It just shanked us with conceptual damage simply for being in it's presence while our back was turned. Why would you burn essence on figuring our how to fix it before making sure it's on our side?
t just shanked us with conceptual damage simply for being in it's presence. Why would you buen essence om figuring our how to fix it before making sure it's on our side?
I think Uju is too paranoid, again.
Ask the questions first, then do the rest, not the other way round.
[x] Yog
Edit:
I mean, the update all but spell out that we have limited time to do things, waiting to asks the very important questions is just asking to not be able to do anything.
That I think I made a mistake stabbing you does not mean that I trust you with my own insides, or will let you fiddle with them.
Limited time means fuckall if you dont have the permissions to approach or work safely.
And the fact that it is demonstrably capable of making mistakes with regards to who it thinks is an enemy should make us more cautious, not less. We've already burned through most of our safety factor with its first oopsie.
We are down to 6/15 Health and -1 wound penalty. If we suffer 2 more damage, our wound penalty goes up to -4.
We are mortal. We CAN die.
Our personal health, and that of our party, takes priority.
That's a little paranoid IMO, repairing it can well give it a very good reason to be on our side.
As for not getting answers, talking is not a free action, it takes time, and the update told us time is not a thing we can be sure we have.
At least ask the question with the crown in the same update, it's not like we can't multitask that much... in fact:
[X]Plan Androcles and the construct.
-[X] Tell the others that it is subvocalizing in a way human ears can't catch
-[X] Activate All Things Betray for -3DC to Perception rolls: 1wp
-[X] Use your crown on the either Clippy's recording of the statue speaking, or the scene to ask "what are the techniques for restoring / repairing / healing the thing speaking in [Old language]"
--[X] Use Occult or Craft Excellency (whichever is more appropriate) for better comprehension.
-[X] Ask for a status report speaking its language; use Occult Excellency and Source Code if necessary(spend Essence to not hurt people), and reactivate Etiquette Excellency if it runs out.
-[X] Ask someone else to secure the late Cobbler's effects, especially his gun(s), because Crown foci.
It stabbed us when our back was turned and we were attacking the intruder.
It didnt go after the Black Court vampire that actually killed a sacred animal, then shot it in the face and hurt it; it attacked US, the Infernal who literally called the temple and warned them that a Blampire was coming.
Its not paranoia; its a reasonable response to recent events.
You dont know that it is willing to give us permission to do so.
And as many health workers who were active during the COVID pandemic will tell you, trying to cure someone does not automatically bring gratitude.
Sometimes, quite the opposite.
It's not paranoia Molly has taken significant damage from this guy once already. This is like getting shot IRL and when the guy who just majorly wounded you goes "My mistake I misjudged you" you decide not to excercise more caution towards this person when they could kill you with only two more shots. Instead you decide to help them first. It's like you don't think Molly's well being is a priority.
Also you do realize that we aren't going to be doing much of anything for a minute right? We need to heal this agg damage before going after Sandra or the Dragon or anybody else. That's going to take some hours.
1. Something has a claim to this Blampire's soul and throws a lot of dice at securing it at little notice and great distance. Path of the Sepulcre has a power to summon souls, but to use it in the instance of Nate's death means the caster must have had either a very strong connection to Nate (being his Sire?) or some kind of direct line of information to him, which isn't impossible since we know that Blampires can possess their lesser kin, so seeing through their eyes is probably an option for someone who had time to tinker with Necromancy.
The more I look at that the more confusing it gets. Throwing 15 manipulation+occult at what is essentially a novel soul destroying effect, which themselves are almost unheard of in the DF, that caught you completely by surprise at presuming significant range is a lot.
A god looking to counterspell an effect he'd seen before at point blank range used arete equivalent and was old enough to potentially know a bit about old school essence manipulation aside. Despite being called out as no slouch at this stuff himself.
It's been established that resisting charms like this is possible, and fair enough on an outside entity being able to throw in even when the target can't. Reasonable even it's annoying to have things taken for granted being revealed as more vulnerable than expected.
What I'm stuck on is that apparently this economy class tomb raider of a blamp apparently had a stronger link to his patron than Emma-O did to Kakuri's Will on Earth, who in turn was some mix of more knowledgeable and capable of essence shaping than an Outsider who knew infernals by their proper name and an Exalted style Rakasha turned war god. One of whom had months to think about round two.
Hell, Nemesis couldn't do this with its own soul shards.
Mavra was one of the oldest and most magically skilled remaining blamps outside of Dracula's remaining direct circle, potentially even one of his direct children, and as awful as she was she never demonstrated the ability to pull something like this.
Nate could have had a more powerful sire, but if he did why did he fold after one hit?
3. We have just gotten a reminder why we have Steelskin, VLE and spend an action on parry no matter what else we do. High-end combat in WoD is not as hilariously lethal as in Exalted, but it can still chew through more than half of our health in a round if we don't actively try to defend ourselves
I was expecting it to be bad, it's just that killing Nate in one round was more important. I'm surprised by how far it went though; with the stunt bonus we'd still have been rolling 6 dice at dc 5.
It's not paranoia Molly has taken significant damage from this guy once already. This is like getting shot IRL and when the guy who just majorly wounded you goes "My mistake I misjudged you" you decide not to excercise more caution towards this person when they could kill you with only two more shots. Instead you decide to help them first. It's like you don't think Molly's well being is a priority.
Except the guy who shot you was thinking you were a burglar, his alarm was blaring off at full volume, and we still decided to walk in as if we owned the place.
Instead of asking why the alarm was blaring off in the first place.
Also you do realize that we aren't going to be doing much of anything for a minute right? We need to heal this agg damage before going after Sandra or the Dragon or anybody else. That's going to take some hours.
I seriously doubt we have hours to take care of the statue, us going against Sandra or anyone after healing the Agg damage is completely irrelevant to the situation now.
Except the guy who shot you was thinking you were a burglar, his alarm was blaring off at full volume, and we still decided to walk in as if we owned the place.
Instead of asking why the alarm was blaring off in the first place.
Your still on this but we were escourted in through the front door. Asking a Crown question about that likely wouldn't have changed Cobbler's actions and we would've ended up responding the same way. We knew it distrusted us because of the bad vibes we give off the Crown would've just confirmed that.
I seriously doubt we have hours to take care of the statue, us going against Sandra or anyone after healing the Agg damage is completely irrelevant to the situation now.
Never said we did? I was talking about healing, my point being that we are effectively out of commision now so what are you in a rush for that we can't spend a minute or two verifying motives?
That I think I made a mistake stabbing you does not mean that I trust you with my own insides, or will let you fiddle with them.
Limited time means fuckall if you dont have the permissions to approach or work safely.
And the fact that it is demonstrably capable of making mistakes with regards to who it thinks is an enemy should make us more cautious, not less. We've already burned through most of our safety factor with its first oopsie.
We are down to 6/15 Health and -1 wound penalty. If we suffer 2 more damage, our wound penalty goes up to -4.
We are mortal. We CAN die.
Our personal health, and that of our party, takes priority.
Also, the crown can't tell us how to do things. It's a spy satellite, not Wikipedia.
Molly probably does have the crafting chops to try something like this, but we'd be better served asking what happened to it or the nature of the damage than attempting to get the crown to roll crafting/ritual magic checks for us.
Except the guy who shot you was thinking you were a burglar, his alarm was blaring off at full volume, and we still decided to walk in as if we owned the place.
Instead of asking why the alarm was blaring off in the first place.
Worth noting that the guy in this case is half blind, half senile, or both. We don't know how impaired it is or what restrictions it's operating under.
Suppose for example it has a restriction specifically requiring it to resist with all possible force anyone trying to modify it without permission. It could legitimately like us and not want to start anything right up until it doesn't have a choice anymore.
I seriously doubt we have hours to take care of the statue, us going against Sandra or anyone after healing the Agg damage is completely irrelevant to the situation now
On this end of things there's argument that we could do this while healing. My read is that it's suppressed while doing physically strenuous stuff, but resumes whenever we stop doing that. Sitting around thinking hard and potentially applying a repair aren't necessarily strenuous activities, or continuously so for long periods where they are.
We could probably arrange to do this in a way that doesn't preclude regen.
The more I look at that the more confusing it gets. Throwing 15 manipulation+occult at what is essentially a novel soul destroying effect, which themselves are almost unheard of in the DF, that caught you completely by surprise at presuming significant range is a lot.
Im assuming that the taken by surprise/unfamiliarity accounts for why its a DC9 roll and not like a DC7.
And the 15 dice involves at least some prep on the part of his sire, since the construct here wields conceptual sunlight as a weapon, where sunlight is one of their(Black Court) banes.
What I'm stuck on is that apparently this economy class tomb raider of a blamp apparently had a stronger link to his patron than Emma-O did to Kakuri's Will on Earth, who in turn was some mix of more knowledgeable and capable of essence shaping than an Outsider who knew infernals by their proper name and an Exalted style Rakasha turned war god. One of whom had months to think about round two.
It might have to do with the metaphysics. Bear with me, some of this is conjecture.
Blampires in this universe are somehow connected to the Neverborn, which may conceptually confer some resistances if they have the knowledge to exploit it.
If killed with their banes(sunlight, holy water/holy shit, garlic), they WILL die and not come back. Probably.
Otherwise, there's a risk a vampire can return, if there's elders/Sires/patrons higher up the tree willing to invest the effort.
But if you go after the head of a bloodline, that Elder/Sire has noone above him to bail him out if he gets hit with MiM
Ergo, in some ways the minion has better protection than its sire.
A greater akuma canonically used to be a human soul turned Kueijin, and sold its soul/free will to a Yama King.
Thats something that presumably limits how much control that an external actor can hold over its fate; at least one greater akuma has stolen its soul/volition back from the Yama King that it sold it to in the first place.
The Raksha had noone outside the fight that was actively backing it.
Nemesis doesnt apparently die when it loses shards.
Its injured, but the shards do not appear to constitute anything on the tier of a major subsoul of itself.
He got hit by an E3 Infernal Exalt? Thats usually a terminal event for most people.
I mean, he didnt expect to run into Molly here, improvised when he was discovered, and still ate a 20-dice pool attack at point blank range from a Melee-specced Exalt wielding an Agg + 2 demonsword. With no armor.
He's a vampire; the only thing he had to soak Agg with was Fortitude.
And because he wasnt an elder, he had no access to the advanced powers. Even if he had Fortitude 5, that would have been woefully inadequate in the face of a Agg Damage 6 demonsword wielded with 20 dice.
Given how EIPP works it should probably be added to any other plans we have. Standing here talking isn't a physical strain, and every minute we're not pushing ourselves is another step closer to being healed.
Im assuming that the taken by surprise/unfamiliarity accounts for why its a DC9 roll and not like a DC7.
And the 15 dice involves at least some prep on the part of his sire, since the construct here wields conceptual sunlight as a weapon, where sunlight is one of their banes.
That's still crazy. Going to DC 9 is hitting the outer range of what's possible for you but still within your skill set. You don't roll occult at dc 9 to recall things you never learned for example.
Even under Holden's heavy nerf rules for exalts you don't by default get to use your actual skills to oppose charms unless they let you.
A difficulty adjustment of 2 is the equivalent of getting sand in your eyes, and isn't comparable to the difference in tasking between using a necromatic ritual against standard sorcery as opposed to a completely different charm based effect.
Remember that as far as canon DF is concerned there's one explicitly named item that can permakill outside of Halloween, the eye of balor. The swords of the cross are implied to be able to do so as well, but it's never directly confirmed.
Ra the disfunctional animatronic godbot could pump him full of Agg and it wouldn't touch his soul. He might've tried trapping it, but that has as much in common with destroying it as a prison cell does with a cruise missile.
I'm not saying this is completely impossible, but the idea that this is a standard thing a powerful elder can spend on a middling minion sounds like bullshit to me.
It's like laying a WW1 grade minefield to block infantry and someone applying it to defending against a modern fighter jet.
Mavra is my measuring stick here; she's just shy of the truly crazy monsters, but is evidently still one of Dracula's direct children. The surviving blamps are the more cautious ones, but it says something that she's chronically unwilling to go near necromancers and her big trick for getting past Harry's shield is mundane napalm.
Blampires in this universe are somehow connected to the Neverborn, which may conceptually confer some resistances if they have the knowledge to exploit it.
If killed with their banes(sunlight, holy water/holy shit, garlic), they WILL die and not come back. Probably.
Everyone has a big scary backer. The Neverborn are nasty, but he isn't exactly the direct servant of an outer god. He's the product of a bio weapons project made in a fit of teenage rebellion by the son of a guy who touched the remains of something dark.
I'm not saying they can't be scary, but there are limits to how far you can reasonably seven degrees of Kevin Bacon the Neverborn to justify things.
A greater akuma canonically used to be a human soul turned Kueijin, and sold its soul/free will to a Yama King.
Thats something that presumably limits how much control that an external actor can hold over its fate; at least one greater akuma has stolen its soul/volition back from the Yama King that it sold it to in the first place.
The Raksha had noone outside the fight that was actively backing it.
Nemesis doesnt apparently die when it loses shards.
Its injured, but the shards do not appear to constitute anything on the tier of a major subsoul of itself.
Kinda missing the point here. Backers help, but being able to roll like that has weird implications.
Even if Iku couldn't resist this effect, what does this blamp have over him that made them able to do better in what they could roll?
I don't really buy your argument about Akuma because control and opposition aren't the same thing. In any case the Yama Kings can see through their Greater Akuma's senses at will and physically possess the vessels holding their souls so it seems weird to draw the line above that either way.
The only reason Nemesis didn't leave those bodies is that it directly contradicted all of its intimacies to do so. Getting screwed that way pissed it off so much it's planning to flip the table like it hasn't really tried in its known history. If it had another option for retaliation or opposition why wouldn't it take it?
If Emma-O pulled this on us after sending another wave of Akuma at us I'd buy it. He physically had the exaltation for ages, would have been specifically preparing to counter something he saw directly, and has been dealing with souls bullshit specifically since before the black court even existed.
He got hit by an E3 Infernal Exalt? Thats usually a terminal event for most people.
I mean, he didnt expect to run into Molly here, improvised when he was discovered, and still ate a 20-dice pool attack at point blank range from a Melee-specced Exalt wielding an Agg + 2 demonsword. With no armor.
Yeah, but he was totally helpless after the trick shots. That tells us he has celerity 3 and no other relevant disciplines. We've fought whamps tougher than that, and they're not in the same weight class combat wise.
I don't want to flood the thread with salt our something, but I don't see this one.
Adhoc vote count started by Anaja on Jan 17, 2024 at 7:25 PM, finished with 88 posts and 14 votes.
[X]Plan Talk Like An Egyptian -[X] Tell the others that it is subvocalizing in a way human ears can't catch -[X] Activate All Things Betray for -3DC to Perception rolls: 1wp -[X] Ask for a status report speaking its language; use Occult Excellency and Source Code if necessary(spend Essence to not hurt people), and reactivate Etiquette Excellency if it runs out. -[X] Ask someone else to secure the late Cobbler's effects, especially his gun(s), because Crown foci.
[X] Exalted maintenance -[X] Tell the others that it is subvolalizing in a way human ears can't catch -[X] Use your crown on the either Clippy's recording of the statue speaking, or the scene to ask "what are the techniques for restoring / repairing / healing the thing speaking in [Old language]" --[X] Use Occult or Craft Excellency (whichever is more appropriate) for better comprehension -[X] Ask for a staus report speaking its language --[X] If possible, initiate immediately available repairs
[X]Plan Androcles and the construct. -[X] Tell the others that it is subvocalizing in a way human ears can't catch -[X] Activate All Things Betray for -3DC to Perception rolls: 1wp -[X] Use your crown on the either Clippy's recording of the statue speaking, or the scene to ask "what are the techniques for restoring / repairing / healing the thing speaking in [Old language]" --[X] Use Occult or Craft Excellency (whichever is more appropriate) for better comprehension -[X] Ask for a status report speaking its language; use Occult Excellency and Source Code if necessary(spend Essence to not hurt people), and reactivate Etiquette Excellency if it runs out. -[X] Ask someone else to secure the late Cobbler's effects, especially his gun(s), because Crown foci.
[]Plan Talk Like An Egyptian
-[] Tell the others that it is subvocalizing in a way human ears can't catch
-[] Activate All Things Betray for -3DC to Perception rolls: 1wp
-[] Ask for a status report speaking its language; use Occult Excellency and Source Code if necessary(spend Essence to not hurt people), and reactivate Etiquette Excellency if it runs out.
-[] Ask someone else to secure the late Cobbler's effects, especially his gun(s), because Crown foci.
Change of vote. I like the Exalted Maintenance vote more overall, but I want us to make sure that we collect the remains of Cobbler. Want to use that ash as a crown focus to learn a bit more about the Neverborn.
Identify, FIRST.
And be damn sure that you have the right permissions before even bothering to spend Crown foci whether or how how it can be repaired; doesnt matter if you can fix it if approaching it gets you stabbed with an Agg spear.
Spirit construct just shanked Molly badly enough that she's going to, at best, spend almost half of the coming day in recovery.
Its original functions and loyalties should be of deep concern.
Be damn sure it doesnt default to hostility before you think of repair/healing to factory specs.
Even if this was of Solar origin, its worth recalling that Solars were quite capable of distrusting or hating each other.
And we're not a Solar. We're an Infernal.
Save the Crown questions for AFTER we get a status and/or permission to approach Stabby McStabface.
You have your priorities backwards. It doesn't help us at all if we identify it, but let it crash, with irreparable damage and data loss sustained.
We already know the general gist of the situation:
1) It's an artificial intelligence of some kind (based on the general pattern of speech, how it handles an exception)
2) It's likely solar / sun / Uncoqnquered Sun associated (based on the color of the text and iconography)
3) It is likely from the Age of Legends (based on what it's saying and the language it's using)
4) It has possibly been repainted / reused / modified in the later ages (based on how it was using current Age's iconography and languages)
5) It has inititally misidentified us for Anubis-tainted / Yomi-aligned / unholy
6) Once we have slain the vampire, it was able to notice its mistake. Trying to classify us now has caused it to run into an exception in its programming:
"You are not what we had thought," the lion-headed woman speaks, the shade of Sekmet. "Less and more than we had thought. A tainted sun, as Ra Who Was but Not"
"But not-not!" An oddly musical tone echoes from the depths of the statue. [Double-Denial Para-Conceptual-Positioning/Lotus of Poisoned Life/Restoration of Nul coordinate positioning: Impossible. Probability of Data Loss due to Baseline Signal/Creation Function Interference: Approaching Unity. Primary Function Nearing Fracture/Terminal Loss]
Essentially, it's blue-screening due to infernals being a paradoxical existence that its programming is not meant to handle. They are solars (because they are based on solars), but tainted (because Yozi), but not (either because exaltations cannot be diminished, only built upon, or because our exaltation is a devil-tiger heretical user and as such is not directly a yozi-replication, or because Molly is a devout Christian, or for some other reason).
It's blue screening right now. With indicated likely irreversible damage.
If you see someone having a seizure, even if they have a gun, you try to help them, not get their ID. So, right now is exactly the time to ask questions on maintenance and to perform it.
Given that it stopped attacking, we can surmise that we likely have permissions to interact with, but it's not likely that we can get more / better answers / permissions until we help stabilize it.
Change of vote. I like the Exalted Maintenance vote more overall, but I want us to make sure that we collect the remains of Cobbler. Want to use that ash as a crown focus to learn a bit more about the Neverborn.
It wasn't the vampire it was the ra god thing which I didn't expect to immediately attack us when we attacked the vampire. Agg damage is supposed to be rare.
As the others shout a warning or in Harry's case a spell of warding come too late you realize was definitely something important, a rib maybe. Two more stabs like that would... not... be... healthy. "I'm on your side asshole! See!"
Something that just occurred to me:
The cultists just saw their god-construct thing stab Molly twice with its holy spear, and she isnt dead.
Her only visible reaction has been been "Ow, asshole."
If they werent scared of Molly before, they sure as fuck are now.
Given how EIPP works it should probably be added to any other plans we have. Standing here talking isn't a physical strain, and every minute we're not pushing ourselves is another step closer to being healed.
Is it?
If we take the QM's explanation, narratively the elder at the other end was trying to pull his
Mechanically, it was a modified version of Path of the Sepulchre 2
•• Summon Soul
The power of Summon Soul allows a necromancer to call a ghost back from the Underworld, for conversational purposes only. In order to perform this feat (and indeed, most of the feats in this path), the vampire must meet certain conditions:
• The necromancer must know the name of the wraith in question, though an image of the wraith obtained via Witness of Death (see above), Shroudsight , Auspex, or other supernatural perception will suffice.
• An object with which the wraith had some contact in life must be in the vicinity, though it need not be something of significant importance to the ghost's living consciousness. A piece of the ghost's corpse works well for this purpose (and even provides a -1 difficulty modifier). Certain types of ghosts cannot be summoned with this power. Vampires who achieved Golconda before their Final Deaths, or who were diablerized, are beyond the reach of this summons. Likewise, many ghosts of the dead cannot be called — they are destroyed, unable to return to the mortal plane, or lost in the eternal storm of the Underworld.
System: The player spends one blood point and rolls Manipulation + Occult (difficulty equal to 7 or the ghost's Willpower, whichever is higher). The vampire must know the name of the ghost and have on hand an object the ghost had contact with in life. Provided that the target has died and become a ghost, success means the shade appears before the necromancer as described above. Not everyone becomes a ghost — it requires a strong will to persevere in the face of death, and souls that have found peace pass on to their eternal rewards. Moreover, it is possible for the dead to suffer spiritual dissolution and destruction after they become ghosts. The Storyteller should consider all these factors when deciding whether a particular ghost exists for a vampire to summon.
Vampires know if their summons should have succeeded by a feeling of sudden, terrifying descent as they reach too far into the great Beyond, so this power can be used to determine whether a soul has endured beyond death. While a failure means the vampire wastes blood, a botch calls a spirit other than the one sought — usually a malevolent ghost known as a Spectre. Such a fiend torments the one who summoned it with every wicked power at its disposal.
Once a ghost is summoned, it may not deliberately move out of sight of the vampire, though it can take any other actions, including direct attack. The vampire's player may spend a Willpower point to dismiss the ghost at any time (unless he rolled a botch). Otherwise, at the end of the scene, shadows engulf the spirit once more and return it to its original location.
It seems reasonably within reach, given preptime and elder dice rolls.
I'm not saying this is completely impossible, but the idea that this is a standard thing a powerful elder can spend on a middling minion sounds like bullshit to me.
Everyone has a big scary backer. The Neverborn are nasty, but he isn't exactly the direct servant of an outer god. He's the product of a bio weapons project made in a fit of teenage rebellion by the son of a guy who touched the remains of something dark. I'm not saying they can't be scary, but there are limits to how far you can reasonably seven degrees of Kevin Bacon the Neverborn to justify things.
Point of correction:
Black Court vampires were invented by Drakul as his personal elite squad of hardcases. Dracula proliferated them, and turned them into a political and supernatural organization in the setting but he didnt invent them, his dad did.
Canon Drakul is supposed to be something inhuman in human form, but we've not gotten any further explanations yet.
Kinda missing the point here. Backers help, but being able to roll like that has weird implications.
Even if Iku couldn't resist this effect, what does this blamp have over him that made them able to do better in what they could roll?
Outside help, presumably.
Someone has to be at the other end of the figurative rope to haul you out when you fall through the ice into the river.
Iku-Turso was alone.
Essentially, we were not contesting Cobbler, we were contesting his Sire.
And we know nothing about his Sire.
I don't really buy your argument about Akuma because control and opposition aren't the same thing. In any case the Yama Kings can see through their Greater Akuma's senses at will and physically possess the vessels holding their souls so it seems weird to draw the line above that either way.
But Dominate is a vampire Discipline.
Mavra explicitly did this in Blood Rites as well with the Blampire minions she brought to Chicago; she saw through their senses, spoke with the mouth of one, and meat-puppeted another into impersonating her and staging her death.
Thats in part why I kept being suspicious of whether Cobbler was actually present, or using a patsy.
Yeah, but he was totally helpless after the trick shots. That tells us he has celerity 3 and no other relevant disciplines. We've fought whamps tougher than that, and they're not in the same weight class combat wise.
I don't want to flood the thread with salt our something, but I don't see this one.
I've mentioned before that this guy may have been dabbling in side-classing into other skills.
Certainly, possessing a living animal isnt a standard vampire skill.
Maybe all those Egyptian artifacts he loots and sleeps with arent as harmless as we first supposed.
Maybe he was the subject of some ritual. Maybe he kept some qualities from when he died that made him valuable to his sire.
Maybe he was carrying some talisman like the one that Madrigal had, which triggered when he died.
Maybe you're right, and he shouldnt be in the weight class for this to happen.
Dunno.
