You should probably up the military a bit on the justification that there's an entire martial focused city and warrior culture is a bit of a thing there. I mean not by a lot but considering people go to said city for military, martial practices, more violent sports than are allowed in real life, and there is a religious element for serving the future queen in said city as part of her soldiers.
I specifically went with lower boundary estimation. We are likely seeing a serious uptick of recruitment, and a lot of old veterans coming out of retirement right now. We are also likely to see serious military equipment improvements shortly (in the span of next several years to a decade), as its clear that our "techtree" is missing at least some fundamental things Earth has, including foundational one, and 1+1 is very much 11, not 2 in such situations.
I also limited this to "active military personnel", as in "standing army". The depth of our reserves is going to be much higher, I feel.
I agree with others, and want to add - get the person with a connection to an almost-outsider away from our soul as quickly as possible, so the almost-outsider doesn't get a chance to track the meta-location of our soul-world via their investment. We can get intelligence from Cyril and investigating the residence later.
I specifically went with lower boundary estimation. We are likely seeing a serious uptick of recruitment, and a lot of old veterans coming out of retirement right now. We are also likely to see serious military equipment improvements shortly (in the span of next several years to a decade), as its clear that our "techtree" is missing at least some fundamental things Earth has, including foundational one, and 1+1 is very much 11, not 2 in such situations.
I also limited this to "active military personnel", as in "standing army". The depth of our reserves is going to be much higher, I feel.
thats true just you know I thought to mention the warrior culture city is a factor lol. Heck even the knowledge gathering city is a factor cause magic lends itself to fighting.
I'll vote for a plan if someone adds a ask tiffany for a magical secret for essence regen.
A thought occurs - we went with "I can gather intelligence on those who scry me without them noticing". Merlin scried us very thoroughly with our agreement. Betcha he's going to be paranoid / will have to assume that we know everything about him now.
You should probably up the military a bit on the justification that there's an entire martial focused city and warrior culture is a bit of a thing there. I mean not by a lot but considering people go to said city for military, martial practices, more violent sports than are allowed in real life, and there is a religious element for serving the future queen in said city as part of her soldiers. Not to mention the various warrior orders there for martial arts and magic and such.
I would also say the 'combatant' numbers would also be higher because of the exceedingly dangerous jungles and wastes- anyone who lives or works in those areas needs some level of combat ability unless they like respawning frequently, even if they aren't military or warrior-monks. I guess they would fit in 'Adventurer' achetype, especially from th city of Journeys.
I would also say the 'combatant' numbers would also be higher because of the exceedingly dangerous jungles and wastes- anyone who lives or works in those areas needs some level of combat ability unless they like respawning frequently, even if they aren't military or warrior-monks. I guess they would fit in 'Adventurer' achetype, especially from th city of Journeys.
Also you know the immortality element not really asking but I kinda wonder what the percentages are for people over a hundred, over five hundred, over a thousand, and those thousands of years old.
I would like to remind everyone that this warlock is still a member of the White Council right now. We were licensed to capture him, nothing more.
We can act independently when it can be argued it's our faction vs. the Red Court, like with the god, but when it comes to members of our allied org, then we really need to at least keep up the pretense that we are acting under the Warden/Senior Council consent and authority, when handling them.
If overstep too much, we might end up losing the alliance in the aftermath, even if we successfully help purge the Council of traitors.
Incidentally if you had failed that and the base DC 9 Stamina roll afterwards he would have spent the rounds in which Molly was sick to her stomach to heal and attack.
hey dp offhand for a devil tiger charm (something past essence 5) could we make a charm to let usum regain all his memories? All the way back to the age of legends.
Edit: Based on theme of reclaiming past knowledge. like a charm that lets someone reclaim lost knowledge.
On this though id like to point out that they won't be more effective as they are against Outsiders specifically. Remember when we fought Outsider mooks under Vegas? Our troops couldn't do any damage to them with their weapons. That probably wasn't because of the tier of weapons used and moreso due to Outsiders shrugging off most weaponry. Winter on the other hand has experience there, it was said earlier that they use children's teeth taken by tooth fairies as regents for anti-Outsider weapons for example.
If we want them fighting Outsiders we need to look into whatever methods Winter uses along with what Lydia's father said about ghost possibly having the ability to harm them.
On this though id like to point out that they won't be more effective as they are against Outsiders specifically. Remember when we fought Outsider mooks under Vegas? Our troops couldn't do any damage to them with their weapons. That probably wasn't because of the tier of weapons used and moreso due to Outsiders shrugging off most weaponry. Winter on the other hand has experience there, it was said earlier that they use children's teeth taken by tooth fairies as regents for anti-Outsider weapons for example.
If we want them fighting Outsiders we need to look into whatever methods Winter uses along with what Lydia's father said about ghost possibly having the ability to harm them.
1) total number of active military personnel in the world is estimated to be ~ 27 million.
2) Total world population is estimated to be 7.9 billion people.
3) Assuming that, on average, Fivefold courts are five times more peaceful than Earth, and their population is ~ 5 billion, out total active military is ~ 3.4 million strong
4) Tooth to tail ratio increases with technological level. Magic should decrease the value because of its innate nature, but let's say that our guys are at 20:1. This gives us roughly 170 thousand combat troops to command.
Those are magical troops from an army with a long tradition of fighting other magical armies in the open with full integration of magic and industry, spirits, elemental dragons, and esoteric abilities. Now, how much is that? Let's say that one trained combat wizard is worth, on average, ten our soldiers. This means that we command a fighting force equivalent of ~ 17000 wardens. @uju32 previously indicated that the Wardens number ~ 300. So, our total military might can be estimated as ~ 60 times that of White Council. This is a lower boundary estimation. We likely have at least ten times as many veterans with lifetimes of experience of magical combat that we can muster as needed thanks to the nature of our kingdom granting infinite lifespans. We also certainly have a far more robust economy, and far better staying power in an active war.
By dedicating ~ 3% of our active troops to manning the portal fortress we would have the equivalent of the full White Council Military power roughly speaking, in a prepared magical fortress that is almost certainly as well protected as White Council Headquarters. Likely better. If we spend an AP next turn improving fortifications with large scale exalted craft, I would move that estimation to "as well fortified as Arctis Tor, likely better".
I am not buying the 'but 1%" argument. If Red King or a plausible alliance of Yama Kings or even a walker could solo the whole White Council (not senior council, full White Council Warden contingent) who were defending their headquarters without benefit of saboteurs or treachery, the White Council would already be a memory.
Note, that this is a lower boundary estimation. If we assume the same level of militarization as Earth, and the same tooth to tail ratio as modern USA army, then we are likely to wield ~600 times the military might of White Council. That's the active military, not counting any retirees or shifting the economy to war footing.
Putting the argument in a different way, this is the section where Dresden is introduced to Outer Gates:
We stood atop a small, barren mountain, looking down. Near us, only a few hundred yards away, was an immense wall, the kind you'd use to hold out the Mongols if they were the size of King Kong. It was built entirely from ice or some kind of translucent crystal. Even from here, I could see that there were chambers and rooms in the wall, rooms containing barracks, hospitals, kitchens, you name it. There were dim and indistinct forms moving around in them.
The walls were lined with what had to be tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers. I peered, trying to get a better look, and then realized that they were armored Sidhe.
All of them.
They all wore armor similar to mine, its highlights throwing back the cool, muted shades of Winter.
Out beyond the wall was a land made of dust and mud and loose shale. It was covered in hillocks and steep gullies, and the only plants that grew there looked like they were certain to poke, scratch, or sting you. Though the land was somehow lit, the sky was as black as Cat Sith's conscience, without a single star or speck of light to be seen—and it was an overwhelming sky, enormous, like in the open, rolling lands of Montana and Wyoming.
There were more bodies of troops moving out there. Some of them looked like they might have been giants, or maybe trolls. Larger groups containing smaller individuals were likely Winter's gnomes. Things flew in the air. Bands of what appeared to be mounted cavalry rode back and forth. Some of the soldiers looked suspiciously like animated snowmen.
From this vantage point, I could see two major engagements happening, each containing maybe forty thousand Winter troops. And they were fighting. . . .
I couldn't make out the enemy. There didn't seem to be any unity of form. They were creatures—creatures whose physiologies made no sense, were utterly without order. I saw what appeared to be tentacles, enormous mandibles, claws, fangs, clublike limbs and tails. They weren't bipedal. They weren't quadrupeds. In fact, they seemed to have no regard for bilateral symmetry at all.
I peered a little closer and felt a sudden, horrible pressure inside my head. I felt dizzy for a second, nauseated, and at the same time part of me was screaming that I needed to ditch my escort and go look at these things for myself, that there was something there, something I wanted to see, something I wanted to stare at for a while. A cold, somehow greasy tendril of energy slithered around inside my head, something I had felt before when . . .
I jerked my eyes away with a short grunt of effort, closed them, and left them closed. "Holy . . . Outsiders? Mab's fighting Outsiders?"
Mother Summer said nothing.
"I don't . . . I don't understand," I said finally. "White Council intelligence always estimated Mab's troop count at around fifty thousand. There are freaking formations out there with more troops in them than that."
Mother Summer said nothing. But she did lift a finger and point off to the left. I looked, and saw a pair of towers the size of the Chrysler Building rising up over the wall. Between them was a pair of gates.
The gates were something amazing to look at. They were huge, bigger than most Chicago apartment buildings. They were made of a darker shade of the same ice or crystal, and there were designs and sigils carved into them, layer after layer after layer. I recognized a couple of the ones I could see clearly. They were wards, protective enchantments.
There was a sudden sound, a rising moan, like the wind shaking trees or surf striking a cliff wall—and the horizon outside the walls was suddenly lined with dark, grotesque figures, all of them charging forward, toward the Winter troops.
Faint horn calls sounded, clear and valiant. Winter's troops began to retreat back toward the gates, gathering into a great arch on the ground outside them, locking their formation into place while cavalry harassed the oncoming Outsiders, slowing their advance. Then the cavalry streaked from their engagement, passing safely through the lines of infantry to come riding back through the gates.
The Outsiders came on and crashed against the Winter lines. Battle ensued. From this far away, it just looked like a big, confusing mess, with everyone jostling for a better position, but I could see a few things. I saw an ogre go down when an Outsider spit acid that started eating through his eyes into his skull. I saw the Winter lines falter, and the Outsiders began pouring reinforcements into the weakness.
Approximately 80 thousand Winter troops are defending at least approximately 1 kilometer long stretch of reality's border. These are Winter's mooks. This doesn't require Mab's intervention. This is an ongoing stable situation against Outsiders. Assumnig that our troops are as militarily effective (they are likely more effective, because technomagical advancement), and scaling to a 3 meter portal, we get an estimation of ~ 3000 troops required to successfully defend our equivalent of Outer Gates. Which actually agrees fairly well with my estimation above about dedicating a combat force equivalent to full White Council military might to the defense.
Also, incidentally, the portal is Outer Gates. It leads to different Outside, but Molly's soul is not Creation.
To summarize - the argument of "but 1% of players will just walk through our defenses to wreck havoc in the Courts" is wrong. They won't. We have too overwhelming of a military advantage, without involving hero units.
Same as Usurpation could break the Deliberative, Red King and the like would break upon our numbers and industrial might. White Council is right to be freaking out. Scale is a thing.
EDIT: Note, I am not saying we can roll over the setting. Out troops are not prepared or suited to operate in NeverNever - it's an OCP. Most factions have WMDs and superweapons. But defensively we should be more than ok. In the same we would suffer unfamiliarity maluses when trying to execute an offensive invasion of reality, we benefit from bonuses when defending our own realm.
Also consider that our cities may have an almost infinite number of spirits to inhabit a continuous flow of drones and robots, increasing our threat if we are going want to drown someone in bodies.
Ramirez disintegrated a bunch of uberghouls with entropy magic in White Night and they regenerated.
In combat time.
Im not saying they are immortal, but if disintegration beams arent killing you, then we got problems.
1)Thats my point?
That they can handle most threats, but Outsiders arent most threats. And the Red Court explicitly uses Outsiders against priority targets. And even independent of the Reds, Outsiders have reason to give us grief.
2) Some of the Outsiders are shadow puppets, at least in this AU. Many, if not most, are not
No he wasnt. Harry spent the first five years of the war in Chicago, with his only involvement being when Duke Paolo Ortega came to Chicago to duel him. And even after he got conscripted into the Wardens he never left North America. His lack of involvement was a plot point; Chandler explicitly calls out how infrequently they see him.
In Changes he doesnt even know how the Warden rooms in Edinburgh are laid out.
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Her being his childe is not unique. Arianna explicitly says that the vast majority of the Red Court nobility, including the Lords, were raised to power by the Red King.
Arianna is clear that his being deposed means he dies.
There is no country for old men in the Red Court, no pool of retired elders taking their leisure.
So killing him means that she thinks the Court can do without his power in wartime.
Yes? They are a planet.
I did not say that the Outsiders, or the Fomor, can conquer Sanctuary. I did say, and I stand by it, that Sanctuary cannot hold that portal against the sort of force that the one percent can bring to bear, whether its infiltrators or just raiders.
We had fiat-backed borders for a reason. Breaching them has Consequences for our relative security.
As you so often point out, Dresden isn't perfect and his information isn't always accurate. He assumes it's a murder and doesn't consider the possibility of her trying to eat him even if it was.
And Harry was involved heavily in important events where shit got real even if he wasn't as active early on. He was the flash point for starting the war and a target for multiple reasons throughout it.
There's also the matter of what she considers proper nobility. I sincerely doubt the red king is out there making counts and flunkies by the bushel.
Per quest canon old reds do get put out to pasture and used as tools by their saner peers, so that's possible here. So too is the guy getting eaten by a cabal.
In any case it's a ludicrous reach to suggest that because one powerful vampire wants to kill another that it's trivial for them to fill their top ranks again. Which is effectively what you're suggesting with that deep bench theory.
In addition to the other options I've mentioned it's possible she was simply incredibly arrogant, or thought that a change now was better than continuing under the leadership of someone actively losing their marbles.
You keep saying 1%, but your arguments so far have put the red court in that group.
The way I see it the DF has a few rough power levels from a state perspective
- Local: Dresden alone, gangs of ghouls, Naagoloshi. The latter is an outlier, but for all their strength they are very contained operators.
- Near Earth superpowers: The Fey, Ferrovax, The Denarians (when they have their shit together).
- Cosmic Bullshit: Heaven, Hell, The Outside.
There's more stuff in the nevernever, but for the purposes of a simple model this is fine.
I place the FCF in the global category. They're one of many powers that's conditionally stronger than they look because they have trouble getting to earth.
I'm about as confident in the red court's ability to force their way through that portal on their own resources as I am in our ability to send a legion after Arctis Tor. Defeating fey forces on earth is potentially doable, but coming for them at home is a really bad plan.
I include in that their ability to buy help on their own. If they had the resources to get that kind of power they'd already be using it against the white council. They have the Outside's support and ridiculous levels of intrusion into the council's operations but are still struggling to make progress.
If Nemesis decides to punch down, which it probably will, then at best the reds would be a convenient tool. You could make the point that drawing a distinction between the reds alone and the "allies" they're likely to have is pointless, but you're implicitly doing the reverse. If we're going into all the interested parties who'll interfere with a red-brass conflict everyone will have something to say.
I actually agree that we're probably in trouble here, but it annoys me that you're inflating the reds so ridiculously and comparing the FCF alone to them with every partner they could get.
As you so often point out, Dresden isn't perfect and his information isn't always accurate. He assumes it's a murder and doesn't consider the possibility of her trying to eat him even if it was.
And Harry was involved heavily in important events where shit got real even if he wasn't as active early on. He was the flash point for starting the war and a target for multiple reasons throughout it.
There's also the matter of what she considers proper nobility. I sincerely doubt the red king is out there making counts and flunkies by the bushel.
Per quest canon old reds do get put out to pasture and used as tools by their saner peers, so that's possible here. So too is the guy getting eaten by a cabal.
In any case it's a ludicrous reach to suggest that because one powerful vampire wants to kill another that it's trivial for them to fill their top ranks again. Which is effectively what you're suggesting with that deep bench theory.
In addition to the other options I've mentioned it's possible she was simply incredibly arrogant, or thought that a change now was better than continuing under the leadership of someone actively losing their marbles.
You keep saying 1%, but your arguments so far have put the red court in that group.
The way I see it the DF has a few rough power levels from a state perspective
- Local: Dresden alone, gangs of ghouls, Naagoloshi. The latter is an outlier, but for all their strength they are very contained operators.
- Near Earth superpowers: The Fey, Ferrovax, The Denarians (when they have their shit together).
- Cosmic Bullshit: Heaven, Hell, The Outside.
There's more stuff in the nevernever, but for the purposes of a simple model this is fine.
I place the FCF in the global category. They're one of many powers that's conditionally stronger than they look because they have trouble getting to earth.
I'm about as confident in the red court's ability to force their way through that portal on their own resources as I am in our ability to send a legion after Arctis Tor. Defeating fey forces on earth is potentially doable, but coming for them at home is a really bad plan.
I include in that their ability to buy help on their own. If they had the resources to get that kind of power they'd already be using it against the white council. They have the Outside's support and ridiculous levels of intrusion into the council's operations but are still struggling to make progress.
If Nemesis decides to punch down, which it probably will, then at best the reds would at best be a convenient tool. You could make the point that drawing a distinction between the reds alone and the "allies" they're likely to have is pointless, but you're implicitly doing the reverse. If we're going into all the interested parties who'll interfere with a red-brass conflict everyone will have something to say.
I actually agree that we're probably in trouble here, but it annoys me that you're inflating the reds so ridiculously and comparing the FCF alone to them with every partner they could get.
I feel we could actually invade arctis tor if the mother isn't there by continously drowning the place in bodies. It'd be stupidly costly mind you but I mean uju did mention some denarians killed hundreds while in there and its not like they were angels. Again stupidly costly and why the fuck would we ever do this I dunno but we could! By costly I do mean costing us possibly millions when they start shitting out diseases and shit too.
On this though id like to point out that they won't be more effective as they are against Outsiders specifically. Remember when we fought Outsider mooks under Vegas? Our troops couldn't do any damage to them with their weapons. That probably wasn't because of the tier of weapons used and moreso due to Outsiders shrugging off most weaponry. Winter on the other hand has experience there, it was said earlier that they use children's teeth taken by tooth fairies as regents for anti-Outsider weapons for example.
If we want them fighting Outsiders we need to look into whatever methods Winter uses along with what Lydia's father said about ghost possibly having the ability to harm them.
I feel some of the dozens if not hundreds of weapons our courts make probably damage outsiders trouble would be finding out what works though. Might be rare though but I feel if teeth work for some fucking reason we probably have something. Maybe not nearly as much as winter does though. We could probably work out a deal with winter figuring out what our court can make to damage outsiders if we share the results. Even if we don't have it yet. Might actually be a good trade agreement if we're being honest.
Artifacts of the exalted to make use of magical materials that even in the hands of a non-magical guy in creation could allow them to kill powerful rakasha even in the Deep Wyld. Though to be honest the amount of true Jade we would need to make even a single Daiklave would be absolutely ruinous in cost unless our hell has a lot of it and even then not cheap.
Artifacts of the exalted to make use of magical materials that even in the hands of a non-magical guy in creation could allow them to kill powerful rakasha even in the Deep Wyld. Though to be honest the amount of true Jade we would need to make even a single Daiklave would be absolutely ruinous in cost unless our hell has a lot of it and even then not cheap.
Artifacts of the exalted to make use of magical materials that even in the hands of a non-magical guy in creation could allow them to kill powerful rakasha even in the Deep Wyld. Though to be honest the amount of true Jade we would need to make even a single Daiklave would be absolutely ruinous in cost unless our hell has a lot of it and even then not cheap.
We know alchemy, just have to figure out how to synthesis it. Its not like creation had partical reactors and shit. We can figure it out once time comes to invade the outside.
The star born thing is a reach.
The stuff we got for their origin is that they were there to witness the banishment of the outsiders. To my eye that doesn't indicate that their soul structure is the interesting part, it's the event they were incarnate to participate in.
A more interesting problem for them is that the place is simultaneously a planet and Molly. MiM says that she can apply it to anyone she kills and doesn't set a method. Car bombs, sniper rifles, pushing people off cliffs, all qualify by RaW.
So if Molly is paying enough attention to activate the charm I think there's an argument to be made that anyone who dies to environmental damage is just as MiM-able as if she'd killed them with her bare hands.
Incidentally, TA also applied to whatever we deal lethal damage with. I'd argue that the iron winds of our hell should be as valid a target as Molly's sword.
I feel we could actually invade arctis tor if the mother isn't there by continously drowning the place in bodies. It'd be stupidly costly mind you but I mean uju did mention some denarians killed hundreds while in there and its not like they were angels. Again stupidly costly and why the fuck would we ever do this I dunno but we could! By costly I do mean costing us possibly millions when they start shitting out diseases and shit too.
Winter has bullshit armies and can control the environment there with an extreme degree of flexibility.
The Denarians know what they're doing and performed a raid with hero units. Trying to stick around or deploy an army in their territory would go spectacularly poorly.
Edit:
Here's the FAQ for it, technically he doesn't say it'd be impossible to find one, just that they can't be made anymore:
Are there any daiklaves or other ancient artifacts still around?
Probably not. That level of magical power is dif- ficult to sustain in the world's fallen state. The Drag- on-Blooded certainly don't have any of their ancient arsenal of old remaining at their disposal. Instead, they make use of latter-day magical items.
Can a Twilight make a new daiklaive or warstrider or whatever, then?
Not such that a character transported from the Age of Legends to the present would recognize it as such, no. Again, the Essence and mystical substances of the Fifth Age are far too degraded to act as suffi- ciently pure channels for the wonders of old. However, there are several methods for the Exalted to craft magi- cal items, including magic swords and Escaflowne battle suits, several of which are detailed in this book.
