Oh yeah, there is a passive and an active aspect to this, it is just that most of the things you have used it for require Essence-Crafted tools. You cannot really make carbon fiber super armor with normal blacksmithing tools, or diamonds for that matter.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Oh yeah, there is a passive and an active aspect to this, it is just that most of the things you have used it for require Essence-Crafted tools. You cannot really make carbon fiber super armor with normal blacksmithing tools, or diamonds for that matter.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
On top of saving time, avoiding a fight with the golems is also sensible, at least from my POV, because that means we won't be destroying potentially very valuable property belonging to a power who isn't necessarily our enemy.
Sneaking in isn't the best way to make a first impression, but we didn't exactly smash our way through a warded gate or anything. It's not our fault the creepy spirit lady brought us in through the back door. That's on her. Wrecking the golems, on the other hand, would be completely on us, and that could cause hard feelings. At the very least, we would probably end up having to reimburse the owner for their destroyed property.
Sneaking in isn't the best way to make a first impression, but we didn't exactly smash our way through a warded gate or anything. It's not our fault the creepy spirit lady brought us in through the back door. That's on her. Wrecking the golems, on the other hand, would be completely on us, and that could cause hard feelings. At the very least, we would probably end up having to reimburse the owner for their destroyed property.
Dresden's father was a muggle, and had fuckall to do with anything that happened to him.
Im not sure Malcolm Dresden even knew that Maggie LeFay was a bona fide wizard, let alone that Fae existed or anything else. His mother was the one who made any and all magical arrangements on behalf of her children.
Dresden's father died when he was 6.
Lea had essentially exclusive knowledge of his whereabouts until he was 10, and shared that with DuMorne until he was 16.
His faerie godmother is the second most powerful person in Winter.
Fae have limits, but a decade is a very long time to have privileged access to a child when you are that powerful. If she wanted to fuck him up or ensnare him, she had ample opportunity to do so.
Why would she hand Dresden off to Ebenezar?
Ebenezar's advice to Dresden circa PT/BG was to send his daughter away for her own safety, in case you dont remember.
To the point where Harry warns Ebenezar off doing it to Maggie.
As for DuMorne, no it isnt.
If Outsider fuckery was obvious, there would be no wizards messing with Outsiders on the Council. And DuMorne was in good standing with the White Council; like I said, he was (one of)Petrovich's apprentice.
Its pretty clearly implied they were actively hunted down.
Those are not normal attrition rates ; even in the third world, average life expectancy is at least 55.
No indication this is true. She wouldnt have accepted the role if that was so.
No indication that is true; we straight up know that Listen the Starborn spent decades in the NeverNever as a modded Fomor servitor, and Drakul still counts as a Starborn despite being an inhuman thing.
No indication of this either; like I said, Mab didnt even meet him until he was 27.
Zero indication she was scheming on him in the cradle.
Or that Lea would have helped him do so.
1)No, that means she's inhuman.
Maggie McCoy, called LeFay, the hundred and fifty year old-plus human Fae wizard knew who the fuck she was when she decided that the Leanansidhe made the best possible godmother for her mortal Starborn child under the circumstances.
And all things being equal, I argue the woman who was both wizard, Fae expert and second-time mother knows a fuck lot more about the requirements for the position.
2)And you've been consistently jaundiced about everything that involves Winter and its personnel.
Which generally renders a lot of your judgements involving Winter suspect.
Lea is by no means perfect, and I dont know how many mistakes she made.
But she has never been wilfully terrible to her charge, and shepherded Dresden through to adulthood in the face of his mother and grandfather's enemies.
And kept him alive in the face of a fair number of the ones he made as an adult.
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- Location
- Germany
It's worth not forgetting that Lea is still a monster who makes hunting hounds out of people.
Even if she did her job with Harry, as she was forced to by her very nature, doesn't mean she is any kind of decent person.
We already broke in, trying to stop and play nice now is taking the worst of both worlds.
Not that we can't try for a civil discussion later, but doing so in the middle of a home invasion is just asking for both plays to fail.
[X] Uju32
I don't think she was particularly great at helping raise him, but even if it's unrelated to what killed the others that garden she planted killed a lot of things what would have otherwise taken a shot at him. Sure he had wards, but nothing even really got to the point of contesting them.
When the red court or denarians wanted to mess with his stuff they consistently picked running straight into the physical defenses of a guy notorious for his evocation instead of trying to exploit the relative lack of skill with the spirit world he had early on. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered to anyone else, but it does seem to have saved Harry a lot of trouble.
If I had to bet this sort of thing was probably why his mother went to the trouble of arranging for a powerful faerie godmother in the first place.
Remember that she wasn't exactly a rube in this, she was so famous for wandering the nevernever and dealing with the things living there that she was known as Margret Le Fey in a lot of circles.
Which is really goddamn scary; most of the setting considers blind jumps into or out of the spirit world worse than suicidal. A messy death is one of the kinder results you can get out of trying that nonsense and she did so for decades to centuries.
Fuck the blackstaff, it's clear who Harry's most terrifying relative was*.
Returning to the point; she knew better than most ever would what she was doing in regard to the courts, and this was her backup plan for defending her son if her enemies caught up to her.
I agree that @uju32 is way too forgiving with them, and that Leansidhe took significant advantage of the relationship, but if they're good for nothing else it's providing physical security.
*It's not a breach of the first law to trade a cadre of trolls in baseball cards to literally eat people alive after all. That's just the simplest sort of thing someone in her position could pull too.
She wasn't perfect, but her death curse showed the sort of inventive viciousness you never want to see in the behavior of what's effectively a demonologist who takes regular vacations to hell.
Yeah that was a brain fart I really should have put mother there but that's what you get for going fast I guess. If his mother loved him at all she specifically guarded against that happening.
If she wanted to fuck him up or ensnare him. It's almost like there was a 150 year old wizard who made the deal that specifically stipulated that she couldn't do that. You speak as if the inhumanity of the fairies makes them immune to critique. A 150 year old wizard can offer a lot to take a deal.
The fact of the matter is dresden's mother makes a deal with a fairy that she knows is powerful enough to keep her kid alive. That fairy does the bare minimum requirement of holding the role of godparents. She teaches him though poorly she protects him though that's questionable and she acquires teaching for him.
The fact that she's on call to Harry is the only benefit that she grants him that is granted by his godson title. Even then he cannot access critical to him information from her without price. Before you say every gainful interaction with a Fey needs to be a transaction. Every interaction with Him could be categorized under godparenting without needing to pull any more debts out of him she does that on purpose.
Lea is inhuman.
Always keep that in mind. Unlike Mab and Maeve and Titania and Molly, I dont think she was ever human or a changeling.
Her thought processes and judgements arent human. Even her affection isnt safe.
I dont think she was forced to do anything; she had to willingly accept the role of godmother to him.
And everything we see suggests that she is fond of him, and proud of him, and looks out for him.
But that doesnt change anything I've previously said. She is inhuman.
She doesn't have to do that dog thing that is a bit of Cruelty that she just likes doing. Being inhuman does not mean you can't be terrible.
We don't know what the circumstances were when Leanansidhe accepted the position, and how much choice she actually had in accepting.
This assumes she loved Dresden. Which... is not a given. She willingly and deliberately made Dresden a starborn (by means we don't know yet). What she intended for Dresden in life we don't really know. How much of that would be considered child abuse we don't know either.
"Kept him alive" is arguable, at best, and we have very different definitions of terrible, it seems.
Then the responsible decision would be not to interact with him at all, and delegate responsibility to someone better at dealing with humans. And where are you getting "she had to willingly accept" from? Fae deals have very, very broad definitions of consent, and it goes both ways.
Thats not true.
We see Lea turn Dresden and party into hounds in Changes in order to sneak closer to Chitchen Itza, and later turn them back. We get Dresden's PoV during the process, as well as Mouse talking to Lea to turn them back; the woman apparently just really likes hounds.
It took us a minute to get everyone sorted out. Mouse looked like a scrawny shadow of himself with his fur all plastered down. He was sneezing uncontrollably, having apparently gotten a bunch of water up his nose during the swim. Ectoplasm splattered out with every sneeze. Thomas was in similar straits, having been hauled through much as Sanya was, but he managed to look a great deal more annoyed than Mouse.
I turned to Lea. "Godmother. I hope you have some way to get us to the temple a little more swiftly."
"Absolutely," Lea purred, calm and regal despite the fact that her hair and her slime-soaked silken dress were now plastered to her body. "And I've always wanted to do it, too." She let out a mocking laugh and waved her hand, and my belly cramped up as if every stomach bug I'd ever had met up in a bar and decided to come get me all at once.
It. Hurt.
I knew I'd fallen, and was vaguely aware that I was lying on my side on the ground. I was there for, I don't know, maybe a minute or so before the pain began to fade. I gasped several times, shook my head, and then slowly pushed myself up onto all fours. Then I fixed the Leanansidhe with a glare and said, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Or tried to say that. What came out was something more like, "Grrrrrrbrrrr awwf arrrr grrrrr."
My faerie godmother looked at me and began laughing. Genuine, delighted belly laughter. She clapped her hands and bounced up and down, spinning in a circle, and laughed even more.
I realized then what had happened.
She had turned us - all of us, except for Mouse - into great, gaunt, long-legged hounds.
"Wonderful!" Lea said, pirouetting upon one toe, laughing. "Come, children!" And she leapt off into the jungle, nimble and swift as a doe.
A bunch of us dogs stood around for a moment, just sort of staring at one another.
And Mouse said, in what sounded to me like perfectly understandable English, "That bitch."
We all stared at him.
Mouse huffed out a breath, shook his beslimed coat, and said, "Follow me." Then he took off after the Leanansidhe, and, driven by reflex-level instinct, the rest of us raced to catch up.
I'd been shapeshifted one other time - by the dark magic of a cursed belt, and one that I suspected had been deliberately designed to provide an addictive high with its use. It had taken me a long time to shake off the memory of that experience, the absolute clarity of my senses, the feeling of ready power in my whole body, of absolute certainty in every movement.
Now I had it back - and this time, without the reality-blurring euphoria. I was intensely aware of the scents around me, of a hundred thousand new smells that begged to be explored, of the rush of sheer physical pleasure in racing across the ground after a friend. I could hear the breath and the bodies of the others around me, running through the night, bounding over stones and fallen trees, slashing through bits of brush and heavy ground cover.
We could hear small prey animals scattering before us and to either side, and I knew, not just suspected but knew, that I was faster, by far, than any of the merely mortal animals, even the young buck deer who went soaring away from us, leaping a good twenty feet over a waterway. I felt an overwhelming urge to turn in pursuit - but the lead runner in the pack was already on another trail, and I wasn't sure I could have turned aside if I had tried to do so.
And the best part? We probably made less noise, as a whole, than any one of us would have made moving in a clumsy mortal body.
We didn't cover five miles in half the time, an hour instead of two.
It took us - maybe, at the most - ten minutes.
When we stopped, we could all hear the drums. Steady, throbbing drums, keeping a quick, monotonous, trance-inducing beat. The sky to the northwest was bright with the light of reflected fires, and the air seethed with the scents of humans and not-quite humans and creatures that made me growl and want to bite something. Occasionally, a vampire's cry would run its shrill claws down my spine.
Lea stood upon a fallen log ahead of us, staring ahead. Mouse walked up to her.
"Gggrrrr rawf arrrgggrrrrarrrr," I said.
Mouse gave me an impatient glance, and somehow - I don't know if it was something in his body language or what - I became aware that he was telling me to sit down and shut up or he'd come over and make me.
I sat down. Something in me really didn't like that idea, but when I looked around, I saw that everyone else had done it too, and that made me feel better.
Mouse said, again in what sounded like perfectly clear English, "Funny. Now restore them."
Lea turned to look at the big dog and said, "Do you dare to give me commands, hound?"
"Not your hound," Mouse said. I didn't know how he was doing it. His mouth wasn't moving or anything. "Restore them before I rip your ass off. Literally rip it off."
The Leanansidhe tilted her head back and let out a low laugh. "You are far from your sources of power here, my dear demon."
"I live with a wizard. I cheat." He took a step toward her and his lips peeled up from his fangs in unmistakable hostility. "You want to restore them? Or do I kill you and get them back that way?"
Lea narrowed her eyes. Then she said, "You're bluffing."
One of the big dog's huge, clawed paws dug at the ground, as if bracing him for a leap, and his growl seemed to . . . I looked down and checked. It didn't seem to shake the ground. The ground was actually shaking for several feet in every direction of the dog. Motes of blue light began to fall from his jaws, thickly enough that it looked quite a bit like he was foaming at the mouth. "Try me."
The Leanansidhe shook her head slowly. Then she said, "How did Dresden ever win you?"
"He didn't," Mouse said. "I won him."
Lea arched an eyebrow as if baffled. Then she shrugged and said, "We have a quest to complete. This bickering does not profit us." She turned to us, passed a hand through the air in our general direction, and murmured, "Anytime you want it back, dears, just ask. You'd all make gorgeous hounds."
Again, agony overwhelmed me, though I felt too weak to scream about it. It took a subjective eternity to pass, but when it did I was myself again, lying on my side, sweating and panting heavily.
Mouse came over and nuzzled my face, his tail wagging happily. He walked around me, sniffing, and began to nudge me to rise. I got up slowly, and actually braced my hand on his broad, shaggy back at one point. I felt an acute need to be gripping a good solid wizard's staff again, just to hold me up. I don't think I'd ever appreciated how much of a psychological advantage (i.e., security blanket) it was, either. But I wouldn't have one until I'd taken a month or so to make one: Mine had been in the Blue Beetle, and died with it, too.
I was on my feet before anyone else. I eyed the dog and said, "You can talk. How come I never hear you talk?"
"Because you don't know how to listen," my godmother said simply.
Mouse wagged his tail and leaned against me happily, looking up at me.
I rested my hand on his head for a moment and rubbed his ears.
Screw it.
The important things don't need to be said.
I turned to Lea. "Godmother. I hope you have some way to get us to the temple a little more swiftly."
"Absolutely," Lea purred, calm and regal despite the fact that her hair and her slime-soaked silken dress were now plastered to her body. "And I've always wanted to do it, too." She let out a mocking laugh and waved her hand, and my belly cramped up as if every stomach bug I'd ever had met up in a bar and decided to come get me all at once.
It. Hurt.
I knew I'd fallen, and was vaguely aware that I was lying on my side on the ground. I was there for, I don't know, maybe a minute or so before the pain began to fade. I gasped several times, shook my head, and then slowly pushed myself up onto all fours. Then I fixed the Leanansidhe with a glare and said, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Or tried to say that. What came out was something more like, "Grrrrrrbrrrr awwf arrrr grrrrr."
My faerie godmother looked at me and began laughing. Genuine, delighted belly laughter. She clapped her hands and bounced up and down, spinning in a circle, and laughed even more.
I realized then what had happened.
She had turned us - all of us, except for Mouse - into great, gaunt, long-legged hounds.
"Wonderful!" Lea said, pirouetting upon one toe, laughing. "Come, children!" And she leapt off into the jungle, nimble and swift as a doe.
A bunch of us dogs stood around for a moment, just sort of staring at one another.
And Mouse said, in what sounded to me like perfectly understandable English, "That bitch."
We all stared at him.
Mouse huffed out a breath, shook his beslimed coat, and said, "Follow me." Then he took off after the Leanansidhe, and, driven by reflex-level instinct, the rest of us raced to catch up.
I'd been shapeshifted one other time - by the dark magic of a cursed belt, and one that I suspected had been deliberately designed to provide an addictive high with its use. It had taken me a long time to shake off the memory of that experience, the absolute clarity of my senses, the feeling of ready power in my whole body, of absolute certainty in every movement.
Now I had it back - and this time, without the reality-blurring euphoria. I was intensely aware of the scents around me, of a hundred thousand new smells that begged to be explored, of the rush of sheer physical pleasure in racing across the ground after a friend. I could hear the breath and the bodies of the others around me, running through the night, bounding over stones and fallen trees, slashing through bits of brush and heavy ground cover.
We could hear small prey animals scattering before us and to either side, and I knew, not just suspected but knew, that I was faster, by far, than any of the merely mortal animals, even the young buck deer who went soaring away from us, leaping a good twenty feet over a waterway. I felt an overwhelming urge to turn in pursuit - but the lead runner in the pack was already on another trail, and I wasn't sure I could have turned aside if I had tried to do so.
And the best part? We probably made less noise, as a whole, than any one of us would have made moving in a clumsy mortal body.
We didn't cover five miles in half the time, an hour instead of two.
It took us - maybe, at the most - ten minutes.
When we stopped, we could all hear the drums. Steady, throbbing drums, keeping a quick, monotonous, trance-inducing beat. The sky to the northwest was bright with the light of reflected fires, and the air seethed with the scents of humans and not-quite humans and creatures that made me growl and want to bite something. Occasionally, a vampire's cry would run its shrill claws down my spine.
Lea stood upon a fallen log ahead of us, staring ahead. Mouse walked up to her.
"Gggrrrr rawf arrrgggrrrrarrrr," I said.
Mouse gave me an impatient glance, and somehow - I don't know if it was something in his body language or what - I became aware that he was telling me to sit down and shut up or he'd come over and make me.
I sat down. Something in me really didn't like that idea, but when I looked around, I saw that everyone else had done it too, and that made me feel better.
Mouse said, again in what sounded like perfectly clear English, "Funny. Now restore them."
Lea turned to look at the big dog and said, "Do you dare to give me commands, hound?"
"Not your hound," Mouse said. I didn't know how he was doing it. His mouth wasn't moving or anything. "Restore them before I rip your ass off. Literally rip it off."
The Leanansidhe tilted her head back and let out a low laugh. "You are far from your sources of power here, my dear demon."
"I live with a wizard. I cheat." He took a step toward her and his lips peeled up from his fangs in unmistakable hostility. "You want to restore them? Or do I kill you and get them back that way?"
Lea narrowed her eyes. Then she said, "You're bluffing."
One of the big dog's huge, clawed paws dug at the ground, as if bracing him for a leap, and his growl seemed to . . . I looked down and checked. It didn't seem to shake the ground. The ground was actually shaking for several feet in every direction of the dog. Motes of blue light began to fall from his jaws, thickly enough that it looked quite a bit like he was foaming at the mouth. "Try me."
The Leanansidhe shook her head slowly. Then she said, "How did Dresden ever win you?"
"He didn't," Mouse said. "I won him."
Lea arched an eyebrow as if baffled. Then she shrugged and said, "We have a quest to complete. This bickering does not profit us." She turned to us, passed a hand through the air in our general direction, and murmured, "Anytime you want it back, dears, just ask. You'd all make gorgeous hounds."
Again, agony overwhelmed me, though I felt too weak to scream about it. It took a subjective eternity to pass, but when it did I was myself again, lying on my side, sweating and panting heavily.
Mouse came over and nuzzled my face, his tail wagging happily. He walked around me, sniffing, and began to nudge me to rise. I got up slowly, and actually braced my hand on his broad, shaggy back at one point. I felt an acute need to be gripping a good solid wizard's staff again, just to hold me up. I don't think I'd ever appreciated how much of a psychological advantage (i.e., security blanket) it was, either. But I wouldn't have one until I'd taken a month or so to make one: Mine had been in the Blue Beetle, and died with it, too.
I was on my feet before anyone else. I eyed the dog and said, "You can talk. How come I never hear you talk?"
"Because you don't know how to listen," my godmother said simply.
Mouse wagged his tail and leaned against me happily, looking up at me.
I rested my hand on his head for a moment and rubbed his ears.
Screw it.
The important things don't need to be said.
Actually changing into a hound hurts. So does changing back.
Being a hound doesnt. Whatever else is involved, it doesnt appear to be cruel in and of itself or used as a punishment, nor is there any evidence that the subjects are under any pain or torment.
Lea is inhuman.
You are ill-served when you assume human motives and motivations without further supporting evidence.
She's his faerie godmother, not just a Fae that owes his mother a favor.
Thats not the sort of thing that there's any evidence that you can compel someone into, and its a position that goes both ways.
She did.
Harry can confirm that IC because he saw the message she left him when he Soulgazed Thomas in Blood Rites. And he's met his father's spirits as well in Dead Beat, and there was no doubt there either.
Yes?
She didnt MAKE him a Starborn; he was born a Starborn because he was born under the right set of conjunctions / coincidences as per Lash.
Its not arguable.
I provided the citations where her active intervention has been directly responsible for keeping him and his own alive, from immediately after his father's death to the events of Changes and Ghost Story.
Its worth remembering that when Dresden was in serious trouble and had time to think, when the Kemmlerites came to town during Dead Beat? Dresden turned to Lea. Summoned her for information and help.
He didnt doubt that she would come if he called.
It was when Lea wasnt available and Mab came in her place to offer information that he went back to his own resources because he wasnt willing to risk further debt with Mab.
Thats your determination.
Lea's determination is obviously not the same, and both IC and OOC she has better information about the circumstances than we do about the Dresdenverse.
Because she's his faerie godmother, not just someone who owed his mother a favor.
That carries associations and obligations
Just like there's a difference between a soldier sworn to Winter, and someone who just owes Winter a favor to fight somewhere.
We are talking past each other. What evidence is there that you can't use a sufficiently large favor to force a fae into the position? Clever bargaining and binding oaths go both ways, and Dresden's mother was clever, when she wasn't stupid.
As far as I understand she deliberately arranged circumstances and timings so he would be born a starborn. That alone casts doubt on her loving him, or at least on her love being conventional. Suffice to say that if you object to my proposals to boost little baby Amanda's stats and abilities to human peak, you should object much more to Margaret arranging for Dresden to be a starborn. That ability, as you pointed out, has a high mortality rate.
Also, as to Dresden seeing her when soulgazing Thomas... What the f*ck? That's some Corpsetalker/Nemesis type soul jacking. Soul gaze doesn't work like that, as I understand it. Dresden couldn'thave seen his mother when soulgazing his brother, only an image of her that his brother had iperceived, as I undersrand. Not unless she somehow left a part of her soul in Thomas. Or how did that work? Anyway, I am calling deeply unreliable narrator on this one.
Yes, because she already cam eonce before, and he somehow survived that.
I don't quite understand where you're getting this idea that anyone thinks she was just someone who owed his mom a favor. Godparent is a recognized position and has actual connotations and responsibilities attached to it. Being a godparent has nothing to do with your species. You have a specific role and specific responsibilities that you are supposed to meet. The fact of the matter is she does the bare minimum a godparent is expected to do.
Before you go anywhere with the inhuman definitions thing no if it was made with a human tongue the Godparent role is a specifically defined role that someone is supposed to take on there's no linguistics games to play here you can't turn someone that you're supposed to watch out for into a dog one it specifically hurts too it's a diminishment in all ways and for an awakened wizard this is triply true. Two you can't purposefully enslave or diminish them which turning him into a fairy or otherwise taking him into the never never does.
- Location
- Norway
Funny story - a while back I was present for the baptism of a child at a church which took itself "seriously", for lack of a better word, and kept the traditional responsibilities. Parents and godparents were there, and one of the specific responsibilities the priest asked the godparents to swear was this:
"If the parents of this child ever apostasize, will you take over the responsibility of raising the child in the true faith?"
(wording not exact)
I read up on it and learned that this used to be common, but now increasingly rare and borderline illegal, because most modern states are totalitarian and very jealous of their power and insist on being the only game in town. Much like the infamous monopoly on the use of force, states also want a monopoly on correcting the raising of children. To comply with the demands of states, the godparent role has been made less specific and watered down to a friend-of-the-family role in many places.
I think Lea would be unimpressed with an argument that this role has a specific definition after seeing that.
I do understand that but the conceptual grounding of godparents extends well before the foundations of the Christianity or Catholic Church never mind any ideas of apostasy.
- Location
- Norway
...so what?
You asserted that godparents have specific responsibilities.
I gave a counter-example of how the responsibilities of godparents are changing.
You respond by saying that something-like-godparents used to exist long ago, and were also different from that again? This sounds like it undermines your original point by showing that godparents very much do not have specific responsibilities, they're a vague concept that changes a lot.
That one's on me. I do not know another word for concept. Though I do know it can and does exist in a secular manner. So this specific Church that has a specific definition of Godparent that extends past being essentially a backup parent that provides support, teaching, information, knowledge connections, protection and raising should anything anything misfortunate befall the parents. Though I do know that that is not what anyone means when they ask someone to be a godparent. Also that example doesn't work for what you're saying though it is deeply annoying that a church would step so far out of its role to do that. While that demonstrates a change it doesn't actually negate any responsibility of Godparent is supposed to have.
What evidence do you have that it is possible?
The Fae arent Harry Potter house-elves that you can push around. Nicodemus can tell you what happens when you forget that.
A godparent, a godmother, is a position of trust where you expect said godparent to use their own best judgement.
You are essentially granting them a blank check to wield influence over the life of one of your children.
You dont want someone in that role who might be minded to do them harm because they dont want to be there.
Nor do you want a godparent whose judgements are....too alien, either.
No it doesnt.
That argument makes about as much sense as claiming that arranging for your child to be born in a particular country for citizenship means that you dont love them.
===
We know very little about the circumstances around his birth.
Lash says in White Night that it was Dresden's birth that gave Maggie the strength to leave Lord Raith. Maggie LeFay's sending in Blood Rites says that she is regretful about the burden he bears and her mistake. Thats it.
Everything else is veilled in mystery. Deliberately so.
===
My dude, which part of wizard arent you getting?
Dresden Soulgazed Thomas when Thomas claimed to be his brother, and ran into his mother right there, who tells him that she encoded a sending for him there to be triggered by his presence. And then in the Soulgaze, his mother asked for his permission, and passes him an encoded package of knowledge and Power that she made for him.
Yup.
LeFay was a deeply, deeply scary wizard when she wanted to be, and she was only maybe around Morgan's current age when she died. She had the magical skill to cripple a magically protected kingpin like Lord Raith while she was dying.
Her enemies only successfully killed her when she was in labor.
If she'd lived to full maturity....Things would have been interesting.
Remember that for all Dresden's infamy, he hasnt lived 10% the lifespan of a canon wizard
In a setting where wizards live at least three hundred years before dying of natural causes in canon, he's the equivalent of an eight year old.
Given that Dresden would not call Mab that way, he disagrees with you.
Godmother is, as far as I know, a principally Christian religious tradition that we can date to the 2nd century AD.
Whatever else the Fae are in the Dresdenverse, they arent christian, nor do their customs only start after the birth of Christ.
So frankly, you cannot make any such claims or determinations.
How the Fae and the greater magical community understand the role probably bears only superficial resemblance to how the Catholic Church understands the role.
How the Fae do it might not even be the same as how, say, Arabic djinn see it.(yes, a thing in the Ghoul Goblin comics)
Furthermore, you now add individual personal judgements into the mix. Personal preferences, like Lea's fondness for hounds.
Even among humans, judgements can differ; some humans are happy with a child that grows up a garbageman as long as he's happy, while others might see it as wasting their potential if they dont meet some arbitrary standards.
Now expand that to actual nonhumans. Then throw in magic.
Someone like Lea can in good faith make a determination that you might be happy as a hound, or a whale, or a bird, or a tree, and be sincere about it, and have the power to make it happen.
They might literally have friends or associates that have those forms.
Mythology has stories of human to animal/plant transformations as both rewards, mercies and punishments depending on the person. And its not like there arent magical shifters in this universe who spend much of their lives in animal form; ask the Alphas about Tera.
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@uju32
We keep coming back to the almost same discussions, you are defending Winter when it's pretty obviously on the average cruel, predatory and something that should be kept away from humans as well as possible.
That goes from the Leanansidhe to the least Malk, Fetch or Redcap.
Quibbling over details isn't going to change the fact that they are mostly monsters.
We keep coming back to the almost same discussions, you are defending Winter when it's pretty obviously on the average cruel, predatory and something that should be kept away from humans as well as possible.
That goes from the Leanansidhe to the least Malk, Fetch or Redcap.
Quibbling over details isn't going to change the fact that they are mostly monsters.
1) You are ascribing a lot of motivations to Margaret that we don't know about, and making judgements about her character that are unsupported. There's at least this one piece of evidence that she wasn't entirely good (Skin game, ch. 51):
Anyone who would be described in exactly the same way as a naagloshii, when their character is described, should be put under scrutiny.
2) You don't know what Margaret wanted.
3) We can probably (I am not 100% sure) assume that she wasn't planning to die when selecting Leanansidhe, so, whatever made her choose her probably included the assumption that Margaret would be around too. That didn't work out.
And even if we assume that Leanansidhe chose, on her own completely free will (and not DF broad definition when it comes to magical deals) and with great enthusiasm to become Dresden's godmother, rather than being tricked, coerced, or bargained into taking up this position as part of some deal with Margaret LeFay, it only tells us that:
1) She was terrible in her responsibilities
2) It most likely served the cause of Winter in some way. We don't know which, but my guess would be Dresden's life (at some point, like "when he reaches 100 years old") being promised to Winter in some way.
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Basically, I see two options:
1) Leanansidhe was coerced into taking up the tole / swearing whatever oaths were required, possibly by cashing in previous debts, possibly by some other means
2) Leanansidhe willingly became Dresden's godmother, which, knowing her, means that doing so would benefit Winter. She is very loyal to Winter, I'll give her that. And always seeks to benefit it.
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Well, if you deliberately arrange for your child to be born in North Korea and get NK's citizenship (while you yourself is an American citizen), yeah, it would cast some doubt on your character. Also, no. It's more like arranging for your child to be born with a specific mutation that doesn't normally affect their quality of life, but results in a statistical decrease in expected lifespan by decades.
You can defend Kemmler, Capiorcorpusm and Cowl with exactly the same words "what part of wizard aren't you getting?". I am saying that this kind of art is very close to necromancy / possession / mucking around with souls. Ie skirting the Laws in a bad way. As Margaret was known to do. Do not pass go, report to Wardens and Senior Council for trial. It's, again, not a good sign of her character.My dude, which part of wizard arent you getting?
Dresden Soulgazed Thomas when Thomas claimed to be his brother, and ran into his mother right there, who tells him that she encoded a sending for him there to be triggered by his presence. And then in the Soulgaze, his mother asked for his permission, and passes him an encoded package of knowledge and Power that she made for him.
Yup.
LeFay was a deeply, deeply scary wizard when she wanted to be, and she was only maybe around Morgan's current age when she died. She had the magical skill to cripple a magically protected kingpin like Lord Raith while she was dying.
Her enemies only successfully killed her when she was in labor.
If she'd lived to full maturity....Things would have been interesting.
Remember that for all Dresden's infamy, he hasnt lived 10% the lifespan of a canon wizard
In a setting where wizards live at least three hundred years before dying of natural causes in canon, he's the equivalent of an eight year old.
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I don't think that one of the Winter Sidhe would take mortals watering down their commitment to a duty as a reason to not do their role properly.
That's not a good example. Death curses are a feared thing for a reason. Wizards are known to accomplish some of their most impressive fuck yous when they're dying.
@DragonParadox Can we use the melee maneuvers in Mage 20 and Mage 20 Book of Secrets?
As long as they are not limited to the Awakened, which you are not, sure