fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)
[X]Yog
[X]Yog
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
So, another reason to try and get the information to Mab (besides getting a bit of favor from her) would be to get another focus related to her. If Dresden summons her to give the information, a circle he uses, or a cup with tea she drinks or a mirror that reflects her image would probably work as foci.
I can honestly say that this wasn't a consideration when I was picking it up.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
It's Dresden that would be getting the favor. Also we need to convince him to actually leverage that right.
Well, yes. Assuming we fully keep our involvement from Mab (in order to hide our divination capabilities for some more time), it'll only be Dresden that gets the favor. The point about additional foci stands though.
The vote on Marcone is really close so I'll leave this up until tomorrow
Good night guys, see you tomorrow with fey politics, blackmail and other dark arts.
Good night guys, see you tomorrow with fey politics, blackmail and other dark arts.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[X] [Marcone] Tell him about the spy in his organization (Gain favor with Marcone; the spy is likely executed)
Obviously.
1)Its a semi-divine spirit. I guarantee that it can see and sense gamma just fine
2)The key to killing a naag without a shaman of the Blessing Way appears to just be gratuitous overkill.
Chemicals work too slow. Biological damage is not even on the same timescale. Physical and magic damage can work if applied hard and fast enough, but naags as hellaciously tough, and regenerate in combat time.
They've been around for thousands of years, and have a history of accepting the fealty of immigrants and exiles from other pantheons. They trade for stuff. Santa Claus allegedly has the best intelligence service in the world.
Winter got the deep lore. Bet on it.
Winter has no reason to proliferate Infernal/Yomi Wan lore among mortals.
They have Sidhe agents for that sort of thing.
With the added bonus that Sidhe will not go mad from seeing stuff that mortals were Not Meant To Know.
Because here's the thing: Winter knows a fuckton of stuff. But information, knowledge is valuable.
They have no reason to just give it away for free, and indeed are apparently constrained by the nature of the Court to trading for stuff; most of the time if they give you stuff, they apparently have to receive stuff of equivalent value in exchange.
Dont assume that their silence necessarily means ignorance.
Even in canon WoD, Yomi Wan only saw a small fraction of the dead from the East. Most went elsewhere. And in the Dresdenverse, the White God doubled down on that. Whatever afterlife she's bound for, Yomi Wan does not have jurisdiction there.
Else we would have seen a lot more former Archives in the five thousand years that the Archive has been recorded to exist.
Assuming forty years per generation, you'd have around 130 dead Archives for the Yomi Kings to offer deals to.
Even a 20% conversion rate would give you almost 30 people.
30x former Archives, with the memories of their life as Archives, is a lot of power slinging around.
It is entirely relevant here, because it demonstrates the physical limits of the form factor.
The supernatural assuming its form is not limited to purely mortal limits for moving its form, so it can push the same shape to the physically possible limits and stay there.
For example, If I saw a naag assume a cheetah form, I would assume that it can maintain top cheetah speed for a fuckton longer than the thirty seconds or less that a real cheetah can sprint.
Because it does not share the limits of the actual cat.
We see this when the naag assumes the form of a hawk with a four meter long wingspan at its first fight with Dresden.
Cant see it happen.
The Archive has been around for five thousand years, and was created in more routinely violent times than the 20th century. Disease, war, crime, and not to mention that the Old Ones had a lot more agents running around....I find it hard to believe that anyone who coded the original Archive wouldnt have explicitly coded for the possibility of the current holder dying without heirs.
Fully expect that an Archive dying without an heir would probably just trigger something like a Ghost Story contingency where the soul is not allowed to move on, and the Archive rebuilds a body for the holder and stuffs them inside it.
If relative neophytes like the Corpsetaker and Dresden can literally instantiate physical bodies out of magic, willpower and ectoplasm, and you have living souls like Sir Stuart linger for centuries?
A Power like the Archive is going to be capable of appalling things to keep its host alive.
Besides, you'd be sure that the master of a Hell would be gunning for an Archive as soon as they show in their jurisdiction.
Consider everything they must have in their head, the skills acquired in a life acting as the conduit and sole agent of the most powerful mortal Principality around.
Or the value as a bargaining chip against its successor, who would be a daughter, a grand daughter or other descendant.
Sure she could.
So have some Fae(all five Winter Ladies we see in canon were once human), but they dont go to Yomi Wan when they die either. Whatever her fate and the fate of the part-human Powers we see, it does not lie in the hands of the Yomi Kings.
Nemesis is bad news, letting it run around when we have an easy way to stop it is a bad plan. Ultimately we have other routes to trace it by, and this one cuts out the infection now.
Rodney is an active danger to other people since he's empowering neo nazi sorcerers. Not as big a threat, but leaving him out on the line isn't free. I don't like the charm argument either. Firstly because we have no idea when we'll have the budget for that and secondly because the options for this sort of thing available to an infernal are all mind control.
Sure Molly isn't a mortal wizard any more, but for the many reason covered in this thread already that is an area she shouldn't touch. I'd rather take an objectively less ethical route than touch that particular live wire again.
In terms of future planning I agree Marcone isn't necessary, but the key phrase to that it "long term". He's needed for the moment and we can't replace him yet. Timing matters, and will eventually is not the same as can now.
Handing them over isn't lazy and unambitious, it's practical and helpful for continuing to build in the background.
If/when we off Marcone and take all his stuff I don't want a knife fight, I want him to bleed out wondering what the hell happened.
As to the rest; I don't think taking over the city government will be that easy. Chicago has a lot of powers operating in it, if we want control we'll be fighting with them instead of rolling over the mortals alone. Probably still possible, but it isn't a given.
I'm also not super excited about such a public and consistent use of the crown. That's more likely to expose us than using it to follow up on a few investigations like we would be here.
- Location
- Germany
Propably not, at least for the non-eastern ones. Butcher has pretty much focussed on the western world for the most part and the Winter and Summer Courts are part of that, they belong to the WG more than any asian afterlife.
But the combination of having close knowledge of Yomi-Wan and it being an afterlife that you are absolutly guaranteed to have a chance of escaping from (it's not a good chance, but no Yomi hell can be inescapable, by definition) I could see the Archive going for it.
Keep in mind she is still a person, not just a bearer of vast knowledge and responsibility.
Dying and rising to the Second Breath would be a chance for her to live a life of her own, without having to be the Archive anymore, just as one example of possible motivations.
There's also an admittedly very low chance that if she died against an Infernal or greater Akuma she might end up in Yomi Wan regardless what her "normal" post morten fate would have been. Having a plan to escape hell is always good to have while there are people around who can send you to hell. It's unlikely to happen, but you can keep it in the back of your mind just like you would keep inherited silver around in case of the wrong kind of werewolves every showing up.
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I think in the case of an Archive dying without direct heirs it would just jump laterally. We know Ivy was an only child and likely her mother was one as well, but there is no guarantee her grandmother was. In fact considering historical trends it would be rather odd if they all were only daughters birthing only daughters. There are probably millions of people the Archive could jump to though probably with some kind of cost (loss of information is the first that jumps to mind). I do not think it would attempt to pull a Ghost Story because for that to work the host has to want to come back and she very well might so now it's at a dead end linked to a dead soul, unable to fulfill it's purpose
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Given the example of Dresden hitting the Nagg with a force bolt strong enough to tip over a car only disrupted it's vale for a few seconds I think that we can consider the Nagg effectively immune to bashing damage.
Dresden's force bolts are fairly obviously bashing damage given the lack of sharp edges. Also it just makes sense that he tends towards bashing damage when he is usually trying to avoid breaking the first law.
Dresden's force bolts are fairly obviously bashing damage given the lack of sharp edges. Also it just makes sense that he tends towards bashing damage when he is usually trying to avoid breaking the first law.
Being fair, some of what we have probably covers information that isn't known unless you're in the thousand hells performing a cross between archeology and high energy particle physics. The parts related strictly to the deep and old secrets could still be novel, or different enough in perspective to be worth adding to a library.
There's also the matter of how winter is organized. It's a proper nation state with very cut throat politics; I doubt that everyone has access to every bit of lore.
Trading to winter as a corporate entity probably wouldn't get us a good deal, but if we were serious about it finding a medium to large fish in their organization looking for an edge and trade with them directly could increase our purchasing power. If we're comfortable helping what'd probably be a bloodthirsty and ambitious fey screw around with the hells to advance their own standing that is.
Does it actually matter what afterlife she's going to? If the archive kept the knowledge they'd probably be hell on wheels anywhere magic is possible, but they don't. They don't even really keep their minds if I recall correctly.
The archive is compelled to produce an heir, and then at some point the pseudo mantle rips itself out of the holder and grafts to the new kid. Don't recall if it's at birth or a few years after, but the result is that the former host is basically a vegetable due to spiritual damage.
Since having the archive accelerates the mental development of the bearer my suspicion is that it's so intertwined with how their minds function from day one that they can't function after it leaves. Something that may have been intentional, specifically to stop the scenario you outline.
By the time Ivy actually dies in body her Po soul will probably have been a glorified pile of giblets for years.
Edit:
I'm still looking for a source on this, but I think that this was covered when she was introduced. The archive as a distinct entity is set up to compel certain behaviors from its hosts. They all have exactly one daughter and then die because they don't have the ability to choose differently any more than a fey does.
Here's a WoJ that goes into some interesting stuff on this:
CiteI'm pretty sure this will never make it into the actual Dresden Files, since Harry has no idea the Oblivion War is happening, along with everyone else. So I'll share it here.
The Archive was constructed /for/ the Oblivion War. Specifically.
Yes, the Archive (and Ivy, the two aren't really divisible) know about these forgotten beings. The Archive is in essence the keeper of the dead, where they are concerned. Once the archive believes one of them has been consigned to oblivion, she holds on to the memory of that being briefly, for another thousand years or so, watching for any mention of that being in print in an effort to make sure that she is the /last/ person alive who remembers whichever hideous entity has been consigned.
And once the safety period has elapsed, and the Archive is confident that no one else remembers, she deletes the memory from the Archive. Bad guy, /gone/.
She also tries to keep track of the enemy players in the Oblivion War via watching for communications and so on. When she finds a trace of them, somewhere, she lets a cell of operatives (like Lara and Thomas) know what's up, through a blind drop, and sends them off to handle the problem.
The Oblivion War is a huge, /slow/ thing. Stuff happens every few decades, at most. That's why the Archive was created–to be an immortal awareness, something that could track and intelligently direct responses to the enemy in a war happening on an almost geological scale.
All that other stuff she says the Archive is for? Smoke and mirrors.
Kincaid, by the way, has no idea that the Oblivion War exists. It isn't like Ivy explains this stuff. She just gives orders.
It doesn't directly support the stuff I've been talking about, but it does heavily imply some things that would fit.
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COMMENTARY
-Yeah Rider.
You have to be in a BMW to get away with making her look like an asshole.
-Interesting. The fact that a Thule Society board member bothered to put at least one agent into Marcone's organization suggests he's under a more than middling interst. And while he is employing Gard, implying dealings with Odin, he isnt a Freeholding Lord yet. Thats a significant amount of effort to go to marginal reward.
- Im tempted to leave Rodney be and just watch him.
Call his phone and HMP it.
-That entire network of agents sounds like perfect training wheels for our Cyberdevils.
Tap their phones, hack their emails, monitor their financial data, get into any security cameras around their homes and workplaces
Just watch and gather information.
Might need a third dot of Cyberdevils though.
-The Redcap otoh is very aware of what he's doing.
No defense of ignorance here I can think of, and that sniper hide was prescouted, which suggests that Dresden was on the list of potential targets. We want to take him off the census.
But a warped Redcap? Reeks of Nemesis. Which is additional reason to get Mab to pay attention.
It also implies that the dude giving him orders, this Dr Speer, is also Nemesis-connected.
Hmm.
Of course, Molly doesnt currently know Nemesis is a thing.
-Lictor's ID would be a valuable trading chip with Mab.
While she isnt going to(or cant) regulate everything Winter gets up to? She does have philosophical and policy-level objections to necromancers, and someone in her Court consorting with one is probably worth addressing. Terminally.
And we have that meeting in October/November.
-The Redcap has to go.
Question is whether its immediate, or we trade it over during our meeting with Mab.
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
1)Can we explicitly bargain for the spy's life/wellbeing as a condition for turning his identity over to Marcone?
2)Does the Redcap have a local identity and residence?
Would the Crown have turned up any alternate IDs he was going under?
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- You can try, but that would cost an action
- Unfortuently you do not know, you asked who he was not where he lived or what his day job might be. Similarly unless a secondary name is part of his identity you would not get it, just like you did not get from Gorfel that Katrina went by Katrina Holt
As far as I know, this is completely unsupported by canon lore, and I want citations on this, or at least reasoning. Because no "it's a semi-divine being" doesn't give you a blank "it can sense everything" check. It makes no sense for it to be able to. It's not a spirit of radiation, born out of fear of nuclear annihilation. It's not a spirit of a nuclear plant, or an area polluted by nuclear blight. Hell, it's not even a vengeful ghost of a japanese citizen killed in nuclear fire, back from Yomi Wan to seek revenge on american devils.
It's a native american spirit. It makes no sense for it to be able to sense radiation.
It's a speedster, but a low level one. Combat times are seconds to minutes. Chlorine gas (because that's the simplest one I can find information on), is fully lethal within minutes at 1000 ppm, meaning when one in a million particles of air is chlorine. By reacting with water (and it's still mostly composed of water), it turns into chloric acid. Make several pressure bottles of chlorine gas, and break them when fighting it. At atmospheric pressure (or, god forbid above), it would corrode everything very quickly.
That look like a strong indicator, but if so it's a very fragile system, in that it is always one life (or as with the Denarians one soul) away from dissolution.
Based on the quote the actual role and function of the archive IC were established after the concept Butcher wanted for the character, do I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't thought out too well.
My inclination for an IC fail safe system would be to have to jump back to a home base somewhere rather than just grabbing someone. It does some pretty messed up stuff to it's bearers and forces itself on their bloodline, and more importantly takes away their ability to choose in a number of ways, which is pretty unusual for the setting given the focus on free will.
Sacrifice is a thing though. A ritual where someone sacrifices their body, mind, and soul to the archive along with that of all of their descendants would fit thematically with how the DF rolls with stuff like this.
That's just my opinion on it though; I don't have any sources giving a particular answer to how vulnerable the archive is to losing its host supply.
1)Costs an action.
Not immediately time critical, so we can just watch him for a month instead, I think.
Followup question:
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
2)Can we roll Dex+Craft to make a reconstruction of Lictor's appearance, either picture or sculpture? Like police identikit artists do? Then have the cyberdevils do a social media and database search of the face pic, while handing off the other to Dresden for his sources (ie the Za Guard, Bob, and oracular spirits) to look for?
1)Costs an action.
Not immediately time critical, so we can just watch him for a month instead, I think.
Followup question:
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
2)Can we roll Dex+Craft to make a reconstruction of Lictor's appearance, either picture or sculpture? Like police identikit artists do? Then have the cyberdevils do a social media and database search of the face pic, while handing off the other to Dresden for his sources (ie the Za Guard, Bob, and oracular spirits) to look for?
Yes, but it would be DC 9, 8 with BSM, you only got the barest glimpse of him
There are Nemesis infectees all over the place. Killing one makes basically no difference as far as I can tell, as it can just infect another victim to replace them. We have precisely zero other IC routes to track it down right now. Lictor is the only IC evidence of its existence we've ever seen. We're burning an incredibly valuable opportunity in return for no gain while also risking exposing the Crown of Eyes to Mab. Getting Mab to kill Lictor helps Nemesis, as it destroys the evidence of its activities. If Nemesis knew what we were and that we knew Lictor was infected, it would destroy Lictor itself. Taking the action that our enemy would want taken is not how you win.
Rodney isn't an active danger to anyone right now. He's not empowering Nazi sorcerers anymore, because they've already used up the useful knowledge he has.
Handing them over doesn't gain us anything. It just costs us potential assets and risks exposing the Crown to Mab,
As for Marcone, if we go after him, the best way is probably to empower the City government to arrest him and have him die resisting it.
And in terms of using the Crown to backup rule over Chicago, that's much easier to disguise as regular divination.
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Can someone explain essence levels to me? What can essence 1 do how much stronger is essence 2/3/4 and so on.