Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

I did not know that thank you. So broken Seeker had gnosis on top Mage spheres that's amazingly fucking crazy I love and hate that love it from a mechanical perspective hate it from a fuck why oh why give a nightmare that much power why God please no.
Basically, his natural abilities are that of a Werewolf, with limited Shapeshifting, Gnosis, Rage and Gifts.
That's how the Teacher of the Blessing Way was supposed to work.

All other magic is stolen from the people and monsters he has eaten, which is not going as intended, but so far nobody has managed to stop him.

As far as I can tell, spirits do not need to materialize to attack, and inflict spiritual damage.
That's an iffy problem, same with ghosts.
WoD proposes very nearby sprit- and shadow-lands, from where certain abilities function.
Dresden Files does not.

So that's DP's issue to solve.

As far as I can tell, that's wrong. You use wp/rage/gnosis in place of an attribute, and ability normally.
No, as far as I can tell, you use WP, Rage and Gnosis in place of Attribute+Ability.
Which is why no sample-spirit in Mage or Werewolf has abilities.
 
No, as far as I can tell, you use WP, Rage and Gnosis in place of Attribute+Ability.
Which is why no sample-spirit in Mage or Werewolf has abilities.
Lesser Spirit Entities in M20: Gods and Monsters have abilities listed, and explicitely say stuff like "use gnosis in place of social traits":
Among the more easily overlooked Umbral natives,
dataphytes are little more than mobile mouths with an
instinct to keep the Umbra relatively tidy. Well, as tidy as a
dimension literally formed of the stuff of nightmares can be,
anyway. Although creepy, they pose little danger and don't
really mean anyone harm. Incapable of fighting, talking, or
even autonomous thought, these entities aren't even hard to
destroy. Even in the Umbrae where they dwell, subtle Charms
cloak their existence from all but the most accomplished eyes.
Dataphytes create what's sometimes known as the thoughtvoid:
a swirling sense of forgetfulness that often misleads
mortal creatures, especially when they venture into the
Penumbrae and seek distant Realms. Essentially metaphysical
bottom-feeders, dataphytes eat any "unattended" thoughts
they can find. If you're not concentrating on something, or
giving it only a passing bit of attention, there's a chance that
thought might disappear into the smooth, seamless surface
that somehow functions as the mouth of a dataphyte. To
a dataphyte's senses, most living creatures constantly leak
thoughts, leaving disgusting trails for the spirits to clean up.
And so, that's exactly what they do: clean up your thoughts.
Are you finding it hard to focus on the task at hand? You
might have a dataphyte munching on your ideas. If you've
ever entered a room and immediately forgotten what you
were doing, you've probably crossed paths with a dataphyte.
That thing you swore you'd remember and then can't recall
for the life of you? Om-nom-nom, as the saying goes. To be fair
to the little critters, dataphytes can't eat anything you're concentrating
on, and things that aren't thoughts (e.g. autonomic
functions, like breathing) aren't snacks, either. Dataphytes,
therefore, aren't harmful, really... just extremely unhelpful.
For the most part, people (Awakened and otherwise) remain
relatively safe from these annoying little buggers. Every so often,
though, someone or something sets thought-munching dataphytes
loose into the material world; at such times, neighborhood or
whole towns may grind to standstills as the inhabitants of those
locales wallow in indecisiveness, perhaps (in rare, extreme cases)
starving to death because folks can't even decide what to eat
or remember how to eat it. The Void Engineer Border Corps
Division shows up when such incursions show up on their
radar, and they capture or purge every dataphyte they can find.
Theoretically speaking, even if the Void Engineers took any of
these thought-eating aliens back to the labs for further study,
those paragons of guardianship would never accidentally release
any of their subjects back into the wild (or, so to speak, into the
Wyld). They certainly wouldn't theoretically create a larger, lethal
version of the dataphyte and unleash it on the Deep Umbra.
Of course they wouldn't. Perish the thought...
Willpower 1, Rage 1, Gnosis 1, Essence 10
Charms: Disorient, Materialize, Memory Eater (consumes
one random thought or memory, 1 Essence), Mind Speech
(though they don't have much to say), Mislead
Materialized Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 2, Stamina
2, Use Gnosis for Social and Mental Traits
Abilities: Awareness 4, Brawl 2, Stealth 1
Materialized Health Levels: 2
Image: Dataphytes resemble polished obsidian salad plates
with two pairs of crab-like legs.
Roleplaying Notes: Clean. Must clean.
Of course it can be argued that the abilities only manifest when the spirit materializes. In which case, ok, that's interesting, and I'll have to rework the spirit build. It still would be far more powerful than Arcana 5, I think.
 
I think a possible, if absurd, solution, would be to work backwards mechanically. Take canon Exigent of Cities, and slap Phantasm(Emanation) trait on top of it as a special feature. Maybe buff essence pool too.
Kind of agree with the conversion solution but Spirit charms are generally unless you're talking about measure the wind and principle of motion are on the whole worse than exalted charms at the same price not to mention they only occasionally have excellencies or equivalents of them at all.
 
It would be neat to make a city-god in the timeline of the vampire war. Not that it wouldn't be otherwise, but setting up a friendly god and having puppy guard the wardens when they're in town would really funny.

That aside, it seems to me a city god should have power over its city in some fashion and not just be a stompy monster. Most of the time spirits shouldn't have to be manifested to make themselves felt, and their primary actions should related to what they're god of.

Stuff like being able to bless or curse industries, smooth traffic, foster greater health in the community, blunt (but not control) the impact of weather events, and the like. My understanding is that this is the sort of spirit a city state would hold as a primary deity because of the influence it had over their lives, but unimaginably larger because of the sheer scale of a modern city in comparison.
 
It would be neat to make a city-god in the timeline of the vampire war. Not that it wouldn't be otherwise, but setting up a friendly god and having puppy guard the wardens when they're in town would really funny.

That aside, it seems to me a city god should have power over its city in some fashion and not just be a stompy monster. Most of the time spirits shouldn't have to be manifested to make themselves felt, and their primary actions should related to what they're god of.

Stuff like being able to bless or curse industries, smooth traffic, foster greater health in the community, blunt (but not control) the impact of weather events, and the like. My understanding is that this is the sort of spirit a city state would hold as a primary deity because of the influence it had over their lives, but unimaginably larger because of the sheer scale of a modern city in comparison.
Yeah, that should be its purview, but to be honest I don't feel ready to just draft those from scratch. I will probably tinker with the spirit design (a lot, like dropping abilities, and looking through various charms and abilities), but the system (all systems known to me, really) are just plain not suited for making a proper god of a large megapolis. I might need to go check out Exalted books, to see if there are examples of such gods there.

As to when to make it? I am voting for it next turn.
 
I am perfectly serious? Like, we actually have confirmation in story that being a native speaker of Primordial Language (the one that we use via SCCP) gives mortal people serious occult advantages:



I assume that there would also be in-story mental development effects, but overall this sounds like a non-evil and seriously intriguing plot thread to follow, with interesting in-story consequences. Babies usually start speaking their first words in the ages between 10 and 14 months, so we should be able to see this in-quest too.

Like, this is utterly fascinating to me, actually.
Oh, forgot about that ruling, so I thought it was just a wild idea thrown at the wall to see if it sticks.
In that case, yeah, I'm not opposed. The girl lost her chance at normal life the moment we showed up to teach Rosie oneiromancy. Now she has mother that can literally give her sweet dreams, a godmother that sometimes comes home with burning sword clad in armour of chanting masks and we want to give her a guardian dog with near-Wolverine healing factor. At this rate learning to speak in reality source code is not even going to register as weird. Maybe society will bat an eye, but if we cared about what society thinks, we would not even know Primordial exists.
Although I do admit that "for the laughs" is also part of my reasoning to do it.
 
Yeah, that should be its purview, but to be honest I don't feel ready to just draft those from scratch. I will probably tinker with the spirit design (a lot, like dropping abilities, and looking through various charms and abilities), but the system (all systems known to me, really) are just plain not suited for making a proper god of a large megapolis. I might need to go check out Exalted books, to see if there are examples of such gods there.

As to when to make it? I am voting for it next turn.
Maybe the easiest way to do this would be to assemble an "avatar" build and lay out narrative themes for the spirit to interact with narratively when in its natural form. Sort of like sphere magic in a way.

Just assert that when forcing its focus down into one spot to interact at a mortal scale it can only bring the most essential things and has limited ability to split its focus between doing that and anything else.

That way we don't have to build mechanics for every little thing in its purview or make it crazy busted as a character. It can either act as a force of nature within its confines or get up out of its chair to strangle people with its own hands, not both.

Not to say that it could mess with people without manifesting - if the city god demands gridlock or arranges industrial accidents around you then you're in for a bad time - but those would be blunt instruments.
 
Maybe the easiest way to do this would be to assemble an "avatar" build and lay out narrative themes for the spirit to interact with narratively when in its natural form. Sort of like sphere magic in a way.

Just assert that when forcing its focus down into one spot to interact at a mortal scale it can only bring the most essential things and has limited ability to split its focus between doing that and anything else.

That way we don't have to build mechanics for every little thing in its purview or make it crazy busted as a character. It can either act as a force of nature within its confines or get up out of its chair to strangle people with its own hands, not both.

Not to say that it could mess with people without manifesting - if the city god demands gridlock or arranges industrial accidents around you then you're in for a bad time - but those would be blunt instruments.
That's actually dead easy. Take Exigent of Cities (ExvsWoD revised p. 456). Bam, you are finished.
 
That's actually dead easy. Take Exigent of Cities (ExvsWoD revised p. 456). Bam, you are finished.
I really dislike that as an approach. For one the powers are too personal for lack of a better term. A god of something should be much more focused on doing things to their domain and inducing it to do work directly rather than just leveraging the environment to do things themselves. For another that's way too much combat power, a city god should be very dangerous in a fight and have very broad powers over their domain, but they're not celestial titan killers.

More of their power should be in making a city be a better city and influencing how individuals or groups interact with it.
 
I really dislike that as an approach. For one the powers are too personal for lack of a better term. A god of something should be much more focused on doing things to their domain and inducing it to do work directly rather than just leveraging the environment to do things themselves. For another that's way too much combat power, a city god should be very dangerous in a fight and have very broad powers over their domain, but they're not celestial titan killers.

More of their power should be in making a city be a better city and influencing how individuals or groups interact with it.
There are spirit charms that do this like
By adjusting the flow of fortune,
the spirit offers good luck to the object of its affections.
One Essence point allows the favored character to reroll
a single task, though for better or worse that character
must keep the results of the second roll. This Charm
can be employed only once for any given task but can
be used as often as the spirit desires.

Wish Fulfillment: Among the rarest legendary powers
of the djinn (and certain other godlike entities or outright
gods), this Charm allows the spirit to grant a single
wish. The parameters of how that wish is granted are,
of course, limited in scope and subject to the spirit's
abilities. Save a person who's dying of cancer: "As you
wish it, so it is done." Cure all cancer forever: "Much as
it pains me, Master, to admit it, such things are beyond my
humble powers to command."
Because humans tend to be greedy, selfish things, djinn
and other wish-granting entities often bend the spirit
of a wish to suit the wording of that wish. A desire
for great wealth brings the wishing party a fortune in
stolen money… and the investigators hot on its trail.
Sure, you can play guitar like Hendrix's ghost, but Jimi
conditioned his fingertips to that level of stress for years,
and… well, you haven't. (If you wished for that wish in
those very words, a ghostly Hendrix might come back
and possess you — and he might not be happy about
being brought back from the dead to act out some dude's
fantasy.) Djinn measure status among themselves by the
clever ways they'll pervert a "master's" wish, so while
a djinni doesn't have to turn a wish against its maker,
selfish wishes generally yield dire results.
From a Storyteller perspective, feel free to grant said
wish the way you see fit, and say "no" if the requested
desire would screw up your chronicle. Play fair, of
course, but employ a draconian sense of poetic justice
to excessive, greedy wishes.
Although this Charm may raise Background Traits or
bestow new ones, it cannot affect a mage's Avatar, Arete,
or Spheres. Such Traits reflect internal aspects of the
mage, not the mystic power of external entities. A mage
who wishes for insight, wisdom, mystic power, or similar
may receive several dots in a Knowledge or two if the
Storyteller allows it; higher Mental Abilities, perhaps a
boost of Willpower; or maybe an appropriate Merit Trait.
Again, we emphasize that a djinni cannot raise a mage's
Arete, Avatar, or Spheres. The question was asked, and the
answer is no.
Granting a wish expends 30 Essence, and requires
a Gnosis roll on the spirit's behalf. Small wishes (a
childhood toy, a cured disease, a corrected handicap,
and so forth) would start at difficulty 6, and rise
toward difficulty 10 when dealing with wishes of
great scope and power (a government position, great
wealth, a loved one's return from the dead, etc.). This
Charm cannot be transferred to a mortal party (via the
Totem or Loa Backgrounds) or purchased by player
characters. The spirit may grant more than one wish
to the same party, as in the traditional three wishes;
as people in such stories often learn, however, there
are reasons behind the old saying, "Be careful what you
wish for — you might get it."
Only two I was able to find. The system is really, really not designed for this, and this almost certainly needs to be a firmly narrative thing, without statting it out in detail, otherwise it breaks down.
 
Better to look at exalted gods and how their powers work then try, and kitbash something from a dozen different sources. Just have to scale things to the setting, not make something out of the widely inconsistent WoD stuff.
 
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@Yog maybe you should take a look at Scion's mechanics, it has a part that was explicitly made to show a mechanical construction of divine entities. Then just talk to DP and see if he finds it interesting and can fit it into the quest.

If you continue as you are now you will never be able to create a god, there will always be something wrong or missing in the mechanics.

Or just turn the tables and the shape of the god's powers and limits are narrative only, allowing DP to do whatever he wants.
 
Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jun 11, 2024 at 10:15 AM, finished with 107 posts and 15 votes.
 
Arc 13 Post 5: Me, Myself and a Good Friend
Me, Myself and a Good Friend

2th of February 2007 A.D.

"Actually, there will be more of me going around than you think, more of... mes, let me deal with the money stuff and I can show you."

"I don't think we are supposed to be calling it money stuff," Rosie says, in the tone of someone dutifully repeating advice she is not planning to take.

"If you have enough of it you can call it whatever you like," you say airily. "Stupid rule, but I don't make 'em."

"Darn guess Jared was right, you are a subversive communist."

Somehow you manage to bite your tongue. "He did not say 'subversive communist'."

"Well OK, not in so many words, but that's what he meant, Jared has opinions about people, lots and lots of opinions. I figure mom's the only one who's obligated to listen to all of them so she gets to hear all of them, lucky her right?"

Truth be told you are caught between feeling sorry for Mrs Wilson and snickering at the thought of proclaiming to your parents that you're apparently a godless communist now. It's probably on serious grounds like 'eyeliner, streaks and piercings'. Nothing like being able to make perfect disguises to get an eyeful of how... shallow most people are. Take right now you still look like yourself just white tie, black trouser inch-high heels and a haircut you stole off Ally McBeal and everyone just assumes you are twenty five or something.

"So about there being more of you..." Rosie trailed off. By now you had made it out of the lobby and into the park to me met by Pods in a Grateful Dead hoodie, sans alterations to the look.

"Hi," she chines in, with a bounce in her step. Do I really look that peppy from the outside?

Rosie looks at her, looks at you, closes her eyes and, you suspect from knowing her, counts to five in her head, opens them again. "OK so on a scale of 'the castle I built for myself last night to' that 'tree over there' how real are you?"

"Tree," you and Pods answer at the same time. "But I am kind of like a dream of Molly Carpenter who learned myself to dream and thus stepped into being. I am the Pursuer of Dutiful Scholarship, there's three more alike to me actualized, there could be more but never more than four abroad."

"You know most stories about making magical twins don't turn out that well..."

"Horror movies," you point out reasonably enough. Walking side by side with yourself is odd, but most people are just going to assume that your sisters, twins even for the more observant. "They're not really meant to work out well."

"Most directors aren't magicians either," Rosie says after a moment, taking all if not in stride than close to it. "All magic has to have a price, but it doesn't have to be a bad one. For people without magic though the more odd something is... the more the price has to be something you're not meant to pay. Something you shouldn't want to want. Huh... that sounds like a cool song title."

"Add it to the pile," all three of you say instantly. Back in the summer before eight grade you and Rosie and... some other people you'd rather not think about right now had the idea of starting a band, but you had never gotten past the point of coming up with song titles, along with one or two verses at most, pilling up in all kinds of notebooks. By the end of that summer it had turned into something of a running joke, one that's still kind of running to this day.

"So what can you do?" Rosie turns to Pods curiously.

"Well, not everything she can do that's for sure... but."

[] Write in Builds and Names for your Splintered Gale Incarnation

  • Pursuer of Diligent Scholarship's name is already set
  • At least four builds are required, though you can make more if you so wish
  • Powers and Merits should be connected to the nature given (ex: a scholarly incarnation would use gifts that key off KNOWLEDGES; one meant for leadership would have more merits used in social situations etc...)
  • Merit points can be used to buy down Flaws (Nightmares; Vengeful and Touch of Frost)
  • Other than True Faith no Merit may go above 6 Dots

OOC: Enjoy
 
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Can i try making a warrior molly who is killier than exalt molly. It would be so funny.


Also the best way of protecting all the clones is giving them 5 dots in the totem background. Its great cause the spirit would be connected to them and with 20 dots be also fairly strong.
 
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Can i try making a warrior molly who is killier than exalt molly. It would be so funny.


Also the best way of protecting all the clones is giving them 5 dots in the totem background. Its great cause the spirit would be connected to them and with 20 dots be also fairly strong.
The better is True Faith and Totem together.
 
Would something like touch of frost affect craftsmanship? becuase one made for Craftsmanship would come in handy, and maybe one for backup.
 
Reposting this here.

So on what to give the clones. We have Essence x10 points to spend at 1 point per dot of merit. This is both a LOT and not enough, if you want to break the game. So how do we go about it? Here is how.

True Faith - 10 points.
Characters with True Faith can perform these miracles, or other equivalent ones by spending a Willpower point.
  • Countermagic based on True Faith rating
  • Ward off demons and Witches
  • Acceptance: By recognizing the oneness of faith you can ignore the effects of one True Faith miracle someone else performed
  • Faith healing based on True Faith rating. Can cure both damage and diseases, and at really high level even bring back the dead
  • Transmutation: Water to wine, or poison to water. No roll required
  • Mental resistance: Add Faith to Willpower for resisting mental assault. You might become immune to supernatural coercion at certain levels of Faith
  • Holy shielding: Add Faith to soak
  • Visions: You gain a vision or prophecy
  • Intercession: You intercede with the Powers That Be, to lift a curse or to stay death
  • Penance: True Faith vs Willpower. If you win the target is overcome with remorse, or, if they are truly evil, with thoughts of suicide and recklessness
This makes them immune to all forms of mindcontrol, gives them healing ability, countermagic, warding skills, tankiness by adding dice to their Soak, and the ability to redeem evil beings, like say the fallen (Potentially).

They have the immunity Merit.

Immunity - 16 points
Invulnerable to all physical threats except one unique bane (the Holy Lance of Longinus, the Sword of Roland,) or invulnerable until Phylactery destroyed, requiring an equally unique bane.
So simply put the bane as Molly's Sword, since it is thematic that her clones are not immune to her own sword.

Now KEEP IN MIND, this is only PHYSICAL immunity, stuff like swords, fire, magic swords etc. Direct magic like curses, etc will still hit them.

So that is 26 points down and we still have 14 points to spend on merits.

We can add stuff like gifts, or further merits like this...

Innate Magical Ability (5 Points) You have some sort of magical ability that makes you unique. The ability is different from any normal vampiric power or Discipline. The exact nature of the ability should remain somewhat mysterious to you, though you have some say in what the ability is. The ability has an estimated power level similar to a Level Three Discipline.

So we can give them the quivalent of Iron Mountain, Celerity Potence and Fortitude. Basic dice adders and soak adders, making them truly monsterous to fight. So even if enemies get past the immunity, they still have plenty to fight with.
 
Oh god, no. I'll try, but don't expect something real from me - I have three diplomas to proof read, and a funding proposal for the next six years to write.

Still, Rosie is weirdly insightful, and is growing nicely.
 
Ok, so, let me try to make a stab at Spirit (god) of Chicago, the City of Wonders (because that's what Chicago is going to be soonish).
Because I think you forgot, a reminder:
Chicago already has a City Father in the World of Darkness.
This is not free real estate.



Primordial is not a cognitohazard, and never has been. And is objectively a better communication tool than any other language.
Primordial is a cognitohazard precisely because its a good communication tool . The same way the Sight is a cognitohazard because its such a good tool for eliciting information.
Knowledge is not an undisputed good in either the World of Darkness or the Dresdenverse.

Ask Dresden himself when he got an eyefull of what a naagloshii actually is.

Oh, just fuck off right here. Toddlers can't make choices that would damn them, if there are any sort of sane protections. That's not how mental development works at all.
Whats your point? Some of the people who picked up Coins had no idea what they were. Sanya didnt.
The fact that thirty Coins appear to be able to skirt some of the rules that everyone else has to obey with regards to is precisely why there are Swords in the first place.

Furthermore, I will point out that the youngest Denarian we have ever heard of was 16.
And that was Sanya.

A toddler picking up a Coin will put a Fallen's Shadow in his head, exposing the child to its influence until said child is old enough to choose. Thats objectively a bad thing.
But it doesnt make the toddler a Denarian.

Just like Dresden picked up Lasciel's Coin but didnt become a Denarian.
 
A toddler picking up a Coin will put a Fallen's Shadow in his head, exposing the child to its influence until said child is old enough to choose. Thats objectively a bad thing.
But it doesnt make the toddler a Denarian.

Just like Dresden picked up Lasciel's Coin but didnt become a Denarian.

*Tiffany steps in*
Accelerating a child's mental development so that they would be capable of calling the Coin sooner is with the power of a Shadow. They can converse freely with their host. More than that a Shadow can alter the host's perception of time as well in these conversations, fit more talking into fewer RL minutes, Tiffany herself was not designed to maximize this since they were not expecting Harry to just let the toddler pick up the Coin, but she figures she could have maintained 3 to 1 over a longer period of time. So instead of sixteen make that closer to 7.

Yes Denarians are scary.
 
Because I think you forgot, a reminder:
Chicago already has a City Father in the World of Darkness.
This is not free real estate.
No such entity exists in Dresdenverse, and the proposal was made by Molly in story.
Primordial is a cognitohazard precisely because its a good communication tool . The same way the Sight is a cognitohazard because its such a good tool for eliciting information.
Knowledge is not an undisputed good in either the World of Darkness or the Dresdenverse.

Ask Dresden himself when he got an eyefull of what a naagloshii actually is.
No. Not all tools are made equal. By the same reasoning an MRI machine is as dangerous as a CT machine, because both of them produce internal tomographic image of a body.
Whats your point? Some of the people who picked up Coins had no idea what they were. Sanya didnt.
The fact that thirty Coins appear to be able to skirt some of the rules that everyone else has to obey with regards to is precisely why there are Swords in the first place.

Furthermore, I will point out that the youngest Denarian we have ever heard of was 16.
And that was Sanya.

A toddler picking up a Coin will put a Fallen's Shadow in his head, exposing the child to its influence until said child is old enough to choose. Thats objectively a bad thing.
But it doesnt make the toddler a Denarian.

Just like Dresden picked up Lasciel's Coin but didnt become a Denarian.
My point is that appealing to some "defenses of non-magical infants" clause is BS. Because, even if such things exist, they are ineffective enough that replacing them with a better communication tool and comprehensive magical safety equation (and maybe a trained magical companion guardian entity of some sort) is a net good and a better solution. Serious magical threats give no f*cks about whether you are magical or not, ignorant or not, and free choice is a BS fig leaf excuse at that level, twisted beyond all human reason.
 
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