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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Dmol8 said:
And your argument only addresses the Ethical problem with using Spawning Pit Sanctification (••••) not the Moral one or the Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery one.
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And that argument seems bogus to me. What sorts of religious things are you making up? It certainly isn't in the charm description.

Edit: If bad vibes where enough to turn god and dad against us then I have bad news for you.
 
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Since I'm always on that sorcerous agenda
Pentacle and Scepter 16 XP reduces both the essence cost and difficulty of ancient sorcery spells and reduces the difficulty of sorcery as well
DragonParadox said:
Yes, that is intended
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It also moves ancient sorcery from an expensive Sideshow into actually viable not to mention it's a passive that all of our clones would get to share in which reduces the difficulty of all Alchemy rolls and any other possible sorcery we get our hands on.

Alchemy 5 12XP the creation of supernaturally potent potions such as these that have already been approved by Dragonparadox
●●●●● Thunderclap and Flash
A potion that grants the user the speed and strength of a thunderbolt for a scene. They possess +3 Dice on dexterity actions and +2 dice on strength actions. The player taking the potion rolls Stamina + Occult at Difficulty 7 with each success granting two Charges which can be spent on Thunderous Might (Potence 2) and / or Lightning's Fall (Celerity 3) Functioning as the disciplines in parentheses. The character will have a hard time focusing and a deep well of energy. Any being with the ability to sense or see magic will feel the presence and if seeing the aura of lightning and barely contained violence
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Extra attacks per turn paid from a pool of Supernatural energy that isn't our Essence pool which directly governs our ability to actually fight and stay alive that is enhanced by our stamina enhancing martial arts that we possess and may also be benefited by Pentacle and scepter depending on Dragonparadox's ruling
●●●●● Soulstone
Similar to Matrices and Periapts is a way for an alchemist to contain and hold the energies of the world for later use. Unfortunately things are rarely ever so simple. Similar to a matrix SoulStone cannot be charged through passive means (Enchanted waters, Node placement) nor can it be melded with functioning biomass. The energy in raw SoulStone can be accessed through a short ritual (1 to 2 minutes) at difficulty 6 rolled with willpower dice, In comparison to a Periapts 1 round of concentration and unlike a periapt there's no way to access the held energy from a distance. Soulstone once added to a construct becomes integrated and Inseparable from said construct. Any energy contained in or added to said soulstone in the construct later will be devoted to the function of said construct; it cannot be used for any other sorcery or Magicks. Example: An Ash wand of Hellfire infused with Soulstone containing 10 mana cast lightning bolt -3 difficulty down to seven Mana. The sorcerer realizing they are in over their head tries to cast a conveyance spell using that wand and unfortunately quickly realizes the Mana committed to the Hellfire wand only works when it's used as the Hellfire wand. Soulstone capacity is decided by the quality. Soulstone in creation holds a base of 3 plus the number of successes x 2 in Quintessence, Mana, Essence. In high quality soulstone (5+ successes) a fist sized Mass could hold up to 20 units. A mass of raw soulstone can be divided as seen below.

Sizes - high quality / Sizes - regular
Pebble - 1 unit per / Pebble - 0 unit per
Beads - 2 units per / Beads - 1 unit per
Palm slab - 10 units per / Palm slab - 5 units per
Fist or small cube - 20 units per / Fist or small cube - 10 units per
Block - 30 units per / Block - 15 units per

Generally objects have a size or amount of Soulstone that they can handle without penalty or fragility for objects that fit in hand such as wands, pens, swords and guns that size is Palm slabs and below. For objects of significantly wider surface area and coverage such as body armor or large Shields that size is small cube it is really only necessary for Block to be used on really large objects such as buildings or particularly large vehicles.
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Prodigies with their own fuel integration, the ability to charge these Soul stones and use them as Essence batteries or use it to Mint prodigies and splenders or perform rituals using them in sorcery to reduce both difficulties and thresholds.
Mana Manipulation 3 or 4 13 XP or 21 XP with Mana manipulation 3 we are capable of essentially doing what Sandra did in Vegas or with the Jades did when they first came here or what the lord of the wicked city did with all is poison imagine if we did that to people that mess with our assets plus three difficulty on all actions from anyone that we dislike we could do it we could do it for 13 XP if they give us any level of time to prepare we could destroy them or we could give our own people the inverse benefit of -3 difficulty on actions it's really that good. We can break Wards using Mana manipulation 3 or twist them so they focus on someone else with the right roll. With Mana manipulation 4 we could be capable of granting physical Merits or Flaws at a pretty generous rate of two successes per point of Merit. This is before we get into possibly increasing the amount of essence we are capable of holding internally or increasing our regeneration rate using Mana Manipulation.

So keep in mind that the next XP spend charms are strong innate magical abilities but they aren't actually sorcery themselves and this is a pretty magic heavy setting and our foes use magic heavily against us repeatedly the same kind of magic too we can also do it instead of just relying on pure Brute Force to get us through whether that be hand agents drawn from our world or our own might Sometimes the best tool for the job is actually just a screwdriver rather than bringing out a bigger hammer.
 
fictionfan said:
And that argument seems bogus to me. What sorts of religious things are you making up? It certainly isn't in the charm description.
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I'm not talking about the charm description, I'm talking about the 10th Commandment:

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's"

which is the Commandment that governs what qualifies as Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery.

Yes that means that any Witch Trial that is used as a means of obtaining an accused's property of any sort is itself an act of Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery and the Judges themselves are the Witches in that case ironically enough.

The way you argued for using the charm:

fictionfan said:
I mentioned it before, but it was a long shot hypnotical before this update.

The Infernal consecrates a pit with the torturous and transformative powers of Hell. Once the consecration is complete, the pit writhes with demon maggots. Those she casts into the pit are faced with a choice: willingly become the Infernal's creature, or die.
System: This Charm first requires the Infernal to dig a pit within a place of desolation (defined as a place where Survival rolls are at least difficulty 8, or where most of the inhabitants feel despair at the state of their lives). She can dig it by hand, or else let creatures of darkness created by Maggot Mana Plague do the labor at her behest. Then, she spends 10 Essence to fill the pit with writhing, seething maggots conjured from the Hell of Burrowing Maggots. Thereafter, anyone cast into the pit understands that they face a choice: they may either give themselves body and soul to the pit's master, or face the voracious jaws of the maggots. Those who choose the maggots suffer three levels of lethal damage per turn spent in the pit, and if slain by the maggots, their soul is consigned to the Hell of Burrowing Maggots. Those who give themselves to the Infernal… are still devoured by the maggots, which swarm into the target's flesh, consuming and excreting her transformed substance back into place with such agonizing speed and deftness that she lives through the process. When they recede and permit her to crawl from the pit, she does so as a bakemono – a sort of monster that shapeshifters know asfomori. Rules for fomori can be found on pages 428-439 of W20. Bakemono created with this Charm inevitably suffer from a derangement that fills them withparalyzing terror at the thought of disobeying the Infernal, increasing the difficulty of all actions undertakenwhile betraying or opposing her by two.If the Infernal casts a being into the pit that is forwhatever reason incapable of becoming a bakemono(such as one of the Solar Exalted), they receive nochoice: the maggots simply seek to swarm and devour
Basically we can throw in skinwalkers or what have you in order to make powerful yet disposable minions. If you hate Broken Seeker throw 2 skinwalkers into the pit and tell them to go kill him. Or just send some monsters to eat all the Lords of Outer night.

@DragonParadox : Is it fair to say that any creature that comes out the the pit a bakemono counts as a Lesser COD for the purposes of Demonic Primacy of Essence? It doesn't matter how powerful they are they are still worms under our feet.

Edit : Nevermind obviously yes "Jaggling or Gaffling-level Banes and all fomori are always lesser beings" -DPoE
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is literally coveting Molly's enemy's lives and their servant's in order to make disposable minions against them. How the fuck do you think that doesn't count as Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery? Or breaking the 10th Commandment for that matter?

I'm not talking about Baba Anujka here.
 
uju32 said:
Few of the questions frankly are pressing right now.

Escape plans is a waste of a question. They've been here for centuries, if not millenia, with nothing to do besides plot for those who are conscious; of course they have escape plans. Viable escape plans is quite another matter, and given that Odin outright stated there was a self-destruct in the event of a breakout, largely useless.

None of the rest is relevant.
Any plans against Demonreach will change as soon as people figure out that it has a new Warden.
You're asking questions that will only be of historical interest.
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Escape and breakout plans. Escape plans meaning those made by inmates. Breakout plans meaning those made by outside forces. That they have been here for a long time doesn't mean they won't be ready to enact said plans soon. Especially if the Age is changing.

Effects and consequences of becoming a Warden is very relevant. As are any backdoors and weaknesses introduced by Kemmler or anyone else. Again, that a sealed evil has been in a can for the last 9999.99 years doesn't mean it won't get out when the clock strikes 10000.
uju32 said:
1) Kemmler had access to gods and the children of gods as followers and allies.
We even see one of them in canon post-Battle Grounds in the short story The Law.

2)Credit for Lydia's birth is not plausible IMO.
And I find it hard to believe that he would give away stuff without knowing what; man was a competent wizard, and in doing so still managed to give Arawn something that made him vulnerable to necromancy/necromancers.

3) Controlling Exalts is hard.
Getting their loyalty is no harder than getting the loyalty of most mortals, as the Prefect of Paragon can attest. And say what you will about Kemmler, but he exhibited a startling ability to hold the loyalties of a disparate bunch of people.

If he could make Exigents, I cant think of any reason he wouldnt have made them.
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Kemmler, for all that he was very smart and knowledgeable was not omniscient or infallible. He made mistakes and was wrong about stuff. He might have traded knowledge to Arawn without realizing it could produce Lydia or someone like Lydia. There is a whole number of possible scenarios here in regards to his involvement.

It should also be noted that we don't know Kemmler's motivations and goals.
 
I would like to reiterate that we can use rocks and the like as Crown foci in order to ask as many questions as need be about Demonreach without risking exposing the Crown to Alfred as the leading plan may result in.

As usual, the best way to keep something a secret is to actually try and keep that thing a secret.

Adhoc vote count started by BoredMan on Aug 8, 2024 at 1:13 AM, finished with 54 posts and 9 votes.
  • [X] Plan prevention
    -[X] Using your Crown and this scene as a focus ask what the current escape and breakout plans in regards to the currently held prisoners are
    -[X] Try to speak to one of the lesser prisoners, to get some idea what they are doing in here, you can give then a voice even though that
    [X] Try to speak to one of the lesser prisoners, to get some idea what they are doing in here, you can give then a voice even though that
    [X] Using your Crown and this scene as a focus ask why the prison was built
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Dmol8 said:
I'm not talking about the charm description, I'm talking about the 10th Commandment:

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's"

which is the Commandment that governs what qualifies as Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery.

Yes that means that any Witch Trial that is used as a means of obtaining an accused's property of any sort is itself an act of Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery and the Judges themselves are the Witches in that case ironically enough.

The way you argued for using the charm:



is literally coveting Molly's enemy's lives and their servant's in order to make disposable minions against them. How the fuck do you think that doesn't count as Poisoning/Witchcraft/Sorcery? Or breaking the 10th Commandment for that matter?

I'm not talking about Baba Anujka here.
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Do do know what the definition of the word covet is right? Also everyone in a capitalist society breaks that one. Next you are going to say that Dad will turn against us because our clones are graven images. This seems so dumb to me that I am having trouble believing that you are being serious. Are you?

[X] Using your Crown and this scene as a focus ask why the prison was built
 
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uju32 said:
ETE is not a combat charm, its a Bureaucracy/War charm.
Its not really going to help with throwing hands.
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I said that it causes widespread devastation. Of it also helps with throwing hands if they are fighting to complete a cursed project. I don't know why you keep making up limitations that aren't in the splat. We don't even have skill charms that's a Solar thing.
 
fictionfan said:
This seems so dumb to me that I am having trouble believing that you are being serious. Are you?
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I think you should know that the guy you're arguing with has a history of using highly idiosyncratic definitions of words and several other people have gotten into confused arguments with him about it.

My personal experience is from the GDI Planquest when he said a bunch of weird stuff, like claiming that economies of scale don't exist in competitive markets but are the result of monopolist market manipulation. I responded that transporting goods by vehicle is an example of an economy of scale which arises from the fixed cost of pushing the vehicle regardless of whether it's full or empty. He responded that owning a vehicle was a "monopoly" on transportation space.
 
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fictionfan said:
I said that it causes widespread devastation. Of it also helps with throwing hands if they are fighting to complete a cursed project. I don't know why you keep making up limitations that aren't in the splat. We don't even have skill charms that's a Solar thing.
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I suppose it's a question of how broadly you interpret "Everyone involved in pushing the project forward increases the difficulty of
all rolls to do so by +2". If you strictly emphasize "the project", then for enemies to get mechanical debuffs in combat/+2 DC to all rolls, the project would have to be something like trying to kill us, because the enemies would be trying to push the specific project forward. But that doesn't say anything about a curse targeted at an organization as a whole and not a project.
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@DragonParadox sorry if somebody has asked this
already but are you willing to comment on how Endless Torment Emanation might manifest in a more ambiguous combat situation if it does?

Speculation/hypothetical scenario for your consideration:

Molly is attacking a ritual site. There are people who can fight guarding it. The group doing the ritual has been cursed with Endless Torment Emanation but the ritual project itself has not been cursed. Because of this. Molly encounters things like
1. Fewer Guards
2. Less Well Supplied Guards
3. If guards call for reinforcements, they're 10 minutes away or something

It might be modelable by voting on a debuff or debuff for our enemies at the ritual site. Or adding voting options for convenient saves against enemy plays periodically for the scenario but we only get 1-3 of them.

Luck and circumstance are their enemy yet their skills and abilities remain intact.

To justify the +2 DC boost for enemies on a project specifically trying to kill Molly, the hypothetical enemies might have just heard somebody they cared about died an hour ago or something. Or Molly looks like an enemies dead daughter or something. The Apocryphal Curse in Rihaku's AST was entirely willing to psychogically torment the protagonist by doing things like sending an enemy at him that reminds him of his deceased wife and that's where I got that idea from

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In short there's a lot of ways you can model Endless Torment Emanation depending on how the text is interpreted and what the enemies are doing.
 
OctarineShrike said:
I suppose it's a question of how broadly you interpret "Everyone involved in pushing the project forward increases the difficulty of
all rolls to do so by +2". If you strictly emphasize "the project", then for enemies to get mechanical debuffs in combat/+2 DC to all rolls, the project would have to be something like trying to kill us, because the enemies would be trying to push the specific project forward. But that doesn't say anything about a curse targeted at an organization as a whole and not a project.
----------------------------------
@DragonParadox sorry if somebody has asked this
already but are you willing to comment on how Endless Torment Emanation might manifest in a more ambiguous combat situation if it does?

Speculation/hypothetical scenario for your consideration:

Molly is attacking a ritual site. There are people who can fight guarding it. The group doing the ritual has been cursed with Endless Torment Emanation but the ritual project itself has not been cursed. Because of this. Molly encounters things like
1. Fewer Guards
2. Less Well Supplied Guards
3. If guards call for reinforcements, they're 10 minutes away or something

It might be modelable by voting on a debuff or debuff for our enemies at the ritual site. Or adding voting options for convenient saves against enemy plays periodically for the scenario but we only get 1-3 of them.

Luck and circumstance are their enemy yet their skills and abilities remain intact.

To justify the +2 DC boost for enemies on a project specifically trying to kill Molly, the hypothetical enemies might have just heard somebody they cared about died an hour ago or something. Or Molly looks like an enemies dead daughter or something. The Apocryphal Curse in Rihaku's AST was entirely willing to psychogically torment the protagonist by doing things like sending an enemy at him that reminds him of his deceased wife and that's where I got that idea from

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In short there's a lot of ways you can model Endless Torment Emanation depending on how the text is interpreted and what the enemies are doing.
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ETE works on a project level, so the roll for 'how many guards there are' gets the +2. Normally I would not make that roll just to save on the complexity, but with the organization being cursed that is something that has to be considered and done.
 
fictionfan said:
Do do know what the definition of the word covet is right? Also everyone in a capitalist society breaks that one. Next you are going to say that Dad will turn against us because our clones are graven images. This seems so dumb to me that I am having trouble believing that you are being serious. Are you?
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Covet is about wanting someone else's property. There is this whole thorny discussion about what counts as property especially since the definition includes house, wife, male and female servants, oxen and donkeys before going ect.

But that discussion is not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is if Edit: one looks at one's neighbor and one wants a house like his or a wife like his or servants like his or domestic animals like his or anything else like his and then one goes and work for it to gain things for oneself that are not one's neighbor's but are like the things one has seen one's neighbor have that is not coveting.

Coveting is looking at what Edit: one's neighbor has and then working to take those specific things. Like say corporate raiding or hostile takeovers. Or raping, pillaging and burning. Your average person doesn't in fact covet under capitalism. Your average CEO does but camels and eyes of needles apply to that as they did before capitalism.

My point is that if we take Spawning Pit Sanctification (••••) as a charm it will cause Moral, Ethical and Religious problems for the Molly that we have been playing and that your specific argument is to take it so we could steal our enemies' lives to use them as disposable minions.

Your argument specifically is about coveting our enemies' minions so we could use them against them. Edit: So basically mind control or damn at best the willing members of our enemies forces and at worst their brainwashed/dominated victims to use as Manchurian Agents against our enemies and Edit 2: you are arguing to do it with a charm that requires a part of the world to be a place of misery and/or danger to at least any human present in it.

Edit: What is the argument that the Molly we have played so far would want to do that?

Edit: Rephrasing the question and parts of my argument so that they are less aggressive. No need for the level of aggression I phrased it under the first go around.

Edit 2: Still way too aggressive for the point I'm trying to make.
 
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Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Aug 8, 2024 at 9:09 AM, finished with 64 posts and 10 votes.
  • [X] Plan prevention
    -[X] Using your Crown and this scene as a focus ask what the current breakout plans in regards to the currently held prisoners are
    -[X] Try to speak to one of the lesser prisoners, to get some idea what they are doing in here, you can give then a voice even though that
    [X] Try to speak to one of the lesser prisoners, to get some idea what they are doing in here, you can give then a voice even though that
    [X] Using your Crown and this scene as a focus ask why the prison was built
    [X] Plan prevention
    -[X] Using your Crown and this scene as a focus ask what the current escape and breakout plans in regards to the currently held prisoners are
    -[X] Try to speak to one of the lesser prisoners, to get some idea what they are doing in here, you can give then a voice even though that
Click to expand...
 
uju32 said:
Do they? The point of the Masquerade, such as it is, is that they dont know.
And how do you prevent hostile powers weaponizing other elements of the US government against "the person who subverted the US govt"?

This isnt a hypothetical, by the way; the entire plot of Fool Moon that the FBI werewolves were after Marcone because (they believed)he had subverted Chicago law enforcement and the law couldnt touch him.
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The top levels do, and this is going to be a thing if we do anything big. We can make cryptic crime boss money without issue but if we want to make bug changes while retaining some amount of control then we're going to have some sort of political conflict eventually. Doing business but not being willing to relinquish control of the core technology behind it is a completely normal and fair stance for nations to take.

I'd argue it's also a necessary starting point for our interactions with earth. Eventually we can and should share more, but there are qualifiers on that. Firstly that we have an obligation to our people as a leader not to simply exploit them or allow them to be exploited, and secondly in that we need leverage to make things change in a positive direction. Give away the core tech on day one and it just gets exploited by the people comfortable with the status quo. Position ourselves so that doing business with us is a significant advantage and we can use that to move things.
Yog said:
f. He might have traded knowledge to Arawn without realizing it could produce Lydia or someone like Lydia. There is a whole number of possible scenarios here in regards to his involvement.
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My current theory is that Lydia's mother was Dragonblooded, possibly earth because the compatibility with Arawn's themes could have helped Lydia's heritage mesh together. Kemmler's ritual gave Arawn a line to a deeper sort of power and a resonance with mortals that made it available to Earth!Lydia's forming soul.

And, well, Terrestrials exaltations are still exaltations. Rule one of dealing with them is that you don't give them access to power unless you're prepared for them to keep it.

That would allow for a spark of exaltation to make its way into this equation without requiring Kemmler to reverse engineer them to the point where he could make more or otherwise have access to them without it seriously changing the setting.
Dmol8 said:
Covet is about wanting someone else's property. There is this whole thorny discussion about what counts as property especially since the definition includes house, wife, male and female servants, oxen and donkeys before going ect.

But that discussion is not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is if Edit: one looks at one's neighbor and one wants a house like his or a wife like his or servants like his or domestic animals like his or anything else like his and then one goes and work for it to gain things for oneself that are not one's neighbor's but are like the things one has seen one's neighbor have that is not coveting.

Coveting is looking at what Edit: one's neighbor has and then working to take those specific things. Like say corporate raiding or hostile takeovers. Or raping, pillaging and burning. Your average person doesn't in fact covet under capitalism. Your average CEO does but camels and eyes of needles apply to that as they did before capitalism.

My point is that if we take Spawning Pit Sanctification (••••) as a charm it will cause Moral, Ethical and Religious problems for the Molly that we have been playing and that your specific argument is to take it so we could steal our enemies' lives to use them as disposable minions.

Your argument specifically is about coveting our enemies' minions so we could use them against them. Edit: So basically mind control or damn at best the willing members of our enemies forces and at worst their brainwashed/dominated victims to use as Manchurian Agents against our enemies and Edit 2: you are arguing to do it with a charm that requires a part of the world to be a place of misery and/or danger to at least any human present in it.

Edit: What is the argument that the Molly we have played so far would want to do that?

Edit: Rephrasing the question and parts of my argument so that they are less aggressive. No need for the level of aggression I phrased it under the first go around.

Edit 2: Still way too aggressive for the point I'm trying to make.
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Why are you bringing all this covet stuff into the equation?

If you want to play religious games it'd make more sense to argue that magic focused on coercing people into servitude is inherently against the white god's themes and therefore is the sort of magic he banned in the DF.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that this specifically would be a problem for us, but it would make more sense than your current argument.
 
BronzeTongue said:
My current theory is that Lydia's mother was Dragonblooded, possibly earth because the compatibility with Arawn's themes could have helped Lydia's heritage mesh together. Kemmler's ritual gave Arawn a line to a deeper sort of power and a resonance with mortals that made it available to Earth!Lydia's forming soul.

And, well, Terrestrials exaltations are still exaltations. Rule one of dealing with them is that you don't give them access to power unless you're prepared for them to keep it.

That would allow for a spark of exaltation to make its way into this equation without requiring Kemmler to reverse engineer them to the point where he could make more or otherwise have access to them without it seriously changing the setting
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That works, yeah. Lydia is an abyssal conversion of a dragonblood, yes.
 
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Arc 13 Post 56: Eyes in Darkness, Ears of Stone
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    • Eyes in Darkness, Ears of Stone​

    14th of February 2007 A.D.

    Looking around at the gallery of horrors from all of mankind's nightmares only one question occurs to you that must be asked: 'What plans are there to free the prisoners in this place?'

    Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 16/18 (Question)

    The water of the lake is glassy, no moon shines in it only distant stars peeking though a tear in the clouds. One misshapen face breaks the surface, then another and another, mouths agape teeth gnashing, twisted limbs thrashing in pain that they had been made to deliver onto the world. Pathfinders... no fomori, twisted kin of the Sidhe, servants of...A woman tread across the water, graceful as a dream and beautiful in face and form as the Ladies of Faerie, garbed in bronze forged in the morning of the world. She looked upon her works with one emerald eye filled with scorn and one eye that was lidded and scarred, one Eye.

    Ethniu not the greatest nor the most dreadful titan, but the blood of the Old Gods awake and aware the Circle of the World.

    All of it a distraction meant to draw power away from the island, meant to make the powers that watch it from afar turn their guard aside while the Walker Beside does his dark work, you cannot see the end of it not because it is warded, but because it has not been decided yet. The Knight of the Stone Heart has learned the lesson its defeat at your hand had taught. Even He is not free of your sight... Only that which lies unwritten in the Book of Ages, only that which is for Man to decide.

    Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 18/18 (Urge of the Forbidden)

    In the list of 'firsts' you've been experiencing recently having an island growl at you is definitely up there. Well OK... so it's more like a localized earthquake set to a disharmony of crystalline tones, but the point's the same.

    "Whoa... what the hell's going..."

    You ignore Harry for now and address the presence of the guardian. Thankfully you had expected something like this and had the line ready. "I meant no disrespect Elder One, only did I seek who plots to undo your purpose."

    "WHO?"

    The word is like thunder underground off a thousand surfaces, casting a thousand echoes, demanding restitution for your presumption.

    Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 16/18 (Etiquette and Empathy Excellencies)

    "Ethniu, last of the blood of the Old Ones, whose name I do not lightly speak and of the Walkers the most subtle, He Who Walks Beside, called by some among the Wise Nemesis, though one is the architect the other the tool."

    "It is not thy place to fate-read here, Prince of Malfeas."

    At the sound of that name three things happen at once, the symbol on your brow, the sun between crashing waves flares into a flash of shadowless radiance Usum stirs at the back of your mind filled with flashes of pain and ecstasy, memories too old to keep, too vivid to be lost entirely.

    "I do not have a place," you declare with some boldness, given where you are and what you had guessed to be the purpose of this place.

    After a very long pause during which Harry keeps calling at the spirit to explain itself and Dad looks like he is considering the logistics of fighting a mountain with a sword should it come to it Demonreach finally allows: "It should not be your place... please."

    "Of course, I did not realize it would have any effects... beyond me knowing something I did not know before, it usually doesn't. I hope that the insight was worth the disturbance."

    "Likelihood high. Inform Warden. Purpose of Warden."

    You turn to Harry with your best and most winning smile: "Don't supposed you'd let me talk to one of the prisoners? Just the ones out here."

    "Something tells me I'm going to regret asking and it's experience," Harry's grip on his staff shifts to something less white-knuckle tight. "Why do you want to talk to the horrible monsters that no one else would want to talk to?"

    Part of you wants to be a pedant and point out that plenty of people want to talk to bound demons, most of them just aren't that sensible, but the common sense part of your mind that knows you're skidding on thin ice offers up: "To figure out why they are even here to begin with. Why build a single point of failure into the system?"

    Harry sighs, looks to your father.

    "Other than not warning us..." Mom would have said something about 'almost giving her a heart attack', somehow it sounds worse when it's your dad. "She seems to know what she's doing. Her power seems to have an affinity to truly ancient things. What's a 'Malfeas', do you know?"

    "English translation of something, I'd be willing to bet the Mal is meant to be 'evil' in some estimation, but..."

    "I think... no I know it's the proper name of the city in my dreams," you cut him off. "So is that a yes on talking to one of your prisoners...?"

    Harry is left seemingly at a loss for words. He'd expected Dad to be the 'reasonable' you suspect, but he just shakes his head sadly: "I would love nothing more than for Molly to not be in this place, to have never heard of it in her darkest nightmares, but the reason we are here is that she pulled and pulled at a thread until it finally lead all the way down here. She doesn't get to live that life no matter how much I hate it..." Hearing him say 'hate' is a hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach, like walking down familiar steps and missing one. "This is the world in which both of us live, one in which she feels like she must and she can do this. I can't think of a reason why talking to one of these demons through prison bars is anymore dangerous than talking to one in person while she's planning the death of 'Duchess' Arianna, can you?"

    "Sorry for surprising you like that," you say quietly, it's all you can say, honestly at least. You don't regret any of the rest.

    Dad comes over and gives you a brief one armed hug as you consider the horrors before you and how one might convince one of them to talk. Probably best to go with a Skinwalker, I have experience.

    What do you promise a Skinwalker to get it to talk to you?

    [] Ask Harry to change their protocols to something more pleasant

    [] Information on the outside world

    [] Write in

    OOC: Welp, you did not win the Essence roll off, even though you were rolling DC 6 and it was rolling DC 9 since you were looking for things related to it not its own nature. Still you did make the etiquette roll afterwards and then you argued your case to Harry and Michael, also finding out more about how he feels about stuff in the process
     
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    • Yeah, Merlin dipped into earlier Ages with his time travel. I am almost certain about it. A spirit barely a thousand years old should not know the name Malfeas and the meaning of it.
     
    Right, so as I said the island with intellectus would probably notice Crown usage while on the island. Now I'm wondering if using something from the island as a Crown foci while not on the island would also set Alfred off. Thankfully Harry is already Warden.
     
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    BoredMan said:
    Right, so as I said the island with intellectus would probably notice Crown usage while on the island. Now I'm wondering if using something from the island as a Crown foci while not on the island would also set Alfred off. Thankfully Harry is already Warden.
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    There was a roll off. We lost because Demonreach got ridiculously lucky (3 successes with 6 dice on DC9 is ridiculous) and we got very unlucky.

    Also, Demonreach is essence 6.
     
    Yog said:
    There was a roll off. We lost because Demonreach got ridiculously lucky (3 successes with 6 dice on DC9 is ridiculous) and we got very unlucky.

    Also, Demonreach is essence 6.
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    We still lost and I don't know about anyone else but I'm not planning on getting on his bad side just to satisfy curiosity. I hope your not planning on using the rolls as an excuse to ask a list of Crown questions of the island now after what just happened. At least not while on the damn island. Maybe do it beyond his sight entirely as in not in Chicago.
     
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