Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
[X] Ask to speak to one of the parties individually
-[X] Ragnhildur
-[X] Ragnhildur
My read is that we need to make a move now before the current direction gains even more momentum.
Perhaps not full disclosure, but certainly verifying that they know how important the dragon's prize is and why it's bothered to keep it. If they don't know that's our in, if they do then depending on the details we either need to sell them the rest of the information while it has value or dip out and beat them to the punch.
That would probably cost us the ability to recruit dragon bloods and piss off Odin though, so we really need to make this work here and now.
We could, in principle, also try to bargain for contact with Arthurian knights. They are not ours, but we could rope Lydia in.
The Arthurian knights aren't anyone's but their own, and the value of that isn't terribly high on the scale we're working with. Certainly something to keep in mind, but not inherently a game changer.
A good part of this comes down to what we want to get out of the immediate situation. For a variety of reasons swearing themselves to our service is not impossible but is somewhat unlikely*. Drawing them into our sphere of influence until they effectively do so is much more practical given the state of the board.
To achieve that goal what we need is to break them away from helping Odin poke their dragon grandparent and instead agree to purchase assistance with their problems from us.
What we get in payment for that is quite nearly secondary; the value is in getting them to do business with us and stop doing it with a competitor about to take home the grand prize. If we can get them to do that we can get them to walk the left hand path one step at a time until they find themselves at the gates of (our) hell.
* Obviously if it looks like we can just tie them to our faction we should do that, but trying that sort of thing overtly tends to be counterproductive. You need a very good hook, and preferably a monopoly of some kind, Tom make it work most of the time.
I want:
1) A stake in the local population's rebuilding. Invest money, rebuild their factory cathedral (important note - there are almost certainly at minimum two things we'll need to build - one at the Dragon Nest for the dragon, and one at their town's dragon nest. Possibly 3 (container for exaltation, Dragon Nest power transmitter / amplifier, Dragon Nest power receiver). Odin can't afford those in total. He can afford one of those)
2) Ideally I also want the lunar shard.
We almost certainly can get to invest into the locals (and recruits as consequence). The lunar shard is trickier. And then long-term we outbid Odin. We have more resources to throw at them. Far more.
Vote closed
Arc 15 Post 17: By Thinning Breath
New
By Thinning Breath
26st of February 2007 A.D.
"I'm like to speak to the lady alone please." Part of you still cringes a little at being this blunt, but part of diplomacy isn't just knowing when to be polite and how much, it's when to part the veil of courtesy and feel what's on the other side. Do the dragon's kin answer to Monoc now or are they their own player in the game? Is the deal done other than the hand off or are they still fishing for a better one? The answer as it turns out is hopeful, the valkyrie departs, bearing the same expression she did when she came into the pool, only her hair now wet from the steam and water changed color, closer now to the color of blood.
"Yes?" Ragnhildur asks once you are alone, intrigued you'd judge but cautious.
"Do you know what Donnar seeks at the bottom of the sea, the nature of the thing that tumbled to earth in A.D. 536?" You let the year 'slip' as a sign of what else you might know.
"A weapon, what else is the Lord of the Frenzied to seek as the age turns again? He has passed through the famine and now seeks again to be lord of the feasthall." The air shimmers with hear shadow before her face and her words catch an echo of the furnace's roar. "How did the poet put it? 'I have lived with shades so long,/And talked to them so oft,/Since forth from cot and croft/I went mankind among,/That sometimes they/In their dim style/Will pause awhile/To hear my say.' I know not from whence we came, but I know where we did not come from, no wizard's conjuring, nor angel's whim, we fit this world even less than the Wanderer does, less that the faerie kin who must fear iron like the plague, less than the wizards who set their will against the pillars of existence. We should be dead or truer still have never been born. They know it too, the dead that are not dead, they rattle at our windows in the dark hours of winter, they fill our dreams with memories of ancient wonder that we should weep in morning's light when we open our eyes to a world made less, to fires that are hollow and victories that are dust. Why do you think I hunted the Black Court when I was young? To make them silent, to make them stop."
Kristin looks on in awe and something like dread as her grandmother weaves a tale of old woes and half understood legacy.
"Year after year I look into the eyes of my grandchildren and hope that one of them is destined to kindle the old fire even as I dread it. The world is thin, the young gasp for breath as the man from the plains on the summit of a great mountain. But a mountain has two sides does it not? Wotan seeks a weapon for Ragnarock comes. Let him have his weapon, let the world be turned that dragons might spread their wings."
The reallization of what it is to be wield essence by heritage rather than come upon it through transfiguration of the soul hits you like a freight train. Why didn't Harry know these peole were here? Why did even Porter have only distant memories of those born who came before? Because with all the sacrifices of their kindred and all the artifice their cunning could conjure they can barely cling on, strangers born to a world that wants them dead.
What do you offer the Dragonblooded?
[] Your geomantic expertise to improve the Dragon Nest you are now in
[] A chance to rest in Sanctuary
[] Write in
OOC: Dragonblooded excelencies are not as powerful as Celestial ones, but as befits a leader she is specialized in this and she rolled very well, hence Molly being very moved. On the other hand as part of making this pitch Ragnhildur did have to reveal quite a bit.
[X] Your geomantic expertise to improve the Dragon Nest you are now in
I can't really see anything wrong with this. Plus making the world that more hospitable for them inherently makes the world more hospitable for us because we are also chosen. Along with giving them more options in general.
I can't really see anything wrong with this. Plus making the world that more hospitable for them inherently makes the world more hospitable for us because we are also chosen. Along with giving them more options in general.
[X] Your geomantic expertise to improve the Dragon Nest you are now in
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Once again, that single dot of politics being put to use when people told me earlier we'd delegate so didn't need it. Should definitely get more later. Being stunted on is weird. Not sure if I like it.
Hmm.. This is an interesting option. Should we offer both?
This is neat, but the most important card is one that's yet to be played. She doesn't seem aware of the fact that without the weapon held by the dragon the line of terrestrial exaltation will almost certainly die out.
Unless this was meant to imply that she's banking on the world breaking quickly enough that they have a chance of meeting it.
Unless this was meant to imply that she's banking on the world breaking quickly enough that they have a chance of meeting it.
Molly isn't sure but it could certainly be taken that way, from the way she is talking about the changing of the world it is meant to happen soon.
If Molly's not certain than I think it's worth mentioning it explicitly then.
Also, I want to ask about the ambient essence levels of the FCF for lack of a better term. We get more juice in there and Lydia described it as being more lively than something that physical should be.
Do we have any reason to believe the air is thicker in a way that matters to them, to borrow their metaphor?
@DragonParadox does Molly know that the thing in Dragon's belly is an exaltation? We did use a crown question on it, and observed the dragon
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No, all you know is on the page from the talks with the fey to the questions asked. Basically you got an answer about what it's doing but not its fundamental nature.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Wait, we asked what is it that Odin is after and the Crown told us what it does instead? Why?
Suggestions:
1) Remove BMI, flare anima. Address her as one bearer of ancient power to another. As one Exalt addresses another.
2) Play the "it's powering your bloodline" card
3) Adress the "Ragnarok comes". SCCM, possibly with occult excellency to explain that the Wheel is Turning, and jt might well be because of you. You would see dragons rise again.
1) Remove BMI, flare anima. Address her as one bearer of ancient power to another. As one Exalt addresses another.
2) Play the "it's powering your bloodline" card
3) Adress the "Ragnarok comes". SCCM, possibly with occult excellency to explain that the Wheel is Turning, and jt might well be because of you. You would see dragons rise again.
Because it did tell you what it is, at the moment, a source of essence for the Dragon's Nest over here. You could have asked a more specific question about Exaltations, but that would have risked a nil answer if you guessed wrong.
Ivar
Dark Reaper
- Location
- Russia Moscow
I would also say that it is not a fact that Ragnarok will necessarily end the world and if one takes the artifact without doing anything in return, the new dragonbloods may not see the next turn of the wheel like many other species that did not emerge into the new age.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
I feel that's an odd way for the Crown to answer that question. That's what it's being used for at the moment, that doesn't alter what it fundamentally is. This is like partially answering the question but not really even. Now I'm thinking it isn't an Exaltation at all.