Yeah it doesn't help that in Mage the Ascension 20th anniversary edition it's only mentioned once and it's only in the health and injury section Pg. 406 under the health chart as a sub header in small text right above the page number but it says Avatar, Soak and Arete are unaffected by injury penalties.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Fixed, thanks.
I mean OK... fair you are not a Fiend, the part of Molly that would have its thoughts written in black scoffs at the idea that any jailer can hold the truly damned
[X] Head right to the tower as the spirit instructed
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Anyone have an idea of what this was? Anyway this turned out about as I expected it to. Still feel that sending Harry in first was the better play even if it was rough. Tiffany can heal him later though I think Sophia also has that capability.
[X] Head right to the tower as the spirit instructed
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
I went through the conversation on the matter of gold and I have to say, after all of that just doing a lottery and getting all the the money at once then being done with it seems a hell of a lot more sensible. The White Council use their prophetic powers to game the system as well so it's not like we'd be the first. Doing so means less foci for Molly/Sanctuary being distributed too and would take less effort on our part.
Good night guys, see you tomorrow with the answers in the tower.
[X] Head right to the tower as the spirit instructed
I can see the value in it, my point was just that if we want a way to turn goods into money with less overhead in terms of faking the origin of our tech then trading to people already in hiding would probably be faster.
Bringing the government in also works, but it makes us dependent on them in a lot of ways.
We don't need to limit ourselves to the government, but it makes sense to also sell to it. Big money are there.
Anyway, with Harry as the Warden, I am a bit surprised the name Demonreach got remained the same. I'll have to think about it, but we might be able to provide at least some upgrades to it.
I thought your point was to bring them in as a partner to deal with making the emergence of our product line look natural. Which they can totally do because have a lot of access to the systems we need to work around and could probably fake it being the result of some classified project that just got approval to go openly commercial so it could be used at scale.
That replaces all the problems of setting up a believable front with the ones that come from the feds trying to acquire the base technology themselves, monitor us via their integration to our financial mechanisms, and otherwise encourage dependency on their services.
Which does sound bad, but breaking into a system as an outsider always involves trade offs like this.
If we stick purely to civilian markets we can probably get that same level of overhead we currently have because campus universities aren't really going to be amazingly interested in horning in on graphene production methodologies they care about studying the properties of the material same with R&D for most businesses the government and general other industries that can and probably would expand into graphing production would be interested but even if they manage to ransack the place what are they going to do tell someone they broke into what is essentially a young woman's business and then couldn't find the equipment but know that she's making it. Inherently we don't have to disclose anything which is terrible but as long as we are buying the requisite carbon to produce all of our products the only way to know that we were producing them the magic would be to break the law and actively admit to doing that. This is on the assumption that we can't get machines that can do it from the sanctuary and then just reproduce those machines outside of sanctuary and actually hire Staff (Jade Dogs/High school friends/Rosie) to produce the graphene for us even if those machines require willpower to operate because they're essentially machine Alchemy.
I'm not actually sure what my main point was. I think it went something like this: we almost certainly have a number of materials (carbon nanotubes, various kinds of superconductors, low-magical materials) that are (possibly far) more advanced than Earth has, but not super-blatantly so, like gravity-resistant emotion-reacting plastics would be (or other stuff like that). We could introduce them to the markets, cornering a number of them and quickly exploding into a multi-billion corporation with a stranglehold on advanced technologies. Doing so would attract attention of various competitors and governments. We already have contacts in USA government, which we could, and I think, should leverage, to make it easier for us to start expanding Earth-side. I don't think we need to worry very much about how believable our advancements are, as long as we manage at least some rumors, and have allies. Rapid, unexpected advancements in certain areas of technology are not unknown in world's history. But we shouldn't give up advantages of having access to open markets either, when we negotiate for the help of USA government and WC.
It's also important to know that it'll take resources and time to set up localized manufacturing, which we, I think, would want to do at some point, and which USA government absolutely would want us to do, as it brings new high-tech jobs to US.
I maintain hope for Sidereal Harry, but I'll take wardenhood as an interim power up. Yes, it comes with responsibilities, but also avenues of training and a sanctum. We would need to make something to allow Harry to quickly go to and from Demonreach, but otherwise it's prime magical real estate.
@DragonParadox would it be possible to make a splendor for Harry that would allow him to deploy a zone of "this is Demonreach" around him? Sorta like our signature charm effect, or barren wastes infliction charm. Strictly temporary, of course, but it would be a huge boost nevertheless.
Yes, though the connection would go both ways. If someone ill intention-ed got their hands on that thing they would be able to attack Demonreach from out of its range though the Splendor.
This would be a splendor, so it would normally be within Harry's anima, and to get to use it, the attacker would need to kill Harry anyway. It'll be a fascination splendor, most likely, with the condition for its dismissal something like "be removed from Harry's presence" (I'll need to workshop this). Some questions before I really get into the design stage: what abilities does Harry get as a Warden? As I understand it, he gets island-wiude intellectus (which doesn't seem to need any rolls), the ability to communicate to the prisoners (I think?), possibly the ability to summon Alfred. Does he get any ability to naturally reshape landscape? What would the usual rolls be for using Warden-granted abilities? Or is that information a spoiler? It's probable a spoiler.
Ok, looks like we are heading to the tower.
Arc 13 Post 54: To Answer to Things Unasked
To Answer to Things Unasked
14th of February 2007 A.D.
After Sophia heals Harry —another thing I can't do, I need to up my game— the seven of you make it onto the eerie shore with nothing in sight to mark it apart from any other deserted patch of gravel tumbling into the sea: the boar is long since gone and the marks of Harry's trial are starting to heal under your very eyes. What does it say about the spirit that it had chosen to let the marks of human habitation fade with the natural passage of time instead of erasing them as soon as their builders have left? Olivia finds the sign: Wells and Cooper Cannery written out in blocky black script, long since turned grey with age. There aren't any obvious trinkets strewn about, nothing valuable enough that it was not taken over the water.
These then were the ones who had left towards the end of the eighteen hundreds, the ones who had 'given the island naught but fear and suspicion'. You wonder where the others are, the ones who'd died of cholera, you wonder if they had gotten a human burial or if the spirit in its sorrow had simply taken everything remaining of them into itself, but now is not the time to tarry. Harry says to hurry and this is his place, as sure as Sanctuary is yours. Do the others realize just how much of himself Harry had put into the hasty ritual, how much he has sacrificed? This now was his place, a Warden in more than one way to whatever lies below, never until death to claim a hill because he likes how the stars look from its summit, nor a river because of how refreshing the water tastes. Dad probably does and Lydia as well from the sympathetic look she throws him when he's not looking so as not to hurt his pride, but not Olivia, still less Murphy. Maybe it's better this way. Even Harry does not know quite what he's inherited... and from the way those mystery spirits had reacted the fewer people know the better.
After a short trek, just enough to stretch your legs you'd have once said, only now your legs no longer need stretching, they can just keep going and going forever, you make it to the top of the hill and the squat unlovely tower enthroned upon it. It fits the land a lot more then the ruins on the shore do. Moss grows on its walls and toadstools in its shadow, the poisonous kind, but that's not what draws your eye, it's the stones themselves. On a closer look there really is no reason why anyone would cut them like that at an angle. Sure they all fit together... they all fit together.
"Really? That's how they made it?" You start to laugh, more in relief that Harry had made it through that OK than amusement and it's only when Dad asks you what's the matter that you can explain. "The tower wasn't built here, it was drawn out of the bedrock with magic, then some wizard carved it up so that it would look like it came in pieces, only he was sloppy with some of the cuts which is how you get these improbable 'stone' shapes that no mason would have trusted if they actually came out of a quarry like that. It's just really funny to imagine some wizard standing here and carving up their tower like a turkey and then having to put mortar in the cracks for form."
Maybe you'd have added more to the observation if it hadn't been for the whistling that starts up, getting louder and louder as you approach the structure. Looking up you see what looks like a weathervane, that's moving without wind. It has five markers not four, at first you think they are celestial sings: the sun, the moon, the stars, but why are there two suns, three? One is yellow-not-quite-gold, but the second is silver tarnished black and the last is brass weathered green.
"Er... Harry I think your new tower has a me-detector, it's a little noisy though, you might want to switch it off."
He looks at it for a moment then shouts to the air: "Is this what you wanted me to see Alfred? She's on the guest list don't worry."
"Alfred like the butler in Batman?" Lydia asks, it's funnier that she does it because she's not trying to tease Harry, just happy to have gotten the reference.
Detective M... Karin laughs in spite of herself. "She's got your number Harry."
"Well I have to call it something and Demonreach is a little formal don't you think?" He asks as the weathervane stops spinning. The smile freezes on his face like someone had socked him in the chin.
In an instant the giant is here again, not bothering with the theatrics of taking shape: "Will you be releasing the others then, the Dark One and the Secret Keeper?"
"No!" Harry almost shouts. "No... no releasing of prisoners. Do you have a green stone that's.. er... made of fire and sympathy?"
"You said no releasing prisoners, reason for inconsistency?"
"Because that's not really a prisoner is it? You didn't put it wherever prisoners go, it's just a dangerous tool, a piece of something even more dangerous that shouldn't be around here, but it is. You can feel him, right? The flame mountain guy?"
"Yes."
"Figured you're on the same wavelength..." This time Demonreach does not let him finish.
"No. Pretender! Lie that has forgotten itself."
"Well if it stays in two pieces it might remember the wrong thing at the wrong time and then it will come here and make a mess. I'm sure you can take him big guy, but humans like their lake 65, maybe 75 degrees in summer, not boiling you know?"
"I knew humans once, before he took it from me."
"The humans?" Harry asks, confused, but the spirit does not answer.
"I think it means the knowing... the knowledge of humans." Lydia says quietly. "Spirits can be altered with the right spell, made to think differently, feel differently to forget who they were..."
That reminds you of Bob, missing a piece of himself that he doesn't want back and it reminds you again of the account in her father's library, the name next to the very journal entry that recounted the tale of the island's inhabitants. An awful suspicion strikes you, one you: "Was the Warden before this Heinrich Kemmler?"
Slowly, menacingly the cloaked figure turns to look at you, blazing green eyes trapping yours.
"Yes."
Kemmler used to run this place and there's a 'Dark One' and a 'Secret Keeper', like you in maximum containment. Testing out whether angels come when called has never been more tempting, but something tells you this is not a decision for Heaven to make. This is a decision for man, one man in particular, who would not even be here if you hadn't asked him to.
A small green stone falls at Harry's feet, rolling towards him on the uneven ground. At least we have what we came here to find, you think. That and so much more.
What do you do next?
[] Take the Grace back to Embermane
[] Help Harry look through his new domain, it should be safe enough for you
[] Write in
OOC: I've been waiting a while for you guys to get here. If there is any place in all of Dresdenverse that would have Exalts under lock and key it would be Demonreach and it would be the 'fun' ones.
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