Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

The one relevant comment here is that the extended Clan Murphy as of Blood Rites numbered anywhere from forty-ish to several hundred people.
Several of whom are law enforcement.
What looked like a small army had invaded a portion of Wolf Lake Park and claimed it in the name of God and Clan Murphy. Cars filled the little parking lot nearby, and lined the nearest lane for a hundred yards in either direction. Summer had been generous with the rain for once, and all the trees in the park had put on glorious autumn colors so bright that if I scrunched up my eyes until my lashes blurred my vision they almost seemed to be afire.
In the park, a couple of gazebos had been stockpiled with tables and lots of food, and a pair of portable pavilions flanked them, giving shade to maybe a dozen people who had fired up their grills and were singeing meat. Music was playing from several different locations, the beats of the various songs stumbling into one another, and evidently someone had brought a generator, because there was an enormous TV set up out in the grass while a dozen men crowded around it, talking loudly, laughing, and arguing about what looked to be a college football game.
There were also a pair of volleyball nets and a badminton net, and enough Frisbees flying around to foul up radar at the local airports. A giant, inflatable castle wobbled dramatically as a dozen children bounced around on the inside of it, caroming off the walls and one another with equal amounts of enthusiasm. More kids ran in packs all over the place, and there must have been a dozen dogs gleefully racing one another and begging food from anyone who seemed to have some. The air smelled like charcoal, mesquite, and insect repellent, and buzzed with happy chatter.
I stood there for a minute, watching the festivities. Spotting Murphy in a crowd of a couple of hundred people wasn't easy. I tried to be methodical, sweeping the area with my gaze from left to right. I didn't spot Murphy, but as I stood there it occurred to me that a bruised and battered man better than six and a half feet tall in a black leather duster didn't exactly blend in with the crowd at the Murphy picnic. A couple of the men around the television had spotted me with the kind of attention that made me think that they were with the law.
Another man walking by with a white Styrofoam cooler on one shoulder noticed the men at the television and followed their gaze to me.
He was in his mid-thirties and about an inch or two over average height. His brown hair was cut short, as was a neatly cropped goatee. He had the kind of build that dangerous men seem to develop-not enormous, pretty muscle, but the kind of lean sinew that indicated speed and endurance as well as strength. And he was a cop. Don't ask me how I could tell-it was just something about the way he held himself, the way he kept track of his surroundings.
He promptly changed course, walked up to me, and said, "Hey, there."
"Hey," I said.

I know don't worry. The bit about her (potentially) having few guests is not me forgetting she has a large family.
 
Actually working in the first place.
The mechanics involved with the familiar pigeon idea were stated to be plausible by DP. Your definitely more concerned about the White Council's agenda than I am. I don't remember them doing anything for us as a faction either. Just a bunch of talk in thread about how we can help pull their ass out of the fire. Even if we did get on their bad side to the point where they cut ties we wouldn't be loosing any assets.
 
Obvious point of failure/subversion, in a setting with god-tier infiltrators and subversion specialists.
This is self-evidently something that can be used to bespell everybody who ever puts blood/life to sign their names in that book. Its like the exhaust port on the Death Star. Only bigger.
By the same reasoning both Blackstaff (both the artifact and the position) and Gatekeeper are obvious points of failure / subversion. Splendors are materialized ancient sorcery, congealed exalted magic. Basically - you are wrong. Or the setting doesn't work.

If your point of subversion are seven senior council members, and you consider this an unacceptable weakness, well, then it's time to disband senior council.
One: the techbane doesnt affect digital equipment specifically, just equipment of a particular age relative to the wizard.


Two: Listens to Wind is older than the US.
By that measure, X-rays, ultrasounds and anything to do with electricity would not have worked around him then.
He would be radically out of date medically, which is something that isnt suggested.

Similarly, Ebenezar McCoy was born early enough to fight in the French and Indian War of 1756-1763, back when the most complicated common machinery might have been a musket. Yet he has no trouble owning and operating a Depression-era Ford truck and old shotgun; we see him drive into Chicago in Blood Rites.

Yet Harry drives a VW Beetle designed before his father was born, and even that has frequent mechanical issues in addition to the fairly regular combat damage.
Harry is just the Spiders Georg of wizardkind; the statistical outlier who fucks up a lot of numbers.
One, techbane is not personalized. How old a person is doesn't matter in what technology is considered new. It's "post WW2 stuff" basically. With digital stuff being the most vulnerable.

X-rays, possibly ultrasound are ok. MRI isn't. CT isn't.
 
[x] Write in - Tell the relevant bits without detail she doesn't need. A volcano sized bomb was left with a nasty tripwire that needs to be disarmed. They tore a powerful spirit in half to put it in endless torture as part of some scheme and then just left it there when it didn't give them what they wanted.
 
[x] Write in - Tell the relevant bits without detail she doesn't need. A volcano sized bomb was left with a nasty tripwire that needs to be disarmed. They tore a powerful spirit in half to put it in endless torture as part of some scheme and then just left it there when it didn't give them what they wanted.

I trust Murphy, but I'd prefer to minimize the risk of accidentally revealing something genuinly mind-breaking.
 
[X] Write in - Tell the relevant bits without detail she doesn't need. A volcano sized bomb was left with a nasty tripwire that needs to be disarmed. They tore a powerful spirit in half to put it in endless torture as part of some scheme and then just left it there when it didn't give them what they wanted.

Murphy always strikes me as a person of practical concerns also there's no real reason to tell her more than this that I can think of it doesn't benefit her or any else other than name dropping the Fallen Angels and Demonreach there is really nothing else to say about the situation.
 
I would appreciate a citation if you have the time.
Because my recollection is that the Council was simply not involved at all by design, not that there was a political football of any sort. Harry did not do politics; it was a notable blind spot of his prior to his death.

Furthermore, the Paranet is a North America-only thing. Lower 48 states, to be exact.
Haven't had time to dig around in the books, but the citation from the wiki sounds right, something around the context for that conversation with Lucio. Who is listed along with Carlos as being supporters of it.


1) I dont really agree.
Thats a lot like saying a soldier that fought in the Thirty Years War and the American Civil War would remain successful using those same tactics in the modern day. Too much has changed
I imagine that they've picked up modern tricks, but it seems unlikely that the economic warfare stays confined to that sort of tactic. In any case from the position of being baked into the infrastructure like they probably should be is different than attacking as say a hedge fund manager.


question its success possibility in the first place.
This is a fundamental premise of the White Council as it exists, a figurative third rail of Council jurisprudence according to the Merlin in the first chapter of Proven Guilty.

You'd frankly have had better success with something that fixed the damage in lawbreakers, than with something that allowed people to break the Laws in the first place.
That's not what it does though; there's precisely nothing stopping anyone from breaking the laws except their conscience and the threat of retribution right now. A significant fraction of new warlocks don't even know enough to be afraid of the latter either.

I mean Molly didn't even know that there were laws of magic when she lived close enough to the supernatural to have the names of Denarians memorized. Part of that was Charity's trauma, but I doubt she liked having the conversation about murderous fallen angels trapped in loose change either.

What that protection does is make it possible to stop. Without it you could sin once and become a sinner forever unless you're very lucky.
The problem with fixing the damage to Lawbreakers is that people are fragile and derangement are very unpleasant, these ones being soul deep. The closest thing you have encountered to fixing the damage is Silk being high on vampire venom. False Spring Beacon which you guys still do not have would also work since that is basically a lie told to the universe with such confidence that it can undo any curse... for Essence days at least.
What do you think about Empathic Healing for this?

Empathic Healing

The psychic can establish an empathic link that allows them to influence the healing process of another person. This extends to psychic ailments as well. The psychic takes these injuries onto themself and has to cure them at a normal rate. [9]

  • The psychic can soothe grief and similar minor ailments.
  • The psychic can mend surface injuries.
  • The psychic can heal acute illnesses or mend broken bones.
  • The psychic can mend internal injuries.
  • The psychic can heal severe psychic damages, including derangements and harano.
It's emotionally charged mind healing that can hit severe mental trauma, including things as blatantly supernatural as Harano at the top level.

Given the mechanics of the healing it seems like this would actually benefit from the home mind spirit thing where the familiar system would suffer. The spirits suck up the corruption, which is something that's normally completely inapplicable to them in the first place so I'd argue they should at least resist it if they can't basically shrug it off on the spot. If it's effected at all it gets weighed against a massively larger pigeon mind.

Maybe in combination with conditional magic as a flaw and merit?

Conditional Magic (1 to 6-pt. Merit or Flaw)
There is one thing in the world that is a great boon, or bane, to your character's magic. Perhaps her spells work particularly well against men, or on Tuesdays, or just after a storm, or on people dressed all in black. Maybe she's powerless to affect those who are or who bear that certain thing, such as her magic being unable to affect Christians or those who carry a piece of rowan and red thread. It may be that a certain individual gave her power over them, or perhaps it is utterly proof against her magic due to an oath she swore or spells that were placed on her.

The conditions that affect your magic may be common, uncommon or rare, and the value of this Merit or Flaw depends on the rarity of the condition. The base costs listed here assume that you have a difficulty modifier of three on all Arete rolls under the given conditions. You may adjust the difficulty by one for every point more or less you devote to the Trait.

Points Condition

1 point Unique: The Sword of Roland, the Matriarch of the MECHA construct, Leap Year.

2 points Scarce as hen's teeth: Current or former members of the Council of Nine, your former Mentors, once in a blue moon.

3 points Rare, but not unheard of: loadstones, Swedish royalty, werewolves, rowan and red thread, the holy days of the archangels.

4 points Special order: virgins, middle eastern eye-bead charms, any member of Iteration X, during a thunderstorm.

5 points Available without much trouble: cold iron, silver, Christians, any member of the Traditions, a windy day, holy ground.

6 points Common as dirt: men, anyone who's ever been baptized, the color purple, under cloud cover, Tuesdays

To boost their mental healing with as much power as "can only use their power to restore warlocks" or something like that can buy.

If it wasn't enough to permanently remove the problem could petting the psychic hell-birds serve as a sort of magical Prozac?
 
What do you think about Empathic Healing for this?


It's emotionally charged mind healing that can hit severe mental trauma, including things as blatantly supernatural as Harano at the top level.

Given the mechanics of the healing it seems like this would actually benefit from the home mind spirit thing where the familiar system would suffer. The spirits suck up the corruption, which is something that's normally completely inapplicable to them in the first place so I'd argue they should at least resist it if they can't basically shrug it off on the spot. If it's effected at all it gets weighed against a massively larger pigeon mind.

Maybe in combination with conditional magic as a flaw and merit?

In combination with a Splendor to make sure the 'mental tumor' does not just grow back that would work, though it would be time consuming and difficult to handle.

I know this is all very tricky, but world-building wise there has to be a reason why no one has fixed this yet in all the years the White Council and its precursor existed. This is the kind of problem even a Solaroid has to put time and effort into. They make the hard easy and the impossible possible.
 
You'd frankly have had better success with something that fixed the damage in lawbreakers, than with something that allowed people to break the Laws in the first place.
On further thought, please explain the reasoning to me. Because I don't follow. White Council doesn't do restorative justice, as far as I know. The practice of executing anyone breaking the Law is a combination of retributive justice and deterrence. The well-being of the criminal themselves is either not considered at all, or only considered after all other factors.

Your proposal is a way to circumvent the Laws, and I would think council would have a much worse reaction to it than to my proposals.

Not to mention how prevention is always better and easier than treatment.
Haven't had time to dig around in the books, but the citation from the wiki sounds right, something around the context for that conversation with Lucio. Who is listed along with Carlos as being supporters of it.
I had some time to look those up:
Turn Coatm chapter 7:
I got on the phone, and started calling my contacts on the Paranet.

The Paranet was an organization I'd helped found a couple of years before. It's essentially a union whose members cooperate in order to protect themselves from paranormal threats. Most of the Paranet consisted of practitioners with marginal talents, of which there were plenty. A practitioner had to be in the top percentile before the White Council would even consider recognizing him, and those who couldn't cut it basically got left out in the cold. As a result, they were vulnerable to any number of supernatural predators.

Which I think sucks.

So an old friend named Elaine Mallory and I had taken a dead woman's money and begun making contact with the marginal folks in city after city. We'd encouraged them to get together to share information, to have someone they could call for help. If things started going bad, a distress call could be sent up the Paranet, and then I or one of the other Wardens in the U.S. could charge in. We also gave seminars on how to recognize magical threats, as well as teaching methods of basic self-defense for when the capes couldn't show up to save the day.

It had been going pretty well. We already had new chapters opening up in Mexico and Canada, and Europe wouldn't be far behind.
Paranet can call on wardens. It's not made clear if it's through Dresden only, or not, but, given the spread of the organization, that's unlikely.

But that's the only quote I am able to find.
 
This is kind of on topic kind of off topic but does anyone have any rules reasons why Mages cannot give themselves more Health levels while staying human sized? Other than pattern bleed and permanent paradox. I've been going over the rules and it seems like a Virtual Adept could just set their health to 300% they will need to follow the rules of spell duration or maybe the health levels will be more expensive success wise depending on what kind of Health level (bruised, wounded, mauled) it is but there's no actual restriction that I can find though I am using Mage 20th so maybe there's an earlier Edition where that's more clearly delineated.

There is a technocratic background called skeletal enhancement that increases a technological or modern biological Mages Health levels so there is precedent but I don't know. As Mages can use Life 3 and / or Prime 2 to make themselves and other beings resistant to aggravated damage and radically transform themselves while staying fundamentally human at Life 3 it's just something that's wormed its way into my mind.

Obviously you'd be insanely paradoxical to walk around with a bunch of free breathing bullet holes and the unbelief would wear away the spell insanely quickly but I'm seeing nothing that prevents the casting of the spell in the first place.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Anaja on Jul 20, 2024 at 2:13 AM, finished with 39 posts and 18 votes.
 
This is kind of on topic kind of off topic but does anyone have any rules reasons why Mages cannot give themselves more Health levels while staying human sized? Other than pattern bleed and permanent paradox. I've been going over the rules and it seems like a Virtual Adept could just set their health to 300% they will need to follow the rules of spell duration or maybe the health levels will be more expensive success wise depending on what kind of Health level (bruised, wounded, mauled) it is but there's no actual restriction that I can find though I am using Mage 20th so maybe there's an earlier Edition where that's more clearly delineated.

There is a technocratic background called skeletal enhancement that increases a technological or modern biological Mages Health levels so there is precedent but I don't know. As Mages can use Life 3 and / or Prime 2 to make themselves and other beings resistant to aggravated damage and radically transform themselves while staying fundamentally human at Life 3 it's just something that's wormed its way into my mind.

Obviously you'd be insanely paradoxical to walk around with a bunch of free breathing bullet holes and the unbelief would wear away the spell insanely quickly but I'm seeing nothing that prevents the casting of the spell in the first place.

I think that anything the Technocracy can do the Traditions should be able to as well, but if I were to guess a reason for why there isn't a standard loadout for that is White Wolf does not want mage players to have that fall back, it makes combat safer and the point is mage is to emphasize that for all your power you too are human.
 
I think that anything the Technocracy can do the Traditions should be able to as well, but if I were to guess a reason for why there isn't a standard loadout for that is White Wolf does not want mage players to have that fall back, it makes combat safer and the point is mage is to emphasize that for all your power you too are human.
Yeah I do get that. World of Darkness games are games of Intrigue and danger being able to make more Health levels kind of negates that a little bit but I was kind of expecting there to be like a rule or anything else saying you couldn't give yourself more Health levels but instead I find backgrounds that do indeed do that.

On the all to human front that's what pattern bleed and permanent Paradox are for generally. At least until you get to Life five and then can just completely rewrite your pattern but you still get permanent Paradox for having things over the human Max at that point as well. Though that's what starts a mage being pushed out of reality whether that be living in too many years for Mortal men or just having too much durability and strength for a person you just rack up permanent Paradox until you can't exist on the inside of reality anymore without the potential of exploding.
 
Votes are very close
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jul 20, 2024 at 7:44 AM, finished with 44 posts and 20 votes.
 
In combination with a Splendor to make sure the 'mental tumor' does not just grow back that would work, though it would be time consuming and difficult to handle.

I know this is all very tricky, but world-building wise there has to be a reason why no one has fixed this yet in all the years the White Council and its precursor existed. This is the kind of problem even a Solaroid has to put time and effort into. They make the hard easy and the impossible possible.
Would the splendor for this be different than the one already being discussed for deleting the corruption directly?

Fair enough on it being difficult but I'd like to point out that spirits with this particular type of mental power don't exactly grow on trees, and the ones that do exist aren't necessarily easy to trust. Mortals certainly can't do it alone because it requires the healer to perform mind magic. High level mind magic too, so they need a lot of practice they probably can't acquire without going crazy.

Seems like it even alone it should at least do better than red venom.
 
Would the splendor for this be different than the one already being discussed for deleting the corruption directly?

Fair enough on it being difficult but I'd like to point out that spirits with this particular type of mental power don't exactly grow on trees, and the ones that do exist aren't necessarily easy to trust. Mortals certainly can't do it alone because it requires the healer to perform mind magic. High level mind magic too, so they need a lot of practice they probably can't acquire without going crazy.

Seems like it even alone it should at least do better than red venom.

If you are a wizard you do not necessarily have to trust the spirit, just your skill at binding. Harry's first interaction with Toot Toot comes to mind and Harry's something of a soft touch in that regard. If this were even somewhat doable in canon with the resources they have it would be an open secret, more to the point Ebeneezer would have done it for Harry. He still struggles with it, not as much as some but he does.
 
If you are a wizard you do not necessarily have to trust the spirit, just your skill at binding. Harry's first interaction with Toot Toot comes to mind and Harry's something of a soft touch in that regard. If this were even somewhat doable in canon with the resources they have it would be an open secret, more to the point Ebeneezer would have done it for Harry. He still struggles with it, not as much as some but he does.
I don't think Toot Toot and random demons would cut it. Something like a whampire's hunger has the portfolio, but not the skill until you're at serious business elder level of brain bending. Mab's threat to pull out Thomas's demon to make him the winter knight implies to me that she can do some serious soul surgery, but even if that's something other powerful fey can do most of them do not understand the intricacies of the human mind well enough to put one back together correctly even if you could get one to swear strong enough oaths to trust them.

The most practical option I see for this absent handcrafted spirit healers is to find a seriously powerful sorcerer who's managed to develop their abilities in the shadow of at least two laws of magic without crossing either who's willing to cross the line to restore one patient. At which point they go nuts and can't be trusted to use their powers on anyone ever again.

Even for a senior council member that's not exactly an easy ask. Though I wouldn't be surprised to see something like a short story of such a sorcerer sacrificing themselves to heal their recently awakened kid after some sort of tragic magical accident or reckless use of power. I'm not aware of anything like that, but it'd fit the style of the setting.
 
Not really a vote to get tied up over. It is a tie though. Someone vote for something.
Adhoc vote count started by BoredMan on Jul 20, 2024 at 9:27 AM, finished with 48 posts and 21 votes.
 
Arc 13 Interlude 7: Tripping Rocks
Tripping Rocks

13th of February 2007 A.D.

A pile of papers spilled out onto the desk, schematics of wards not-quite-complete filling every page, the script in English, in Old Norse and everything between, a puzzle revealed more in what it is not than in what it is. The random incursions of people stumbling on Gard's privacy did not help someone spy on her, not were they planted in the hopes of one of them dying when intercepted and then pinning the murder on her, which had been your first thought for how someone subtle would take her off the field. Force Gard to not show her face and burn her identity. Then you spot it out of the corner of your eye, the pattern made clear. "Oh, of all the darned... and me being able to grow wings too, what do all the trouble spots have in common?"

"What?" she is very professional of course, but you couldn't shake the sense that she's 'giving you' this one, the chance to exposit at leisure. To be fair you do like to exposit.

"No heavy cover, I know A3 and H7 are marked forested, but those are the most recent events January 27th and February the 2nd, leaves are gone. Plenty of room to see."

"Didn't you ask the birds?" she asks with growing interest. "If there were any interlopers on their territory."

"Their territory only goes up so far..." You laugh darkly. "Spy plane or satellite, someone's trying to build a model of your warding schema from on high, very high indeed. So new question, which branch of the US government would be interested enough in your defenses that they would risk poking you like that?"

"One hopes none..." She shook her head which given the whole golden tresses thing she had going on looked distractedly like a shampoo commercial, but now is not the time to make that comment. "If it's the same idiots who decided to arrest Dresden in the summer I will be having some words with the people who should be holding their leash."

"The director of the FBI?" you ask innocently. "No, seriously this is much too subtle for them. Someone is willing to take months of preparation, works to case your house like it's Fort Knox. I'm not expecting a detailed answer, but in general terms is there anything in here that would be worth the effort or the risk of?"

"Just me, the cats..." On cue a large orange tabby much too rotund to be pulling any chariots buts his way into the room. "And the rabbits out back."

"Well it's probably not the bunnies or the kitty-cats, that just leaves..." you trail off letting her pick up the obvious answer to all this surveillance.

"An assassination attempt, someone is trying to get to me when I am away from my allies, which means they either are planning to make use of mortals to get past my threshold or they have something strong enough that it can just bowl through once the runewards are down. This place had a strong threshold when I got it in '71, but it has been a generation and more besides."

"How do you think they would react if you decided to move..." Realizing what her instant reaction would be at the idea of fleeing hearth and home at nothing more than a few unfriendly looks you raise a hand. "Not actually move, pretend, talk to some real estate agents, hammer a for sale. If you are under observation even loose observation whoever is doing this is bound to get at least a bit angry. Angry people make mistakes."

OOC: This is a pretty complex thread with Gard, but the only reason you are seeing this much of it on screen instead of being rolled and then told to you by the clones is that we are having so many tight votes and I want to give you guys the time to decide.
 
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