Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

That seems wrong.

I really doubt you can stack the effects for instant damage like that.
The effect is not stacked. The effect is "become my slave for a time", where the time is determined by the number of successes. Each command resisted inflicts separate damage, and shortens the remaining time one remains oir slave. It's not an arbitrary amount of damage. And it's a 3 dot charm.
 
[X] [Marcone] Don't inform Marcone, but go to Rodney/others in the network and use him as a focus to find out which other holy relics he's aware of.
[X] [Winter] Table the matter for now, but look into tracking down Dr Speer and using that as cover for your knowledge
 
The effect is not stacked. The effect is "become my slave for a time", where the time is determined by the number of successes. Each command resisted inflicts separate damage, and shortens the remaining time one remains oir slave. It's not an arbitrary amount of damage. And it's a 3 dot charm.
It is an arbitrary amount of damage and spam commands that would either leave them defenceless or kill them by resisting.

Though I guess it wouldn't be that bad for a Naagloshii. Mental defences can work by raising the DC of mental powers used against you, so he can seriously cripple our success-amounts by using Mind-based magic.

But I still don't think it should work that way, paying 1 unsoakable damage to resist the effect for a scene is already a high price for non-regrnerating enemies.
 
The effect is not stacked. The effect is "become my slave for a time", where the time is determined by the number of successes. Each command resisted inflicts separate damage, and shortens the remaining time one remains oir slave. It's not an arbitrary amount of damage. And it's a 3 dot charm.

A clever enemy enemy could make themselves unable to hear your commands and then only take one damage from not taking off the protection
 
It is an arbitrary amount of damage and spam commands that would either leave them defenceless or kill them by resisting.

Though I guess it wouldn't be that bad for a Naagloshii. Mental defences can work by raising the DC of mental powers used against you, so he can seriously cripple our success-amounts by using Mind-based magic.

But I still don't think it should work that way, paying 1 unsoakable damage to resist the effect for a scene is already a high price for non-regrnerating enemies.
Well, it's a 3 dot charm. It shouldn't be easy to escape. And it's not like it can raise the difficulty beyond 9.
A clever enemy enemy could make themselves unable to hear your commands and then only take one damage from not taking off the protection
Coupled with Seeing is Blindness it would leave Naagloshii blind and deaf, likely resulting in +3 difficulty adjustment, if not more.

[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)
-[X] Get Marcone to arrange you a meeting with Rodney, so you can use him as a focus to find more holy relics
-[X] Argue that a known spy is more useful than a dead one, so he shouldn't be killed, but flipped.

Pragmatically, Marcone is a much lesser evil.

[X] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Licor to Mab


That we have some divination is probably already known and can't be hidden realistically. Finding who shot a bullet from a given place is a matter of postcognition, and shouldn't be an OCP.

And, as much as I dislike it, Mab isn't our enemy. Shouldn't be. Getting her favor is a good thing.
 
Also there is nothing that says a wizard or other magical being cannot dispel ongoing effects of charms. It would be harder than comparable mortal magic, but the Skinwalker is not mortal.
 
Pragmatically, Marcone is a much lesser evil.
Not that lesser of an evil, I think. Especially if Molly can deal with Rodney herself then said lesser evil is completely unnecessary.

I do agree with you on Mab though. We need to build up Molly's rep with Mab.

[X] [Marcone] Don't inform Marcone, but go to Rodney/others in the network and use him as a focus to find out which other holy relics he's aware of.
[X] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Licor to Mab
 
As I've argued several times before, we should tolerate Marcone's continued existence not because he is a good man, but because he is a bad man who is extremely good at his job, and his job keeps a significant amount of crime in Chicago operating under a set of hard rules that prevents a lot of violence and victimization.

Rodney does not get that same consideration; he's both a degenerate gambler who has made himself a tool of truly evil people in order to feed his addiction and someone placed highly enough in Marcone's organization to feed intel to other, worse organizations. Rodney is not only compromised, but he is now an asset to be used against Marcone and anyone who is part of Marcone's organization. How difficult would it be for his debtors, whoever owns that debt now, to blackmail him into doing more than slipping them some information? They've got a great threat to use, after all. One phone call to Marcone and Rodney is a dead man.

As for sharing the information about Lictor with Mab, why not? We gain no advantage by withholding the knowledge, but by allowing it to remain hidden we may directly or indirectly harm or hinder ourselves or our allies.

Also, DP spelled Lictor's name wrong in the vote option at the end of the chapter. Might want to stick a T in there before you vote for that option.

[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)

[X] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Lictor to Mab
 
Acting as an accessory to murdering Rodney is a massive waste, as he's much more useful as a lead to extract information from. It's also pretty pointlessly evil.

Having Mab kill Lictor is the same but much, much worse. The fact that something (OOC: Nemesis) twisted Lictor is very interesting information to gain IC. Having Mab kill our only known lead is, once again, just incredibly short sighted. We are uniquely capable of following up on this, so we should do, as even IC we know that this is something very unusual and something we want to know about.

We should go after Speer to investigate further, and pull that thread to get to Lictor, and from then to whatever is pulling their strings.
 
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[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)

[x] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Licor to Mab
 
For the spy - if we are telling Marcone, we should ask to meet the guy. We can flip him, and even if we can't, we should use him as a focus.
 
For the spy - if we are telling Marcone, we should ask to meet the guy. We can flip him, and even if we can't, we should use him as a focus.

Why would Marcone let us flip him? Why would we want Marcone to know we flipped him?

Also, what do we gain from committing a mortal sin and destroying a potential asset in the process.

We owe nothing to Marcone. Us telling Marcone we know of a leak in his organisation will not endear us to him, just make it clear how much of a threat we are to him and it.

We are much better off flipping him ourself. He'd make a great candidate to be a fomor/bakemono.
 
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As for sharing the information about Lictor with Mab, why not?
The only addendum I'd have here is to see if we can get paid for it. Fey favors are sort of dangerous, but we not such great friends with them as to give them stuff for free.

Acting as an accessory to murdering Rodney is a massive waste, as he's much more useful as a lead to extract information from. It's also pretty pointlessly evil.

Having Mab kill Lictor is the same but much, much worse. The fact that something (OOC: Nemesis) twisted Lictor is very interesting information to gain IC. Having Mab kill our only known lead is, once again, just incredibly short sighted. We are uniquely capable of following up on this, so we should do, as even IC we know that this is something very unusual and something we want to know about.

We should go after Speer to investigate further, and pull that thread to get to Lictor, and from then to whatever is pulling their strings.
Neither of those groups are exactly stupid; if a point is made about potential utility they'll probably go for it.

Mab would probably do that anyway, though Lictor would probably prefer dying to her mercy.

The argument for Marcone should even be straightforward; if you kill a spy your enemies will find another, but if they don't know you're on to them you can feed bad information back to them.

On an investigative level I don't buy their value though. With the crown and access to their possessions we have plenty of focuses for the crown.

Ethically I don't think this makes much of a blip. Lictor is a redcap infected with nemesis; he's basically a rabid animal in terms of the risk he poses to everyone around him and the time it's take for us to develop the ability to save him is time he's spending spreading the infection and working against reality as a whole. Even ignoring that, curing him just means returning a sadistic serial killer to old form. Maybe he's a serial killer answerable to reality's security system, but my heart isn't exactly bleeding for him.

Rodney isn't in Lictor's league, but he's still a grown adult who's made his choices and put himself on a timer even without our involvement.

I'd rather not go out of our way to kill him, but he's feeding truly awful people information they're using to strengthen themselves. I don't think we can stop that and save his life long term given who he works for.
 
[X] Goldfish

Pretty straightforward, they either die or become useful in hunting after the men that used them.
No matter what, it's out of our hands and solved.
 
The only addendum I'd have here is to see if we can get paid for it. Fey favors are sort of dangerous, but we not such great friends with them as to give them stuff for free.


Neither of those groups are exactly stupid; if a point is made about potential utility they'll probably go for it.

Mab would probably do that anyway, though Lictor would probably prefer dying to her mercy.

The argument for Marcone should even be straightforward; if you kill a spy your enemies will find another, but if they don't know you're on to them you can feed bad information back to them.

On an investigative level I don't buy their value though. With the crown and access to their possessions we have plenty of focuses for the crown.

Ethically I don't think this makes much of a blip. Lictor is a redcap infected with nemesis; he's basically a rabid animal in terms of the risk he poses to everyone around him and the time it's take for us to develop the ability to save him is time he's spending spreading the infection and working against reality as a whole. Even ignoring that, curing him just means returning a sadistic serial killer to old form. Maybe he's a serial killer answerable to reality's security system, but my heart isn't exactly bleeding for him.

Rodney isn't in Lictor's league, but he's still a grown adult who's made his choices and put himself on a timer even without our involvement.

I'd rather not go out of our way to kill him, but he's feeding truly awful people information they're using to strengthen themselves. I don't think we can stop that and save his life long term given who he works for.

We can't justify why we need access to them without revealing the Crown. There is no utility for us doing so otherwise.

We can't get access to, for example, Lictor's possessions without doing our own independent hunt for him, and if we sell him to Mab she'll have them destroyed as objects can act as vectors for Nemesis possession. Sure, we'll kill him afterwards, but it's much better for us to track him down, investigate to suck out all his secrets, and then kill him, rather than for Mab to.

Ethically, we're killing Rodney as surely as if we tortured him to death ourselves if we sell him to Marcone. And short term we can give him a scare, and then medium term when we have the right charms we can make him our minion, and incidentally fix his gambling addication in the process.

Both are potentially valuable assets that you want to burn for nothing, risking a critical secret of Molly's in the process. It's all loss, no gain.
 
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[X] [Marcone] Don't inform Marcone, but go to Rodney/others in the network and use him as a focus to find out which other holy relics he's aware of.
-[X] Use Intimidation and other appropriate excellencies to flip Rodney into being our spy
[x] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Lictor to Mab
 
[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)

[X] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Lictor to Mab


Changed my mind.
 
A name, a title floats to the surface of your mind spoken with scorn in Gorfel's own remembered voice: Lictor but with that comes a glimpse just as fleeting of a pale man, black suit, white shirt, the only spot of color on him his crimson tie like a slash across his chest. A glimpse is all Usum needs, he had seen that shade of red before, bound in the halls of Arctis Tor, a Redcap's bloody mark, though to wear it upon the neck and not the head meas this one had been warped in some way the demon explains. The deathless fey are not easy to warp.

One more question then: "What was the chain of command involved in the shooting of this bullet at us and Gorfel outside Harry's apartment"

Rather than a list of names you get just one, again familiar: Dr. Hans Ulrich Speer, the one your power had marked Bone Digger and Stone Breaker. The fact that he had given the order himself with no links in the chain between himself and the Recap assassin makes you suspect the snippet had always been meant to kill Gorfel, perhaps to claim the bones or out of some wider rivalry within the Thule Society.
Two things to note upon this:

Firstly, let's not instantly assume Nemesis. We have seen with Katrinn that people can warp their own nature without the need for He Who Walks Besides and that necromancy and bloodmagic is a valid tool to do so.
Kemmler discovered the exceptions to more than one or two rules, it seems. There's a reason why people still hate and/or admire the man, decades after his final death.

Secondly, it's funny that Gorfel sold Lictor as one of the "new men" to his goons. Even though it might be factually correct, assuming Lictor joined the Nazi-occultists post WW2, we can still assume that Lictor as a Fey is vastly older than some above-average Warlock like Gorfel.
 
We can't justify why we need access to them without revealing the Crown. There is no utility for us doing so otherwise.

We can't get access to, for example, Lictor's possessions without doing our own independent hunt for him, and if we sell him to Mab she'll have them destroyed as objects can act as vectors for Nemesis possession. Sure, we'll kill him afterwards, but it's much better for us to track him down, investigate to suck out all his secrets, and then kill him, rather than for Mab to.

Ethically, we're killing Rodney as surely as if we tortured him to death ourselves if we sell him to Marcone. And short term we can give him a scare, and then medium term when we have the right charms we can make him our minion, and incidentally fix his gambling addication in the process.

Both are potentially valuable assets that you want to burn for nothing, risking a critical secret of Molly's in the process.
Other varieties of divination exist, as does mundane investigation.

You're not exactly wrong on Lictor, but I think that the correct decision depends on if we prioritize stopping him or following his leads.

We can and should do both, but we have to choose which one takes precedence and that will make the other harder for us. We also don't have infinite time to work with here. Letting the fey police their own in the initial sweep and then following what we can get from his coworkers and our existing knowledge would immediately disrupt his current activities and still leave us a way to offset the lost foci, so I'm leaning toward that approach.

As to Rodney; I can see where you're coming from, though I don't precisely agree with the conclusions. I'm struggling with this one because I see saving him as taking on a lot of risk for little reward on behalf of a man who made this situation for himself.

Ethically I personally am not too broken up about being responsible for what happens to him. Rodney made his choices for selfish reasons, and if he changed his behavior it would be to keep himself alive and not because he suddenly cared about the consequences of his actions for other people.

Practically, I don't think he represents much value to us and does represent a lot of risk. He's not a CoD, and I doubt we can just wave away his gambling problem without consequences with our current abilities*. He isn't trustworthy and his value to us is mostly related to the investigation. If we cant use him to feed bad data to his backers then he's just as valuable dead as alive.

I'm also concerned about sparking something we aren't ready for with Marcone. Sure we're an exalt, but he's not a pushover and he's very entrenched. Eventually we can handle that, but certainly not right now.

There's also the consequences of victory if we do win. Marcone is like the city's gut microbes; he keeps worse stuff from moving into his niche and the chaos to a minimum.

The fact that he has standards doesn't justify what he does, and I'm not saying we should cost up to him as a necessary evil. It does mean some care is warranted.

Personally I want Molly to displace him and take over as underlord of the city, but I don't want to try, or imply we're thinking about it, until we can take a real shot at winning.

Ideally I'd like to live up to this meme for our long term plots:


So for all those reasons it doesn't really seem worth it to me to actually play games to save Rodney from himself.

However, the more I think about this the less certain I am Molly would measure lives like that.

* I have other character issues with this, but I don't want to make this post even longer than it already is.
 
[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)

[X] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Lictor to Mab
 
Other varieties of divination exist, as does mundane investigation.

You're not exactly wrong on Lictor, but I think that the correct decision depends on if we prioritize stopping him or following his leads.

We can and should do both, but we have to choose which one takes precedence and that will make the other harder for us. We also don't have infinite time to work with here. Letting the fey police their own in the initial sweep and then following what we can get from his coworkers and our existing knowledge would immediately disrupt his current activities and still leave us a way to offset the lost foci, so I'm leaning toward that approach.

As to Rodney; I can see where you're coming from, though I don't precisely agree with the conclusions. I'm struggling with this one because I see saving him as taking on a lot of risk for little reward on behalf of a man who made this situation for himself.

Ethically I personally am not too broken up about being responsible for what happens to him. Rodney made his choices for selfish reasons, and if he changed his behavior it would be to keep himself alive and not because he suddenly cared about the consequences of his actions for other people.

Practically, I don't think he represents much value to us and does represent a lot of risk. He's not a CoD, and I doubt we can just wave away his gambling problem without consequences with our current abilities*. He isn't trustworthy and his value to us is mostly related to the investigation. If we cant use him to feed bad data to his backers then he's just as valuable dead as alive.

I'm also concerned about sparking something we aren't ready for with Marcone. Sure we're an exalt, but he's not a pushover and he's very entrenched. Eventually we can handle that, but certainly not right now.

There's also the consequences of victory if we do win. Marcone is like the city's gut microbes; he keeps worse stuff from moving into his niche and the chaos to a minimum.

The fact that he has standards doesn't justify what he does, and I'm not saying we should cost up to him as a necessary evil. It does mean some care is warranted.

Personally I want Molly to displace him and take over as underlord of the city, but I don't want to try, or imply we're thinking about it, until we can take a real shot at winning.

Ideally I'd like to live up to this meme for our long term plots:


So for all those reasons it doesn't really seem worth it to me to actually play games to save Rodney from himself.

However, the more I think about this the less certain I am Molly would measure lives like that.

* I have other character issues with this, but I don't want to make this post even longer than it already is.

On Lictor, we have no evidence that there's any urgency whatsoever to stopping him. Sure, it's better not to have a Nemesis infected Redcap sniper running around, but he doesn't seem that seriously dangerous, and the value of catching him is enormous, as it allows us to break open s lot of things.

Saving Rodney requires no effort whatsoever in the short term. All it takes is us not taking active steps to kill him, as he's not in active danger from anything save Molly at the moment as far as we're aware. Long term, we'll be picking up the kind of charms required to make him a minion and so save him anyway.

Long term Marcone is unnecessary. We don't need a crime lord using superantural agents and objects to keep the city safe. We do need some authority with supernatural backing, but a City Government and Police department with Molly as the power behind the scenes* would be vastly more effective. Marcone's only useful if you've already given up.

Fundamentally, handing these assets over is fundamentally both the lazy and unambitious option and the more risky option. It gains Molly nothing and incurs a pointless risk of revealing her abilities.

* We're about three charms away from being able to pretty easily take over the Chicago government, at which point they can hammer Marcone flat and destroy the nice he currently operates in. A supernaturally empowered Chicago Police department backed by the Crown of Eyes would shatter organised crime, whether mundane or supernatural, and act as just as nasty a deterrent to unorganised crime. It's not as if as an institution they've had any hesitation about adopting 'extra-legal' forms of crime/public disorder fighting, and a SWAT team of fomor with Molly made weapons could take out most supernatural enemies.
 
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[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)

[X] [Winter] Ask Harry if he knows any way to get the information about Lictor to Mab
 
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