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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Zoolimar said:
That seems to be tied to the fact that knightly orders, heroes, scions, bogatyrs and so on are either incredibly rare or do not exist at all. Most cultures had either "hobby" groups or whole organisations of people whose job it was to deal with supernatural threats. Up to beating them into the ground when needed but sometimes simply working as a go between to make both sides come to an agreement. Some of those people were incredibly powerful and could pass down their powers through different means.

All those people simply do not exist in Dresden Files. And seemingly never existed.
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In fairness I wouldn't say non existent but yeah like I'd say their more minor groups throughout the world than big powers like the fae courts would be considered. It should probably also be considered benevolent supernatural creatures exist and are seen less cause Dresden is built for the purpose of suffering.
 
firefrog600 said:
My point is that even the God doesn't act as far as we see their nothing more than a background character we've seen like less than 5 gods throughout the whole story. I don't need to call it consistent I'm saying as far as Dresdens story goes 99% of the time their irrelevant figures out in some distant horizon we'll never see. You can say its preference from Butcher and its likely even true to some degree but if its preference he's given more writing about werewolves than he has for angels, their powers, their backstories, their rules and shit throughout the books.

Edit: Also as far as necessary goes yeah nah I never said that Butcher has a story he wants to tell but your acting like he's whitewashing the world or something. He's basically telling the epic of a western heroes story plenty of background figures exist which will never be shown who none the less are important to the world.
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But he absolutely does though. Maybe not through personal smiting people, but the knights are active across the entire globe for even minor things and not once does an equivalent ever show up or even get a mention anywhere else.

Butcher has a story he wanted to tell yes, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. A throw away line that is given no substance doesn't have the same significance to the setting as the remainder of the plot.

In order to make this work you need to invent more and more rules that exist purely to justify limiting everyone else.
 
DragonParadox said:
Magic and the Mundane Part II​

As you guys have been getting more into the details of how people would interact with magic on an institutional level questions have popped up, everything from meteorology not being as reliable as it should be to mass casualty events when some power slips up, or just does not care about holding up the veil. Well the answer to that is that this is not actually our world if faeries were suddenly real, this is a world in which faeries have always been real and yet most people do not want to look at the truth in the face, because the truth is terrifying. This is to some extent the world in which a lot of conspiracy theorists think they live. People in government and in academia, doctors and scientists etc... really are hiding the truth, but so are the people at the local Denny's when a vampire throws someone through a wall. It takes more proof to get someone to believe, to admit to the truth and people rationalize a lot more than they do in our world. The average person in Molly's world has seen something they can't explain, which means that so has the average government employee and the average politician.

Most will be content to let sleeping dogs like and only some, only rarely will pick up a file and thing 'I should look into this' or conversely 'I can use this'. So what follows logically from this? The world is less democratic and less populist, those things are not the same, but they are related when it comes to keeping the secrets of the Masquerade. Does that mean that every conspiracy is true? Was Kenedy assassinated because he was about the spill the beans about wizards? Not necessarily. Most of the people who would be a serious threat to the conspiracy of silence here are killed long before they are one televised address, one radio interview from blowing the whole thing wide open because the monsters and the magicians have ways of finding out for which there are no mundane counters and most of the times they do not even kill the Waldo Butters of the world, they discredit them, they push them towards a life of conspiratorial gloom.

Are you a meteorologist who spotted one too many things and have this theory about how some outside force is affecting the weather and messing with models? Well you are about to get a slick partner with silver eyes who will either discredit you or convince you to write about how it's aliens. Are you a reporter who happened to find some communiques that claims werewolves are real and the British government did some unethical tests on them in WWII? Congratulations on your new life touring trashy daytime talk shows. It's not because the talk-show hosts are all in on it either, this is just how their particular ecosystem developed. The Midwestern Arcane, Susan's old paper is not special, it is part of a whole protective layer that keeps the masquerade in place. The people in that layer often knows there is something deeper down without knowing what, the editors, the CEOs etc... just know that if you dig into the wrong thing you might end up like Tommy, the cops found him in sixteen pieces with no blood on the floor.

This is not our world, but with wizards, this is our world with multiple interlocking conspiracies over a spiritual and arcane reality that most of people do not want to face.

OOC: So there have been a lot of posts about this recently and rather than reply to them independently I thought it might be worth addressing in an informational post
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OK. So this is correct for Dresden Files, because that is how Butcher wrote it, but in real life if you want to slot Fantasy into the Urban/Modern setting and keep the setting functioning as our world and not as a weird facsimile of it there is a simple rule of thumb:

Understand that people don't care. Oh if it is something exciting and/or relevant to their interests in some way you can get their attention, but otherwise by and large they don't care.

A vampire isn't eating a beautiful nubile every night/week/month, they're grabbing the local wastrel and having a drink most of the time. Not the homeless, they organize in mutual support networks for the most part when not outright supported by parts of society with tattered safety nets, but wastrels.

A lot less people ask where did that scheming asshole who kept trying to get ahead by trying to trick people to send him money or just outright stole it while he wasted his money on intoxicants and entertainment went then they ask where did the local beggar who shows up at various shops asking for change for a meal did.

The former has built in answers of ran away from cops/gangs/pregnancy/ect. or is dead in a ditch/the local organized crime body disposal somewhere while the latter is still noticed to be missing and missed by at least some people.

Werewolves/Lycanthropes/Therianthropes are either cherished parts of a community that help defend it or crime bosses with built in body disposal. And sometimes serial killers.

Mages are weirdo shut-ins with their own little insular world that doesn't matter to 99% of humanity at any point in time.

Sorcerers are just blue bloods that fade into the background of other weird blue blood occult shit that goes on in real life.

Warlocks are just another part of the soulless Right Wing political machine.

Wizards are more blue collar and are just a part of the background noise of the various new age woo with some being exceptions that work with more principled and standardized fare.

Necromancers all have medical jobs. Also are some part of this:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn7egDQ9lPg

The Fae are lawyers. Duh. How would most people even notice the difference between natural and supernatural there?

Dragons are corpos or politicians.

It's that simple: People imagine the exciting and the fantastical and in truth if fantasy/magic/mysticism does exist it is plain and mundane for the most part.
 
BronzeTongue said:
But he absolutely does though. Maybe not through personal smiting people, but the knights are active across the entire globe for even minor things and not once does an equivalent ever show up or even get a mention anywhere else.

Butcher has a story he wanted to tell yes, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. A throw away line that is given no substance doesn't have the same significance to the setting as the remainder of the plot.

In order to make this work you need to invent more and more rules that exist purely to justify limiting everyone else.
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But, again their background characters at most and you say no substance but there are in story examples that point to it. Like talks about mantles, Uriel telling Harry to value the importance of names, references to masks, talks about the multiverse from very early in the series, the naagloshi having some kind of angelic connections. Like half the point is being vague since dresden files is often a mystery series and has and probably will continue to have a wide variety of mysteries. Your acting like having characters that are several separations from God himself as if thats talking with God themselves. Their a background character God might never appear in an actual scene. There are more scenes and detailed information about werewolves and various vampires then there are about God.
 
Did dresden even know about the denarians until they came to Chicago? Cause they've been around for at least longer than Mab and done countless things across civilization. But, he'd heard almost jack shit about them before meeting and learning about them right? I'm fairly sure the same applies to a whole bunch of stuff that exists in the setting.
 
Dmol8 said:
OK. So this is correct for Dresden Files, because that is how Butcher wrote it, but in real life if you want to slot Fantasy into the Urban/Modern setting and keep the setting functioning as our world and not as a weird facsimile of it there is a simple rule of thumb:
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This is a cool idea but not something I can make work in this story. Making say all the fey lawyers would be far more of a departure from canon than than any I have made so far and would start to unravel the setting. This feels more like a technologically grounded Shadowrun.
 
DragonParadox said:
This is a cool idea but not something I can make work in this story. Making say all the fey lawyers would be far more of a departure from canon than than any I have made so far and would start to unravel the setting. This feels more like a technologically grounded Shadowrun.
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I mean not even mentioning there are like two Big D Dragons in the world. I'm not sure we've seen any lesser dragons at all do we even know how sapient they are?
 
[X] Reveal the plot, the way Nemesis killed her parents to make her a pawn in its plots
-[X] Use Naked Wicked Souls on her to tailor the approach
 
firefrog600 said:
But, again their background characters at most and you say no substance but there are in story examples that point to it. Like talks about mantles, Uriel telling Harry to value the importance of names, references to masks, talks about the multiverse from very early in the series, the naagloshi having some kind of angelic connections. Like half the point is being vague since dresden files is often a mystery series and has and probably will continue to have a wide variety of mysteries. Your acting like having characters that are several separations from God himself as if thats talking with God themselves. Their a background character God might never appear in an actual scene. There are more scenes and detailed information about werewolves and various vampires then there are about God.
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You're completely ignoring my point.

They are passive background characters except that the white god gets to have loopholes for his servants to be very very active. That he doesn't personally act doesn't change this fact.

No other mask or player in his alleged weight class has those, which is visible in how they don't show up that global disaster that other global groups showed up for.

I'm not saying they had to personally show up, but something equivalent or an explanation of some kind is necessary to maintain the premise.

If one of Vishnu's unknowing avatars/blessed demons showed up, Buddha sent Sun Wukong, and so on, it would functionally fill the same role.

You're acting like the clear disparity doesn't matter because of one sentence from the second or third book.

The mask stuff in general does matter and come up frequently, but this application of it is a glaring exception that it never handled.
 
Why not use everything we can? We must have a full tank when we face Kat.

[X] Reveal the plot, the way Nemesis killed her parents to make her a pawn in its plots
-[X] Use Naked Wicked Souls on her to tailor the approach and excellences as necessary.
 
BronzeTongue said:
You're completely ignoring my point.

They are passive background characters except that the white god gets to have loopholes for his servants to be very very active. That he doesn't personally act doesn't change this fact.

No other mask or player in his alleged weight class has those, which is visible in how they don't show up that global disaster that other global groups showed up for.

I'm not saying they had to personally show up, but something equivalent or an explanation of some kind is necessary to maintain the premise.

If one of Vishnu's unknowing avatars/blessed demons showed up, Buddha sent Sun Wukong, and so on, it would functionally fill the same role.

You're acting like the clear disparity doesn't matter because of one sentence from the second or third book.

The mask stuff in general does matter and come up frequently, but this application of it is a glaring exception that it never handled.
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Okay first off there are entire books without any angels at all several even. Second they are not very active angels barely talk at all their very very active as you've said is basically just appearing at all to for a couple dozen pages a book every few books. For the appearance of others if as I've said they themselves have barely appeared why in the hell would the others also appear? If your counting the knights as servants I mean I guess but I mean their not all powerful or anything they have some level of remit for certain situations. I'm not sure even the knights have been to many places outside of America and Europe. Well the current knights the middle east and I think I remember a case or two in South America. Its not like their saving the world in every mission though. Dresden himself I'm unsure has even been in Asia before hes barely even in Europe.

Asides the topic was the presence of said Gods and then you moved the topic to their servants who are mortal might I add. Of course their more fucking available they can actually be in the world and do stuff. God himself even if they appear in the series eventually I doubt they'll appear on Earth. Your listing gods not appearing well yeah basically no gods have appeared in the whole series even Odin whose willing to limit his power to survive in the mortal world isn't in every book. Asides when it comes to things appearing we go throughout multiple books where relevant people really should make time but don't. A lot of the books focus on the idea that lacking manpower really fucking sucks. Harry repeatedly doesn't get help from people that really should fucking help and doesn't mortal, supernatural, and god wise.
 
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This turn is going to look funny from an external perspective after all is said and done. We expected to screw with the outside, but we we've eaten a god and three shards of a major walker that weren't on the original menu and we're not even past the first item yet. :V
 
BronzeTongue said:
This turn is going to look funny from an external perspective after all is said and done. We expected to screw with the outside, but we we've eaten a god and three shards of a major walker that weren't on the original menu and we're not even past the first item yet. :V
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woooo! I really wanna trade information for information with the archive if we can get that set up to some degree. Its too bad shes been showed more constricted in sharing information than in canon. Not that I doubt she's constricted by promises and such in canon I'm sure she is. But, I fully expect shes not able to even trade too much information here.
 
firefrog600 said:
Okay first off there are entire books without any angels at all several even. Second they are not very active angels barely talk at all their very very active as you've said is basically just appearing at all to for a couple dozen pages a book every few books. For the appearance of others if as I've said they themselves have barely appeared why in the hell would the others also appear? If your counting the knights as servants I mean I guess but I mean their not all powerful or anything they have some level of remit for certain situations. I'm not sure even the knights have been to many places outside of America and Europe. Well the current knights the middle east and I think I remember a case or two in South America. Its not like their saving the world in every mission though. Dresden himself I'm unsure has even been in Asia before hes barely even in Europe.

Asides the topic was the presence of said Gods and then you moved the topic to their servants who are mortal might I add. Of course their more fucking available they can actually be in the world and do stuff. God himself even if they appear in the series eventually I doubt they'll appear on Earth. Your listing gods not appearing well yeah basically no gods have appeared in the whole series even Odin whose willing to limit his power to survive in the mortal world isn't in every book. Asides when it comes to things appearing we go throughout multiple books where relevant people really should make time but don't. A lot of the books focus on the idea that lacking manpower really fucking sucks. Harry repeatedly doesn't get help from people that really should fucking help and doesn't mortal, supernatural, and god wise.
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You're focusing on random parts of the series that don't matter and not reading the text of my posts.

Every reference I've made to the white god acting has been directly tied to the power he grants his agents and the activity level of his servants. In particular around major events that by right should draw everyone.

The knights are global to be clear, Shiro was Japanese and primarily operated in Asia. It's canon he tangled with the jades.

God appearing himself is functionally irrelevant for reasons I've laid out several times now. Disagreement is one thing, but you're not engaging with the argument at hand.

The white god is given archangels, knights, angelic body guards to deploy on the families of his most trusted mortal servants. He directly, canonically, closed down the mom and pop shops of divinity for reasons no one explains.

When global shit goes down his people show up. We're told that other people are up there with him, or are in fact him by different names, but they don't do anything like that.

Evidently all major gods are invisible, but some are more invisible than others.

Butcher told the story he wanted to tell, but there are many ways he could have done that with different implications. It wouldn't have taken much to deal with these factors in a way that didn't leave us trying to explain what everyone else was doing.
 
firefrog600 said:
Hey @DragonParadox can we ask the archive sometime before she leaves about if we can trade information from her with information of our own and products?
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Sure, she is not leaving yet. She has to deal with the Outsider Cultist one way or the other, it's just she is not obliged to kill them because her remit is not about lives, it is about information. Katherine needs to stop knowing things... and yes the Archive has Mind Sphere magic.
 
BronzeTongue said:
You're focusing on random parts of the series that don't matter and not reading the text of my posts.

Every reference I've made to the white god acting has been directly tied to the power he grants his agents and the activity level of his servants. In particular around major events that by right should draw everyone.

The knights are global to be clear, Shiro was Japanese and primarily operated in Asia. It's canon he tangled with the jades.

God appearing himself is functionally irrelevant for reasons I've laid out several times now. Disagreement is one thing, but you're not engaging with the argument at hand.

The white god is given archangels, knights, angelic body guards to deploy on the families of his most trusted mortal servants. He directly, canonically, closed down the mom and pop shops of divinity for reasons no one explains.

When global shit goes down his people show up. We're told that other people are up there with him, or are in fact him by different names, but they don't do anything like that.

Evidently all major gods are invisible, but some are more invisible than others.

Butcher told the story he wanted to tell, but there are many ways he could have done that with different implications. It wouldn't have taken much to deal with these factors in a way that didn't leave us trying to explain what everyone else was doing.
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Okay fair enough though again I want to note like we complain about this a lot but how much of that stuff is actually the focus of the story at all? Its a kitchen sink setting telling the story of just one part of itself. He made a big ass setting where we are unlikely to see the vast majority of stuff happen. Like I get thats annoying and he could of written it in a way we enjoy better but I like to take things at face value if the guy who writes things says they are a certain way to some degree I'm going take that and decide yeah okay. Like for example he said Odin has soulfire but he also said thats probably never going to come up in the books. Like we have to at least admit the settings bigger than what we're shown right? We know jackshit about the kenku, ethniu was kind of a big wtf, there's clear connection to both celtic and norse shit in the recent books. Like just cause most people want show don't tell doesn't mean the writers actually obligated to show said shit. I understand disliking that and calling it like whitewashing or some shit but the settings bigger than that regardless and just cause its not often shown doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Also being honest I'm kind of annoyed at people basically saying oh its all euro centric and christian and stuff. Like the Naagloshi was rather important and its above the average senior council member in power. But as far as the setting as a whole is concerned its barely worth noting its level 5 security lowest level at demonreach. Also just for European shit alone Butcher looked across a whole bunch of cultures. When looking at naagloshi Butcher actually talked to Native Americans to get a picture on some of the stuff and then took a spin at it. He made sure not to generalize all native american shit as one corner of the world skin walkers come from a certain region and the senior council member Joe comes from a whole different area with its own culture and such. If just those 400 miles or so can be so drastic that their not connected at all as far as the council is concerned what about the whole fucking world its huge.
 
BoredMan said:
I don't think she knows anything that we care about and can't also grab with the Crown. Like info on the Exalted and what the major players know about them.
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she can give complete information my dude and we need focuses. Like for example we wondered if we could get manuals for celestial martial arts or actual whole books on lore. We cannot get that with crown questions most of the time we get vague bullshit. Sometimes its basically just metaphors as an answer like when we first looked at an outsiders history with the crown.
 
firefrog600 said:
she can give complete information my dude and we need focuses. Like for example we wondered if we could get manuals for celestial martial arts or actual whole books on lore. We cannot get that with crown questions most of the time we get vague bullshit. Sometimes its basically just metaphors as an answer like when we first looked at an outsiders history with the crown.
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Personally I'd like a hit list*. Foci from the Archive's records are great, but eating gods and monsters who're working against the mortal world that we know from her aren't needed to keep gravity running or something gets us dinner and a show focus.

* In the "these guys are free real estate" sense, not as a mission we need to do right then.

I almost want to ask the white council for the same just for the look on their faces. If the Merlin thought his job was stressful before then he isn't ready for the local hell Queen to ask for a list of his enemies sorted by tastiest soul to add to her shopping list. :V

Too bad it'd explode our efforts to seem sane and reasonable.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Personally I'd like a hit list*. Foci from the Archive's records are great, but eating gods and monsters who're working against the mortal world that we know from her aren't needed to keep gravity running or something gets us dinner and a show focus.

* In the "these guys are free real estate" sense, not as a mission we need to do right then.

I almost want to ask the white council for the same just for the look on their faces. If the Merlin thought his job was stressful before then he isn't ready for the local hell Queen to ask for a list of his enemies sorted by tastiest soul to add to her shopping list. :V

Too bad it'd explode our efforts to seem sane and reasonable.
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I mean this too we can ask for both.
 
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