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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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[X] Heavy riot suppression SWAT equivalent team
-[x][Stunt]The Party Poopers (not the official name but at this point even they use the name with pride) are a specialized magic containment unit. Usually called in as a quick response force when magical accidents go out of control. Most of them aren't mages themselves, but they have a good knowledge of magic theory specialized in grounding and countering it.
 
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BronzeTongue said:
Maybe I'm going too far in the opposite direction, but the point I'm trying to argue is not that they're impossible for us to get so much as that logistics is complicated.

The more specific and rare a subject you request is the more involved fulfilling it is. Having more resources around means you're more likely to have it, but also that finding it and moving it is harder. This applies to people as much as material goods.

Request a good doctor? Doable. Request a world class one? Workable but expensive. Requesting 5-6 world class surgeons with experience performing particular operations? That's going to take a minute.

Asking for really good sorcerers with those paths is different than asking for the best around. Especially with the side chatter about them being focused on counter spelling specifically. I can buy that poking our head into Sanctuary and calling for good sorcerers to show up would get results, but the tailor made applicants don't grow on trees and probably have important stuff on their plates. Those things can be handled, but not without lead time.

I guess the root of this is that I'm thinking about what the guy we ask to do this has to work out.

Imagine you work in the Empress's palace, maybe running Molly's fast action security forces. She pokes her head in and asks you to find the best people alive at X task with Y specialization that you didn't previously know to keep around and are in currently out living their lives in one of the cities. In the next hour.

They exist, and they're probably not going to turn down their goddess, but could you even get them on site in time?

I think this problem could be eased by say assigning a subsoul to help organize an office for it, but our security forces aren't exactly set up for that role.



The cosplayers get more dedicated every year.


Yeah phone posting. My bad on that, I never use this site any other way and honestly didn't consider that.
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We're just going to have to agree to disagree on both how rare Master Level people are and how long it would take to allocate them there's really no way to square that Circle simply because you can become a master in less than the time it takes for a human to become middle-aged never mind centuries and I fully believe that sorceries are learnable skills that have particular points where you need a special something to go further and that point is at six dots and not a second before that.

Paths in my mind operate as abilities do which means some people may not be the most optimal which is to say they don't have the intelligence the wits the perception the appearance or whatever attribute necessary to fully actuate on the path but if they have a skill in the path's ability there's no reason for them not to pursue it until it's five dots especially when they are immortal.

There is no cosplay in early 2008 in the middle of Scotland nowhere near any level of festival or any of them that would explain a combat robots that is before they start shooting or slashing or just engaging with people in general.
BronzeTongue said:
Yeah phone posting. My bad on that, I never use this site any other way and honestly didn't consider that.

@DragonParadox replied in a way that implies to me that they don't need to worry about being turned into toasters by an uncontested shaping effect.

Wizards usually can't just snap their fingers and banish things or transmute bodies. With some prep yeah, but at combat times they're going to be evoking at them.

At most I'd guess they'd do night people counterspelling, which is wits+occult.
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I'll try to break it up more than.

Wait then how does Thou Shall Not Transform Another work if they can't do that hell how does Listens to Wind animal Transformations work if they can't do that.

There is also the fact they could just cast it as a damage effect which is completely independent of anything which means they can just cast a matter 2 spell to affect the metal just in a damaging spell rather than trying to change it which would still only require Matter two because it's still just changing metal just badly. Though at that point they could just use a Force 2 fire ball from lighter.
 
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Degorium said:
Wait then how does Thou Shall Not Transform Another work if they can't do that hell how does Listens to Wind animal Transformations work if they can't do that.
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I think this law is against common humans, who do not have the Nightfolks' native reflexive countermagic, and if the wizard is casting this on himself, why would he try to negate his own spell?

(remembering that wizards also do not have reflexive countermagic, it is something that requires effort and concentration for them)
 
Azais said:
I think this law is against common humans, who do not have the Nightfolks' native reflexive countermagic, and if the wizard is casting this on himself, why would he try to negate his own spell?

(remembering that wizards also do not have reflexive countermagic, it is something that requires effort and concentration for them)
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That would mean they can still do it they just need to overcome the counter Magic of another individual. That isn't to say it's impossible or that can't be done. Which is what bronze tongue said. Overcoming a dice pool of four at difficulty four when you were casting a difficulty three spell with upwards of four or five dice isn't really Impossible by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Degorium said:
That would mean they can still do it they just need to overcome the counter Magic of another individual. That isn't to say it's impossible or that can't be done. Which is what bronze tongue said. Overcoming a dice pool of four at difficulty four when you were casting a difficulty three spell with upwards of four or five dice isn't really Impossible by any stretch of the imagination.
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Yes...? I didn't say it was impossible, just that the specific law was to do it (no matter the cost) to normal humans and not to sobrenaturals, in the same way that it is forbidden to burn someone alive with conjured flames but not to do it to a vampire. The council hates the first one but the second one is more of a gray area, like animal necromancy.
 
Votes still seem to be in flux.

I think I'll do a Morgan interlude to give you guys some idea of what you look like right now.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 13, 2024 at 2:53 PM, finished with 76 posts and 7 votes.
  • [X] Non-masquerade breaking assistance
    -[X] Write in (No more than 10 people)
    -[X] Two masters of Mana Manipulation
    -[X] Two masters of the path of Fortune
    -[X] A master of the path of Healing
    -[X] A master of (Qiao Long Ling) Great Wheel Reflection
    -[X] 4 Amythst Hand agents.
    --[X] Break, the wizards are confident they can contest it, power against power
    [X] Plan Strong Right Hook
    -[X] 5 War Weavers to act as muscle
    -[X] 3 Combat sorcerers.
    -[X] 2 Hand Agents
    [X] Heavy riot suppression SWAT equivalent team
    [X] Trace, use it to try to find more senior, or at least more skilled warlocks
    [X] Heavy riot suppression SWAT equivalent team
    -[x][Stunt]The Party Poopers (not the official name but at this point even they use the name with pride) are a specialized magic containment unit. Usually called in as a quick response force when magical accidents go out of control. Most of them aren't mages themselves, but they have a good knowledge of magic theory specialized in grounding and countering it.
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Acolyte said:
I think the thing you are missing about in this logistical conundrum you are imagining is the fact that we have conveynce mages and AI overseers.

We say we want somone, that person gets a call in a minute that they are to drop everything and report to a point, where the conveynce master is there to transport them.


Its logistically very viable.
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That's the sort of thing I'd expect some amount of prep on our side for though. IC The stuff you're laying out seems possible, but since we haven't laid it out it'd all basically be add hoc.

This is also an opportunity to solve the OOC overhead without nerfing the FCF. We could establish a limited subset of our less than 24 hour notice builds and add to it piecemeal as things get approved.

Then in situations like this we wouldn't flail in the empty page space for ideas or custom build master sorcerers for the exact situation we're currently facing.

Degorium said:
Paths in my mind operate as abilities do which means some people may not be the most optimal which is to say they don't have the intelligence the wits the perception the appearance or whatever attribute necessary to fully actuate on the path but if they have a skill in the path's ability there's no reason for them not to pursue it until it's five dots especially when they are immortal.
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How many people from your graduating class from high school do you expect to hit the pinnacle of their respective careers. Best of the best world class at whatever they do.

That kind of master is not a default state, you work for it and then work to maintain it.

I'm not saying they don't exist, but peak mortal mastery isn't something that everyone should get in every life or that they should trivially maintain across them unless they're working for it.

We could get a ridiculous number of them, but it shouldn't be a matter of tripping over them in our palace lobby.
Degorium said:
There is no cosplay in early 2008 in the middle of Scotland nowhere near any level of festival or any of them that would explain a combat robots that is before they start shooting or slashing or just engaging with people in general.
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It was a joke; we're in serious business mode and masquerade concerns come later. Arthur can clean up since it's on his doorstep.

I honestly don't think a half dozen heavily cybernetic sorcerers with little to no under of the culture are going to be that low key. We brought one person over in Boston and had a similar problem where she basically had to hide in a truck.



Degorium said:
Wait then how does Thou Shall Not Transform Another work if they can't do that hell how does Listens to Wind animal Transformations work if they can't do that.

There is also the fact they could just cast it as a damage effect which is completely independent of anything which means they can just cast a matter 2 spell to affect the metal just in a damaging spell rather than trying to change it which would still only require Matter two because it's still just changing metal just badly. Though at that point they could just use a Force 2 fire ball from lighter.
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That isn't how that works.

You don't just declare a damaging effect that happens to shape the target to dodge the shaping rules. A damaging effect follows damage rules; as in hits your hit boxes. Unless it's perfect you get to roll defenses/soak against it and the loss of functionality comes in modeled as injury penalties. Which the War Weavers ignore for magic terminator reasons.

Theres no such thing as casting a spell that gets to change what it counts as at different points based on what's most favorable to it.

I'd also like to contest the point that you keep making about it being a simple thing to try.

The lawn chair rules demonstrate precedent on creature's bodies being harder to effect even when you can technically read them otherwise. A WoD vampire is dead flesh, but you can't arbitrarily use low level powers to screw with them past any resistance.

I'd argue that effecting a vessel specially prepared for a demon to use as it's physical body that is currently occupied by one should at minimum use the law chair spell rules but requiring matter+spirit instead of life. Effecting a vampire in this manner is a multi sphere effort because they're a weird overlap case in the spheres' domains, same thing here.

Even if doesn't they should still get an advantageous counter spell against it. None of this "I use heat metal so it's damage, but you can't soak it like damage just take it like shaping" nonsense.

The law exists because it's possible to do to people, especially defenseless mortals. That doesn't mean it's easy or that people can't oppose it.

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Arc 14 Interlude 2: Wizard at War
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    • Wizard at War ​

    18th of February 2007 A.D.

    She has a bruise along the left side of her face, the inane thought ran though Donald Morgan's mind like water down a rain gutter. She didn't seem to notice. He'd already looked up, he always looked up. A piece of concrete that size would have brained the unlucky and made the lucky wish for the sweet release of unconsciousness, if one was talking humans at least, which Margaret Carpenter had long since stopped being. A vampire could've taken it, but not so lightly. Atrophied sense of pain? That wasn't as common as one might think, turns out pain was a useful warning sign for things that didn't just seem to heal right through it which the girl didn't seem to be doing.

    The blonde... woman, Morgan guessed you could call her that accounting for the shape she'd chosen to wear, was already reaching out to help her friend. She didn't flinch away, barely seemed to notice, her attention on the prisoner.

    Not for the first time the warden wished he could have gotten Dresden alone in a room to ask him what the Devil was going on beyond that report he sent last month. Among his many other faults Dresden was shit when it came to covering his trail in reports, a fact for which he should have been grateful if only the shape of what had been left unsaid wasn't liable to make a third of the council piss their pants which of course was why Dresden fucking a Nephilim wasn't public knowledge. If there was one thing Donald hated it was covering up for Harry Dresden and what he hated most of all is that it was most likely justified. Some combination of powers that should by rights and by nature have been left still and sleeping had sniffed out the rot that the council had failed to find for decades.

    "Spread out, watch for entropy spells," he signed to the others.

    Ramirez looked like he was thinking of arguing with his judgement. Good, they'd need leaders not just followers when this whole mess was over.

    "We outnumber them locally most likely," he relented. Of course how long that would be true for God Almighty alone knew. Mass fucking enthrallment, Donald's stomach seemed to curl around his spine like an angry cat at the implications. They didn't have anyone good enough with mind magic to check without a risk of making things worse... which meant becoming more indebted to the girl. Girls maybe?

    "Unlike the manipulation of forces or matter curses only need to overcome their selected target," Zadock explained adding for good measure. "As you were in their power at one point you are the most likely target, the one to which they probably still have some manner of fetish."

    One of these days I'll explain the modern meaning of that word to him, another irrelevant thought, the price one paid, right up there with the sleepless nights, for being more used to this, to fighting to the death, than to peace.

    Sometimes he wondered if there was such a thing as peace, or if that is what it looked like when the other side was content and winning. A somewhat younger Donald Morgan had seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers in cinemas and the images kept coming back to him.

    Are you still yourself, he thought looking down at the young warden trapped in stone or is it already eating at your insides?

    OOC: Good news you have something in common with Morgan, he too liked invasion of the Body Snatchers. Less good news, he's been having nightmares that feature it ever since it became clear how riddled the Council is with warlocks.
     
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    • DragonParadox said:
    If there was one thing Donald hated it was covering up for Harry Dresden and what he hated most of all is that it was most likely justified. Some combination of powers that should by rights and by nature have been left still and sleeping had sniffed out the rot that the council had failed to find for decades​
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    Not to mention that half of the US would be turned into a desert and other nice things. But we'll skip them because they're irrelevant to the current situation. Even if they are relevant to the Harry Dresden and Lash Situation.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    She has a bruise along the left side of her face,
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    It's always interesting to see how ST decide to represent Ox-body and general Exalted healthiness. Some just give them the exact amount of physical damage as they would a normal human and just have the Exalted power though. Like being riddled with bullet holes.

    It doesn't matter with Tiffany here, but how quickly do Exalted heal lethal assuming that we didn't use any of our charms?
     
    fictionfan said:
    It's always interesting to see how ST decide to represent Ox-body and general Exalted healthiness. Some just give them the exact amount of physical damage as they would a normal human and just have the Exalted power though. Like being riddled with bullet holes.

    It doesn't matter with Tiffany here, but how quickly do Exalted heal lethal assuming that we didn't use any of our charms?
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    Depends on how much you have. For just bruised an hour, if you go all the way to incapacitated five days.
     
    Being a Warden means you kill warlocks as a 9-5, which can vary from Outsider-summoning cultists to Molly Carpenter making her friend go sober. But you treat them the same, and frankly fighting the Red Court has probably been easier on his mental state than his usual job.
     
    Ivar said:
    He's clearly suffering from burnout. Honestly the only thing we can do is help take the war off his shoulders and then help with the problem of breaking laws. That might help him get out of work long enough to go get help.
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    What Morgan needs is a time dilation vacation. Maybe he could use a summer favor to have a nice 6 months vacation in fairyland that only lasts a day outside? Of course he won't. Morgan and Harry actually have a lot in common when it comes to the idea of treating themselves.
     
    On the vote, I see people going for the SWAT option. Looking at Yog's reasoning:

    Yog said:
    Sorry, I'm travelling today from a conference, so can't be more engaged, like i want. So:

    [X] Heavy riot suppression SWAT equivalent team
    [X] Trace, use it to try to find more senior, or at least more skilled warlocks

    My reason goes like this - wizards and us will primarily be contesting wizard magic. Support should be guys who can keep our guys alive, help breaching, and act I ways that wizard conspirators aren't prepared for. Hence the idea of a SWAT riot suppression squad. Not sure about the details. Again, sorry, am writing in between flights.
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    I think my plan serves the same purpose in a more effective way, because it doesn't rely on what would effectively be policing assets during a military engagement.
     
    [X] Plan Strong Right Hook
    -[X] 5 War Weavers to act as muscle
    -[X] 3 Combat sorcerers.
    -[X] 2 Hand Agents

    [X] Trace, use it to try to find more senior, or at least more skilled warlocks
     
    [X] Plan Strong Right Hook
    -[X] 5 War Weavers to act as muscle
    -[X] 3 Combat sorcerers.
    -[X] 2 Hand Agents

    [X] Trace, use it to try to find more senior, or at least more skilled warlocks
     
    DragonParadox said:
    unconsciousness, if one was talking humans at least, which Margret Carpenter had long since stopped being. A vampire could've taken it, but not so lightly. Atrophied sense of pain? That wasn't as common as one might think, turns out pain was a useful warning sign for things that didn't just seem to heal right through it which the girl didn't seem to be doing.
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    I don't know, I think if we check with the exaltation Molly still counts in a dual citizenship kinda way. She hasn't visited humanity in a while, but maintains the paperwork for legal reasons. :V

    I was going to laugh at the pain thing too, but I think he's actually right about that because of BPR:
    DragonParadox said:
    Though the Infernal may be battered and broken, she will not fall, nor give her foes the satisfaction of experiencing pain.
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    I thought it was powering through pain, but it's actually refusing to experience it in the first place.

    It's a good thing Molly hasn't been near a mortal doctor in a while, cause between that and the tattoos across her heart and bones from SWSS I imagine it would be somewhat alarming.

    DragonParadox said:
    council piss their pants which of course was why Dresden fucking a Nephilim wasn't public knowledge
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    Huh. Does this imply that incarnates like Tiffany are a known thing, or just that the idea exists and Morgan is using it as an approximation for what he sees?
    DragonParadox said:
    Unlike the manipulation of forces or matter curses only need to overcome their selected target," Zadock explained adding for good messure. "As you were in their power at one point you are the most likely target, the one to which they probably still have some manner of fetish."
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    Is that the sort of thing break the bonds would have cut? It's not exactly a restraint but it is a link used to threaten/coerce.

    It shatters physical chains as much as mental ones, so it's not totally out of the realm of possibility that it could burn out the magical utility of samples taken from a person.

    DragonParadox said:
    Are you still yourself, he thought looking down at the young warden trapped in stone or is it already eating at your insides.
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    Did we bring Sophia with us? Might be good to tap her with some freedom and see if we get a collaborator out of it.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    That isn't how that works.

    You don't just declare a damaging effect that happens to shape the target to dodge the shaping rules. A damaging effect follows damage rules; as in hits your hit boxes. Unless it's perfect you get to roll defenses/soak against it and the loss of functionality comes in modeled as injury penalties. Which the War Weavers ignore for magic terminator reasons.

    Theres no such thing as casting a spell that gets to change what it counts as at different points based on what's most favorable to it.

    I'd also like to contest the point that you keep making about it being a simple thing to try.

    The lawn chair rules demonstrate precedent on creature's bodies being harder to effect even when you can technically read them otherwise. A WoD vampire is dead flesh, but you can't arbitrarily use low level powers to screw with them past any resistance.

    I'd argue that effecting a vessel specially prepared for a demon to use as it's physical body that is currently occupied by one should at minimum use the law chair spell rules but requiring matter+spirit instead of life. Effecting a vampire in this manner is a multi sphere effort because they're a weird overlap case in the spheres' domains, same thing here.

    Even if doesn't they should still get an advantageous counter spell against it. None of this "I use heat metal so it's damage, but you can't soak it like damage just take it like shaping" nonsense.

    The law exists because it's possible to do to people, especially defenseless mortals. That doesn't mean it's easy or that people can't oppose it.
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    Use a different spell example the lawn chair is just a horrific overreach it doesn't make sense with any of the sphere descriptions it's complete bullshit. If for some reason the living corpses animated by dead blood require life then it would still only be life 3 to transform them because that's what you need to use life in a hostile manner on anything else including werewolves.

    If for some reason the apparently living corpses require matter it would still be matter three or four to transform a body the fact that requires matter five is horseshit because matter five is create vibranium Matter five is create element zero, antimatter, Primium, Adamantine type shit it's purely a balancing bullshit spell restriction.

    I called it vampire pandering for a reason because it pandering because no other Supernatural gets to be completely incapacitated by Magic and use counter Magic on the same turn which the Notorious Vampire Lawn Chair allows for a vampire to do it allows Protean and Vicissitude worm out of being both incapacitated and transformed. It allows a vampire to remain conscious despite being incapacitated and transformed while also allowing them to make a frenzy roll.

    It's literally jerking off Vampire fans in the Mage playbook for some reason. So just like a lot of bullshit Mage rules it violates the rules of both the Spheres and the system and most of the mood and how this is supposed to work as a whole just because you don't want someone doing something fun occasionally no one is going around turning fucking vampires into lawn chairs for fucking shits and giggles.

    By the minimum set by the Actual system you would need to be Enlightenment/Arete 4 character to even attempt such a feat by the actual rules of the game nearly approaching a full-on master to attempt the feat and you would need four successes anyway it's literally just vampire jerk off for no reason.

    You can tell it's Pandering because there's nothing stopping you from turning random Wraiths/Faeries/Weres... into objects permanently if they get incapacitated by magick.
    Degorium said:
    cast a matter 2 spell to affect the metal just in a damaging spell rather than trying to change it which would still only require Matter two because it's still just changing metal just badly. Though at that point they could just use a Force 2 fire ball from lighter.
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    I said it this way on purpose I'm not talking about it being a shaping effect I'm talking about just a damaging spell because matter on matter spells follow the forces formula of two dice per success on damage. Also there are rules for both targeting body parts and you can teleport being bodies apart using Magic there's literally nothing stopping us from aiming at the neck of whoever we want to it would just increase the difficulty of our rolls significantly but spells are essentially aimed by eye so aiming at the leg or something and hoping to inflict some kind of movement penalty or otherwise is nowhere near outside of possibility or system.

    There is also the fact you just can absolutely fuck on any being with low level effects that's literally how the game is meant to be played using the spheres smartly is the point of acolyte(Arete/Enlightenment 1-3) play unless you start as an experienced mage. A Force 2 Fire ball (Difficulty 3) does 2-6 dice of Aggravated to most creatures that exist that range just gets larger the more Arete a character has(2-8,2-10,2-24,2-28) they absolutely should never abandon basic sphere effects unless they have some drastic need the speed and output of lower effects are way greater than taking on higher levels for no reason.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    Is that the sort of thing break the bonds would have cut? It's not exactly a restraint but it is a link used to threaten/coerce.
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    If someone has a lock of Carlos' hair or a vial of his blood Break the Bonds would not have exploded it since it would just be a distinct physical object, not binding him in any way at the moment. The Gift has no way to tell if that piece of him is in the possession of an enemy unless it is actively used to control him when invoked.
     
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