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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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uju32 said:
Why? Not our city. Not our place of authority.

Furthermore, doing so is basically asking for one of our many, many enemies to hit them.
I am pretty sure that the Red Court, or the Denarians, or a rep for a Yama King, would love to get one of our operatives in a quiet room and literally peel their skin off them until they say everything they know about us.

Even neutral factions are interested in filling out their dossier on us and on Sanctuary.
I dont see why we'd want to make it easy.
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This makes sense, but it's also worth noting that if we leave Chicago that makes our agents in Chicago vulnerable to this as well. And it's harder to realize that people in Vegas are our agents, though I'm not sure it's that much harder.

We have some alternative ways to keep a hand involved. The first is just being available as a threat or beat stick if something comes up, but that's extreme. We can lend some of our overflowing cyber warfare capabilities out. We can supply weapons or some magic items, but that costs AP. And we could maybe do a ritual to set up a spirit again, but I don't know enough about that.

The best argument for maintaining an influence is two fold: it increases Molly's powerbase in this world, and once you've played kingmaker you have some responsibility to make sure the king doesn't go off the rails. If nothing else, making sure Harrowmount knows Molly is keeping an eye on him will help make sure he doesn't sell out to something too terrible.

In terms of power base: having an in with the unofficial ruler of las Vegas could open up soft power opportunities. We have a lot of power, but much of it is personal or tied up in reputation with major factions. I don't remember us having much soft power in the mortal world.

uju32 said:
His city now.
He kinda has to do that sort of thing on his own, or at least in his person, if he's going to project the strength that will deter other people from testing him.

And he cant really afford outsiders setting policy in his city.
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I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean that if we clear out the red court on our own it won't benefit him? Because I agree with that.

Otherwise, he did just ask for advice. Also, I don't really trust him. I think he's better than Adkins only because it's best for his position to not have that split in focus.

I don't think that it being known that we have influence on his actions would make him seem weak necessarily. No matter what, he's going to need to make deals with various parties; that's unavoidable. I'd rather we be one of those parties. Him appearing to be our subordinate would definitely be bad.
 
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zxzx24 said:
...Is he the mayor now?
I get all of that, what im asking is does he need to be in charge of the city now. I suppose trying to be a player is wiser than letting people with organizations backing them up mess with him.
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Yes, essentially.

I mean, do recall that the Library was maybe half an hour away from recommending nuclear release to the US govt.
There are a lot of people who need to be reassured that the crisis is over and someone reasonable is back in control of Vegas' supernatural scene. He's going to need people for that.

Alratan said:
He's relatively weak and lacking in allies. Now's the time to turn him into a client.
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This is actively deterimental to any hope of being seen as an honest broker.

Someone asks you for honest advice, and you try to use it to exploit them?
They will notice eventually, and so will other people in the supernatural scene and people will treat you accordingly.
Short term greed. Dumb short term greed. For a city we dont particularly have a need for at that.

We have enough PR issues due to what we feel like without playing into the stereotypes of demons.
 
If we DO offer additional assistance, being upfront with the associated cost would be wise. For ourselves and for him.

Make him look and feel less like a puppet maybe...?
 
I am not really into them, but for the person who wants AOE charms
The sorcerer releases her Essence and shapes it
into a cascade of streaming butterflies sculpted from
razor-edged obsidian. Flashing past her shoulders in
a glassy torrent, they shred everything within a path
roughly 30 yards wide, 10 yards high, and 100 yards
long. After this spell ends, the entire area of its effect
is littered with the sharp, broken remnants of the summoned insects.
System: Spend 3 Essence and roll Perception + Occult (difficulty 5). Everyone inside the attack pattern who isn't behind solid cover must soak a number of
levels of lethal damage equal to the successes rolled.
Not a charm and a essence hog, but when you want to fuck that direction there isn't really anything better especially with The Pentacle and the Scepter (••••) and All things betray. Pure damage no dodge and with those DC adjusters it always plus a bunch of extra dice.

Tendrils of sorcerous power reach invisibly across
the gulf of space, beyond the barrier of the Earth's atmosphere, across the spirit-shadow of Mars and into
the Shade Realm of Forces. There they bind pure and
elemental flame into a deadly firebird, which is called
to the sorcerer's side and cast at her enemies, where it
explodes into a torrent of incandescent flames.
System: Spend 4 Essence and make an extended
Perception + Occult roll against difficulty 7. Upon accumulating five successes, the firebird appears, streaks to a point of the Exalt's choosing within her line of
sight, and detonates. Everything within 15 yards of the
point of explosion is subjected to 15 dice of aggravated
damage, and everything flammable is set ablaze.
Another ancient sorcery that is even more of a essence hog then Death of Obsidian Butterflies and less area, but the damage is always 15 agg.

Comparatively all the Infernal AOE charms are sort of lame. Sandblast strike is only 10 dice of lethal damage.

My real worry is that if we get those charms what in the world DP is going to throw at us next? They would have completely trivialized this last fight.
 
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einargs said:
This makes sense, but it's also worth noting that if we leave Chicago that makes our agents in Chicago vulnerable to this as well. And it's harder to realize that people in Vegas are our agents, though I'm not sure it's that much harder.
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Chicago is our home base, with at least one hardened base in Last Station, and multiple factions who dont really want anyone from outside coming in to start shit.
We know the lay of the land well enough that outsiders cant really operate unseen easily.

By the time we go to Boston in autumn its going to be a significantly harder target, and we will have at least one, possibly two Fomorach!Molly clones in residence as tripwires/regent during the week while she attends class.
You're not going to be able to quietly kidnap one of our people there.

Nah, our people will stand out to any serious supernatural.
Not many cyborgs or bakemono in the United States. And with all the eyes watching the new overseer of Vegas, his contacts will be scrutinized.

einargs said:
The best argument for maintaining an influence is two fold:
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einargs said:
In terms of power base: having an in with the unofficial ruler of las Vegas could open up soft power opportunities. We have a lot of power, but much of it is personal or tied up in reputation with major factions.
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We didnt need to station military forces in Winter or Summer to maintain diplomatic influence or relations after doing them a service. Im not seeing why we would need to here.

Besides, we dont really want to be responsible for things done in Las Vegas.
Molly remains a reasonably observant Catholic, and has notably shied away from organized crime in Chicago, and Las Vegas essentially thrives on crime and sin to feed the dark spirit underground.

einargs said:
I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean that if we clear out the red court on our own it won't benefit him? Because I agree with that.
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Essentially that its hard to convince people that someone is an independent actor if someone else has to hold their hands
And if other people think its possible to puppet someone, their thoughts turn to replacing the current puppetmaster with one friendly to their interest.

There are multiple reasons to exile the Red Court.
But letting him do it helps build his credibility. And it helps make it stick, by ensuring that the Reds dont think they can attempt to stage a comeback after Molly goes back to Chicago.
 
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zxzx24 said:
If we DO offer additional assistance, being upfront with the associated cost would be wise. For ourselves and for him.

Make him look and feel less like a puppet maybe...?
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Agreed. I think we should offer support, because we win a foothold on Earth and he wins support from the Courts, but we must frame this as a diplomatic/trade agreement between sovereign powers, similar to our deals with White Council.
 
I feel the threat of the Red Court trying to stage a coup is overblown.

1. The Red Court does not have the time, resources, or manpower to essentially start over from scratch in a city that will have entrenched opposition, especially since they're duking it out with the White Council atm.

2. Molly just came into town and annihilated a Red Vampire that could've scrapped with a Lord of Outer Night, in a few days. Ain't nobody gonna want to be the next fool on the chopping block after that show of force.

Seriously, Molly just came to Las Vegas and ended the Dragon with no losses. Nobody's gonna believe the Marcher Lord is independent, not when Molly's tacit approval will be enough to keep him safe from anything short of the full Red Court's mobilization. As far as the supernatural world is concerned, Molly's approval is worth more than the Sin-Eater's disapproval; it wasn't the Sin-Eater who killed its Dragon in 3 rounds after all.
 
uju32 said:
And if other people think its possible to puppet someone, their thoughts turn to replacing the current puppetmaster with one friendly to their interest.
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I mean, it's definitely possible to heavily influence if not puppet Harrowmount. It's possible that after making a deal with the sin eater for the power he's been looking for, he'll be less vulnerable, but he's still the kind of person to sell his allegiance or soul.

I do agree with your thoughts about people being perceived as independent actors and such. I just don't think it's possible for Harrowmount to be very independent, especially right now. He doesn't have the power base to be an independent actor: he's going to need to make a lot of deals to put together a coalition that can stabilize las Vegas and keep it running. That will restrict his agency.

And frankly, he needs some hand holding right now, given how little experience he has with ruling. That's why he's asking for advice.

Ultimately how independent Harrowmount can be is a matter of degrees. I think it's inevitable for him to make deals, so one of them being a deal with us instead of someone else won't make a difference in perception.

I do think your point about Molly being reluctant to get involved with the perpetuation of a city of sin makes sense, so I'm not as all for major backing as I was. I do think it's still important to make the person we appointed king doesn't horribly abuse it.
 
DragonParadox said:
[] Write in
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Is something like what I describe here with essence-stoking spirit possible:

BronzeTongue said:
Or it was just hungry and wanted more food than it needed. It'd be odd for the people who set this up to pick something that would inevitably fail due to energy loss.

Don't get me wrong, it could be a move of desperation provoked by some change in the prior situation, but there are other reasonable motives.

Either way I smell desperation. The outsiders are notoriously psycho and a bad idea to work with; just see Iku getting stabbed in the back and left to a face pissed off infernal alone.

We are infinitely more trustworthy, and have clear motives for not doing horrible things to it if it doesn't make us.

If it's seriously thinking that Sandra is a good business partner working for us would be an amazing deal by comparison.

It might even be cheap for us depending on the reading of a few things:


I don't have a cite for it, but I think DP limited this to once a scene. That said, it's still a full refill of exalted essence. Per that other ruling for using this on wizards unless we put HS on this it will try to feed the owner real deal nuclear hand grenade essence when it goes off. If we want maximum control we probably want HS anyway do we can grant it without losing ownership of the item, but if it can benefit from real essence then it's worth thinking about skipping it.

Either way, that's a full refill of supernatural power whenever it fulfills its nature regardless of how that happens. I'm assuming this basically means intimacies for our purposes, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if it had one for leading people into sin.

Which would mean that it either gets a full refill on the spot every time someone sins in Las Vegas or a minimum of once in every 15 minute interval of the same.

If it doesn't have a useful one and is really looking for any port in a storm we can also just give it one:


Set to guarding the gates of reality. Causing it to refresh its resource pool at every scene change from now till the end of time as long as it doesn't quit.

If intimacy isn't the right mechanic for this there are other options, but I suspect they'd be harder sells.

Side note: could we feed vamps this way? They can pack away a lot of food, so we make a HS item that gives a temporary super easy to fulfill new trigger for willpower renewal and keep it on them long enough to stuff down their full practical pool into spiritual fat reserves a few times over, then turn it off and stick it on another one.

They can literally keep centuries of food in reserve so a day or two where they eat as much as they can physically hold in their active blood point pool equivalent then pack it away using whatever mechanics we have for that* then do it again every scene till they're full enough to last a while.

However it works this is almost certainly the most efficient and effective way to feed them. It fills their pool regardless of size, so they probably aren't even capable of feeding themselves at this rate under even ideal conditions.

I don't recall us discussing this before, but that might just be my spotty memory.

* Assuming it's not something crazy like not having a blood point pool cap, which is sort of how canon treats it. Cause then turning this on might accidentally instruct an Ancient Sorcery grade effect to give a vampire fueled by a hunger demon infinite food. Which could have consequences. :V
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If it this seems like the time to do it, but I don't want to write up a plan for it if the base premise is impossible.
 
DragonParadox said:
"Now, having decided what I shall be adressed as, let's see if I can keep my title and my head for more than a day," he continues with a rueful smile that makes your doubts recede a bit. "From my understanding the city is faced with three major concerns at present: the anti-terrorist state of emergency and the presence of mortal authorities, the power vacuum left by the destruction of my predecessor and his most loyal followers and, one assumes, every greater power being poised to invade. Whatever delaying tactics our common foes have seen fit to make use of to prevent outside players stopping this abominable act if would be too much to hope that they would be so considerate as to continue to shied Vegas until I have my feet. Ladies, gentlemen, elder," he nods in the direction of the still silent Charon. "I am open to any counsel you may be inclined to share."
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This is him on 4 Successes, very respectable for a human.
Ouch.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Is something like what I describe here with essence-stoking spirit possible:



If it this seems like the time to do it, but I don't want to write up a plan for it if the base premise is impossible.
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The Sin Eater is the kind of being that could consume Infernal Essence safely, being powerful and inhuman enough not to burn up and very much a Creature of Darkness. Also it's a bit of an opportunist diet-wise by its very nature.
 
[X] Plan Friends, Foes, and Funds

[X] Remove the last of the Red Court as a show of strength
-[X] Exile

Come on, we have already voted to take care of that red vamps problems, let's actually do it instead of returning on our decision for no good reason, or no reason at all in fact.

They are not needed, they are not welcome, and nobody will cry if they are removed.

I would prefer killing them, but unfortunately I don't see that winning.
 
Oh good he got rid of the Dragon moniker. It was so tacky in a world where actual dragons exist. I can only imagine that the guy who flesh crafted himself into the shape came up with it.
 
How much XP does it cost for Fallen Angels to buy lores? Sort of assuming Lash is going to want to get the Awakening ••• lore to be able to heal Harry's agg damage.
 
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VOTE
[X]Plan Street Rules
-[X] Meet with representatives from the Library of Congress in person
-[X] Remove the last of the Red Court as a show of strength
--[X] Exile
-[X] Put together own organization; suggest Tommy Fieracelli and his Shadow Killers as potential recruits
-[X] Make use of Arlene's skills to start unwinding the human trafficking in the city, that stream of power can be compensated for
[X]STUNT: You take a breath."You're gonna need your own people who know the city; anything that survived Samuel is probably sus. In which case..."You consider for a moment, caste mark brightening, then meet Harrowmont's eyes. "Exile the Red Court." The words come easily to your lips. "Because they are anthropophages. Because their absence would significantly shrink the human trafficking trade, and the need to cover it up. Because there's probably other local Reds and half-Reds that she" you nod over to the unconscious Sandra, under the guns of some of your soldiers "left programming in. Not all, but some. And its more trouble than its worth to go checking." You pause for a moment to frown as additional medical supplies are taken to Hand of Ash, then continue. "Not that this is a Red Court plot, mind; doesnt appear to have the Red King's sanction, at least. But the Red Court's current policies make them a demonstrated Outsider vector in a city established to keep the Outside outside, and their absence would make your life much easier in multiple ways." You nudge the head on the floor with an armored boot. "And since the local Reds are currently drastically weakened, it should be a lowrisk way to demonstrate authority upon your accession without risking a confrontation." "So a scapegoat?" Harrowmont half-states, half-asks, squinting at you. You shrug in response."If you want to call it that. You have a window of opportunity, and a causus belli. Seize the late Dragon's personal assets for his involvement - trust me, you're gonna need the money - but as long as you leave the Red Court's corporate assets alone, you should actually get credit for a restrained response." The medic looks up from Ash, catches your eye, and gives a thumbs up, and a tension you didnt realize you felt eases away as you return your full attention to Harrowmont."First though, you're gonna need to talk to the Feds. Because an ongoing state of emergency means no tourists, and the ongoing flow of tourists is critical to the city's mortal and supernatural economy, and to a...."you wave your hands "general state of normalcy."
 
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Incidentally the • Awakening lore find the faithful would have made this a very different arc with Lash being able to locate Sandra from miles away just from knowing her name.
 
fictionfan said:
How much XP does it cost for Fallen Angels to buy lores? Sort of assuming Lash is going to want to get the Awakening ••• lore to be able to heal Harry's agg damage.
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New Lore/1st dot is 7 or 10 xp.
2nd dot is 5xp, 3rd dot is 10xp, 4th dot is 15xp, 5th dot is 20xp.

Awakening 3?
22XP if favored, 25XP if unfavored.
Which is why I said its not something we can buy immediately.
fictionfan said:
Incidentally the • Awakening lore find the faithful would have made this a very different arc with Lash being able to locate Sandra from miles away just from knowing her name.
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Outsider-associated people have cloaking abilities that can contest Exalted perception charms; see Vito Malvora at the Raith party. At best, it would have come to a roll-off.
 
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