Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

The issue, as I see it, is that, unless we cut off contact, and Rosie abandons magic, Amanda is already deeply entangled in the supernatural world. She likely has at least a low-grade magical talent, and it would not surprise me at all if, with proper nurturing, she could fan it to full wizard grade, if she doesn't have it as is. She is also, because of her association with us, inherently in danger and a target for manipulation by supernatural forces.
That's true it's likely inevitable that she will get engrossed in it as she grows older. I still don't think that's cause enough to give a newborn enhancements that could cause problems of the lethal kind to her or others when we could simply wait till she's older and actually has judgement and restriant of any kind before making her more dangerous to her peers.


Again this logic of her association with us throwing her into danger could also be applied to her friends who were already kidnapped and yet you seemingly didn't feel the need to do anything extra for them. You yourself said earlier that "its not about protecting her it's about reaching her potential" so I don't know why your saying this now. This is why I keep coming to the conclusion that your looking at this like a "mad scientist tinker" and any other motives used to explain it was come up with after the fact.

Bringing more attention to her by personally training her from infancy is going to paint a much bigger target on her back and no matter what a vampire always be able to take on a baby the same way they deal with any other human who has magic talent and adult strength.

I dont see this as being a good idea.
Meh. The God is in Vegas. I would assume that it has to show more restriant than it otherwise would because of all the factions around. Remember Vegas is a boiling pot of different people with their own agendas it wouldn't make sense for it to get into a fight with us for simply talking to the spirit which in Lydia's own words are eargerly looking in.
 
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*checks*
There is what appears to be a Greek God here at the Venetian Canals riding one of the gondolas.
Specifically, Charon, ferryman of the dead. Its either the god itself, or someone powerful enough or connected enough to borrow his name without fear of reprisal.

Courtesy costs us nothing, and might save us some aggravation, especially before Lydia goes poking at the ghosts
Not-Nathaneal Cobbler the black vampire is the grave robber I'm talking about. The person with a god behind them is the white vampire who is relatively fresh corpse somewhere.
 
Meh. The God is in Vegas. I would assume that it has to show more restriant than it otherwise would because of all the factions around. Remember Vegas is a boiling pot of different people with their own agendas it wouldn't make sense for it to get into a fight with us for simply talking to the spirit which in Lydia's own words are eargerly looking in.
I wouldnt.
If the RPG is to be believed, even the Dragon was circumspect around the area, and the Canals were one of the few neutralish areas in the city. In the absence of Accords enforcement, that speaks to an entity with the power to compel respect.

Dont walk into someone's claimed territory without at least making the forms of courtesy.
Not unless your aim is to be deliberately dismissive.
Not-Nathaneal Cobbler the black vampire is the grave robber I'm talking about. The person with a god behind them is the white vampire who is relatively fresh corpse somewhere.
Fair enough about Cobbler.
No current evidence that the Whampire Mayeda is dead; in captivity yes, but dead? No.
 
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Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 10/15

Not-Nathaneal Cobbler

"Uh... wow didn't know a word could taste like ash and grave dirt," you stifle the urge to spit to clear your throat, Mom had taught you better than that. "One moment while I cross-check that..."

A quick search turns out the name in an appendix of a work on the life and escapades of Giovanni Battista Belzoni an Italian-born 'proto-archeologist' at the tail end of the Eighteenth century and start of the Nineteenth if one were being generous and a particularly successful tomb robber with a background in the circus if not. From what scant evidence Clippy and company had been able to collect, breaking into a buch of academic databases in the process Cobbler had been something of a 'low' acquaintance of the already colorful Belzoni there really isn't a lot to go on, one lady of the ton, the upper class society of London called him out as being 'akin to a highwayman' not at all like the cultured Mr Belzoni in her letters while Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marquess of Lansdowne supposedly once claimed that Cobler 'was a better shot than many a man of higher breeding and more liked by women than they would admit.'

"Sour grapes," Lash says in a sotto voice when you get to that part.

"It's not a true Elder at least," Lydia says more gravely. "That would explain why he hates the White Court in particular, he could have been what, at most eighty years into unlife when Stoker's book came out. Surviving must have been rough."

[] Go look at the crime scene for the staked incubus, perhaps you could ask some questions there

Fair enough about Cobbler.
No current evidence that the Whampire Mayeda is dead; in captivity yes, but dead? No.
White vampires can't survive being Staked like regular vampires in world of Darkness because they aren't living corpses they're very close to humans if it's using stake in that sense that means he got stabbed in the heart with a large stake of wood. Which I hear is a largely fatal thing if you are anywhere near close to human and not a moving corpse.

This is exempting the fact that once he got whatever he wanted out of that young man why does he need to keep him around when he especially hates white vampires and has a good reason to at that it's been a rough hundred years for him.
 
@uju32
You are drawing pretty heavily on book-canon from the RPG here, which obviously DP does too for multiple characters in Vegas.

I still wouldn't rely on it and try to metagame, things could be changed up in relevant points.
 
White vampires can't survive being Staked like regular vampires in world of Darkness because they aren't living corpses they're very close to humans if it's using stake in that sense that means he got stabbed in the heart with a large stake of wood. Which I hear is a largely fatal thing if you are anywhere near close to human and not a moving corpse.
The other Whampire got staked. I think one of the local head-Whampire's minions.

The one we are looking for, Mayeda, merely dissapeared.
Might be dead, might not.
 
[X] Attempt to greet and speak to the dead, Lydia should have some power over them

Ghosts are people too. People who are often ignored, or looked at as things rather than people. Treating them like people feels good.

What makes Amanda as valuable to attack as a member of Cauldron who we are publicly politically protecting and a memeber of?
She's our goddaughter. That is something that matters in the magical world. It's something unique and special in a way that friends aren't.
 
That's true it's likely inevitable that she will get engrossed in it as she grows older. I still don't think that's cause enough to give a newborn enhancements that could cause problems of the lethal kind to her or others when we could simply wait till she's older and actually has judgement and restriant of any kind before making her more dangerous to her peers.
And, again, what problems? Leaving aside strength, which I already agreed should be limited to "perfect healthy toddler", rather than "human maximum", what issues do you see with dexterity, stamina and alertness? Dexterity is boosting Amanda's motor skill to peak human level, which likely results in superhuman cognitive development later. Same with stamina and alertness. That's a point here - taking a newborn (or near-newborn) to peak human level as a foundation for their later development - that's likely to result in superhuman level development later. And I consider that a plus.
Again this logic of her association with us throwing her into danger could also be applied to her friends who were already kidnapped and yet you seemingly didn't feel the need to do anything extra for them. You yourself said earlier that "its not about protecting her it's about reaching her potential" so I don't know why your saying this now. This is why I keep coming to the conclusion that your looking at this like a "mad scientist tinker" and any other motives used to explain it was come up with after the fact.
It is about her potential for me. When I talked about her safety perspective, my point was that we won't be protecting her by not giving her enchantments. The "safety through obscurity" strategy doesn't really work for someone who is our goddaughter, which is a closer relationship, as I understand it, than "friends in high school". And in regards to said friends - both of them got Sanctuary gadgets with personal cyberdevils / tech spirits, as I understand it. That's protection.

As to Amanda, I am honestly baffled and am trying to come up with arguments to defend my position. To my worldview "ensure my kid has the best possible health, and, if possible, superhuman levels of ability" is a pure unmitigated good. I am trying to understand and address the objections, but it's actually hard for me. There's one big objection and that's "no peer group to interact with", but even that is arguable, as I am quite open to offering similar serviced to young children of Order of Cauldron, for example.
Bringing more attention to her by personally training her from infancy is going to paint a much bigger target on her back and no matter what a vampire always be able to take on a baby the same way they deal with any other human who has magic talent and adult strength.
To be pedantic - as shown in this very quest, a human path practitioner is absolutely capable of defending against a whampire attack, as demonstrated when we stumbled upon the start of the minor practitioner genocide plan.
 
The Sin-Eater guards an apparent breach in reality. Not an item.
The breach itself, as I understand it, wouldn't be dangerous if there wasn't something that could come through it. My wild guess is that something is an abyssal exaltation.
Im not assuming they are good guys; Nephandi have classically used religious cults as a cover.
But there's no evidence here one way or the other.
Just that Adkin having the mannerisms of someone more than a century old suggests there's mojo at work.
Yes, and that's why we shouldn't just contact them. Because our primary goal in Vegas is getting Sandra. Alerting her of our presence is counter-productive to that. And if she's connected to these guys, this would alert her.
 
Dont walk into someone's claimed territory without at least making the forms of courtesy.
Not unless your aim is to be deliberately dismissive.
Even if they do happen to consider them subjects the spirits are roaming around and nearby for that matter it seems ludicrous to think that talking with them alone would draw ire. We don't know what their tempermeant is but I feel safe in the assumption that this much is fine.
It's something unique and special in a way that friends aren't.
We were willing to commit to a highly overt purge of WC members in response to an attack on Cauldron. People know that attacking them means attacking us. We are politically in bed with them at this point. They are being viewed as more than just friends to the supernatural community.

Besides the perceived value of a goddaugher would be influenced directly by time invested.
 
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Even if they do happen to consider them subjects the spirits are roaming around and nearby for that matter it seems ludicrous to think that talking with them alone would draw ire. We don't know what their tempermeant is but I feel safe in the assumption that this much is fine.

We were willing to commit to a highly overt purge of WC members in response to an attack on Cauldron. People know that attacking them means attacking us. We are politically in bed with them at this point. They are being viewed as more than just friends to the supernatural community.

Besides the perceived value of a goddaugher would be influenced directly by time invested.
Godparents are among the most important people at a christening, who make big promises to encourage their godchild to grow in faith and commit to helping them understand how to live their life in a Christian way.
Alongside your godchild's parents, you will

Give your time to your godchild to talk to about the bigger questions of life – questions about hope, faith and love.

Model and encourage them to develop Christian values – being kind and compassionate towards others, being generous towards others in need with time or money and standing against things in the world that cause injustice and suffering.

Be there for your godchild through the ups and downs of their life and their faith journey.

Show them practically how to make good choices in life, for themselves and for others. This might mean talking to them about how to stay healthy, how to resist temptations that can harm us and other people, how to care for God's amazing world and how to handle peer pressure as they grow older.

Help them to learn more about the faith, through their church or in other ways. Going to church with them, talking about what the Bible shows us and helping them learn how to pray are all brilliant ways to support your godchild.
It's a demanding role
Tldr
In both religious and civil views, a godparent tends to be an individual chosen by the parents to take an interest in the child's upbringing and personal development, to offer mentorship or claim legal guardianship of the child if anything should happen to the parents.

This is just a rough summation of the Christian version of godparents never mind the predated tradition of secondary parents that came from Rome and Greece and pretty much every place that has the idea of someone take care of my kid if I bite it.

Even that cruel winter Fae with the unspellable name that Dresden has for a godmother is bound by the responsibilities of being his godmother. While she can be cruel to him she cannot harm him. She is partially bound to help him with his burdens, though she uses this to trap him further in his debts to the fae and so on and so forth. Friends are of a fair weather nature they come and go but bonds that you take on by yourself there are meant to be important. The taking on of the Godparent role means that you have said that you are an active portion of this person's life a guide and protector and if worse comes to worst their parent.
 
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And, again, what problems? Leaving aside strength, which I already agreed should be limited to "perfect healthy toddler", rather than "human maximum", what issues do you see with dexterity, stamina and alertness?
I was under the impression you wanted meele 5 aswell. Which is were most of the potential risk would come from. I'm pretty sure it was being advocated for at some point but if that's no longer the case and I didn't realize that's my bad.
And in regards to said friends - both of them got Sanctuary gadgets with personal cyberdevils / tech spirits, as I understand it. That's protection.

As to Amanda, I am honestly baffled and am trying to come up with arguments to defend my position. To my worldview "ensure my kid has the best possible health, and, if possible, superhuman levels of ability" is a pure unmitigated good. I am trying to understand and address the objections, but it's actually hard for me. There's one big objection and that's "no peer group to interact with", but even that is arguable, as I am quite open to offering similar serviced to young children of Order of Cauldron, for example.
I forgot about that entirely, probably not much in the way of self defense for them but more than I recalled which was us doing nothing.

I gave an example earlier with giving adult human strength combined with durability and stamina to a kid in mind that you could address, but if enhanced strength via melee 5 isn't actually being argued here then nevermind.

Talents succesfully defending themselves from vampires and getting away alive seems to be a matter of luck moreso than ability. Most of them aren't going to have strong and combat viable talents that would allow for that. It can happen but it seems to be rare, how many talents died before we heard about the purge?
Even that cruel winter Fae with the unspellable name that Dresden has for a godmother is bound by the responsibilities of being his godmother.
That's because she made a deal with Dresden's mother and is Fae not some inherent value in godchildren.
 
That's because she made a deal with Dresden's mother and is Fae not some inherent value in godchildren.
While more business like than most Godparent interactions go that is how you become a godparent of a child. To put in another way to mess with a godparents child is to not just threaten their power like messing with the order of cauldron is for us it is to directly attack them. It is stealing an egg from a dragon's clutch, attacking Mab's daughter it is an act so far beyond attacking an interest or a group that it's hard to put into words.
 
I was under the impression you wanted meele 5 aswell. Which is were most of the potential risk would come from. I'm pretty sure it was being advocated for at some point but if that's no longer the case and I didn't realize that's my bad.
I did advocate for it, and Occult 5 at one point, yes. I was convinced that it would be better to withhold those for the moment. Though I have to say that toddler sword grandmaster sounds hilarious to me. There's actually manhwa with that premise (Warrior Grandpa And Supreme Granddaughter) which is kinda fun, where the titular granddaughter has supreme body constitution and achieves grandmaster cultivation level by the age of two.

At the moment, I am advocating for STR 2 (upper boundary of what normal-ish human physiology supports in a toddler), DEX 5, STA 5, Alertness 5 (which requires us to buy it up to 5, by the way) build.
Talents succesfully defending themselves from vampires and getting away alive seems to be a matter of luck moreso than ability. Most of them aren't going to have strong and combat viable talents that would allow for that. It can happen but it seems to be rare, how many talents died before we heard about the purge?
That's true, which is also why I want to push for SCCP language lessons, so as to make sure Amanda's mystical talents are enhanced.
 
Those are very poignant arguments though I think you might be overestimating the speed of it. We wouldn't pick melee the first week also we couldn't pick it the first session only gives 30 XP. To be frank will probably end up getting like a two dexterity to strength 3 stamina split with the last 2 exp left over going into dead God tongue because that's the only way we could efficiently or actually communicate with the baby.
The language thing would be the product of a speaking with Amanda using SCC, not training. We could do that I suppose, but I'm not sure if Molly having a charm effect built around the language is the same as knowing it like a mortal might. It's not like native old realm speakers had to roll willpower to speak.

As to the other thing, that's a matter of efficiency. Lash can raise physical stats more completely than we can, and it doesn't implicitly come with the side effects of our training charm.

Unless Lash charges a ridiculous amount* to use the lore of flesh raising any stat she is capable of effecting is wasting our time and Amanda's exp.

From a purely mechanical standpoint the optimal approach for cases we're personally invested in is to pay lash to do the physical attributes and focus the exp on abilities. Specifically on a pair of 4 dots, since from 0 they're 15 exp a piece.

4 dots is still world renown even if it isn't peak human, and adding an additional skill compounds the issue I'm talking about instead of counterbalancing it.

*We really should give her a fair price for this, abusing her relationship with the party for power is a poor way to treat your friends and bad precedent to set for a recovering demon.
Though to be honest I think we'll be mostly focused on getting her stats up and making sure her alertness is right. The melee is probably considerably later but the source code tongue and alertness are so she can actually communicate what's wrong or possible things that she seeing.
We can give her alertness, not awareness, and there are limits to how far we can boost her. There isn't a level where if the adults in the room fail a check or can't save her that she can do anything about it.

Here is a link to a wiki on child development stages.

Amanda's cognitive abilities right now are in the "stare at brightly colored objects" stage. By one month her sense of hearing will be developed enough to recognize her parents' voices reliably and she'll have gained the ability to follow faces with her eyes. By midway through month three she might have object permanence down, but won't be able to conceptualize that strangers exist or have full color vision until months six and seven respectively.

There's a better argument for the idea that humans should be a valid target for dnd style Speak with Animals spells until their skull finishes fusing than that they'll be able to understand what they're looking at well enough to know what's important even if you give them the ability to detect it.
 
On one hand, we wouldn't want a to put a toddler in danger, on the other hand, the face of a monster as they are bodied by a literal toddler would be a thing to see.
 
From a purely mechanical standpoint the optimal approach for cases we're personally invested in is to pay lash to do the physical attributes and focus the exp on abilities. Specifically on a pair of 4 dots, since from 0 they're 15 exp a piece.
Which two, though? We are limited to Alertness, Brawl, Intimidation, Larceny, Melee, or Occult, up to our own rating in those. Assuming we buy more alertness (a good idea in general), we have discarded Melee, Intimidation is just wrong to give the baby, and would certainly harm her socialization, Larceny is... controversial to say the least (and we don't have it). We basically can give her Melee, Occult, and Alertness. I would say that Alertness 5 (if we buy it up ourselves), and Melee 1, Occult 1 might be good enough. Or just Alertness 5.
*We really should give her a fair price for this, abusing her relationship with the party for power is a poor way to treat your friends and bad precedent to set for a recovering demon.
Very true. I would probably pay her in Splendors. At 2 dots, we could strongly boost her ability to shape flesh (Invincible Assertion + Mystic Fortification to either make it harder to resist, or easier for Lash to roll). At 3 dots, we could make it broader, using two Invincible Assertions - one for Intelligence + Medicine, and another for Dexterity + Medicine, which would allow her to always succeed in Body Control, Manipulate Flesh, and Shape Flesh.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Goldfish on Jan 3, 2024 at 6:00 PM, finished with 78 posts and 9 votes.

  • [X] Attempt to greet and speak to the dead, Lydia should have some power over them
    [X] Go inside, try to arrange a greeting with the boss, given the kind of power all of you radiate there's no doubt you will be directed to someone supernatural
 
Alertness is not knowledge. It's in subsection of talents, which in V20 are described as
It's still a skill though, I can see the argument but don't see a reason to rush for it when it could reasonably have side effects.


Notably, I don't think we can teach that in 7 days. SCCP grants temporary forced understanding, and it's likely to boost learning speed outside that for a newborn, but it's not a part of the training charm granted skillset.
Fair.


To be fair, that sounds like a backstory of a xianxia sword saint protagonist, and is awesome. And would be considered a blessing by many. Brawl would work better here (as it's also a talent), but we ourselves cannot teach it to high level.
Talents are still a type of skill, you can practice them to get better and learn different ways to do the same thing in their area covered by their abstraction.

It could allow for some pretty amazing things, but I still can't get over the idea that choosing something that significant for someone else shouldn't be done casually and could reasonably have unpleasant consequences for them.

Like an atypical development profile making it hard to interact with more normal people. There are some key stages to social development that'd be brutal to go through if your abilities make it hard to understand your peers.


The problem with this argument is that the alternative to this is teaching her nothing at all, comparatively, i.e. leaving it to mortal grade education. I am very hesitant to accept that this is better.
No, that's not the alternative. We can carefully provide baby scale energy fields to gum on that increase with her ability to handle them.

Her "welcome to existence" present from us should be ongoing old realm lessons and paying lash to give her peak human stamina. That's as close to guaranteeing a healthy childhood as we can give her right now, barring the obvious like access to medical care which I assume we'll offer to help with anyway.

That plus the difficulty adjusters and exp cost reduction of any supernatural power she wants to develop are excellent zeroth birthday gifts.

If we're serious about this the responsible thing to do in my view would be to give her a little boost on her birthdays or at significant milestones mixed with little bits of appropriate assistance.

An extra dot of dex and strength when she starts walking, regular occult training in the form of word games in old realm when she starts talking, let her start sitting in on our projects when she's in the 7-10 range. Start more exploratory tutoring around the same time.

Fiddle with the spacing on the dot ups to get her at peak human by 15-18, then offer her the training charm and more dedicated studies in whatever her field of interest is at that point.

If we want to offer more support in the medium term we're already planning to get the path of fortune for ourselves anyway. Once we have it at the 3 dot level blessing a group of 10 or less for a fortnight is pretty trivial, so we can either go out of our way to tune a blessing to help her with training/studying or include her in whatever general good luck ritual we run passively for ourselves.

Maybe a prodigy as well; we don't need a path to replicate the effects as an item as long as we can describe it in terms of an item that is actively used to perform the effect after all.

Living the vast majority of her life under a continuously reinforced blessing of personal development from an infernal exalt seems like the kind of thing that'd let you become bullshit powerful without having the form it takes dictated to you.

Not that I expect this to be relevant to the quest, but it does feel like the sort of thing Molly would consider and act on.

Very true. I would probably pay her in Splendors. At 2 dots, we could strongly boost her ability to shape flesh (Invincible Assertion + Mystic Fortification to either make it harder to resist, or easier for Lash to roll). At 3 dots, we could make it broader, using two Invincible Assertions - one for Intelligence + Medicine, and another for Dexterity + Medicine, which would allow her to always succeed in Body Control, Manipulate Flesh, and Shape Flesh.
Splendors are pricy, I'd prefer cash or prodigies.

We could fairly trivially make her difficulty reducers that are otherwise hard to get.

Edit: errors
 
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It's still a skill though, I can see the argument but don't see a reason to rush for it when it could reasonably have side effects.



Fair.



Talents are still a type of skill, you can practice them to get better and learn different ways to do the same thing in their area covered by their abstraction.

It could allow for some pretty amazing things, but I still can't get over the idea that choosing something that significant for someone else shouldn't be done casually and could reasonably have unpleasant consequences for them.


Living the vast majority of her life under a continuously reinforced blessing of personal development from an infernal exalt seems like the kind of thing that'd let you become bullshit powerful without having the form it takes dictated to you.

I guess my issue with that is because training charms are weird. They are magic but they aren't magic at the same time if that makes sense the speed at which the acquisition of attribute and ability is magical. But the methodology that you acquire those abilities and attributes is not cuz it's experience literally 30 then 20 you learned how to do that thing it was just supernaturally effective So when you say unpleasant consequences or side effects that to me seems to go against that thought.

Because that's how Molly learns things that's how Harry and Lydia as well as Tiffany Learn things so it becomes a weird dichotomy where it's bad for a baby to learn things in a same way as a player character I guess. But that feels lopsided and not great.

Though to be honest I just want to give her the stats so she can be aware of danger and can run long enough that the Cyber devil in her phone or monitoring device can call us and we have a chance to get to her without her being caught and that requires dexterity and stamina as well as alertness.
 
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