Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Her left hand signs a complex gesture, fingers bent, crossing open. Unless she uses the cant for which her organization is partially named, right. It is still wierd always-having-known-something you had never thought of before, but at least you are relieved at the answer: "Toothache."
New favorite combat cyborg acquired. Quipping to your god empress in sign language because your jaw is too shot off your face to do it out loud is pretty great. We really should cook up a reward of some kind for these guys.

Just out of curiosity @DragonParadox is lord of the land a purely active thing? I was just thinking about some of the funnier implications of living in a sapient planet sized pocket dimension if it knew you by name and like the cut of your jib.

Stuff like Molly's subconscious lazily diverting bad weather, adding ominous special effects to good stunts, or otherwise "helping" with zero subtlety when it notices them at all.

Over in cyborg!quest the player base they just suddenly get the two dot background "God's Eye: the world wants to help" and the two dot flaw "Divine Diapers: your god is literally a child". :V

Probably not for a lot of reasons, but it'd be really funny.
 
New favorite combat cyborg acquired. Quipping to your god empress in sign language because your jaw is too shot off your face to do it out loud is pretty great. We really should cook up a reward of some kind for these guys.

Just out of curiosity @DragonParadox is lord of the land a purely active thing? I was just thinking about some of the funnier implications of living in a sapient planet sized pocket dimension if it knew you by name and like the cut of your jib.

Stuff like Molly's subconscious lazily diverting bad weather, adding ominous special effects to good stunts, or otherwise "helping" with zero subtlety when it notices them at all.

Over in cyborg!quest the player base they just suddenly get the two dot background "God's Eye: the world wants to help" and the two dot flaw "Divine Diapers: your god is literally a child". :V

Probably not for a lot of reasons, but it'd be really funny.

It could technically happen subconsciously yeah since there is no expenditure of Essence.
 
I'm too wary of grenade spam at this point to bother trying to talk them down...
[X] Use Akdin's talisman, that is sure to clear a lot of vampires
 
I'm too wary of grenade spam at this point to bother trying to talk them down...
[X] Use Akdin's talisman, that is sure to clear a lot of vampires
1) Wont make a difference.

We are about to perform a large scale excavation of a tunnel.
Everyone within a kilometer's radius will hear and feel us doing it, and the defenders will be able to see the minute that the digger breaks through the obstruction.

The only real questions here are:
  • Are you interested in seeing if you can talk people down? Or are you not?
  • Are you offering surrender? Or are you pushing people to fight to the death, with everything that entails?
  • Are you interested in intelligence from PoWs, or are you not?

Stopping to offer quarter does not materially affect the level of threat involved here.

And if you think grenades are bad, you are taking the risk of someone releasing VX in these tunnels as a final fuck you.

=====
2) Sunlight only affects young Rampires.
It doesnt affect Rampires whose fleshmasks are strong enough to allow them walk in daytime.
And it doesnt affect Infected/dhampirs.

And even the Rampires something like this affects arent crippled.
See when Dresden did this exact thing to Bianca in Storm Front at point blank range.
I smiled at her, and put one hand into my pocket, onto the white handkerchief. "No, thank you. I came to talk."
Her lips parted in a silent, ah. "I see. About what, if I might ask?"
"About Jennifer Stanton. And her murder."
I had all of a second's warning. Bianca's eyes narrowed, then widened, like those of a cat about to spring. Then she was coming at me over the table, faster than a breath, her arms extended toward my throat.
I toppled over backward in my chair. Even though I'd started to move first, it almost wasn't enough to get away from her reaching nails in time. One grazed my throat with a hot sensation of pain, and she kept coming, following me down to the floor, those rich lips drawn back from sharp fangs.
I jerked my hand out of my pocket, and flapped open my white hanky at her, releasing the image of sunlight I'd been storing for use in potions. It lit up the room for a moment, brilliant.
The light smashed into Bianca, hurled her back across the old table into one of the shelves, and tore pieces of flesh away from her like bits of rotten meat being peeled off a carcass by a sandblaster. She screamed, and the flesh around her mouth sloughed and peeled away like a snake's scales.
I had never seen a real vampire before. I would have time to be terrified later. I took in the details as I tugged my talisman off over my neck. It had a batlike face, horrid and ugly, the head too big for its body. Gaping, hungry jaws. Its shoulders were hunched and powerful. Membranous wings stretched between the joints of its almost skeletal arms. Flabby black breasts hung before it, spilling out of the black dress that no longer looked feminine. Its eyes were wide, black, and staring, and a kind of leathery, slimy hide covered its flesh, like an inner tube lathered with Vaseline, though there were tiny holes corroded in it by the sunlight I had brought with me.
It recovered quickly, crouching and spreading long arms that ended in claw-tipped fingers to either side with a hiss of rage.

I drew my pentacle into my fist, raised it like every vampire slayer you ever saw does it, and said, "Jesus Christ, lady. I just came here to talk."
The vampire hissed and started toward me with a gangling, weirdly graceful step. Its clawed feet were still wearing the three-hundred-dollar black pumps.
"Back," I said, taking a step towards it, myself. The pentacle began to burn with the cold, clear light of applied will and belief—my faith, if you will, that it could turn such a monster aside.
It hissed, and turned its face aside, lifting its membranous arms to shield its eyes from the light. It took one step back, and then another, until its hunched back was pressed against a wall of books.
All it does is drive them back; it injures, but it neither kills nor cripples.
 
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Stopping to offer quarter does not materially affect the level of threat involved here.

And if you think grenades are bad, you are taking the risk of someone releasing VX in these tunnels as a final fuck you.
Stopping at all does. Trying to take prisoners means we won't be going as hard on them especially considering how fast we tend to finish them all off. They can decide to release VX either way they clearly aren't bothered by friendly fire. I don't see why it wouldn't be a risk regardless.

Wasn't it said earlier that the infected rampires are mostly young and new? They'll be ready for us with grenades or otherwise so even just driving them back is good.
 
It could technically happen subconsciously yeah since there is no expenditure of Essence.
I was half expecting that to get nixed, but it looks like some people are going to be having a fun trip home. :V

I'm half tempted to make that stunt fodder somehow.
1) Wont make a difference.

We are about to perform a large scale excavation of a tunnel.
Everyone within a kilometer's radius will hear and feel us doing it, and the defenders will be able to see the minute that the digger breaks through the obstruction.

The only real questions here are:
  • Are you interested in seeing if you can talk people down? Or are you not?
  • Are you offering surrender? Or are you pushing people to fight to the death, with everything that entails?
  • Are you interested in intelligence from PoWs, or are you not?

Stopping to offer quarter does not materially affect the level of threat involved here.

And if you think grenades are bad, you are taking the risk of someone releasing VX in these tunnels as a final fuck you.

=====
2) Sunlight only affects young Rampires.
It doesnt affect Rampires whose fleshmasks are strong enough to allow them walk in daytime.
And it doesnt affect Infected/dhampirs.

And even the Rampires something like this affects arent crippled.
See when Dresden did this exact thing to Bianca in Storm Front at point blank range.
I smiled at her, and put one hand into my pocket, onto the white handkerchief. "No, thank you. I came to talk."
Her lips parted in a silent, ah. "I see. About what, if I might ask?"
"About Jennifer Stanton. And her murder."
I had all of a second's warning. Bianca's eyes narrowed, then widened, like those of a cat about to spring. Then she was coming at me over the table, faster than a breath, her arms extended toward my throat.
I toppled over backward in my chair. Even though I'd started to move first, it almost wasn't enough to get away from her reaching nails in time. One grazed my throat with a hot sensation of pain, and she kept coming, following me down to the floor, those rich lips drawn back from sharp fangs.
I jerked my hand out of my pocket, and flapped open my white hanky at her, releasing the image of sunlight I'd been storing for use in potions. It lit up the room for a moment, brilliant.
The light smashed into Bianca, hurled her back across the old table into one of the shelves, and tore pieces of flesh away from her like bits of rotten meat being peeled off a carcass by a sandblaster. She screamed, and the flesh around her mouth sloughed and peeled away like a snake's scales.
I had never seen a real vampire before. I would have time to be terrified later. I took in the details as I tugged my talisman off over my neck. It had a batlike face, horrid and ugly, the head too big for its body. Gaping, hungry jaws. Its shoulders were hunched and powerful. Membranous wings stretched between the joints of its almost skeletal arms. Flabby black breasts hung before it, spilling out of the black dress that no longer looked feminine. Its eyes were wide, black, and staring, and a kind of leathery, slimy hide covered its flesh, like an inner tube lathered with Vaseline, though there were tiny holes corroded in it by the sunlight I had brought with me.
It recovered quickly, crouching and spreading long arms that ended in claw-tipped fingers to either side with a hiss of rage.

I drew my pentacle into my fist, raised it like every vampire slayer you ever saw does it, and said, "Jesus Christ, lady. I just came here to talk."
The vampire hissed and started toward me with a gangling, weirdly graceful step. Its clawed feet were still wearing the three-hundred-dollar black pumps.
"Back," I said, taking a step towards it, myself. The pentacle began to burn with the cold, clear light of applied will and belief—my faith, if you will, that it could turn such a monster aside.
It hissed, and turned its face aside, lifting its membranous arms to shield its eyes from the light. It took one step back, and then another, until its hunched back was pressed against a wall of books.
All it does is drive them back; it injures, but it neither kills nor cripples.
There's always AtP if we have the essence for it. It's not invisibility, it's attention diverting, so they'll politely ignore the noise we're making.

As we've seen multiple times in the past, for the purposes of the quest if you don't know to have your mental defenses up effects that deliberately work to make you forget or ignore them can slip through. Unless Sandra has someone with perfect mental defenses currently running in that room or we roll poorly we could essentially pull a stealth excavation.
 
You wonder if the reason Harry had taken the chance to kill the people behind you and not the thing that might have been in front of you is that he had been unknowingly nudged not to interact with whatever that had been.
Incidentally, someone might be using an AtP like effect on us right now.

Molly directly thought about the possibility that someone's SEP field pushed Dresden to hurl grenades into a bunch of half-reds and then just set the possibility aside.

For all we know it's still here or could come back at any time, and since it's not actually invisible or attacking us Molly's anima power isn't revealing it to her.
 
) Sunlight only affects young Rampires.
It doesnt affect Rampires whose fleshmasks are strong enough to allow them walk in daytime.
It does effect them. Rampires can't actually fight all that well in their flesh masks. So even when fighting an old Rampires you are much better off doing it in sunlight.
 
Stopping at all does. Trying to take prisoners means we won't be going as hard on them especially considering how fast we tend to finish them all off. They can decide to release VX either way they clearly aren't bothered by friendly fire. I don't see why it wouldn't be a risk regardless.

Wasn't it said earlier that the infected rampires are mostly young and new? They'll be ready for us with grenades or otherwise so even just driving them back is good.
Thats offset by saved time on having to go through traps and ambushes if you get their people to turn.

The point is that we were told beforehand that Loyalists are in the majority.
Turn them even a fraction of them, and you potentially kick off an internal fight among the Rampires and Infested.
Which will disrupt Sandra's planning further, and allow us to save effort for when it will be necessary.

Rampires are not the worst thing we will run into down here.
Not when going after a not!Nephandi with preptime.


Dead Rampires are a net good, I see no reason not to kill everyone here we can get away with.
Just to be clear: This is not true. Not in all situations.
There are much worse things than Red Court vampires looking to take their place.

Dead Rampires with a clear plan for the aftermath and succession? Fine. Dead Rampires because we deliberately went after them? Workable. Dead Rampires because lol? Less so. And using a manhunt against a different threat as an excuse to cull someone else will materially affect our reputation and ability to do business in the supernatural world going forward.

You should stop regarding every thing as an excuse for a hunting license.
Especially since we needed Red Court intelligence to get this far in the first place.

This is the second time in the history of this quest that we have needed Red Court cooperation to tackle a greater evil, with the previous one being in Cleveland.
Its not likely to be the last.


There's always AtP if we have the essence for it. It's not invisibility, it's attention diverting, so they'll politely ignore the noise we're making.

As we've seen multiple times in the past, for the purposes of the quest if you don't know to have your mental defenses up effects that deliberately work to make you forget or ignore them can slip through. Unless Sandra has someone with perfect mental defenses currently running in that room or we roll poorly we could essentially pull a stealth excavation.
Dont have the Essence for it, as far as I can tell.
And AtP wont work for this anyway, just like it wont cover the rest of the party anyway.

It does effect them. Rampires can't actually fight all that well in their flesh masks. So even when fighting an old Rampires you are much better off doing it in sunlight.
Reasonably sure thats not true, based on the fight at Chitchen Itza.
We're not talking blood slaves here.
 
A Red Court Vampire can fight reasonably well in their flesh masks and the older they are the more true that is. A neophite might have to pop the mask to kill a particularly feisty civilian mortal, someone ten or twenty years in would only slip out when guns come out, an elder would take pride in being able to dismantle opposition without once breaking 'character'.
 
[X] Try to take prisoners this time, it would be nice to know what's been going on down here
 
Incidentally, someone might be using an AtP like effect on us right now.

Molly directly thought about the possibility that someone's SEP field pushed Dresden to hurl grenades into a bunch of half-reds and then just set the possibility aside
Molly needs to deliberately spend essence to counter mental effects right? Maybe we should be using a mote if discreet mind magic is being used on our party right now.
 
No, keeping you from activating a charm would be direct compulsion... at which point you would have the choice to trigger IPM as a reaction.
Haven't you had the case where we can be affected by UMI (or whatever that was) before IPM can be/is activated (the fight w/ Gorf), potentially precluding us doing so at all? Or, perhaps, manipulating one's perception of reality so that they choose not to activate it, rather than directly preventing them from doing so. Also, how would that mesh with Perfect UMI (if that even exists)?
And, depending on how certain Perfect Mental Defense charms/abilities are worded, could some things be able to slip through depending on how they're interpreted?
 
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Haven't you had the case where we can be affected by UMI (or whatever that was) before IPM can be/is activated (the fight w/ Gorf), potentially precluding us doing so at all?

Yeah, but he did not prevent you from triggering it. If you fail to notice something and then choose not to trigger it, that is one thing. But if the thread votes for and thus Molly decides to fire off the charm nothing short of actual compulsion can stop her, at which point she would have the option to react with IPM.
 
Could a mental effect like this prevent us from choosing to activate IPM reflexively or at all, though?
IPM is literally her third or fourth line of mental defense.

First it has to beat her normal Willpower roll, then it has to beat her Intimacies if applicable, then it gets activate and bounce off Impervious Primacy Mantle.
And if its a magic spell, it has to beat her Wits + Occult reflexive counterspell.
No, keeping you from activating a charm would be direct compulsion... at which point you would have the choice to trigger IPM as a reaction.
Presumably Molly has her anima banner and caste mark up anyway.
Which means the surprise negator effect should be up anyway.
Any effect of that sort is probably Obvious to her.
 
IPM is literally her third or fourth line of mental defense.

First it has to beat her normal Willpower roll, then it has to beat her Intimacies if applicable, then it gets activate and bounce off Impervious Primacy Mantle.
And if its a magic spell, it has to beat her Wits + Occult reflexive counterspell.

Presumably Molly has her anima banner and caste mark up anyway.
Which means the surprise negator effect should be up anyway.
Any effect of that sort is probably Obvious to her.

Yep, Molly triggered her anima when those vampires dived in, in order to use Transcendent Anathema to stab them, after the grenades went in. If something decided to attack her now she would see it and roll initiative at the same time.
 
IPM is literally her third or fourth line of mental defense.
It's her only line of defense against a perfect effect, which we do know that at least some entities in DF and WoD have. Also, for instance,
Any attempt to cause or force the Infernal to betray, undermine, or abandon her Intimacies automatically fails. Furthermore, she may reflexively spend 1 Essence or 1 Willpower to become immune to all thought and emotion-altering magic for the rest of the scene.
Would this be effective against something which directly alters her intimacies, rather than inducing her to abandon them, to another entity's desires? Assuming that it gets past her other defenses (whether through ludicrous amounts of dice and/or willpower/essence-tapping, or a Perfect effect)
 
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It's her only line of defense against a perfect effect, which we do know that at least some entities in DF and WoD have. Also, for instance,

Would this be effective against something which directly alters her intimacies, rather than inducing her to abandon them, to another entity's desires? Assuming that it gets past her other defenses.

Yes, there is no distinction between altering intimacies and inducing someone to abandon them, if any power is trying to make those intimacies something else the passive effect triggers. Uriel could be standing on one of Molly's shoulders and Lucifer on the other with both of them telling her to give up her crush on Harry and all they would get out of her is 'Nuh-uh' :V
 
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