Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Why?
The supernatural world doesnt especially care about mortal property crimes, and the Feds have a bunch of conveniently dead scapegoats. And its not the first time we have had to overlook major crimes in the interests of supernatural security.

Besides, with our ongoing attempts to engineer a withdrawal of the Red Court from the Las Vegas area? Removing both the Red Court and the Shadow Killers guarantees a power vacuum in Vegas, especially in the aftermath of Sandra's machinations over the last several months.

A newbie Dragon can use all the help he can get.
Stabilizing Las Vegas is of way more importance to us, and to both the mortal and supernatural worlds than retributive justice over grand larceny
Retributive justice over selling dangerous weapons to who knows how many people who shouldn't have them and at minimum indirectly supporting the slave trade that the broader organization they're a part of operates in.

I don't really care that the supernatural writes it off, and a power vacuum is useful for us. Especially since this one is mortal on mortal and therefore not on our metaphorical tab.

I want to replace the current structures in so far as we can with something useful to broader mortal interests, then monitor it to at least attempt to keep things on the rails.

The have fey left and whamps left, the reds will be in exile, and most independent major talents are dead, in hiding, or work for the Library now.

If the mafia takes it on the chin too then then that opens the gaps wider and in an area they're capable of hunting in.

The temples aren't likely to break off a valuable relationship with the new freehold equivalent lord of the city, nor is Charon, so that leaves them almost unopposed for enough time to make it work.

Reds trying to muscle their way back in have to deal with the fact that approximately no one wants them to touch any of this shit again, making it fairly likely that they get the same treatment they gave the pathfinders if they try despite all the above.
 
Even better, we can drop it to a two dot and save the dragon's body for something else.


Edit:
ure we can. It just isn't nearly as useful for us because we can regain 1 mote per 15 minutes rest. So any such splendor would have to compare to that and would often come up short
The splendor feature is a peer in cost to the one that makes you immune to arbitrary levels of damage as long as they come from the right elements. There isn't a connotative or dennotative definition of refill that means "partial".

when you trigger this thing it gives you back enough power to hit full, whatever that is at the time for whoever it's targeting. DP could house rule that out, but that's why I asked for conformation it'd work that way in the quest before posting it.

The reason I don't think it's a hack for infinite essence for us is that an intimacy still has standards to meet; you can't just make one for whenever you click a pen or eat your favorite candy.

Even if you could, for charm interaction reasons such a pick would make Molly care about whatever thing we set it to with the depth of her love for and feud with her mother in a way nothing in creation can change her mind on. Which would be really unpleasant and potentially result in dangerous behavior played straight.

If you want something you're comfortable subjecting yourself to it's probably not going to be simple or reliable out in the world.

The sin eater is a rarity in that it never leaves an environment that can trigger an intimacy it already has (or wouldn't be particularly uncomfortable for it to take on) all the time even when it's focused on other stuff.
 
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The splendor feature is a peer in cost to the one that makes you immune to arbitrary levels of damage as long as they come from the right elements. There isn't a connotative or dennotative definition of refill that means "partial".

when you trigger this thing it gives you back enough power to hit full, whatever that is at the time for whoever it's targeting. DP could house rule that out, but that's why I asked for conformation it'd work that way in the quest before posting it.

The reason I don't think it's a hack for infinite essence for us is that an intimacy still has standards to meet; you can't just make one for whenever you click a pen or eat your favorite candy.

Even if you could, for charm interaction reasons such a pick would make Molly care about whatever thing we set it to with the depth of her love for and feud with her mother in a way nothing in creation can change her mind on. Which would be really unpleasant and potentially result in dangerous behavior played straight.

If you want something you're comfortable subjecting yourself to it's probably not going to be simple or reliable out in the world.

The sin eater is a rarity in that it never leaves an environment that can trigger an intimacy it already has (or wouldn't be particularly uncomfortable for it to take on) all the time even when it's focused on other stuff.
Ah, totally agreeing with everything that you have stated, but if we didn't have CSR. Then making ourselves a crown with an intimacy for ruling our kingdom well would be a totally valid way to regain our essence. It's just we have CSR so spending likely multiple hours on any task still wouldn't be the best way to regain our essence even if we had such a splendor.
 
Oh yeah that's a really good point @Yog. Maybe we should let Harrowmont know? We don't need to give him details but since it's his job to guard a Gate to the Outside now that's something he may need to know. We just cleared Vegas of Outsiders don't want to invite them back in.
Added the following to the vote:
--[] But maybe delay until he consolidated power at least, and secure communications can be arranged

This is in regards to talking to WC. It adds a delay, hopefully, and we'll be able to use it to root out at least high placed traitors in position to do disproportionate harm.
 
Ah, totally agreeing with everything that you have stated, but if we didn't have CSR. Then making ourselves a crown with an intimacy for ruling our kingdom well would be a totally valid way to regain our essence. It's just we have CSR so spending likely multiple hours on any task still wouldn't be the best way to regain our essence even if we had such a splendor.
The limit is once a scene, which is usually 15 minutes to an hour for the purposes of the quest.

As for making ruling an intimacy; you have to actually be advancing one to regain willpower from it. If we were full time in sanctuary and engaging in notable acts of rulership then that would be one thing, but not just walking around being queen.

The sin eater wouldn't be able to do that either if I'm reading it right, it's just that since it made and sustains Vegas it can peek in on anyone giving in to its machine to regenerate power. At most involving itself in a single minor temptation should definitely work and those are a dime a dozen here.

There's a reason I called this our most efficient possible way of feeding anything that subsists on supernatural juices.
 
[X] Plan Friends, Foes, and Funds Splendid Edition
-[X] Empathy, Leadership excellency to sell your suggestions
-[X] Remove the last of the Red Court as a show of strength
--[X] Exile
--[X] Seize what he can from at least those that helped Dragon in his betrayal, he'll need an operating budget
-[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] Use that to get her to ally with him
-[X] Deal with human time bombs still walking the streets of Vegas
--[X] Saving them will help him get their allegianc
-[X] Meet with representatives from the Library of Congress in person
--[X] Sell them on helping him on the basis that he's human, and they are also interested in not having a quarter of the continent explode
—[X] Offer the two dot version of the liar's dice splendor, made out of a vampire corpse from the loot, as the lynchpin of a three way deal.
—-[X] Harrowmont agrees to work with mortal authorities to keep the city in order and assist with the supernatural in his area of interest. He also agrees to formally give Molly the equivalent of basing rights; in the future she may set up shop here, or sublet to someone else to do the same as long as they don't interfere in his business.
—-[X] In exchange, he gets the splendor to use in feeding his employer, and the Library provides ongoing assistance for his work through things like a security detail and a limited basis library card.
-[X] Talk to White Council - given their war with Red Court, they can be a useful ally
--[X] But maybe delay until he consolidated power at least, and secure communications can be arranged
-[X] You are ready to help with all of those.
--[X] You hope he will become a valuable ally in defense of Creation, but you won't say no to a percentage of the loot
--[X] Molly recuperates essence using RVD whenever we have privacy


Form of the Hero's Shadow (2 pt. Form Element)
The Splendor manifests in the world as an enchantment embedded in a specific person present at
the time of its summoning, chosen by its owner. If it has no other Form Element, then it appears
as a mark like a tattoo somewhere on the infected individual's body. Wherever they go, so too
goes the Splendor. If it has a physical Form Element, then it appears in the infected individual's
possession, and will always return to them at the beginning of each scene even if thrown away,
left behind, or given away. If its physical Form is something immobile like a tree, then the
targeted individual is going to find that tree wherever they go for the duration of the Splendor's
manifestation.
If the Splendor is an Adornment, then this Element allows its benefits to be enjoyed by the
person to whom the Splendor is attached, even if they're not its owner and not attuned to it. Even
if they're not Exalted at all.
Essence-Stoking Spirit (3 pt. Root Element)
This Element can only be part of an Adornment.
The Splendor stokes the fires of the Exalt's Essence whenever she affirms her innermost self.
When she regains Willpower from fulfilling her Nature, she also refills her Essence pool.
This splendor manifests as a mark in the shape of a simple pair of dice, though it always seems to be showing a different face each time you see it.

Every time that the user affirms an intimacy related to tempting others strongly enough to recover a point of willpower, whatever supernatural resource pool they use is refilled.

Hope you don't mind if I steal most of your plan @Yog

To reiterate; the point of this is to make use of this opportunity to advance the interests of mortals in general, or at least in this region of the world.

Nobody with actual power wants to mess with this city for fear of being the person who touched it last and therefore is responsible for maintaining it. There's also a substantial power vacuum brewing that someone is going to fill.

Rather than empowering an actual mafia organization by elevating one of their crews that doesn't happen to deal in slaves* we push to fill it with the most reasonable mortal authority we have. There are issues with that, but it's what we've got to work with.

The feds get breathing room to set up in from the situation and the sin eater's position, Harrowmont gets assistance staying alive and the perfect tool fill his new obligations, and the sin eater gets more food at a higher quality.

The city gets a decrease in awful shit, because the law starts applying again one chunk at a time and the demon who made the place doesn't need it to be a cesspool to power itself anymore. Which can be leveraged into setting up a core capable of expanding to other places.

The basing rights thing isn't intended to be something we use now; it's to give us an in to use later if we want to address a problem.

Which there will be; this isn't the sort of thing that just snaps together without rough spots at minimum.


* But does evidently smuggle weapons in a manner that are almost certainly used for awful purposes. You don't usually resort to the black market if you've got innocent intentions.
 
So do we want to get Tiffany the next dot in light lore (6xp)? That allows for camouflage. Further on light is all about illusions. Getting another new lore is 10 XP and most lore don't really give all that good a trick on the first dot.
 
1) He's at least a bit high on power right now, and so we need to be at our best when suggesting moves that aren't enticing. Purging Red Court is unlikely to need an excellency to be agreed to. Talking to LoC and other mortals, especially WC? That we need the boost for.

2) We can help him, assuming he can't scry for them using Sandra as a focus. It's also his job if he wants it to be his job, and something that shows others, mortals most of all, that he's a caring overlord. It's good for his political image.
I can remove this part, but I think it needs to be mentioned.

3) I consider Molly to be an ally of WC in the ear against Red Court. As an ally, it's very much our business to try and foster cooperation and expand alliances. Harrowmont knows WC, yes. Does he like it? Probably not that much.
I am not staying our of global politics on this one.
1) There is no current evidence of that, and we're currently in the same room.
We should be able to tell if that was true.

2)No we cant.
We are still trying to keep the exact dimensions of our Crown capabilities under wraps, and the more we flash it around, the more we risk information on its abilities getting around.

3) Yes?
We can be allies and mean people well, and still think some things are bad for them. Or realize that there are boundaries that we shouldnt cross, well meaning or not. These are not children. They have agency.

Harrowmont is a relatively young man, but he cast his first spell before Molly was born.

Like I said, in his canon writeup Harrowmont stumbled into the New England magical community as a teenager. He developed personal contacts, he studied, he was deep enough that he was actually sponsored to take the official White Council exams for recognition as a wizard. He had (most of) the knowledge, he just didnt have the mojo.

Seriously, look at his personal magical library that we saw.
That is something that took both money and access to put together.
There's good odds he's on first name terms with more wizards and sorcerers than Molly.


Oh yeah that's a really good point @Yog. Maybe we should let Harrowmont know? We don't need to give him details but since it's his job to guard a Gate to the Outside now that's something he may need to know. We just cleared Vegas of Outsiders don't want to invite them back in.
That's a fair point, yes. When I get home, I'll shuffle things to either remove it, or shuffle it to the next month. I assume we'll be dealing with the council spies next, I think.
No. Dont tell him.

We dont know much of anything about Harrowmont's boss and his relationship or feelings towards the White Council, and he has a magical line straight to Harrowmont's noggin. See Ferrovax's general reaction to wizards for a reminder that people who dont want Creation to fall might still be interested in fucking you up for a grudge.

Anything you are sharing with Harrowmont has to be stuff you are comfortable sharing with the Sin-Eater.
Everything.
And Charon just demonstrated how pre-existing promises can fuck a spirit up.


I was implying its not really hardened because its very vulnerable.
You mean the station with popout railgun turrets and deployable combat drones? No it aint. Not since Molly finished upgrades.
It wont stop the real heavies like Denarian sorcerers, skinwalkers, archmages and the like, but the regular and elite minions that do things like snatching people or diversionary attacks get shredded.

And thats before we build Porter his power armor train.


I would if we take the davy crocett charm. We would win, the consequences are a different thing.
Nope. I dont think so.

In Cold Days, Alfred Demonreach simultaneously took on Winter Lady Maeve and her entourage of most powerful retainers + Summer Lady Lily and her entourage of most powerful retainers. While fending off an attempted invasion by He Who Walks Before and hundreds of Outsiders.

And Mab makes it clear that Alfred was holding back against the Fae Ladies, and thanks him for his forbearance.

Alfred considers naagloshii to be minimum security prisoners.
Mab is polite to Alfred. If we are dumb enough to fight a bonded Warden there, where Demonreach can give full backing, we are gonna die ignominously, nukes or nah..

We're buff. We're never gonna be buff enough to frontal assault Demonreach this side of Essence 5.


I mean the last guy's cooling body is literally at our feet right now after we fought him at the heart of his power. The comparison has already been tested.
The scenarios are not comparable.

The Sin-Eater was at a minimum refusing to support the Dragon; at worst, it was actively opposing him. Samuel fought us with his own juice plus whatever the Outsiders buffed him with. I mean, if he'd had the Sin-Eater's mojo on his side, he wouldnt have needed a chaos spell ritual.

An engagement in Las Vegas where the Sin-Eater puts his whole magical weight behind whoever his Emissary is has the potential to go very differently.
So no, hard disagree.



Remember. This is a Dresdenverse setting where we know that both He Who Walks Behind and He Who Walks Before are inside the walls of Creation. The minimum survivability requirements for the Sin-Eater's Emissary at full-power is likely to require being able to see off one of those guys if necessary, at least when they have homeground advantage inside Vegas.

Thats a...daunting amount of power for a single mortal to hold.
 
Alexander Harrowmont canonical writeup from the Dresden Files RPG, for those interested:
DFRPG V3 The Paranatural Papers p35 said:
Alexander Harrowmont
Potential player character
Bibliomancer Archivist
Motivation
: To establish myself as a wizard the arcane world will notice.
Face of: University of Nevada, Las Vegas (page 50)

Harrowmont has always wanted to be a real,old world wizard.
He cultivated a London accent even when his immigrant parents had long lost theirs, secretly thanked the universe for the near-sightedness that allowed him to justify horn-rimmed glasses, obsessively bought stoles and robes, and constantly studied the kinds of books that get you insulted or kicked around by bullies.

He cast his first common ritual in high school,having had the luck to stumble upon a room-tidying spell with actual power from a book he'd acquired from deep in the back of the stacks of a occult used bookstore. The tiny, tiny commission of will left him exhausted enough to skip school the next day and worry his mother. It also changed his life forever.

As a young adult, mired in the mystical community of New England, he expanded his studies and power enough to get him noticed by a member of the White Council. His day had come.
He would finally achieve his dream.

He scored lower on the wizarding exam than any candidate had in the past century.
The proctors practically laughed him out of the examination chambers, without even the customary warning that they'd watch him for potential signs of Lawbreaking.

Here's why: his particular brand of magic is only useful around books.
He's a bibliomancer,unable to do any magic that isn't precisely recorded or easily derived from written material.Without an arcane library, he can do no more magic than I can.

Decades of study haven't made him any more powerful.
The only avenues of study that seemed to help also brought a Warden to his door within the day, waving around a silver sword. He began traveling, seeking a place to avoid their scrutiny.

He found UNLV and a cozy home as one of their Chief Archivists. He's extremely popular on campus and often helps students with all manner of research—he seems to have memorized their library system and he brings the flexible touch that a computer search can't. When he's not on campus, one usually finds him poring over an old tome while sipping a sample from Synecdoche's (page 50) fine collection of single malts.

He continues to study constantly, waiting for a second chance.
His highest stats are Social.
His lowest stats are Physical.
Mental is medium.
 
Alexander Harrowmont what an incredibly based man. I didn't know any of that about him and I love him even more now. That is someone who has shaped himself the sculptor and the sculpture. He knew what he wanted he knew what his path in life was going to be, he knew what he wanted to look like, he knew what he wanted his voice to sound like, he knew how he wanted to spend his time, God damn what a real one. Chasing his dreams living up to his potential being helpful to other people and generally being a productive member of society holy moly he's better than 90% of everyone on Earth already.
 
Remember. This is a Dresdenverse setting where we know that both He Who Walks Behind and He Who Walks Before are inside the walls of Creation. The minimum survivability requirements for the Sin-Eater's Emissary at full-power is likely to require being able to see off one of those guys if necessary, at least when they have homeground advantage inside Vegas.
I doubt he gets most of that, for the simple reason that the sin eater has to give up anything it gives its cup bearer. Their job is to pour it wine, not fight archangel tier outsiders 1v1.
 
Those old medicine men knew enough to be afraid for their lives and souls, for the lives and souls of their children and grandchildren unborn. So they called up a spirit of darker sort a sin eater and they bid it to hold the gate shut, bidding it to devour the unworthy who came close."

The Sin-Eater has two duties: hold the gate shut, and kill anybody who tries to open it.

But it was summoned long ago, and only has so much power now due to Las Vegas. Before that, it didn't even bother with a cup-bearer. Because it didn't need to; nobody knows when Nemesis entered reality, because pretty much nobody knows Nemesis is in reality, and certainly not the medicine men so long ago.
 
The Sin-Eater was at a minimum refusing to support the Dragon; at worst, it was actively opposing him. Samuel fought us with his own juice plus whatever the Outsiders buffed him with.
That's true but I'm rather sure it was said that Samuel had the Sin-Eater's mantle. I don't remember if it was said in story or by DP but if IIRC it couldn't remove the mantle while also defending the Gate so Samuel was buffed by the Sin-Eater too.

@DragonParadox Am I remembering this right?
 
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