[X] Intercede with the dragon before the Vadderung's men can find it.
This is partially to see if the dragon can be negotiated with because we know that they're not just beast but it's also partially to gauge whether or not this is going to be a fight.
If the dragon just out and out attacks us then if anyone finds it the dragon is a distinct danger to them so it is better dispatched now than later.
If we're capable of negotiating the treasure from it or getting it to move somewhere with the treasure well we can come back for it later whether that be with violence or otherwise.
I think we should investigate more before actually talking to the dragon. If we can learn what motivates it before showing up then our opening offer in any hypothetical negotiations would be much stronger.
The connection isn't that great, but maybe we could use some rocks from the bottom of the sea to ask questions about the other things sharing the space.
If it turns out this guy desperately needs their [Insert Unfortunately Detachable Supernatural Organ/McGuffin of Yore/Amazing Space Drugs Here] back or whatever it'd be nice to show up with it available instead of learning about it mid negotiation.
If it turns out this guy desperately needs their [Insert Unfortunately Detachable Supernatural Organ/McGuffin of Yore/Amazing Space Drugs Here] back or whatever it'd be nice to show up with it available instead of learning about it mid negotiation.
The fact they have to specify that despite having mutations the Blessed people have the same chance of exalting as a normal human, demonstrates the anti-mutation bias the Exaltation has. And here Lytek
I disagree on this reading. It just reads to me as the text specifying that the blessed races can exalt like pure humans. I'll note that godblooded can also exalt.
Lytek cannot control who exalts just influence the event while it is happening. The reason second age decedents of the slave races can exalt however unlikely is because they are more human then their ancestors. If it where that easy the Dragon-Blood would just force all celestial to start on the blessed Island to easily find and kill them
If you look a bit further, you'll note the following:
Other Notes: Lytek's panoply includes a dozen sur-
gical implements that belonged to the previous god
of Exaltation, known as the Divine Apparatae of
Periapt Surgery, and these items, at least, truly were
created by Autochthon for use in field alteration of
an Exaltation in the war against the Primordials. It
was not unknown for one of the Exalted to perish
on the field of battle, where their Essence would flit
back to a field hospital where it would be quickly altered and then implanted into a waiting vessel.
Gods where ordered to cease hostlity and stand down and had to obey the Primordials to give the order. It did nothing because the Gods do not have control or even influence over the exaltation.
Thank you for the citation, but it doesn't prove your point. It demonstrates that:
1) Primordials could order the gods to order a standdown of general forces, and the gods couldn't disobey (for what reason is a question, it might well have been the threat of total obliteration)
2) Exalts (not exalted shards) are not compelled to follow orders from the gods.
It says nothing about the ability of the gods to directly select hosts for exaltations from the range of people naturally capable of hosting an exaltation (ie appropriately heroic mortal humans)
Anybody can seek exaltation they just have to meet the personality requirements IE be willing to use the power to do great things, and do a heroic task to gain the notice of the exaltation. It can even be task you would fail without getting the Exaltation. Infernal's and Abysmal can be prevented from joining with their chosen host. So the Yozi and Neverborn essentially have infinite rerolls, but the exaltation itself still has to chose a person to exalted.
I will not be posting the whole Abyssal section of the Scroll of Exalts, but the point is - Deathlords directly select Abyssals. They point to an appropriate dying mortal, and they become an exalt.
What? That's not a thing. Or, rather, you got it backwards. The solar shard would have been released if the Vegas event went off. Because it would require a solar to fix it. It would have gone off to other disasters too. There was no specific pre-established link. It was just the most hero-requiring event in the last century, apparently.
Since Uju is, again, ignoring large parts of the text that don't fit their narrative, let me put a reminder.
First, the name of the option under which we were given the information:
[] A Glimpse of Silver: Many centuries ago Talhaearn Father of the Muse came to Avalon, grown weary of his travels and of the light of mortal realms as all men come to be in the twilight of their years. Then at the last he sang of the Moon-egg hidden under the sea, swallowed whole by a great serpent that slumbers deed, an old song, a pure song and the Children of Danu wept for the music was Truer than True and it reminded them of much that had they had wished themselves to forget. In the passing of years many did forget but the Lady-Who-Was wrote the song down on leaf of imperishable gold before her tears could wash it away. These pages Lilly would share with you.
What that realization the fey script upon the page, which you had thought, with some annoyance, needed translating falls into shape before you and thus you read:
A great tumult there was over the land and a storm out of season light passing from west to east and the beasts of the fields were disturbed and in the lands of the Epidii and they spoke as though with tongue of man and once the wit had passed from them they went mad and bit out their own tongues in sorrow
Weep, for the world that is no more
One moon-turn ere the turn of the wheel of seasons there came into the sky a bright wanderer with a tail of fire and a bulging mad eye, lo and where it looked the fields of men turned fallow and where it wept there was hail and famine and where is fell calamity. The sea rose up to swallow the fallen seed and the sea was smote for its presumption for it was a seed not for fish to devour.
Weep, weep for the chair that lies empty
The earth groaned and cracked, it quickened as life in its mother's womb and yet the dream was stillborn, smothered in its crib by the one that should have nurtured it, warded off by false counsel. So does the father devour the sun and so is the passing of ages made delayed. Look ye deathless Gentry upon broken ramparts of the Empire of Wolves, like rotted teeth in gums of green and wonder what might have bee born of its death if folly was not called wisdom if the hungering wyrm had not been called blind and grasping
Weep, weep, weep for the Prince that is Unborn
The song, the lament, goes on to describe what you now recognize as a piece of... comet, a piece of cosmic ice and dust falling into the stormy waters of the sea off the coast of an 'island of flames by heaving ice bound'. Alas the text does not get much more coherent from then on:
...and so Prince Trucc battled the Wyrm of the sea for the whole of the moon-that-is-no-moon, yet he was overcome when he felt the one for which the treasure was meant fall to the whispers of ambition, hope-to-rule, and be undone. So the Prince took on the guise of a butterfly lost among the spray of white and he flew south and east to the shores of a more guarded sea where dragons do not swim and there I found him true as I now stand before you.
Sayeth he with ringing voice from the belly of the beast: "When your blood of fire is cooled and your bones dead stone that which you have hidden shall be torn from you. A Fickle Prince and a Good Steward, beware, beware the children of the moon."
On the very last page there is an illustration of this 'Trucc' and he seems to you as one of the lords of the Sidhe, tall and fair of features, inhuman grace and hungry gaze, his garb of silver and of crimson like blood and tears. Little wonder the fey wept for him perhaps, but why would the poet carry the tale so far, to be heard and to be known.
"OK so I got these verses from an old poet that passed though here and..." you start your account. The more you speak the more attentive she grows, her expression darkening all the while from Lilly's account to verse, to your own speculation. Then her lips start to move, so minutely that no mortal eye could have discerned it, fractions of fractions of words unspoken: "Ware He of the Long Arm who across the Heavens threw a dart from west to east against the passing of the sun. Ware the bulging eye eye that bleeds. Ware the time of Sumner's dimming, Winter's glory." She offers a loud 'Hmm' for punctuation and again those barely-formed expressions. "Six years between, the number imperfect. "
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/15 (Subterfuge Excellency)
Aloud and still dead serious she adds. "Sorry can't help you with that." Before you can thank her she adds. "Plots and schemes can be as sharp as arrows and spears you know and even more deadly when one doesn't notice. Fortunate are those sharp enough of eyes to notice them and wise would they be not to speak of it. In fact sometimes it's even a good idea that your friends don't know how sharp your eyes are."
It's about 50 miles though it does not seem to be heading straight there, it could be days or weeks before they hit on it. Her best guess is that the ship is using its instruments to scan for anomalies and someone who knows what they are looking for is interpreting the data.
What? That's not a thing. Or, rather, you got it backwards. The solar shard would have been released if the Vegas event went off. Because it would require a solar to fix it. It would have gone off to other disasters too. There was no specific pre-established link. It was just the most hero-requiring event in the last century, apparently.
No the desertification happening releases the solar releasing the solar causes the antithesis Abyssal to also be released from the ocean that's why we needed to be careful to see if we could possibly release the Solar without releasing the Abyssal that did not happen. If the desertification doesn't happen the solar just doesn't release, releasing the solar doesn't cause the desertification.
Are you saying that extracting the solar Exaltation in Vegas would've nuked the country like the Outsider getting in would have? That makes no sense if so.
Can I get a citation please? Because I don't remember that. Releasing the solar also releases an abyssal, yes, but it doesn't cause a disaster of any kind, or somehow affects the Vegas gate.
[X] Plan Scout First
-[X] Apply ATP to self if not already applied
-[X] move underwater towards the maximum range of clear underwater perception granted by BSM
-[X] Activate All Things Betray with Willpower
-[X] Using the dragon's lair or excrement as foci, find out what it thinks about the object you and kingfisher are after
It's about 50 miles though it does not seem to be heading straight there, it could be days or weeks before they hit on it. Her best guess is that the ship is using its instruments to scan for anomalies and someone who knows what they are looking for is interpreting the data.
You can certainly see some instruments above the water and if you swim closer you could see the ones below it too. After that you pay the essence and make the roll, which is to say yes HMP us something you can try.
Yeah I'm thinking of just doing this. I don't want to talk to discount Tattletale with a motive counter to the majority of the thread's like we did the last time when he got something about our Crown while we were being careful to hide it. We haven't used Eschaton Shintai either yet and we'd be fighting with water. If it turns into a fight anyway.
Edit: Looking back a Sidhe lord managed to fight the Dragon so I'm sure we could manage.
It's about 50 miles though it does not seem to be heading straight there, it could be days or weeks before they hit on it. Her best guess is that the ship is using its instruments to scan for anomalies and someone who knows what they are looking for is interpreting the data.
[X] Plan Scout First
-[X] Apply ATP to self if not already applied
-[X] move underwater towards the maximum range of clear underwater perception granted by BSM
-[X] Activate All Things Betray with Willpower
-[X] Using the dragon's lair or excrement as foci, find out what it thinks about the object you and kingfisher are after
Okay so in regards to the Dragon we likely do have time to do as @BronzeTongue suggested so I'll go with this. ATP was just applied this chapter but I guess it's better to be sure.
[X] Plan Scout First
This vote is also fine. Really don't want to talk to any Tattletale equivalents right now when we are trying to keep our intentions hidden. Do not want a repeat of last time with the Crown. Don't want him to ask "how do you know this" then fire off his spell to get even more info on the Crown and possibly what we are after for that matter.
[X] Intercede with the dragon before the Vadderung's men can find it.
Can I get a citation please? Because I don't remember that. Releasing the solar also releases an abyssal, yes, but it doesn't cause a disaster of any kind, or somehow affects the Vegas gate.
I do not like to stifle discussion, particularly if it is something that makes sense for Molly to worry about like letting Exaltations loose in the world, but it might be worth you guys considering the practicalities of the matter. Right now the only way you have to set the Solar-Abyssal pair into the world is to let vast swaths of the continent become a desert and probably the destruction of Las Vegas. Allowing that is not really IC so step one for all plans no matter what you want to do with the Exaltation is to stop Sandra and secure the idol.
The condition is the thing you saw in the vision, sin eater falls, gate to the Outside opens and starts making Death Valley into Death Continent. At that point the golden light flies and someone fighting against impossible odds (of which there should be plenty) becomes a Ra for a Later Age. Unlike actually directing the Exaltation Molly thinks she should be able to affect the release conditions.
Ah no, different order of operation . The act of the Outside Thing being freed will turn Vegas and much of the continent into a desert, that in turn will trigger the Solar Exaltation which will also free a paired Abyssal Exaltation. Molly theories that this is why the conditions to free the Solar Exaltation are so stringent, the people who made this passage to not want its shadow loose.
That said, the exaltation is effectively strapped to the side of a bomb even if it isn't actually wired into it. Not the place to screw around with whatever defenses it has.
That said, the exaltation is effectively strapped to the side of a bomb even if it isn't actually wired into it. Not the place to screw around with whatever defenses it has.
The fact that they don't want the Abyssal loose is something to be kept in mind for later. At any rate whether or not the one in Vegas should be let loose isn't really relevant right now.
[X] Plan Scout First
-[X] Apply ATP to self if not already applied
-[X] move underwater towards the maximum range of clear underwater perception granted by BSM
-[X] Activate All Things Betray with Willpower
-[X] Using the dragon's lair or excrement as foci, find out what it thinks about the object you and kingfisher are after
I wonder if Odin even knows that releasing the shard could cause it to choose a host. Molly's shard was contained for centuries, so he might not know.
On the other hand he might be planning to shove the dragon into a never-never realm with no humans and dog pile it with Valkyrie. Then bring individual humans into the realm until one of them is chosen.
[X] Intercede with the dragon before the Vadderung's men can find it.
[X] Plan Scout First
-[X] Apply ATP to self if not already applied
-[X] move underwater towards the maximum range of clear underwater perception granted by BSM
-[X] Activate All Things Betray with Willpower
-[X] Using the dragon's lair or excrement as foci, find out what it thinks about the object you and kingfisher are after
Which has nothing to do with how it chooses candidates.
This part is a post exaltation remark after it has already entered the host with mutations, not a remark about how it chooses. The remark on how it chooses implies it doesn't care about mutations when doing so.
The simple fact it has a mechanism on how to remove mutations is indicative of how it very much was designed with the idea of still choosing hosts that have them.
[X] Plan Scout First
[X] Intercede with the dragon before the Vadderung's men can find it.
The only reference to Rome in the poem was about Hadrian's Wall(broken ramparts of the Empire of Wolves) that the comet passed over.
Everything else appears to be Celtic/Gaelic/Irish myth.
What that realization the fey script upon the page, which you had thought, with some annoyance, needed translating falls into shape before you and thus you read:
A great tumult there was over the land and a storm out of season light passing from west to east and the beasts of the fields were disturbed and in the lands of the Epidii and they spoke as though with tongue of man and once the wit had passed from them they went mad and bit out their own tongues in sorrow
Weep, for the world that is no more
One moon-turn ere the turn of the wheel of seasons there came into the sky a bright wanderer with a tail of fire and a bulging mad eye, lo and where it looked the fields of men turned fallow and where it wept there was hail and famine and where is fell calamity. The sea rose up to swallow the fallen seed and the sea was smote for its presumption for it was a seed not for fish to devour.
Weep, weep for the chair that lies empty
The earth groaned and cracked, it quickened as life in its mother's womb and yet the dream was stillborn, smothered in its crib by the one that should have nurtured it, warded off by false counsel. So does the father devour the sun and so is the passing of ages made delayed. Look ye deathless Gentry upon broken ramparts of the Empire of Wolves, like rotted teeth in gums of green and wonder what might have bee born of its death if folly was not called wisdom if the hungering wyrm had not been called blind and grasping
Weep, weep, weep for the Prince that is Unborn
The song, the lament, goes on to describe what you now recognize as a piece of... comet, a piece of cosmic ice and dust falling into the stormy waters of the sea off the coast of an 'island of flames by heaving ice bound'. Alas the text does not get much more coherent from then on:
...and so Prince Trucc battled the Wyrm of the sea for the whole of the moon-that-is-no-moon, yet he was overcome when he felt the one for which the treasure was meant fall to the whispers of ambition, hope-to-rule, and be undone. So the Prince took on the guise of a butterfly lost among the spray of white and he flew south and east to the shores of a more guarded sea where dragons do not swim and there I found him true as I now stand before you.
Sayeth he with ringing voice from the belly of the beast: "When your blood of fire is cooled and your bones dead stone that which you have hidden shall be torn from you. A Fickle Prince and a Good Steward, beware, beware the children of the moon."
On the very last page there is an illustration of this 'Trucc' and he seems to you as one of the lords of the Sidhe, tall and fair of features, inhuman grace and hungry gaze, his garb of silver and of crimson like blood and tears. Little wonder the fey wept for him perhaps, but why would the poet carry the tale so far, to be heard and to be known.
"OK so I got these verses from an old poet that passed though here and..." you start your account. The more you speak the more attentive she grows, her expression darkening all the while from Lilly's account to verse, to your own speculation. Then her lips start to move, so minutely that no mortal eye could have discerned it, fractions of fractions of words unspoken: "Ware He of the Long Arm who across the Heavens threw a dart from west to east against the passing of the sun. Ware the bulging eye eye that bleeds. Ware the time of Sumner's dimming, Winter's glory." She offers a loud 'Hmm' for punctuation and again those barely-formed expressions. "Six years between, the number imperfect. "
The red is Trucc prophesying the death of the dragon that claimed the treasure, and specifying who is likely to kill him/it.
The Children of the Moon is not something that has ever been used to describe Lunars AFAIK, so you are looking at an organization. Probably a cult of some sort.
And while being the power core to a weapon isnt entirely beyond the realm of possibility?
The associations in this scenario would be more Infernal or Abyssal.
Not Lunar. Not Sidereal. Not Alchemical.
Our Exaltation was used as a siege weapon. This isnt.
What we know so far does not suggest its something that was designed or built; Balor's Eye was something he was apparently born with or awakened.
A Sidhe lord managing to fight a Dragon doesnt say anything about our ability to fight or survive a Dragon.
This setting canonically has Wyldfae on the order of Puck walking around, and Fae King Oberon used to be a thing before he got himself killed according to the author.
There's stuff in the deep Wyld and on Earth that would clobber a solo E4 Exalt.
Hell, there's stuff on Earth that would do it; I think Thor is still playing college football somewhere in the Midwest according to Butcher. Dont get overconfident.
The last dragon fight we have any detail about in the setting was the one that was covered up as Tunguska.
You know, the exploding asteroid with a double digit megaton yield that knocked down forests several hundred kilometers away.
You do not want a dragon fight anywhere in the vicinity of human
Pertinently, Dragons dont like humans. Word of Butcher.
2009 WoJ forum post: 6. ferrovax – is this because he's the OLDEST dragon? (i thought it was an empty boast) or because he's a dragon?
Ferrovax feels absolutely no need to boast. It's because he /is/ a Dragon, large D, an elemental force of the cosmos. He isn't some kind of Smaug hanging around a nice apartment. He's a Dragon in a more Asian sense of the concept, a semi-divine being who was once given authority over various portions of the mortal universe, and who was responsible for their orderly procession. There /are/ Smauglike dragons (though not nearly as many now as there have been in the past, thanks George!) but they are essentially nothing but emissaries and servitors created in the image of the real thing.
Regardless of big D or little d, dragons almost universally resent humanity for usurping the balance of power in the world.
Yeah DP said earlier that Molly was pretty sure she could tank hits from an Angel of Death for some time which you said didn't make sense so I don't think you have as good an understanding on this as you think you do. My opinion.
Yeah it doesn't particularly make sense his daughter and Lugh's (Head god of the Gaelic Pantheon) mother has no reason not to possess his eye the second he is killed by Lugh or some significant period of time after that there's no reason for it to have gone to space and come back.
If she hasn't had the eye of Baylor the whole time I would be particularly surprised as there's no reason why it would ever leave her presence her son slew her father and she kept her father's magic eyeball that can disintegrate terrain features. There is literally no reason for it to have ever left the Earth's atmosphere or come back as a meteor.
