- Location
- washington
The wizard hq probably has defenses against collapse I imagine. Like I don't think it's invincible but this is probably the very first thought the council had when they got the place.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
This is before we get into the fact that that's an outdated table considering we're using 20th anniversary as the base of this game. The thousand-headed God is higher on that list than any Duke of hell. By M20 standards a Duke of Hell and urge worms (Greater Courtiers) are on the level of Lydia a particularly powerful demigod(Praeceptor/Demigods).
This is before the fact Maeljin incarna can just be killed by individual werewolves. Yama Kings outside of their Hells aren't actually immune to..... anything at all not mortal resistance or any Elders of the 10,000 wanting to kill them.
All of this is on top of the fact that spirits whether they be demonic or not still have health levels and stat lines that are completely capable of being blown out in a single turn if they meet enough resistance. Even the most brutal stat line from Vampire would not be enough to survive being in this room for a round.
The fact that all of the Wizards of the white Council are trained in spirit manipulation definitely doesn't help the survivability of the situation for most spirits.
Unless the contention is that random Dukes of hell are stronger than deities on average as strong as Yama Kings in Hell on average or just somehow Beyond anything we've ever seen before somehow we can definitely take this guy especially with wizard help.
This is before the fact that Spirit hierarchy is nearly completely divorced from strength because Maeljin incarna despite being near the top of a wyrm hierarchy they can be killed by individual werewolves. Legendary werewolves no doubt but still singular beings.
Here is the rebuttal from ExvsWoD, from the section specifically called "Let's kill Caine":
Caine isn't statted directly, but the intent is clear - there are no "you lose" statsheets under ExvsWoD paradigm. You can, in fact, kill Caine. And at E4 you are probably starting to plan how to do it.
Naagloshii are incarna. Lara Raith is incarna. We have fought and murderstomped a number of incarna already. It's an incredibly broad category.
Demons are malicious entities capable of lying. If it could kill us easily, it would have killed us easily already to get our soul.
Mab remembers jacksh*t. She did research after meeting us first (and knowing nothing about us), got some incredibly distorted information, and that's that. Mothers almost certainly know something, might even remember something. But Mab and Mab's mantle? No.
BoredMan
Dinosaurs came in many flavors. Like potato chips.
@DragonParadox From yesterday.
Fixed, thanks for the reminder and the help.
BoredMan
Dinosaurs came in many flavors. Like potato chips.
Also fixed, thanks.
- Location
- washington
I mean mantles almost definitely came after the second age there might be some beings that have mantles that were around from then maybe. But mantles themselves are almost definitely newer. Might of been made from something older though.
Our involvement is obvious and the house cleaning happening in any timely fashion would make it public. I don't think that trying to minimize something as publicly obvious as killing Iku in front of nearly all of Summer was worth the wizard lives it could easily have cost.
With how things are going I'm tempted to bubble wrap these assholes with our demons in an effort to stop them from bumbling into their own deaths.
I don't think they're immune, I think they were banking on context. Chauncey got greedy and took a risk against as wizard who probably wouldn't do the worst sort of things they can try if he lost.
Showing up in wizard central and starting a soul harvest is a terrible plan if you have anything to lose because each person there is a chance for something really fucked up to happen to you. In this case Ancient Mai is what would happen to this guy in all probability.
I don't care who you are, the last place anybody wants to be is the crosshairs of an archmage other archmages unironically call ancient.
No combat ability? She's a crafting build who managed to nearly mass produce magical terminator robots. I'd be less afraid to encounter her than the demon on a random street corner, but Mai is the scariest thing is this particular room right now because none of us have any idea what she's hiding here.
Long term success self selects for people who don't do this sort of thing.
Those are core names only ever used for those guys, I don't see splitting them as a reasonable assumption.
In canon nobody invented a crime against angelic nature so novel god has to invent a new word for it in Enochian. Lasciel certainly knows because we know she hates everything about this, and while evil doesn't share easy I don't think the devil would let her keep this secret after getting a call from Heaven like you've described.
Baseline mortals could get into a lot of trouble with rituals and sacrifice, but summons without prep work shouldn't be this simple for big creatures. A bunch of kid grade ones could do unspeakable things left to their own devices. Little demons are one thing, but this is another.
From canon we know that at a certain point powerful spirits can't enter reality without causing it problems, giving up parts of their power at least temporarily (see gods), or both. One of the fey's unique advantages is how easy it is for them to make it into reality.
If it was this easy to get really big players out and capable of acting freely then I'd expect to see reflected in the balance of power more than it is.
I don't get why you're sticking with the no star block thing. It's entirely possible to build legitimate threats to Molly right now that make sense in the setting.
If Holt could have a perfect attack so can this thing. We could buy a counter to that, but we don't have one. It doesn't need to be a demon god to be a lethal threat right now.
On the basis of what?
I don't think it should be possible for a demon that strong to bring all its power into reality that easily. If it's worth comparing to the Yama Kings, who are Celestines in the quest, then it's worth putting under similar guidelines. I think DPE drops off much lower on the totem pole than you do.
As to the wizards not mattering, this is wizard ground and there are a lot of powerful ones present. I'd bet on Mai and McCoy over a significant amount of opposition when standing in the middle of their own fortress.
Personally memory is almost certainly a no, but Mab is in the top 3-5 best positioned earth tier factions to research this topic.
The contention wasn't that she didn't have possible sources of information it's that she didn't remember anything. She very specifically called us the green sun which any being who remembered Liger or Malfeas as a whole would never ever do that. On some level because of the wheel ages the fact that she even got that much is deeply surprising. But it makes it blatantly and unmistakably clear that it's second-hand or third or fourth or however many hands it took to get to her knowledge. Not something that she's at all personally familiar with.
Thats my impression at least.
Heaven is bound by its own rules, not by Hell's power. The Fallen we see arent obeying rules and restrictions because they want to, since we do see Lasciel cheat onscreen in getting Dresden to commit suicide.
In the Christian mythology that Butcher draws on, Michael already stomped Lucifer's ass out when he rebelled, without God taking a direct hand.
I cannot control the impressions of others.
Its a crossover quest, and one of the main sources is a fantasy book series.
Narrative weighting plays a major role in how things are established here, and there's a fair amount of rock-paper-scissors at the tactical level. And it has gameplay implications.
We didnt get any warning when we discovered that Lydia's Charms can be contested by Mikaboshi in the Wicked City, while Molly's Charms and Ancient Sorcery cannot. That was a narrative judgement. And I remember the surprise here that happened when Iku-Turso turned off Molly's armor charm mid-combat. Also a narrative decision.
A Duke of Hell is not one of the most powerful forces in the setting. And I certainly did not suggest it was.
But like the citation I posted says, the Duke of Hell recognized us and the origin of our power, and yet did not stop because of fear of us, but because of caution about how we ended up in its path at that particular point in time.
Molly's got good enough social Perception to recognize there's no fear in him of us.
The Dragon of Vegas was a vampire whose leash was held by the Sin-Eater. Iku-Turso was imprisoned by the Finnish racial hero Väinämöinen , who was either a god, a demigod or a wizard, depending on which of the Finnish myths you think applies.
This Duke of Hell, who is but one of many, is imprisoned in Hell with his cohorts by Heaven. That implies levels.
My current assessment is that this isnt supposed to be a combat encounter for us, but it isnt a guarantee that we cant stumble into one if someone fucks up.
Holden's idea of super-powerful high end opponents are Methuselahs and Antediluvians.
Caine isnt statted and neither is Lucifer. Neither is any of the Yama Kings. Neither is any of the Maeljin Incarna, or any of the Earthbound, or any Urge Wyrm.
A broad cross-section of characters are left that way. Deliberately, or so it seems.
Naagloshii are incarna; its a narrative definition.
Incarna is a category for spirits, borrowed from Werewolf the Apocalypse, which compressed its spirit ranks to 4.
Lara Raith is not incarna.
Lara is a vampire. She's at least 250 years old, since she we have textev about her going off to pre-Meiji Japan in the 1700s and learning staff-fighting there, and seeing Luccio when she was still a young woman in Italy in the 1800s.
She isnt an ancient by WoD Kindred Cainite standards, where ancient = 1000 years+.
She MIGHT be one by WoD kuejin standards, where the minimum age range to qualify as an ancestor is 250-500 years, in addition to a dharma of 7-8.
She may or may not be one by Dresdenverse White Court standards, since the different vampire courts have their own different rules for internal power rankings, but she is the head of the White Court, which translates to occult authority in its own right.
Especially since she effectively diablerized her father.
I agree that all Incarna are not equal, but Incarna is a WTA ranking.
The list I pulled up specifically referred to demonic/infernal hierarchies in Mage: Sorcerer's Crusade, and was thus a lot more granular. And it provided benchmarks to the WTA list.
Demons lie. Molly has supernatural perception and was running ATB. If it was lying, she would be able to tell.
And the demon lord is explicitly balking because of how suspicious the scenario looks, not because he's afraid of Molly.
Hes seen enough mysterious ways to be cautious.
You are entitled to your opinion.
You're just mistaken AFAICT. Mab was very clear:
That was an explicit statement on the part of a woman who values the worth of her word.
Mab was offering that information on our first meeting; we were the ones who declined.
She's Fae; she can be mistaken, but she cant lie, short of Nfection. And she doesnt make wild claims; if she was making broad statements like that, she believed she was accurate.
Much not purposeful. He has a professed ignorance of the Kindred of the East he very specifically mentions in the let's Kill Caine section that blank stat boxes aren't how exalted versus World Of Darkness rules and Caine in world of Darkness already has his own bullshit ancient power which is his Sevenfold curse return he doesn't need an explicit power overlaid on top of him he already canonically has one.
It isn't specifically stated because it depends on how difficult you want to make the Caine fight not because you're not supposed to fight Caine. Just following the Methuselah generation Guidance and then adding a couple of bloated with the blood of Nations a particular combination talent and anything else to match whatever the difficulty of the chronicle is would allow you to Stat Caine.
Ivar
Dark Reaper
- Location
- Russia Moscow
These aren't narrative decisions. They're game-mechanical decisions about how the powers work. There's nothing particularly narrative about them. That's the point.
And that's your opinion on who's stronger. It's entirely possible that you're wrong or I'm wrong. We can't know without actually seeing a fight between them. You could say that the demon in front of us is uber strong because of the angel scaling. I don't subscribe to that opinion. I think he's probably no stronger than previous encounters of this level purely based on his role in the plot so far. But that brings us back to your bias for Dresden. And my bias for Exalted.
My personal opinion is that Cain should be stronger than the entire Third Generation at once, plus his curse and completely absurd interpretations of disciplines.
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- Location
- Canada
Yeah, I doubt this guy could be summoned even by multiple botches. It's like trying to shoot a shark and somehow killing a blue whale; if he could be summoned so easily, he can be easily banished.
Either he's too powerful to be summoned and killed or he's weak enough to be summonable and killed.
Our involvement as muscle would have been obvious, and explainable given our known relationships with Dresden.Our involvement is obvious and the house cleaning happening in any timely fashion would make it public. I don't think that trying to minimize something as publicly obvious as killing Iku in front of nearly all of Summer was worth the wizard lives it could easily have cost.
With how things are going I'm tempted to bubble wrap these assholes with our demons in an effort to stop them from bumbling into their own deaths.
Our involvement providing intel is where the issue is.
Nope.
Chauncy regularly tried to break the Circle of Summoning to attack Dresden every time he was summoned.
He passed it off as protocol, but those were genuine attempts.
The demon trapped in the summoning circle screamed, slamming its crablike pincers against the unseen barrier, hurling its chitinous shoulders from side to side in an effort to escape the confinement. It couldn't. I kept my will on the circle, kept the demon from bursting free.
"Satisfied, Chauncy?" I asked it.
The demon straightened its hideous form and said, in a perfect Oxford accent, "Quite. You understand, I must observe the formalities." Then it took a pair of wholly incongruous wire-frame spectacles from beneath a scale and perched them upon the beaklike extremity of its nose. "You have questions?"
I let out a sigh of relief, and sat down on the edge of the worktable in my lab. I had cleared away all the clutter from around the summoning ring in the floor, and I'd have to move it before I could clamber up out of my lab, but I didn't like to take chances. No matter how comfortable Chaunzaggoroth and I were with our working relationship, there was always a chance that I could have messed up the summoning. There were rules of protocol that demonic beings were obliged to follow—one of them was offering resistance to any mortal wizard who called them. Another was doing their best to end the life of the same wizard, should they be able to escape the confines of the circle.
All in all, squeezing information from faeries and spirits of the elements was a lot easier and safer—but Bob had turned up nothing in his search among the local spirits. They weren't always up on information to be had in the city, and Bob now resided in his skull again, exhausted and unable to help any further.
So I'd gone to the underworld for assistance. They know when you've been bad or good, and they make Santa Claus look like an amateur.
"I need information about a man named Harley MacFinn, Chauncy. And about something he was working on called the Northwest Passage Project."
Chauncy clacked his pincers pensively. "I see. Presuming I have this information, what is it worth to you?"
"Not my soul," I snorted. "So don't even start with that. Look, I could dig this up myself in a few days."
Chauncy tilted his head, birdlike. "Ah. But time is of the essence, yes? Come now, Harry Dresden. You do not call upon me lightly. The possible dangers, both from myself and from your own White Council, are far too great."
I scowled at him. "Technically," I said, "I'm not breaking any of the Laws of Magic. I'm not robbing you of your will, so I'm clear of the Fourth Law. And you didn't get loose, so I'm clear of the Seventh Law. The Council can bite me."
The bone ridges above Chauncy's eyes twitched. "Surely, that is merely a colorful euphemism, rather than a statement of desire."
"It is."
Chauncy pushed the glasses a bit higher up on his nose. "The moral and ethical ramifications of your attitudes are quite fascinating, Harry Dresden. I am continually amazed that you remain in the Council's good graces. Knowing full well that most of the Council would look the other way while their enforcers killed you, should they learn that you have willfully brought a demon into this world, you still summon me not once, but a half-dozen times. Your attitudes are much more contiguous with those of many of my brethren in the World Below—"
"And I should throw in with your side, accept the dark powers, et cetera, et cetera," I finished for him, with a sigh. "Hell's bells, Chauncy. Why do you keep on trying to sucker me into signing on with Down-below, eh?"
Chauncy shrugged his bulky shoulders. "I admit that it would give me no small amount of status to gather a soul of your caliber into our legions," he said. "Additionally, it would free me from the onerous duties which make even these excruciating visits to your world seem pleasant by comparison."
"Well, you aren't getting my soul today," I told him. "So make me a counteroffer, or we can call a close to the negotiations and I can send you back."
The demon shuddered. "Yes, very well. Let us not be hasty, Harry Dresden. I have the information you need. Additionally, I have more information of which you are not aware, and which would be of great interest to you, and which I judge, additionally, may help to preserve your life and the lives of others. Given the situation, I do not think the price I will ask inappropriate: I wish another of your names."
I frowned. The demon had two of my names already. If he gained my whole name, from my own lips, he could use it in any number of magical applications against me. That didn't particularly disturb me—demons and their ilk had great difficulty in reaching out from the Nevernever, the spirit world beyond the physical one we inhabited, with sorcery.
But Chaunzaggoroth was a popular source of information among wizards who went to the underworld in need of it. What bothered me was the possibility that one of them would get it. Chauncy was correct—there were a lot of people on the White Council who would be happy to see me dead. If one of them got my name, there was the chance that they would use it against me, either to kill me or to magically force me to do something that would openly violate one of the Seven Laws and have me brought to trial and killed.
On the other hand, Chauncy never lied to me. If he said he had information that could save people's lives, he had it, and that's all there was to it. Hell, he might even know who the killer was, though a demon's grasp of individual human identity was somewhat shaky.
I decided to gamble.
"Satisfied, Chauncy?" I asked it.
The demon straightened its hideous form and said, in a perfect Oxford accent, "Quite. You understand, I must observe the formalities." Then it took a pair of wholly incongruous wire-frame spectacles from beneath a scale and perched them upon the beaklike extremity of its nose. "You have questions?"
I let out a sigh of relief, and sat down on the edge of the worktable in my lab. I had cleared away all the clutter from around the summoning ring in the floor, and I'd have to move it before I could clamber up out of my lab, but I didn't like to take chances. No matter how comfortable Chaunzaggoroth and I were with our working relationship, there was always a chance that I could have messed up the summoning. There were rules of protocol that demonic beings were obliged to follow—one of them was offering resistance to any mortal wizard who called them. Another was doing their best to end the life of the same wizard, should they be able to escape the confines of the circle.
All in all, squeezing information from faeries and spirits of the elements was a lot easier and safer—but Bob had turned up nothing in his search among the local spirits. They weren't always up on information to be had in the city, and Bob now resided in his skull again, exhausted and unable to help any further.
So I'd gone to the underworld for assistance. They know when you've been bad or good, and they make Santa Claus look like an amateur.
"I need information about a man named Harley MacFinn, Chauncy. And about something he was working on called the Northwest Passage Project."
Chauncy clacked his pincers pensively. "I see. Presuming I have this information, what is it worth to you?"
"Not my soul," I snorted. "So don't even start with that. Look, I could dig this up myself in a few days."
Chauncy tilted his head, birdlike. "Ah. But time is of the essence, yes? Come now, Harry Dresden. You do not call upon me lightly. The possible dangers, both from myself and from your own White Council, are far too great."
I scowled at him. "Technically," I said, "I'm not breaking any of the Laws of Magic. I'm not robbing you of your will, so I'm clear of the Fourth Law. And you didn't get loose, so I'm clear of the Seventh Law. The Council can bite me."
The bone ridges above Chauncy's eyes twitched. "Surely, that is merely a colorful euphemism, rather than a statement of desire."
"It is."
Chauncy pushed the glasses a bit higher up on his nose. "The moral and ethical ramifications of your attitudes are quite fascinating, Harry Dresden. I am continually amazed that you remain in the Council's good graces. Knowing full well that most of the Council would look the other way while their enforcers killed you, should they learn that you have willfully brought a demon into this world, you still summon me not once, but a half-dozen times. Your attitudes are much more contiguous with those of many of my brethren in the World Below—"
"And I should throw in with your side, accept the dark powers, et cetera, et cetera," I finished for him, with a sigh. "Hell's bells, Chauncy. Why do you keep on trying to sucker me into signing on with Down-below, eh?"
Chauncy shrugged his bulky shoulders. "I admit that it would give me no small amount of status to gather a soul of your caliber into our legions," he said. "Additionally, it would free me from the onerous duties which make even these excruciating visits to your world seem pleasant by comparison."
"Well, you aren't getting my soul today," I told him. "So make me a counteroffer, or we can call a close to the negotiations and I can send you back."
The demon shuddered. "Yes, very well. Let us not be hasty, Harry Dresden. I have the information you need. Additionally, I have more information of which you are not aware, and which would be of great interest to you, and which I judge, additionally, may help to preserve your life and the lives of others. Given the situation, I do not think the price I will ask inappropriate: I wish another of your names."
I frowned. The demon had two of my names already. If he gained my whole name, from my own lips, he could use it in any number of magical applications against me. That didn't particularly disturb me—demons and their ilk had great difficulty in reaching out from the Nevernever, the spirit world beyond the physical one we inhabited, with sorcery.
But Chaunzaggoroth was a popular source of information among wizards who went to the underworld in need of it. What bothered me was the possibility that one of them would get it. Chauncy was correct—there were a lot of people on the White Council who would be happy to see me dead. If one of them got my name, there was the chance that they would use it against me, either to kill me or to magically force me to do something that would openly violate one of the Seven Laws and have me brought to trial and killed.
On the other hand, Chauncy never lied to me. If he said he had information that could save people's lives, he had it, and that's all there was to it. Hell, he might even know who the killer was, though a demon's grasp of individual human identity was somewhat shaky.
I decided to gamble.
Point of correction:
A life harvest, not a soul harvest. To the best of my knowledge, Dresdenverse demons need to have a valid claim to claim a soul. They cant just drag you to Hell unless they have a valid claim. They can kill you dead, painfully and in gruesome manner, but they cant just take you. Thats my understanding, anyway,
===
That was Butcher's description.
Mai is not a combat wizard. Still an archmage, mind, but there's reasons why I consider McCoy the more useful asset here, especially since Mai had no preptime.
Disagree.
Jehovah is the Latinization of Yehowa, the God of Israel.
If you dont believe that the God of Israel = Almighty God, then you would classify them differently.
Lasciel's entire reputation is being a rebel.
So yeah, I can see it.
If you go back to Storm Front, you'll see where Victor Sells summoned the demon *checks the name again* Kalshazakk using its True Name
I heard motion in the room, someone moving out the doors onto the elevated deck at the back of the house. The fire continued to spread. Smoke rode the air in a thick haze.
"I've got to go, Dresden," Victor told me. His voice was gentle, almost a purr, "but there's someone I want you to meet, first."
I got a sick, twisty little feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered.
Power thrummed. The air shimmered and shone, began to twist and spiral.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered again, louder, more demanding. I heard something, a warbling hiss that seemed to come from a great distance, rushing closer. The black wizard called the name for the third and final time, his voice rising to a screech, "Kalshazzak!"
There was a thundercrack in the house, a dull and sulfurous stench, and I craned my neck to see over the counter, risking a glance.
Victor stood by the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wooden deck. Red-orange flames wreathed the ceiling on that side of the house, and smoke was filling the room below, casting the whole place in a hellish glow.
Crouched down on the floor in front of Victor was the toad-demon I had banished the night before. I had known that I hadn't killed it. You can't kill demons, as such, only destroy the physical vessels they create for themselves when they come to the mortal world. If called again, they can create a new vessel without difficulty.
I watched in fascination, stunned. I had seen only one person call a demon before—and I had killed my old master shortly after. The thing crouched in front of Victor, its lightning blue eyes whirling with shades of scarlet hate, staring up at the black-clad wizard, trembling with the need to tear into him, to rend and destroy the mortal being who had dared summon it forth.
Victor's eyes grew wider and more mad, glittering with fevered intensity. Sweat ran down his face, and he tilted his head slowly to one side, as though his vision were skewing along the horizontal and by the motion he would compensate for it. I gave silent thanks that I had closed my Third Eye when I did. I did not want to see what that thing really looked like—and I didn't want to get a good look at the real Victor Sells, either.
The demon finally gave a hiss of frustration and turned toward me with a croaking growl. Victor dropped his head back and laughed, his will triumphant over that of the being he had called from beyond. "There, Dresden. Do you see? The strong survive, and the weak are torn to little pieces." He flapped his hand at me and said, to the demon, "Kill him."
"I've got to go, Dresden," Victor told me. His voice was gentle, almost a purr, "but there's someone I want you to meet, first."
I got a sick, twisty little feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered.
Power thrummed. The air shimmered and shone, began to twist and spiral.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered again, louder, more demanding. I heard something, a warbling hiss that seemed to come from a great distance, rushing closer. The black wizard called the name for the third and final time, his voice rising to a screech, "Kalshazzak!"
There was a thundercrack in the house, a dull and sulfurous stench, and I craned my neck to see over the counter, risking a glance.
Victor stood by the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wooden deck. Red-orange flames wreathed the ceiling on that side of the house, and smoke was filling the room below, casting the whole place in a hellish glow.
Crouched down on the floor in front of Victor was the toad-demon I had banished the night before. I had known that I hadn't killed it. You can't kill demons, as such, only destroy the physical vessels they create for themselves when they come to the mortal world. If called again, they can create a new vessel without difficulty.
I watched in fascination, stunned. I had seen only one person call a demon before—and I had killed my old master shortly after. The thing crouched in front of Victor, its lightning blue eyes whirling with shades of scarlet hate, staring up at the black-clad wizard, trembling with the need to tear into him, to rend and destroy the mortal being who had dared summon it forth.
Victor's eyes grew wider and more mad, glittering with fevered intensity. Sweat ran down his face, and he tilted his head slowly to one side, as though his vision were skewing along the horizontal and by the motion he would compensate for it. I gave silent thanks that I had closed my Third Eye when I did. I did not want to see what that thing really looked like—and I didn't want to get a good look at the real Victor Sells, either.
The demon finally gave a hiss of frustration and turned toward me with a croaking growl. Victor dropped his head back and laughed, his will triumphant over that of the being he had called from beyond. "There, Dresden. Do you see? The strong survive, and the weak are torn to little pieces." He flapped his hand at me and said, to the demon, "Kill him."
Just True Name and willpower from a guy who had only been doing magic for less than 4 years.
An actual experienced infernalist who actually has the full course can presumably do better.
And in fumbling, can cause greater catastrophes.
And in Dead Beat, Morgan tells us that the Merlin's wards around the Congo hospital were rated for demon lord, suggesting thats a known tactical problem
He lifted a hand in surrender and settled back onto his chair again, but his grin never faded.
"There were many injuries," Luccio continued. "But as the hospice in Sicily had been taken, we diverted the worst cases to a hospital we control in the Congo." She stared at her bottle for a moment. Her mouth opened, and then she closed it again. She closed her eyes.
Morgan frowned at her. Then he put a hand on Luccio's shoulder, looked at me, and said, "The vampires knew."
I got a sick, twisting feeling in my stomach. "Oh, God."
"It was daylight there," Morgan said. "And the place was a fortress of the Merlin's wards. There was no way for the vampires to breach it from the Nevernever, and nothing short of a demon lord could have broken through them." His mouth twisted, and his eyes glittered with rage and hate. "They sent mortals against us. Against men and women lying injured, unconscious, helpless in their beds." The anger in his voice seemed to strangle him for a moment.
"But…" I said. "Look, I know what it's like going up against mortals you don't want to kill. It's difficult, but they can be stopped. Fought. Bullets and explosives can be defended against."
"Which is why they used gas," Ramirez said quietly, stepping in where Morgan's and Luccio's voices had failed. His own tone was serious. His grin had vanished. "A nerve agent, probably sarin. They deployed it against the entire hospital, the people we had protecting it, and six square blocks of city around it." He put his own bottle down and said, "No one survived."
"My God…" I whispered.
There was dead silence.
"There were many injuries," Luccio continued. "But as the hospice in Sicily had been taken, we diverted the worst cases to a hospital we control in the Congo." She stared at her bottle for a moment. Her mouth opened, and then she closed it again. She closed her eyes.
Morgan frowned at her. Then he put a hand on Luccio's shoulder, looked at me, and said, "The vampires knew."
I got a sick, twisting feeling in my stomach. "Oh, God."
"It was daylight there," Morgan said. "And the place was a fortress of the Merlin's wards. There was no way for the vampires to breach it from the Nevernever, and nothing short of a demon lord could have broken through them." His mouth twisted, and his eyes glittered with rage and hate. "They sent mortals against us. Against men and women lying injured, unconscious, helpless in their beds." The anger in his voice seemed to strangle him for a moment.
"But…" I said. "Look, I know what it's like going up against mortals you don't want to kill. It's difficult, but they can be stopped. Fought. Bullets and explosives can be defended against."
"Which is why they used gas," Ramirez said quietly, stepping in where Morgan's and Luccio's voices had failed. His own tone was serious. His grin had vanished. "A nerve agent, probably sarin. They deployed it against the entire hospital, the people we had protecting it, and six square blocks of city around it." He put his own bottle down and said, "No one survived."
"My God…" I whispered.
There was dead silence.
Its also worth making the point that we see this with other, brawny entities.
In Changes, Harry summons first the Archangel Uriel, then Mab to attend him, using only their Names and his own willpower, while flat on his back and paralyzed.
Similarly, in Battle Grounds, he summons Titania to the battlefield by calling her Name thrice in front of Ethniu.
If a summoned entity is willing to show up, they can jump a lot of protocol.
Im making the point that this sort of thing is left up to the QM.
Its not part of the routinely accepted set of killable/engageable monsters.
Also, this is not a demon god. Its a duke of Hell, not an archduke or a Lord of Deep Misrule.
It could be potentially much worse, assuming those guys are allowed out of Hell and onto Earth at all without most of their power(s) sealed away. This fellow might not even be here in full power.
Thats a QM judgement thing though; there is no mechanical basis for representing entities of that scale on Earth or as anything other than narrative devices.
That I know of.
On the basis that Blampires can gain power much faster than any other species, but have more vulnerabilities?
And the White Court appears to gain power the slowest, and doesnt appear to reach the heights of either the Blacks or the Reds.
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Who says thats all its power we are looking at? Remember, you can summon Mab by name.
Its just that when you are free summoning that way, you are passing up all the protections that the circles and designs are supposed to offer the summoner in case what he summons is in a bad mood. Everytime Harry summoned Chauncy it first tried to break out of the circle to eat him.
So you better hope what you are summoning likes you, or that you are personally scary enough it wont try.
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Yes, this is wizard ground, but most of the wizards here are babies.
They looked painfully young to MOLLY, who thinks people in their late 30s like Pauline Moskowitz are old.
Other than Mai and McCoy, you're looking at a lot of kids.
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I fundamentally disagree because plain texts disagrees with you. That's not how ExvsWoD rolls.
She is mistaken. Badly. We know that.
A reminder - you invented the whole "duke of hell" wholecloth on the spot. And if it thought it could take us, it would have attacked already. Our souls is valuable enough for sure.
Busy day today, sorry about the wait guys.
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Huh? Thats not plausible.
The Akuma/True Anathema section of ExWoD is in large part a rework of the rules for the same thing from Kindred of The East.
Most of the Investments even share the same names. And he goes into detail about the Shih as well.
I dont buy it.
When Harry summoned Mother Winter in Cold Days in a graveyard, he used magic to freeze the ground, a lock of his hair, some of his blood to bind the hair together, a bottle of cooking oil to set the hair alight, and a box of matches to provide the fire.
Then he called her. That was all.
When you know what you are doing, and dispense with all personal protection, summoning can be appallingly quick.
Surviving the process, on the other hand....
You are free to disagree.
This isnt true. We know no such thing.
This isnt true either.
I provided my citations for demonic classifications by book and page, and my reasoning for why a demon lord that doesnt proc on DPoE is at minimum a Duke. I even provided the exact citation that the demon stated for not attacking.
Also?
Dresdenverse demons cant take mortal souls without a valid claim on it. Thats not how they work.
Dresden was not afraid of Kalshazakk taking his soul, just killing him.
This dude can take our life, if he can kill us, but not our soul. No claim on Molly or Tiffany.
I cant vouch for all the wizards here though. Maybe he has a claim on some of them?
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The citation you gave is about a different system of hell than here.
Why would the exact same rankings apply?
It also doesn't include any indication that DPE works the way you say when it comes to rank, as it isn't made to work with it. It has been pointed out to you repeatedly: The list of things that don't proc it includes far more things than just the highest ranks of anything, and there is no indication demons actually work differently.
You are making up the idea that this being not proccing DPE means he is that rank and no lower whole cloth out of extrapolations of several systems we don't even know apply and based on readings that contradicts things that have happened in quest.
Edit:
Basically, the reading you have of it is not the objectively true reading, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Arc 14 Post 36: A Working in Five Points
A Working in Five Points
18th of February 2007 A.D.
The Warden's sword rings in Carlos' hands and his is not the only one among them, balefire weapons whir as they charge, but before the first shot can cut thorough the air in the wake of your silence the hounds fling themselves in the direction of the demon, not to harm him you realize but to distract, fangs of iron showing as Ebeneezer McCoy raises his staff... his Staff. Plain and black it is and of a size with a walking stick, plain and unmarked and yet the world it marks, spilling out color into the air tendrils snaking their way up the arms of the old wizard who you think at first does not notice it, but when you hear the thunder in his voice it's clear he does, it's clear he must: "Hic es non receperint."
You are not welcome here, in plain English.
At first it seems the demon is about to laugh, its skeletal chest expanding in mockery as much as pride, but something stops it. The face that is no face tips down quizzically.
Seeing its distraction Carlos and Thunder's Silent Arrow circle the demon using the hounds for cover. Getting behind to hit from all angles, you realize even as the words resound, the magic flies and twists:
You... you... It seems almost as if the echoes had picked up the words.
Are not... are not... Now you begin to see what the fiend must have felt from the start, a thin circle, the barest indentation in the tile underfoot.
Welcome... welcome... The crystal lights begin to flicker, but not as electric lights in the city above would when drowned in magic, growing only stronger each time they flick back on.
Here.. here... here....
With the final word the crystal explodes, showering everyone in shards as sharp as broken flint and twice as deadly. You are already flying sword first at it when you realize, not all the lights had burst. Five still burned, no more no less and all in the right place. Lines of light streaked between them as the wizard traced the sign with a staff unvarnished black, a pentagram.
"You dare!" it roars with all the affront of a lord, a would-be-master betrayed.
"Got that wrong way 'round. It's you that dared come on our ground and now..." he flings the staff upwards where with a crack it strikes the vault. A spiderweb of cracks crosses and reveals another pentagram, another circle. Two and two is four, you count. He needs another and the demon's claw is already descending to ruin the first circle.
It never gets there, instead it stops mid air as though the air had suddenly become a shackle and it's only then, finally taking your eyes off the thing that you realize what McCoy had done: Carlos and Thunder's Silent Arrow, Ancient Mai and Tiffany and him at the points make the third pentagram between them, the fifth binding.
Slowly with the menace born of cruel imagination the demon looks around and asks: "Do you truly think the boy can last long enough? Channel enough to hold me?"
"You're asking the wrong question," Carlos' voice is a little rough but it doesn't shake. "I might die, I might not, either way this is where I'm standing, but you... you're going to get worse than death back in hell without a body, without anything to show for it, but the death of some warlock who did it to himself. You've got nothing. Wanna try for less than nothing?"
He's bluffing, you realize, not about being willing to die in the line of duty, but about the notion that he can hold it if he dies. No wizard knows until the last how long their will might last in the face of death.
Even Tiffany looks on with as grim an expression as you have ever seen her wear and a small shake of the head.
Then and there, knowing you might not be fast enough to kill it before the backlash from the broken binding can kill, fear freezes to spite in the depths of your soul, a curse upon the demon's eyes, its will and its courage snuffed out in its own shadow.
Again it hesitates, it looks about itself and sees only foes, before it, behind it and to the side, all armed with mighty magic.
"See you all in Hell!" it howls painfully and is gone.
One of the younger warlocks drops his gun, collapses and starts to dry heave.
What do you do?
[] Yell at McCoy for using Carlos as one of the points of the pentagram
[] Try to observe the staff, there's something almost familiar about it
[] Write in
OOC: Welp, SSC sure came in handy, the Ebon Dragon would be proud as much as he was ever capable of positive emotion
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Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Try to observe the staff, there's something almost familiar about it