Vote closed, looks like we are going, but not spending the essence to take others with, counting on the people already there
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
As far as the Masquerade goes it is kind of tricky, I think, for the playerbase to get a read on what degree of breach is 'acceptable' or too problematic when we had a motorcycle merged Akuma scaling the side of a building shooting, and Dresden riding an undead dinosaur in Deadbeat through Chicago to a magically induced hurricane.
Arc 14 Interlude 9: In the City of Lights
In the City of Lights
18th of February 2007 A.D.
"Why is it that every city has to have some kind of spooky tunnel system under it? Is there a rule book I didn't read?" That was what most people called a rhetorical question. I had found that as I got on in age I asked those aloud more often, though I still had a ways to go until I got to judging by Ebenezer. Sadly no one had told the kid.
"The dead outnumber the living Warden Dresden and nowhere does that matter weigh more heavily than in a place where men have been pressed together so tightly for so long."
Thanks, I kept the sarcasm to myself. Kid could make the a ice cream stand that handed out puppies creepy, but it wasn't her fault. At first glance Paris wasn't like Chicago, but it wasn't like New York or Vegas or any of the other cities I had visited. The even golden lights broken up only by the white of headlights racing by almost seemed to build a mirror city of light in the depths of the Seine, but I knew if I looked down there what I'd find would be the cast offs of that long deep history in iron and bone. Well that and E. coli, probably. It's a good thing I came down here with a warlock hunting team not with a date.
It was an even better thing that the tracking spell had found the Merlin alive even if it had taken an uncomfortably long time after the rush though the Nevernever like the hounds of the Wild hunt were on them.
"Ah... Wizard McCoy, we need to get out of sight quick. Molly's arriving soon and she is not fit for mortal visitation," Lydia said just as they were planning the descent.
"When you say not fit fer..."
"Overdressed." A trickle of cold sweat ran down Harry's spine.
As it turns out you're never too old to learn new swear swear words. Having a large collection to choose from just came with being born back when saying 'gyat' to your horse would've gotten you in trouble for blaspheming: "Always ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag.... if 'subtle' was leather that girl couldn't saddle up a junebug...." He was already running down a side alley fast enough to get the side eye from some only mildly inebriated tourists, leaning on each other. "There's two ways we can go down to where the spell said Arthur was fast, one's a church and one's a fancy restaurant. The first one's likely to have fewer people at this hour, but it't trespassing on holy ground with the intent to break and enter some more. If anything down in the catacombes breaks out and up the way we came, it will have a ripe place to make a bloody mess. Restaurant's got a lot of people in it..."
"And a lot of cameras," I pointed out. Sometimes older wizards forgot that part. Maybe we'd blow all of them up just being around but it has only taken me being on one tape with a loup Garou to be more careful of that stuff. As Tiffany would say that's progress.
"But they'll run right enough leaving nothing but an empty building behind us. We can deal with the fallout once we have all our geese in a row."
Which way does the party descent into the catacombs?
[] The Church, probably fewer people but will blaze a patht right though some wards from a holy place to one made unholy
[] The Restaurant, more people, but they will clear out quick for better or for worse
[] Write in
OOC: It took Ebenezer two tries to actually find the Merlin so they are not down in the catacombs yet for better or for worse.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
[X] The Restaurant, more people, but they will clear out quick for better or for worse
-[X] The Wizards among the group flex their magical muscles sufficiently to fry any electronics within the restaurant and immediate surroundings.
-[X] The Wizards among the group flex their magical muscles sufficiently to fry any electronics within the restaurant and immediate surroundings.
Drill a hellevator straight down from the sewers of Paris using our infernal tools. We did it before. I see no reason we can't do it again.
VOTE
[X] The Church, probably fewer people but will blaze a patht right though some wards from a holy place to one made unholy
RATIONALE
Molly is in good standing with the White God, and has never had any trouble entering holy ground.
And the general goal here is not something He will disapprove of.
Fewer people means both fewer witnesses and fewer potential casualties if things go wrong.
Having a holy place as a staging point and fallback position is a malus against some of the things that might be down there in the catacombs; some wont be able to enter at all, and the others will suffer a penalty for doing so.
The presence of shit like holy water and holy oil might be similarly useful as munitions in the event there are demons(not Outsiders, but just regular demons) down in the catacombs.
One of the conspirators did try a demon summoning in the Hidden Halls after all.
And frankly, the White Council can pay the Church to repair any property damage out of pocket change.
And can do it discreetly.
Or Molly can do it.
The restaurant is....harder.
[X] The Church, probably fewer people but will blaze a patht right though some wards from a holy place to one made unholy
RATIONALE
Molly is in good standing with the White God, and has never had any trouble entering holy ground.
And the general goal here is not something He will disapprove of.
Fewer people means both fewer witnesses and fewer potential casualties if things go wrong.
Having a holy place as a staging point and fallback position is a malus against some of the things that might be down there in the catacombs; some wont be able to enter at all, and the others will suffer a penalty for doing so.
The presence of shit like holy water and holy oil might be similarly useful as munitions in the event there are demons(not Outsiders, but just regular demons) down in the catacombs.
One of the conspirators did try a demon summoning in the Hidden Halls after all.
And frankly, the White Council can pay the Church to repair any property damage out of pocket change.
And can do it discreetly.
Or Molly can do it.
The restaurant is....harder.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Not sure if we should be overly concerned about it as far as the Masquerade itself goes as per my previous post. Does it just come down to the author? Like how are we to judge the risk to the Masquerade exactly?
Canon would indicate they're minimal here even if people saw Shintai Molly flying as Chicago was still one of America's top 3 populated cities even back during the events of Deadbeat with a population bigger than Paris should have right now in 2007. UFOs Molly's size are pretty much impossible to get good footage on too.
As for the church, wards can be restored so I'm not seeing the issue here.
Canon would indicate they're minimal here even if people saw Shintai Molly flying as Chicago was still one of America's top 3 populated cities even back during the events of Deadbeat with a population bigger than Paris should have right now in 2007. UFOs Molly's size are pretty much impossible to get good footage on too.
As for the church, wards can be restored so I'm not seeing the issue here.
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I think the point is that by using the church this way we break it's sanctity, which strips protection at minimum and potentially makes it possible for something following us up to turn it around on the party.
Not sure if the holy water or holy oil on site would still be useful if it's stolen either, given what we were told breaking in would do.
Im guessing the nature of the breach matters.
Harry riding a zombie T-rex at night on Halloween, in a city where most of the electricity was down and there was bad weather is one thing. Molly getting in a flashy magic swordfight with some beastie of mass death is quite another.
Im not overly worried about the breach itself. I am worried about avoiding civilian collateral.
The Church has enough clout to smother any casual interest in anything thats left over after the fight, and they have the internal resources to reapply any wards and blessings necessary in the aftermath.
And in the Dresdenverse, its never a bad idea to have the White God's faction to hide behind.
I dont think thats possible.
You have to willfully desecrate a church in the Dresdenverse by consecrating it to something else to break its sanctity.
You see this in canon; the only desecrated church I recall was the one in the short story with the Sleeper cultists in Alaska.
In Changes, Harry summoned both Uriel and Mab while lying on his back in a room in St Mary's. And Harry's plan in Changes explicitly was using a nearby church as fallback point when going after Chitchen Itza.
EDIT
There was also a desecrated airport chapel in Death Masks, where Nicodemus left Shiro's dying body.
But that was also deliberately desecrated.
Holy water isnt stolen, cant be stolen from a mainline church. Its freely offered for the purpose of those who need it.
Many churches put it at the entrance so people coming in can anoint themselves as they choose
If you walk up to the stoup, or the font, or wherever its located, you can take some.
Whether they have sufficient for the purposes of the war party is a different question.
Thats why when Harry needed holy water in his early days in Chicago, he asked the priest to bless an entire barrel for him.
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Please tell us more about the deft and subtle hand of the council mister "I solve my problems with volcanoes and orbital bombardment". Especially with the events of the day so far.
The vote you copied out specifically states it will, and the chapter expands on what that means:
They'd be in position to use the church instead of being penalized for entering it.
That's the trade off presented by the vote. One has more mortals but a neutral escape path, and the other should have almost no people but adds an additional risk if retreating from something ugly.
McCoy isn't going to be wringing his hands about the costs of repair work right now, this is an immediate tactical decision. If the church had fewer people and offered protection today at the cost of a problem tomorrow there'd be no reason to choose the other option.
We'll have to get clarification from the QM anyway.
But in summary, I thought the wards in question were from the Edinburgh end, because churches dont have wards in the Dresdenverse. They are just Protected by fiat against evil supernaturals.
Notably, evil ghosts/spirits like Kravos/the Nightmare cannot enter consecrated ground.
Black vampires cannot enter a consecrated church. And Dresden says that Reds cant.
Whites can; we see Thomas do it without issue. Denarians can.
Mab can.
Im honestly not getting the reasoning here. If we did this out of a family home, the threshold would still be intact.
@DragonParadox
Can you clarify?
@DragonParadox is the church catholic?
I don't think it means wards in the sense of something a magical practitioner made on purpose. They're already in Paris so the wards on the Halls or whatever aren't the issue, we're looking for a way into the catacombs.
It read to me like a reference to that fiat protection, which has rules to how it's applied that people can violate. Like a mortal willfully breaking a circle where wind wouldn't effect it.
The comparison of the consequences is very immediate, a retreat into an empty restaurant or a violated church. The restaurant won't stay abandoned long after the crisis, the parallel drawn only makes sense if this is all about what's happening right now.
[X] The Restaurant, more people, but they will clear out quick for better or for worse
-[X] The Wizards among the group flex their magical muscles sufficiently to fry any electronics within the restaurant and immediate surroundings.
-[X] Show guns to encourage a speedy evacuation. "We came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass... and we are all out of bubble gum. Everybody scram!"
The press can deal later with the bunch of crazy american gun-toting cosplayers
-[X] The Wizards among the group flex their magical muscles sufficiently to fry any electronics within the restaurant and immediate surroundings.
-[X] Show guns to encourage a speedy evacuation. "We came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass... and we are all out of bubble gum. Everybody scram!"
The press can deal later with the bunch of crazy american gun-toting cosplayers
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In Paris, it virtually HAS to be.
I want to check. If it is, call father Forthill. Even if he can't give permission to enter this particular church, he'll probably have contacts of either someone who can, or someone who can get someone who can. Dresden is still new to mobile phones.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Then the police show up. People aren't just going to ignore guns, they'll call the cops.
The church has been specifically warded, as in which actual magic by church affiliated magicians for centuries, there is no way to get down there quickly without breaking the wards. It will still be consecrated, but as you note there are plenty of terrifying things that can enter holy ground, but may have been held off by said wards
Yes.
By the time cops arrive they will be long gone into the Catacombs, and I doubt they would be leaving by the same exit.
Thats the thing.
Thats not how the rules for churches in the Dresdenverse appear to work to my recollection, or to a brief check.
Having an armed party with guns invade a restaurant in Paris is how you get a GIGN response.
Great way to end up in a crossfire.
And given how the bad guys are throwing mind control around like party favors, we really dont want mundane shooters here.
Yeah.
France's Christian population is majority Roman Catholic, and the Catholic Church used to be the state church. A church in Paris thats old enough to hav a route to the catacombs is more likely to be Roman Catholic than anything else
EDIT
*squints*
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
WHY was this church warded? Most churches arent.
Do we know? Does anyone in Lydia's party know?
I bet LaFortier the French wizard would know. So would Lady M, for that matter.
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Because it has an access into the catacombs is all Ebeneezer knows, those have a bad reputation, more generally evil things tend to lurk underground doubly so if they are places of death.