Yep, that is a very silly mistake from too many edits, fixed, thanks.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Yep, that is a very silly mistake from too many edits, fixed, thanks.
Your analysis makes zero sense.I did a detailed analysis of what we know about it back when we got the poem/prophecy.
COMMENTARY
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files) Crossover - Fantasy
This deserves a detailed reply, but I cant address it right now. I'll try to get back to this later today. Lunars start with a higher floor than Infernals and other Solaroids. But they are pretty clearly balanced to peak lower than the Solaroids; once an Infernal buys its first Shintai, the gap...forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Thats a prophecy that Ivy just shared.
In order:
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He of the Long Arm
Lui Lavada/ Lugh Fadlámhach/Lugh Lámfada. Lugh of the Long Arm. Son of Ethniu and Cian, maternal grandson of Balor.
He killed his grandfather, Balor of the Evil Eye, in Irish mythology by throwing a spear or slingstone through his eye.
Bulging Eye That Bleeds
The Eye of Balor. Irish mythological and Dresdenverse superweapon, wielded by Balor of the Evil Eye.
Some of the myths characterizes it as an eye that bleeds
Time of Summer's Dimming
Summer solstice. At the solstice, Summer is at its greatest power, but begins to wane, while Winter's power begins to wax all the way to the winter solstice. Similarly, at the winter solstice, Winter's power is at its greatest, but begins to wane, while Summer begins to wax all the way to midsummer.
Six Years Between
In canon, Ethniu coming to Chicago with the Eye happened in Year 14; we are currently in Year 7. Close enough for an imprecise accounting
===
Not a Lunar Exaltation, apparently.
"Just" a mythological citykiller/armykiller superweapon that was the keystone of the canon Formorian attack on Chicago that killed 60,000 mortal civilians, an unspecified number of supernatural soldiers, and gave Drakul the opportunity to grab a couple White Council wizards for his retinue.
And it fits better with the picture given in the poem we received.
Balor was in Irish mythology both a leader of the Fomor/Fomorians and a king of the Hebrides; Islay, which is where the Epidii used to live, is an island in the Hebrides.
The Eye of Balor is described in
Which makes Prince Trucc either a Fomorian, or a Fomorian-favoring Sidhe.
The Sidhe and the Fomor, while enemies in both Dresdenverse and Irish mythology explicitly had some interbreeding going on, both in Irish mythology and in the Dresdenverse, as evidenced by the story and parentage of Lugh Longarm.
And also explains why no Sidhe have had any interest in seeking something that was supposed to empower an ancestral enemy. Better it stay lost.
Some very nice research work here, @DragonParadox, and the integration is very well done.
Take a bow.
You earned it.
Like I think I've said to you before?
Its almost certainly Balor's Eye, the superweapon that Ethniu used in Battle Grounds.
There's much very little chance that its a Lunar Exaltation.
Not impossible, mind, but the thematic associations that we get very much do not suggest an Exaltation.
Furthermore, Usum's captivity among the Yama Kings gives us a benchmark for what a Celestial Exaltation in this setting can do when kitbashed as a weapon, and given that Winter wrecked a field army wielding Usum, I dont think thats it.
Besides, if it was an Exaltation repurposed as a weapon, the thematic associations would be much more likely to be an Abyssal Exaltation, or another Infernal, than a Lunar or Solar or Sidereal.
Let's look from the beginning. This is the option given.
This is the reason it was given:
This is something Lilly thinks will have value to Molly in particular. Eye of Balor has no connection to Molly in particular. A lunar exaltation, even one that isn't our lunar mate, does. Following on from that - in your analysis you are completely ignoring the actual text the fae gave us, instead concentrating on Archive's interpretation and information. You are also torturing text to meet your meaning. This part in particular:
Bulging eye that bleeds is a poetic description of a comet, nothing more. Because, damn, the whole text reads "a bright wanderer with a tail of fire and a bulging mad eye". This is a comet, clear as day.
You are ignoring a lot of stuff in the text to fit your meaning.
The thing is described as a seed:
Eye of Balor is not a seed. Exaltations are. The fae seer / poet tells the reader to weep for a Prince that is unborn.
Prince is capitalized, as a proper title. The only such title that fits here is Prince of the Earth, as a general description of all celestial exalts.
This line here
That's Silver Chair, clearly.
So, no, exaltation fits far better.
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Oooh, thats going to be interesting.
1) Molly is a Celestial Exalt already.
Why would another Exaltation be of particular value to Molly? As opposed to literally anyone else?
She cant double Exalt, nor can she choose the recipient of one. If Lily has access to deep Court lore, she already knows this.
Molly would find value in a remnant of Creation That Was, not in an Exaltation she cant control.
Furthermore, Mab has demonstrated that Winter, and presumably Summer as well, can hold/imprison an inactive Exaltation.
I am not seeing an explanation for why they would leave one lying on the seabed for any passerby or adventurer to pick up.
Hell, Odin is explicitly out there looking for Exaltations now, and he was around back before the Courts were empowered.
And is currently a Winter King, with Winter lore. This entire story would not be new to him.
If that was an Exaltation, there's good odds he'd have been on it by now.
====
2) The prophecy that Ivy recites makes it clear that we arent talking about a comet. At least, not in isolation.
====
3) Exalted may be called Princes of the Earth colloqially, but to my recollection its not a title they use.
Prince is more commonly a Raksha title in Exalted 2E.
For example, Prince Laashe who defeated Sol Invictus, and was punked by Luna.
Or, say, Prince Balor of the Balorean Crusade.
====
4) The Silver Chair has nothing to do with Lunar Exaltations. Lunars do not sit in Luna's Chair.
And that assumes this is the Silver Chair in the first place being referred to.
I can think of at least one empty Chair in MTA lore, and Im not particularly great with my Changeling the Dreaming lore, or my Raksha lore. There may be more in both WoD and Exalted.
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Respectfully, Im of the opinion that you are falling afoul of confirmation bias at the moment.
You've decided it has to be an Exaltation, and you are ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Including the Archive literally sharing a prophecy in the quoted scene that points to other explanations.
This is an ExWoD crossover with Dresden Files, not Exalted with guest appearances from other franchises.
I've been leaning towards it being a Balor's Eye reference, given the involvement of the fomor and Balor's Eye being a thing in the Dresdenverse.
It could be Balor's Eye from Battle Grounds.
It could also be a reference to the Balor of the Evil Eye from Changeling The Dreaming.
Or Prince Balor of the Terrible Gaze from Exalted 2E.
All of them have Eyes that fit the bill here, and two of them are linked to the prophecy Ivy shared.
I dont know which applies.
If its from Exalted, Im betting its something like the Dark Rider artifact, or something with a function that was kludged up into a weapon. A piece of the Sword of Creation, maybe.
But not an Exaltation. It has to be something that the Fae had no interest in touching.
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Just saying it seems unlikely there would be there fey-like beings with the same name, each with their own terrible eye that are not at the very least connected if not the same being.
1) Assuming she doesn't know about lunar mates or it isn't ours, circles are a thing that is emblematic of exalts.
2) Because it's safely tucked away. Before we exalted, Mab wasn't actively looking for exaltations. No one was. And because while they can keep it, they can't actually use it.
I disagree completely. The eye that bleeds fits the comet well.
"Prince" was an official title of a solar who ruled a principality or tributary during the first age (Exalted 2E - Dreams of the First Age - Book 1 (Lands of Creation) [revised], page 35):
"Prince of the Earth" is a title of all solar exalts, it's how they are addressed by gods and monsters. After usurpation it was taken by Dragonblooded.
There's also a deathlord known as "SIlver Prince" during the second age (E2 core, p. 54):
So, in the latter age having it refer to exalts in general, at least celestial ones, makes perfect sense.
Prince is a relatively common title in Exalted. You get fae princes, demon princes, but most of all you get Princes of the Earth. Who are exalted.
And I notice you are ignoring the seed part.
1) I fail to see the relevance.
Molly does not get to choose who the inheritor of a Celestial Exaltation will be.
Noone does. Even Archangel Uriel was only allowed to tilt the chances.
As such, its of no particular value to her; the Exalt would be, but the Exaltation is not.
If someone external to the shard could decide the recipient, a Fae would have arranged for someone friendly to receive it.
Mab would have done something with Usum instead of burying him under a tree.
This is something the Fae have known about and have left untouched. That does not point at an Exaltation.
2) A thousand years ago, an Outsider plot killed both ruling Queens of Summer and Winter, and Mab had to lead a pell-mell effort to forestall them from fucking everything up. If your assertion was true, she or Titania would have broken it out of storage in that sort of crisis, or in the aftermath, when Mab was so swarmed that she literally bargained with the Fallen Anduriel for help.
==
Two, safe is not lying at the bottom of the ocean, where any maritime fucker can pick it up.
Safe is in the middle of Arctis Tor, or Avalon, guarded by the innermost powers of the Fae.
Like Mab did with Usum.
The Fomori are historical enemies of the Fae in the Dresden Files, and their domain is explicitly the sea; the idea that any Fae Queen would consider the seabed safe for an Exaltation is not plausible.
===
Three, Odin is explicitly currently looking for Exaltations according to his own people.
He holds the Mantle of a Winter King. He would have known about this.
That he hadnt secured it, or isnt guarding it, says its not an Exaltation.
3) Fair point on the Silver Prince. The Deathlord.
Which goes to further my point: Prince is not a title used for the Exalted since the fall of the Solar Deliberative.
Nobody in Exalted 2E would hear the term Prince and think of an Exalt.
Prince of the Earth is a descriptor, a category.
Much like calling all Exalts Chosen.
Or calling Twilight Caste Solars Copper Spiders.
4) Yes, Im ignoring it because nowhere in Ex2E an Exaltation considered a seed. They do not grow things.
Autochton who made them doesnt call them that, nor do his thematics lend to that. Neither do Sol, Luna or the Maidens.
Even the Chosen of Gaia, the Deebs, dont get that sort of characterization.
Seeds suggest something else. What, I dont know.
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- Location
- Right Where I Am
Yeah, that sounds right.
There's overwhelming texttual evidence in canon exalted that says you are wrong, which I posted before. But I'll leave this new quote here, which I hasn't presented earlier (Exalted 2E - Dreams of the First Age - Book 2 (Lords of Creation) [revised], pg. 137):
Once the discussion becomes relevant again, I am preparing a huge ass post with tons of citations and explanations that demonstrates how it only makes sense that one can direct an exaltation. But I was previously asked to stop for now, so, if you want, we can take it to PMs.
1) Safe is in a belly of a lesser dragon
2) You don't control exalts
3) It doesn't follow that Odin knows everything Summer Court knows. And this is known to Summer, not Winter.
You are wrong, and I have provided textual quotes to prove you wrong. Prince of the Earth is a common term for exalts in-story in Exalted.
"Seed of Night" is how our exaltation is called by Kakuri. It's what exaltations are called in this latter age in this universe.
[X] Yes
-[X] Explain it's a magical primer
-[X] Explain it's a magical primer
Vote closed.
As always if their was anyway to control who exalted, the Primordials would have won full stop. It something that explicitly cannot be for the setting to work. The fact WW cannot keep it most basic lore for the setting straight does not change that fact.
That's incorrect if there was a way to control the exalted that would be true but who exalted is always been a question of how and why you're capable of doing that. Whether that the na artifacts like the death Lords, demons that are specifically melting alive holding the exaltation like the Yozi, just literally picking them like Auto/ Soldalite, visiting them beforehand and then letting them exalt like Luna, picking them at Birth like the maidens of fate, or just letting the picking protocol that it was established when you made them run like Sol. There's also the fact that the first chosen of the dragonblooded were literally just picked flat out they were 10,000 of them to start with they were picked by the dragons to give the blood to there's no way around that one.
Answer me these two question:
1) Why haven't Primordials ordered Sol and/or Luna to kill all exalted, and to keep killing all exalted in defense of Primordials?
2) How would a Primordial order Lytek to control who exalts if Lytek is in hiding, possible within Autochton's worldbody, and Primordial in question doesn't know who Lytek is.
Citation needed. I wasn't able to find even one mention of this.
EDIT: If you (or anyone else) want to keep discussing this, we should move this either to PMs or canon exalted debate thread.
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Arc 13 Post 43: Of Memories Kept and a Letter Torn
Of Memories Kept and a Letter Torn
13th of February 2007 A.D.
No reason not to tell her, that the woman driving through the sparse February rain has doubts you do not doubt, everyone has doubts, but they would not be the kind of insecurities born of opportunities unborn that you'd worried about in there. That was more her sister's speed, the uncharitable thought pops up. "The book's a magic primmer in case anyone in his family were to develop a talent for magic," you explain. "The gift is kind of hereditary on a maternal line but not consistently so, the child of a wizard is more likely to be magical than most but not that much more likely. So it's not that uncommon I'd imagine to have some fresh mage rummage around through great-great-uncle's things and find something they can use, but maybe they shouldn't. Father Murphy took the danger out and just made it beginner-friendly, not just how to use magic, but when to use magic."
Seeing that both the others are interested in this line of reasoning you gladly continue. There are quite a few wizards who'd give you the stink-eye for it, but not Harry given that he hands Magic 101 leaflets to anyone who will take one. "It's not just for moral reasons, though that plays into it, you cannot do magic you don't believe in so understanding your own morals and the reasons why you hold those beliefs is as important to spell-casting as a good sense of balance is to martial arts." Which would make a devout priest a particularly skilled, or at least well grounded wizard, you leave unsaid, but understood just the same.
"It's odd that Father Murphy would be a member of the council of wizards, the White Council," Father Forthil says at last. "I haven't heard of an ordained priest holding the position." From the tone it's obvious he doesn't approve of it either, not in the sense of disapproving of magic itself but... Harry had once compared being a member of the Council to being a knight beholden to his vows and his peers. Anyone who has so much as cracked a book on the history of the Catholic Church knows how complicated clergymen swearing secular vows got.
Usum reminds you that the Pope is a monarch too since he enjoys pointing out inconsistencies and double standards in people's worldviews a little too much but you say nothing of course.
Great Aunt Mary does not live in Chicago, proper, she lives out in Beverly, technically Beverly Hills, though no one calls it that, presumably because they don't want to hear the obvious California jokes for the thousandth time. It's the kind of place where the wealthy once played at alms-rural-life, though it's not exactly in these days. Murphy's great-aunt had inherited one of said houses from her late husband who had been police commissioner some decades back. Her children and grandchildren are part of a wider Murphy family that is several hundred people large if you count the ones who married in. What would that even be like? you wonder, a little wistful, a little worried. The support sounds great to be sure, but you can just imagine some nosy cousin popping out of the woodwork, when you're doing some non-family approved things.
The doorbell echoes too-loud for the neat little Queen Ann House that reminds you of doll-houses you had as a kid. There is the sound of tromping feet, the creak of someone leaning in to look through the peephole and then a girl around Lydia's age opens the door with a smile. she obviously wasn't expecting to see Lieutenant Murphy here, much less with company.
It's busy in here, you count five kids of which Sally the girl at the door is the oldest and five adults besides the lady you had come here to talk to, her children and their spouses. They all show various levels of interest in 'Margret Smith's' supposed studies, feigned or not, but in the end they direct you to Mary's room... up on the third floor. You'd wonder why anyone who's eighty-seven years old would choose to live on the third floor, but if a strong will runs in the family you can almost certainly guess why.
Mary Murphy pauses in the introductions at the sight of Father Forthil as if in thought and finally says: "A good evening to you Father but I think I still have a few more months in me."
The poor man is left unsure of how to take this to which Murphy gives her great aunt a chiding look. "We know that Aunt Mary. We're here to talk to you about some family history actually. Ms Smith here is working on her PhD..." she delivers the story decently well, but from the way the old lady starts tapping her chin you suspect she must have caught her in a fib or two in her childhood and still remembers those tells.
"This is something to do with work isn't it? Like your father's work, though Colin never brought a priest in to help him ask questions. It would have been mighty alarming if he has given what he worked on."
"Dad asked you questions about something?"
"Not questions no..." she pauses a moment, considers her grand-niece, then the other people in the room. Whatever she sees encourages her to continue. "When he needed something for a Black Cat investigation that would look odd to ask about officially he'd come to me and I'd speak with Connor to help get him thinking along the right lines. Men like to think they understand everything and when they inevitably, don't it makes them antsy. But a woman is allowed to be a bit dotty, adds to our charm you know... Are you seeing someone again dear?"
The way the conversation changes from reminiscing about her late father to personal questions gives you whiplash, but Karin Murphy is apparently accustomed enough to it to respond with:"I see a lot of people, it's my job to notice them."
The old lady opens her mouth, looks at the priest in the corner, politely waiting with hands folded in his lap and closes it. It's not hard to read the message in that smile. 'You really opened yourself for an answer there.'
"So what can I help you with?" she asks instead, turning her attention to you.
After explaining your supposed general interests again the conversation turns to Father John Murphy, in particular his death and the death of his sister Kate, odd that they came so close together on that ill-fated year.
"Interesting that you should mention those two names together dear," she muses. "I remember from my grandfather that they were very close as children, she cried a whole month when he decided to go into the seminary and then took the offer to go to America. She thought she'd never see him again. You see Kate's health was never good, consumption they call it, though they could hardly tell one sickness from another those days so take it with a pinch of salt. Her family thought she'd never make it. Then, and this is the odd bit, they found a doctor willing to do... something about it, I'm not sure what but I can just imagine the sort of fellow who would be off experimenting on poor Irish girls, but she seemed to get better. Kate was well enough for the journey, but after her brother died her sickness came back worse than before, it was the grief like as not."
"Is that everything?" you ask, the talk of sudden healing setting off alarms at the back of your mind. Though you want to hear everything before you form an opinion.
"There is one other thing that was strange, Kate wrote a letter to her brother as she lay dying, she was feverish and must have just forgotten... well when her mother saw it she ripped it up on the spot. Grandfather Edward asked her about it and she wouldn't say, must have been just rambling but people would get embarrassed about the most ridiculous things," she looks at you, presumably as a representative of the 'youth', the few years you added to your glamor of little note to her. "If anyone tells you that people were tougher-minded or stronger back in the old days that is all bullshit, pardon my French, they just didn't know how to talk about their troubles until it ate them up inside."
"This doctor though do you know anything about him?" you ask into the solemn silence that had fallen after that piece of advice.
She thinks for a minute or two, back to something she must have heard when she was a girl herself, though it seems pretty obvious from how she told the story that it was one she'd paid particular attention to. "Samuel... M, something with an M."
Samuel Maskelyne, the name of the Denarian who killed Father Murphy pops into your head, it could be a coincidence... it's not though, you feel in your bones.
What do you do next?
[] Check with Harry, see if Father Murphy had actually been a member of the White Council
[] Find the graves of John and Kate Murphy and ask questions
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: We are getting close to cracking this mystery.
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- Location
- At Home
[X] Check with Harry, see if Father Murphy had actually been a member of the White Council
I'm guessing the priest made a deal with the devil to help his sister with her disease, but he backed out when he understood the true consequences of his deal. Then Sammy sacrificed him anyway, except Father Murphy warned Emberflame and managed to cancel the apocalypse.
I'm guessing the priest made a deal with the devil to help his sister with her disease, but he backed out when he understood the true consequences of his deal. Then Sammy sacrificed him anyway, except Father Murphy warned Emberflame and managed to cancel the apocalypse.
I'm kind of surprised no one wants to throw out a question or two, not saying you guys should, just remember it's an option and you do have plenty of things to use as foci now.