer amount of power that would take.
 
TheGrape said:
Of course, given her current power trajectory eventually it'll be at the point where someone who could gank Molly would by nature not care about Summer and Winter's combined enmity, given the sheer amount of power that would take.
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Eh, Molly is something of a puzzle boss. If you can figure out all her tricks and have enough disposable minions you can take her down. Which is going to be important considering that we are now number 1 on Nemesis shit list. I am actually considering using a favor to get some body guards.
 
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Goldfish said:
[X] Graciously thank Titania

I wonder what they could accomplish working together if we cashed in a Summer and Winter favor and asked Titania and Mab to collaborate on a project?
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Consider the scale of the task we already know Winter and Summer collaborate on - Holding the Outer Gates.

Summer and Winter working together can stalemate Outside. That's the rough power level we are talking about
 
fictionfan said:
[X] Ask that for one of her favors she forgive Harry for his his part in Aurora's death

Can't think of a better use for the favor.
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Something that won't drive her nuts?

She doesn't have official standing to be pissed, which is why Titania didn't kill him on the spot after Aurora. Spending a favor like that on asking a fey of passion to not feel something is basically asking her mantle to stab her in the brain periodically forever.
 
the DragonBard said:
Actually, only Winter holds the Outer Gates.
Summer exists to keep Winter under control.
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Mostly yeah, but summer does send medics to the gates.
fictionfan said:
Eh, Molly is something of a puzzle boss. If you can figure out all her tricks and have enough disposable minions you can take her down. Which is going to be important considering that we are now number 1 on Nemesis shit list. I am actually considering using a favor to get some body guards.
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Its hate is nearly a reward all on its own. Which is why we should adopt an active defense approach.

We don't need bodyguards if we screw with nemesis so much it has no time to deal with us. :V
 
We might need to use a crown question soon to look for Nemesis infiltration in our own organizations. It just lost a bunch of pawns at the same time as if got a hate on for Molly and we know mult-tasking is one of it's main limitations. So where do you think it is going to turn it's now spare capacity?

Although maybe it doesn't it is possible that the harm of MIM was to reduce it's mult-tasking.
 
fictionfan said:
We might need to use a crown question soon to look for Nemesis infiltration in our own organizations. It just lost a bunch of pawns at the same time as if got a hate on for Molly and we know mult-tasking is one of it's main limitations. So where do you think it is going to turn it's now spare capacity?

Although maybe it doesn't it is possible that the harm of MIM was to reduce it's mult-tasking.
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We should check, but not as a dedicated question. Ask for every servant the outside has inside the outer gates and match it against the a staff list instead.
 
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