Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
I think it's an artifact of how we haven't really played to its strengths.
We have 6 recipes, and only have a standing action to produce 1 of them. Alchemy benefits from prep time, and we either don't have it, feel the time is better spent elsewhere, or forget we have the skill by the time it rolls around to actually use something.
Glue and fog are very situational and we've never bothered to get particularly tricky when fighting, while speed has just enough of a side effect to make people conservative about it.
We've spent a lot on alchemy at this point, we should really be carrying around alchemical products as a matter of course even if most of them go bad simply so they'll be available when we need them. Cause the thread has repeatedly shown that even given the opportunity to staple alchemy production to the start of an action it will simply forgo it to get on with the turn.
Hopefully we can just set the buffs on auto, since they're things you take constantly to get the exp reduction anyway. The body builder one might work as a passive too, at least as something we pop as a matter of course before events, since it lasts 3 + stamina hours and exalts are immune to the consequences of drug abuse.
I hope we are able to see the look on Harry's face when he makes the connection between a potion that makes you extra hungry to pay for combat buffs and that Molly gets physical sustenance from eating souls on top of the motes.
The crafting stuff requires a bit more work, but we need to take a crafting turn anyway and this is part of how you play an alchemist.
I'm hoping we can do something like make mirror-bright wires of prima metallum so we can put unbreakable mirror on them as we weave an upgraded baseline kit for everyone.
We've bought up to nearly the peak of mortal ability with it and use it to make health potions. We're the sorcerous equivalent of those people who buy enormous pickup trucks they use to shuttle groceries around suburbia.
It wouldn't take away from anything else we're doing to start playing like the high level alchemist Molly technically is now.
I think that the issue is that this vote requires either designing your own recipes, which is fairly involved, or planning a long way ahead. It's not a vote that immediately affects the narrative.
I do want to bring alchemy up to 5, and it's damn useful
It's important to note that at alchemy 4, we should be able to make 2 dot recipes with "a cheap travel kit".
This one should be doable via our kingdom. 4 dot is "top of the line laboratory". At least some of the recipes might be unknown. We could license them out, and get some production diverted to our needs. This way we aren't a drain on the economy of the courts. This is also why I want Theia's tears and Liquid Prep Time - they are massively impactful on large scale economics.
I am struggling to fit it in. Next turn we have:
Relocating Rosie
School
Alphas
White Council traitors
Helping Lydia get a magical dog so her return on Companions of the Hunter is maximized
Handling Dawn Exaltation (because unlike other stuff, it's not in any way protected enough)
We also have crafting for Archive and ourselves, but I don't know what to drop. I don't want to delay the WC stuff. and Alphas might do something stupid if left alone.
Arc 12 Post 15: Secrets Canine and Chemical
Secrets Canine and Chemical
23st of January 2007 A.D.
You do not talk about the skin lotions, for two reasons: it is the kind of thing someone untrustworthy would be most tempted to exploit and even if Karl's trustworthy guys can be weird about that stuff. If you hear one more guy say he likes the 'natural look' and then point at some model that has a team of stylists spend hours on her you will not be responsible for your actions. The little silver pills that you had called Nabu Mercury though, those are on the table, well not literally handing out pills in a public park after sunset has... bad optics, but you are really proud of that one since instead of the rush of singular insight they instead serve as a learning aid. Slow and steady gains will always beat out the big and flashy stuff in the long run.
"Wicked! Cram pills!" No doubt you have been called wicked before, both from those who misjudged you and those who took poorly to your meddling, but that was...
"Am I being cringe?" Karl interprets your silence all too well.
Good thing you are such a proficient liar. "Not at all!"
The lab tips its golden doggy head to the side dubiously in time with Lydia, it is all you can do not to giggle. There seems to be some affinity there beyond syncronized head turning and scratching behind the ear, but in any case you continue to explain what you can do, healing potions and magical coffee, exams come up again and then once more when you mention food in a pill.
"Honest question, is that all of college? Worrying about exams?" you interject.
"No, but it sure feels like it if you ask close to one," Olivia answers knowingly.
"She gets it, I'm going to be honest with you guys, whether I'm some kind of wizard or not I have to get my grades up this whole Philip Brainard thing has been hell on my schedule."
The name sounded vaguely familiar but... oh. Either this guy is the most cunning warlock you've ever met or he is really, really not. Not that many people out there namedrop the main character in a ten year old Robin Williams comedy, he so often overshadows the role with his acting.
"How did you start making alchemical concoctions? It was before you got these three isn't it?" Lydia asks, still petting two of the dogs with the third tapping her elbow.
"Yeah. How did you...?"
"Oh I asked them," your friend answers casually.
"What are you like a parseltongue for dogs?" Karl asks to the utter bemusment of Lydia who had never read not perhaps even heard of what Harry comucally called the 'other Harry' books. Before she could decide on an answer Karl continues. "What do they say about me?"
"Well they say you need protecting since you walk around runny and a good knock is sure to trip you up. They say that about all humans by the way, don't worry. They also like the friend-treets, but Slow Wake over there wonders if you could make them taste like bacon."
"Slow Wake?" you ask, the obvious question before he can.
"The Husky, he was slow opening his eyes as a pup and the name stuck, in his own head at least."
"Their names are Gregor, for Geregor Mendel, Charles for Charles Darwin and Dorothy for Dorothy Hodgkin." You know who two of those people are.
"So how did you start making your... inventions?" Though you hesitate a bit on the word in the end it is as fitting as any other. A new spell, a new potions, all of these are inventions.
"So funny story, I'm on the swim team, it's cool, you should... it's cool, but back in September I messed up my shoulder moving furniture for a friend right before I had to compete so I looked online for a solution and I found... well I found a lot of them. Figured most of them were bunk but not like I had anything to lose."
Other than your health, you think but don't say aloud. It seemed to have worked out alright in the end. As he describes the recipe you realize something truly odd: linseed oil, Potassium Bromate, rubbing alcohol, ginger and whatever was in those organic chilly peppers, none of these have the right alchemical resonances, they aren't even close. Either he is using alchemy in a way that is orthogonal to your understating of it or something even weirder is going on.
"Where were you when you made your first solution?" you ask. He has to know about the Well somehow even if like with magic he does not know he knows.
"The old dorm building, the one they shut down," he answers, a bit more guarded than before.
"If hypothetically we were to get you back in there could you retrace your steps?" you ask, the start of an idea begining to weave together.
"Er... Molly," Olivia interjects. "before we break into Harvard how about you and Lydia have a loook at him doing his stuff normally."
What do you do?
[] Observe Karl do his thing normally to spot the magic
[] Break into the closed dorm and try to get him to do magic there (Charisma Empathy to persuade)
[] Ask more questions
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: And done, I know this is late, hopefully it was worth the wait.
We've had TTC almost all game and used it for this purpose a few times. The issue was more a lack of interest than ability.
By auto I meant vote to just use them in the background.
As to licensing them; this all seems like stuff an industrial magitech society would already have, with the potential exception of the homebrew ones.
I'm not even sure what the point of the metal was, because that sort of thing really should be common construction and armor material depending on the level of the recipe in question.
Basic magically enhanced materials should be entry level for a society of industrialized magic.
We have it so we might as well use it, but if they're particularly impressed by anything we come up with in what should be an area of expertise for them I'd be surprised.
I figure the Alphas are the least important. We're always going to have stuff to do, if we don't make time by deferring non critical things it won't happen.
Personally I'm hoping we can start to stretch dedicated crafting AP pretty far, because needing to spend an entire point to make one suit of armor or take weeks long adventures kind of brutalizes any sort of prep oriented build.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If the Alphas agree to Inner Darkness Unchained the rules sets we are using sync up really well with werewolves. A pack of Formor werewolves could likely take on the local white court.
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More than worth it, thanks. Karl is fun to read, and he's getting one hell of an introduction to the world of magic. I wonder if he'll get distorted perspective of what is normal. It's like being told you are a wizard by Mab or something similar.
Anyway, the vote:
[X] Observe Karl do his thing normally to spot the magic
-[X] ATB with Willpower, Occult excellency
Yeah, the Alphas are probably least important, but if we introduce Olivia to them, that's likely to provide benefits. There's also a possiblity of complications, distrust and resentment. We were able to catch Daniel before stuff got too bad, but it was a near thing.
We might have different methodology. In fact, I am almost sure we do. And learning magic metal is so we can incorporate it into our higher tier crafting.
But yeah, I have been pushing for more exotic recipes for synergy with the courts. Stuff they are unlikely to have, but would benefit a lot from.
Well, we have bonus AP, and a lot of projects. Like a ton. Basic splendor armors for Molly and Lydia. Basic splendor weapon for Lydia. Carriage of the Ankou for Lydia. Debt to Archive. Etc. I'm not even speaking about stuff like Green Lantern Ring.
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I didn't say they weren't potentially useful, just that they're the least important. If we want to work on security getting our ghouls some guns and having Olivia organize some community policing efforts would help a lot and not require our direct attention.
Really we should flex the infrastructure we set up more, it's there to make it easier for us to change things. We have some community contacts, ask the Ordo to reach out to them about some collaboration - potentially including Lydia if she's interested in helping. Given the chance to speak with the locals and gather more information I'm pretty sure they'll take it before acting on anything, and slowly acclimating them to the situation is probably more effective anyway.
They're also not really WoD werewolves, think a lot lower power levels. They literally transform into something with the statline of a mundane wolf; that's the entirety of their powers.
Don't get me wrong; they're damn good for their level and their tradition would make for an amazing paranet community security group, but they have as much in common with Garou as actual wolves have with gerbils.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Alchemy suffers from the problem of usually being a very long complicated solution to any problem. Which is still great if it's your only solution, but if you have other solutions which Molly generally does then you default to using those.
Everything else we are fighting is getting a boost from DF. Don't see why our allies who so clearly map onto an existing splat wouldn't. After all they are actually successfully fighting street level cod. Which considering the WOD buff every COD has gotten would not be enough of they just turned into regular wolfs.
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Huh. I thought they were just pets, but it seems pretty clear his dogs are actually (social) service animals.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[x]Yog
Definitely. Thankfully her mythos has some we could search for
Good night guys, see you in the morning with... updating the character sheet probably. I still have not set up Olivia, but after that the mystery of Harvard and its other side.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If you ever want to put another interlude Lydia getting some dogs would be a good one.
Not Really, it just requires a little more than picking up your demon sword to kill things.
Just routinely having our potions available in a backpack or in the trunk of Molly's car would have made a difference.
They're getting the closest approximate build loosely using WoD rules. Which is why Harry doesn't have an avatar and paradox is dead.
The Alphas' powers were very well defined in canon compared to most people they see. Harry makes a whole point about it nearly every time we see them in action.
The alphas have been in the game long enough not to do something that suicidal. They could cause some trouble, but we've put work into making that harder.
I'd prefer Olivia do more in house stuff before interacting with the community at large. I'm pretty sure she's going to jump straight to killing the first somewhat sketchy nonhumans she runs into on the clock and we can't really be sure they'll deserve it.
I'd prefer if that didn't happen in front of other people.
Fair. Hopefully it makes more of a difference than the other one we have.
Yeah, I just meant that it'd be a problem if we need to spend AP at a rate like we did for our first few projects when we were still working out the system.
And yeah, our budget is a little tight to waste on stuff like that. I like the build, but I think we should be focusing on other areas.
This next bit is mostly a taste thing, but I want to actually make something for our use this time around. We've been investing a lot in crafting and using it for everyone but Molly.
Not that there's a problem with building things for other people, that's where we'll probably invest most of our work, but our last equipment upgrade was way back before we'd even gotten alchemy.
I want that puzzle boss armor you designed if we can get it, and Lydia could use better than that looted jacket. If not a splendor then some prodigy enhanced alchemy.
Really that would be good to make for Tiffany and Harry anyway.
I'm hoping for mirror wire, but mirror scale mail bound with prima metallum wire would be good too. Assuming that and the prodigy stuff can it should be pretty good stuff.
I will say this much the Garou are very powerful even compared to other splats. You can minmax a mage or a vampire to match them, but you have to min max them. An out of the box werewolf is a killing machine that can tear apart most vampires and turn most mages into chunky salsa without noticing. That is because Werewolf, unlike Mage, Vampire and I assume Changeling is a game primarily about combat, that is the tragedy of the Garou, they are trying to solve the systemic problem of magical and mundane popution by punching it in the face. Since they are part spirit they can, but all they are really doing it fighting a reflection and like anyone punching a mirror all they get is cut.
Let me put it this way, the reason all Exalts soak agg by default at DC 6 no charms or anything is because that is what werewolves do to everything that is not silver, the reason for one of the major features of the Exalted in the EXvsWoD is so that they would not be underpowered compared to a werewolf teenager on their first bane hunt.
The Alphas are not that. Thankfully the system includes rules for what they are, sorcerers with the numia of Shapechanging. The closest thing to a Garou you are likely to meet are those shapechangers Broken Seeker ran with, though they had more than just wolf forms. The next most Garou-like being would be hexen wolves
All that said could you teach the Alphas to bond to spirits in a better aproximation of the engines of destruction that are the Garou? Well you have a formori making charm now. Good luck.
Let me put it this way, the reason all Exalts soak agg by default at DC 6 no charms or anything is because that is what werewolves do to everything that is not silver, the reason for one of the major features of the Exalted in the EXvsWoD is so that they would not be underpowered compared to a werewolf teenager on their first bane hunt.
The Alphas are not that. Thankfully the system includes rules for what they are, sorcerers with the numia of Shapechanging. The closest thing to a Garou you are likely to meet are those shapechangers Broken Seeker ran with, though they had more than just wolf forms. The next most Garou-like being would be hexen wolves
All that said could you teach the Alphas to bond to spirits in a better aproximation of the engines of destruction that are the Garou? Well you have a formori making charm now. Good luck.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
When the Alphas were introduced 2 other types of werewolfs were introduced at the same time. One of them where those Hexen wolfs. Those FBI agents who had an angry spirit bound to the belts they wore. I think, it has been years since I read it.The Alphas are not that. Thankfully the system includes rules for what they are, sorcerers with the numia of Shapechanging. The closest thing to a Garou you are likely to meet are those shapechangers Broken Seeker ran with, though they had more than just wolf forms. The next most Garou-like being would be hexen wolves
All that said could you teach the Alphas to bond to spirits in a better aproximation of the engines of destruction that are the Garou? well you have a formori making charm now. Good luck.
Yeah, the hexenwolves are who I mean as the second most like Garou, they have the base package, but no gifts since a random FBI agent is not going to know how to magic and a spirit of rage is not that good at dealing with finicky magic.
*glances at clock*
Well it is almost 1 AM guys I really do need to go to sleep, will talk more in the morning.
Modus_Tollens
SCREAMING AT THE APOCALYPSE
- Location
- ALSO SCREAMING.
This planet needs to stop being a sphere. This is getting old. *sigh*
Alright. Time to flatten this thing out. Flip a coin for if you want are going be on the sunny side or the night side.
And then we skip right past normal werewolves and end up with Black Spiral Dancers with ourselves as the almost perfect representation of the Wyrm in human-ish form. I have a good feeling about this one, guys.All that said could you teach the Alphas to bond to spirits in a better aproximation of the engines of destruction that are the Garou? Well you have a formori making charm now. Good luck.
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Other than that an angry spirit and a spirit of rage aren't necessarily the same thing, yep.
… Wait, could we "invent" Garou like what happened with Lash/Tiffany?All that said could you teach the Alphas to bond to spirits in a better aproximation of the engines of destruction that are the Garou? Well you have a formori making charm now. Good luck.
I was assuming we wouldn't get close enough to be worth the comparison when making a fomor out of shapechangers, but this seems a bit stronger an implication than that.
The hexenwolves were stronger than the Alphas, but they didn't seem that impressive otherwise. The Loup-Garou seem like the most WoD Garou like critter in the DF to me:
cite
That's basically a Garou who can't control their transformation or retain the sense of self to learn more complex skills.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Harry needs a new Exalted tier coat bad, along with some collapsible heavy armor maybe. Unless you want to give him something from the FC I'd rather not leave him hanging for a month.