Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

And lastly, no wyldfae in the Northern hemisphere or elsewhere is going to risk drawing the hostile attention of the Queens of Faerie or the Erlking by trafficking with Yomi Wan.Especially not with a Yama King that has tried to go to war with Winter. Selling them chih-mei to be turned into akuma is basically selling weapons to a known enemy of Winter.
Fey cut deals with everyone from the Denarians to the Red Court when it suits them though. Not all deals are allowed, and trading new jades is probably the sort of business that gets you an audit if you make a mess, but not necessarily a total freeze on business outside of times of war.

My bet is that their financial interactions are probably still limited, for similar reasons to the hate between dnd devils and demons. Fey have to keep their word, and habitually hold to standards and guidelines to their behavior even -perhaps especially- when they're screwing you. Emma-O's big plan was to lie and attack us during what was passed off as a peaceful meeting.

They might see it as fair play on one level because safe passage was never specifically granted, but it's also crude and against their general sensibilities.

As for the Wan Kuei, at best they were Dragonblood equivalents. The naming thematics are even similar; the Ten Thousand was used a lot in association with Ex2 DBs. Which is a big deal, dont get me wrong, but if there were fucking Celestial power-levels running around the Wan Xian would not have primarily restricted themselves to keeping the Yama Kings out of reality.
That makes sense to me, I never bought them as celestial exalts in the first place, but I think my suggestion here still makes sense anyway.

The PoJ cursing reality with the problem it already had is just sanctioning the fall of the Wan Xian. Using the consequences of the Yama King's behavior to lock up the toys they tried to steal behind incredibly difficult conditions that implicitly place the prize beyond their reach is a decently clever trick.

Edit: errors
 
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The Wan Kuei do not consider Chih-Mei to be people yet, and semi-regularly destroy candidates that dont make the grade in boot camp. Furthermore, its canon that some older kueijin have been known to maintain illegal stables of chih-mei as basically fighting animals to gamble on.

Additionally, we've seen 17 lesser akuma in this scenario thanks to our cyberdevils, and to date they all look ethnically consistent with Asian descent; if they didnt, Molly or Lydia or Gard or Devsimar would have said something, just like when she was surprised at some Einherjar who were obviously not of Norse origin.

The one whose post-rising name we got was Japanese, even.

And lastly, no wyldfae in the Northern hemisphere or elsewhere is going to risk drawing the hostile attention of the Queens of Faerie or the Erlking by trafficking with Yomi Wan.Especially not with a Yama King that has tried to go to war with Winter. Selling them chih-mei to be turned into akuma is basically selling weapons to a known enemy of Winter.

Consequences are guaranteed.

Not to mention that chih-mei are/were human souls, and there are limits to what fae are allowed to do with mortals in the Dresdenverse. I suspect capturing them for sale to a hell is beyond the pale.
Else your unscrupulous wyldfae would already be selling vanilla mortals to Lucy's Hell.

We're at 2/12 Essence and either 8/9 or 9/9 Willpower.
With time being an issue, its probably a lot faster to project faces and names with Tool Constructs than to attempt drawing the portraits of 15-16 hostages and 4x mortal bakemono.

We certainly dont want an armed war party of some 30x people to be hanging around in parks after daylight in Chicago.

I assume that plotting the path to the prisoner cells will proc Essence recovery.
The exact site and the protective measures there should count as a secret.
Much the same with Cindy.

Besides, I expect we're assaulting in the next hour or so.

Sunrise: +5 Essence .
Crown use: -1 Essence for use, +2 Essence for secret discovery: +1 Essence net
RVD: 45 minutes in rush hour traffic(30 minutes normal, +15 minutes rush hour surcharge): +3 Essence

Net: +9

Probably.
I've mentioned buying a Spies(Ghosts) Background for Lydia before; with all the ghosts in town, its thematically appropriate for her, and will give her citywide coverage.

As for the Wan Kuei, at best they were Dragonblood equivalents. The naming thematics are even similar; the Ten Thousand was used a lot in association with Ex2 DBs. Which is a big deal, dont get me wrong, but if there were fucking Celestial power-levels running around the Wan Xian would not have primarily restricted themselves to keeping the Yama Kings out of reality.
given modern ones have a lot of modern opinions I assume? Though obviously that could vary here from canon. A lot of people in world darkness are understandably upset of going to an asian hell due to their ancestors in world of darkness and dealing with centuries and millennia old opinions. Given its almost definitely not the same here.
 
Fey cut deals with everyone from the Denarians to the Red Court when it suits them though. Not all deals are allowed, and trading new jades is probably the sort of business that gets you an audit if you make a mess, but not necessarily freeze business outside of times of war.

My bet is that their financial interactions are probably still limited, for similar reasons to the hate between dnd devils and demons. Fey have to keep their word, and habitually hold out to standards and guidelines to their behavior even -perhaps especially- when they're screwing you. Emma-O's big plan was to lie and attack us during what was passed off as a peaceful meeting.

They might see it as fair play on one level because safe passage was never specifically granted, but it's also crude and against their general sensibilities.
Some fae, when it suits them, and the other party is willing.
But this does not fit their preferred modus operandi at all. Fae like to hold on to their debts and call them in down the line.

I mean, its noteworthy that we see fae nobility, trade mortal debts between themselves but not with non-fae.

These involve the souls of mortals who are mentally incompetent and incapable of wielding free will; Chih Mei often need specialized rituals to regain sapience after their Second Breath.
I doubt fae are allowed to do that kind of business with them; the chih-mei have no business with the Fae Courts in the first place.

And frankly, if you're immortal sidhe, its potentially a lot more valuable to have said chih-mei grow and cash in on your debt down the line than sell them as is to a Yama King.

The trustworthiness thing also comes up, yeah.
No fae, to our knowledge, has canonically had any deals with the Denarians since the events of Small Favor.
Or with Hell as a corporate entity.

Kakuri's willingness to outright lie makes them an unreliable business partner anyway; you just know they'll default on a debt if it suits them unless the contract is airtight under the rules of Yomi Wan itself.
 
The Wan Kuei do not consider Chih-Mei to be people yet, and semi-regularly destroy candidates that dont make the grade in boot camp. Furthermore, its canon that some older kueijin have been known to maintain illegal stables of chih-mei as basically fighting animals to gamble on.

Additionally, we've seen 17 lesser akuma in this scenario thanks to our cyberdevils, and to date they all look ethnically consistent with Asian descent; if they didnt, Molly or Lydia or Gard or Devsimar would have said something, just like when she was surprised at some Einherjar who were obviously not of Norse origin.

The one whose post-rising name we got was Japanese, even.

And lastly, no wyldfae in the Northern hemisphere or elsewhere is going to risk drawing the hostile attention of the Queens of Faerie or the Erlking by trafficking with Yomi Wan.Especially not with a Yama King that has tried to go to war with Winter. Selling them chih-mei to be turned into akuma is basically selling weapons to a known enemy of Winter.

Consequences are guaranteed.

Not to mention that chih-mei are/were human souls, and there are limits to what fae are allowed to do with mortals in the Dresdenverse. I suspect capturing them for sale to a hell is beyond the pale.
Else your unscrupulous wyldfae would already be selling vanilla mortals to Lucy's Hell.

The Wildfae don't have to capture the Chih-Mei, just tip off a akuma contact who comes to capture them. That's why I talked about it being win-win.

Also, the akuma don't have to announce that they're akuma. They can just do deals with the Wildfae without mentioning it.

Also, the Wildfae don't give a single shit what the Courts want most of the time - see them brutally murdering the Summer Lady.

And the Yama Kings can reshape akuma pretty freely, and there are disciplines that can change others appearance m. If Emma-O wanted to disguise where he was getting his new minions from, it would be trivial.
 
Some fae, when it suits them, and the other party is willing.
But this does not fit their preferred modus operandi at all. Fae like to hold on to their debts and call them in down the line.

I mean, its noteworthy that we see fae nobility, trade mortal debts between themselves but not with non-fae.

These involve the souls of mortals who are mentally incompetent and incapable of wielding free will; Chih Mei often need specialized rituals to regain sapience after their Second Breath.
I doubt fae are allowed to do that kind of business with them; the chih-mei have no business with the Fae Courts in the first place.

And frankly, if you're immortal sidhe, its potentially a lot more valuable to have said chih-mei grow and cash in on your debt down the line than sell them as is to a Yama King.

The trustworthiness thing also comes up, yeah.
No fae, to our knowledge, has canonically had any deals with the Denarians since the events of Small Favor.
Or with Hell as a corporate entity.

Kakuri's willingness to outright lie makes them an unreliable business partner anyway; you just know they'll default on a debt if it suits them unless the contract is airtight under the rules of Yomi Wan itself.
I think you're giving the fey a little too much credit in terms of what they can and will do with mortals.

Say the right things around them and you'll hardly be able to tell the difference between what they do to you and a stay in the hells.


We don't see fey trade debts outside of themselves in canon, but that's at least partially because of who's involved. Harry is a special case, and most of the limited other examples we see involve them using mortals as toys. Not exactly a good snapshot of the fey debt market.

I agree on the general value proposition and trustworthiness of the thousand hells though, which would make it uncommon.

Fey make mistakes too though. I wouldn't expect it to be thriving, but I don't think it's impossible either.

It seems more likely to me that the hells have just gotten better at tracking escapees. It's also possible that they've started tilting the scales by facilitating the release of viable souls who they already know the bodily location of in the mortal world.

I strongly disagree with the idea that jades still count as mortals, as an aside. Their transformation is as complete as any changling's at least.
 
As for the Wan Kuei, at best they were Dragonblood equivalents. The naming thematics are even similar; the Ten Thousand was used a lot in association with Ex2 DBs. Which is a big deal, dont get me wrong, but if there were fucking Celestial power-levels running around the Wan Xian would not have primarily restricted themselves to keeping the Yama Kings out of reality.

1) the described feats of the Wan Xian are celestial tier. Elder Wan Xian did things are invade Yomi Wan solo and survive for centuries massacring demons and single handedly conquering Hells. A dragon blooded wouldn't have a hope of doing that. They're at least on the level of ExWoD celestials. Given that they're meant to have extinguished stars and used rivers as melee weapons, they may well have been significantly more powerful.

2) they did a lot more than keeping the Yama Kings out of reality. They fought (and had sex with) each other and other supernaturals a lot. That's why they were cursed.
 
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I'm watching a youtube thing of EvWoD and was wondering does anyone have a document or something for the game as I want to look at a charm whose abilities I don't completely understand?
Edit: with infernal stuff.
 
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1) the described feats of the Wan Xian are celestial tier. Elder Wan Xian did things are invade Yomi Wan solo and survive for centuries massacring demons and single handedly conquering Hells. A dragon blooded wouldn't have a hope of doing that. They're at least on the level of ExWoD celestials. Given that they're meant to have extinguished stars and used rivers as melee weapons, they may well have been significantly more powerful.

2) they did a lot more than keeping the Yama Kings out of reality. They fought (and had sex with) each other and other supernaturals a lot. That's why they were cursed.
1) That's effected by how strong the hells are, the fact tactics used, and the individual jades in question. Exceptions do exist after all. 10,000 celestial exalts is enough to fight 14 primordial wars at once with change left over to bully the gods with; the thousand hells are a lot of things but they aren't so strong as to need that just to keep in check.

The story presented by ExWoD is one of decline, your theory makes no sense in that context. Hell, that lore doesn't make sense with the political behaviors of any of these factions.

A group of thousands of celestial exalts capable of conquering whole afterlives alone sits on their thumbs in one valley somewhere and quietly while away the ages? They actively get pushed out of territory by powers who emphatically can't match their high end guys? Pull the other one, it has bells on it.


2) Not what they were built for. Why go to the trouble of making a super army that large for something like this?

In the context of the source they seem like they suffer from chronic world building issues, in ExWoD they need toned down to make sense, and here their history is entirely suspect because DF is the primary setting.

The jades make even less sense if you take the poorly built source material and inject them unedited into the political dynamics present here.
 
The latter. But, on average the qm uses EvWoD anyways right? Even if there's multiple things for it.
Well this is the EvWod doc, but you seem to asking something else? Maybe in depth extras? The reason this is free is that Exalted and WoD are both a sufficient legal hellscape that it's impossible for anyone to ever make a crossover legally. However being free and unofficial also means it does not have any marketing teams spreading it around so people just hear about it from word of mouth. So EvWod is very nitch without much support.
 
Well this is the EvWod doc, but you seem to asking something else? Maybe in depth extras? The reason this is free is that Exalted and WoD are both a sufficient legal hellscape that it's impossible for anyone to ever make a crossover legally. However being free and unofficial also means it does not have any marketing teams spreading it around so people just hear about it from word of mouth. So EvWod is very nitch without much support.
I just wanted the details for a certain charm essentially.
 
I was going through Battle Ground and realized something:

The top tier of Dresden Files is pretty weak in a scrap.

Mab, Titania, Odin, all these immortals all suck Ethniu's toes when it comes to the wire (which kinda begs the question as to why the Fomor are part of the Accords and not the unquestionable top dog of the world when apparently their leader could take everybody else's leaders, simultaneously, in a cage match).

Ethniu's big bad laser of DOOOOOOM, which can disintegrate Uriel's physical form if he doesn't do the genius move of blocking or dodging it, has an upper limit of destroying a few buildings and maybe, at most, a city block (which somehow is enough to weaken reality????)

Mab (even accounting for it being Midsummer and so at her weakest) blocks said laser with raw power and is down out of exhaustion. I guess the Queen of Winter can block a city block's worth of destruction, which really isn't all that impressive from what I'd imagined Mab should've been capable of.

Even her compatriots, when they've disarmed Ethniu and weakened her with a whole lotta rain, just went down like a buncha mooks against Ethniu. Literally folded like a wet paper towel. Titania at the height of her power is nothing against Ethniu (who again, despite having the most motivation to cause mass destruction throughout the entire book, is only ever seen blasting, like a couple of buildings at a time with the Eye, which she didn't have when she dropped the Erlking, Odin, and Titania like a gaggle of redheaded stepchildren)

Literally, this scene has the most destruction we've seen on screen, from people with no motivation to hold back, by people we're told could take on the entire White Council (a single one of which apparently caused the Tunguska Event). And they all suck. Apparently, the power to beat a handful of immortals and warp reality itself has the same firepower as, like, 10 or 20 or 50 tons of TNT. (Or maybe even less than that, given again, Ethniu handed everybody's asses to them without the Eye, one shot of which was enough to drop Mab)

In retrospect, given how weak a showing all these immortals had, I wouldn't be surprised if Essence 3 Molly could straight-up pimpslap Mab or Titania or anybody worth a shit on her lonesome. If you thought Molly has resource issues with running low on Essence, Mab clearly has much bigger problems with running out of juice mid-fight (seriously, one not even city-buster-level laser is enough to take her out????). It's not like Odin or the Erlking or even Mab could've done anything to Ethniu if she wanted something and they were by themselves, or even all together as was shown in Battle Ground. At a certain level of power (not even that high), the leaders of the supernatural factions kind of have to let you do as you will unless you're gunning for their lives and they can't run, and Molly is very quickly approaching that level. Sad, really, given Molly isn't even that powerful a Celestial Exalt, but man Battle Ground brought down the bar in terms of how powerful the heavyweights of the supernatural world really are (barring Ethniu who apparently is the only one who lifts, and not even that much). I guess they could try and threaten Molly's friends and family, but that runs into the fact that if Molly were in a room with Mab, Titania, the Erlking, and Odin, one of them can perfectly defend against setting off a snuck-in nuke, while everybody else is going to just die.

Seriously, even disregarding Molly using her Crown to ask for what are any random immortal's weaknesses and publishing it on the internet, Molly is still going to quickly approach Ethniu-levels of "I can do what I want because everybody else sucks" just by sheer virtue of having the chops to back up her hype.
 
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I was going through Battle Ground and realized something:

The top tier of Dresden Files is pretty weak.

Mab, Titania, Odin, all these immortals all suck Ethniu's toes when it comes to the wire (which kinda begs the question as to why the Fomor are part of the Accords and not the unquestionable top dog of the world when apparently their leader could take everybody else's leaders, simultaneously, in a cage match).

Ethniu's big bad laser, which can disintegrate Uriel's physical form if he doesn't do the genius move of blocking or dodging it, has an upper limit of destroying a few buildings and maybe, at most, a city block (which somehow is enough to weaken reality????)

Mab (even accounting for it being Midsummer and so at her weakest) blocks said laser with raw power and is down out of exhaustion. I guess the Queen of Winter can block a city block's worth of destruction, which really isn't all that impressive from what I'd imagined Mab should've been capable of.

Even her compatriots, when they've disarmed Ethniu and weakened her with a whole lotta rain, just went down like a buncha mooks against Ethniu. Literally folded like a wet paper towel. Titania at the height of her power is nothing against Ethniu (who again, despite having the most motivation to cause mass destruction throughout the entire book, is only ever seen blasting, like a couple of buildings at a time with the Eye, which she didn't have when she dropped the Erlking, Odin, and Titania like a gaggle of redheaded stepchildren)

Literally, this scene has the most destruction we've seen on screen, from people with no motivation to hold back, by people we're told could take on the entire White Council (a single one of which apparently caused the Tunguska Event). And they all suck. Apparently, the power to beat a handful of immortals and warp reality itself has the same firepower as, like, 10 or 20 or 50 tons of TNT. (Or maybe even less than that, given again, Ethniu handed everybody's asses to them without the Eye, one shot of which was enough to drop Mab)

In retrospect, given how weak a showing all these immortals had, I wouldn't be surprised if Essence 3 Molly could straight-up pimpslap Mab or Titania or anybody worth a shit on her lonesome. If you thought Molly has resource issues with running low on Essence, Mab clearly has much bigger problems with running out of juice mid-fight (seriously, one not even city-buster-level laser is enough to take her out????). It's not like Odin or the Erlking or even Mab could've done anything to Ethniu if she wanted something and they were by themselves, or even all together as was shown in Battle Ground. At a certain level of power (not even that high), the leaders of the supernatural factions kind of have to let you do as you will unless you're gunning for their lives and they can't run, and Molly is very quickly approaching that level. Sad, really, given Molly isn't even that powerful a Celestial Exalt, but man Battle Ground brought down the bar in terms of how powerful the heavyweights of the supernatural world really are (barring Ethniu who apparently is the only one who lifts I guess). I guess they could try and threaten Molly's friends and family, but that runs into the fact that if Molly were in a room with Mab, Titania, the Erlking, and Odin, one of them can perfectly defend against setting off a snuck-in nuke, while everybody else is going to just die.

Seriously, even disregarding Molly using her Crown to ask for what are any random immortal's weaknesses and publishing it on the internet, Molly is still going to quickly approach Ethniu-levels of "I can do what I want because everybody else sucks"
I mean area of effect vs actual damage I guess? Not to mention conceptual nature vs actual physical power varies wildly. Like nicodemus for all we see may as well be an unbreakable object while wearing the noose from everything we've seen. Also I mean there have been several book plot points where if dresden hadn't won the world would of basically been permanently devastated.

Also all these beings seem to be bound by rules so their not actually running at full effectiveness from what we've seen. Also durability vs actual power is very very different in the dresden files. Its not dragon ball.
 
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Also all these beings seem to be bound by rules so their not actually running at full effectiveness from what we've seen. Also durability vs actual power is very very different in the dresden files. Its not dragon ball.

I mean yeah, Mab supposedly can bring down an ice age or whatever, but if she can't use that in a fight for her life like in Battle Ground 'cause of rules or circumstances or timing or whatever, it doesn't really matter does it? Same thing with durability; yeah, maybe with enough time you could whip up something to mote-drain Molly's defenses, but that's not gonna help if she tracks you down with the Crown and puts her fist through your head 'cause your skull's more fragile than her fingers. Meanwhile your best defence knocks you out if it takes 10-50 tons of TNT to the face while Molly with the right charm could strap a Davy Crockett to her back and bomb anybody she dislikes without a scratch.

All I'm saying is, at a certain point Molly will either show off this kind of capability, or more likely, delete an immortal who got on her wrong side. Then everybody's gonna realize the Dresden Files' Urban Fantasy genre does not have the balls to pick a fight with someone who walked out of the Exalted TRPG.
 
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Well we don't actually have Ablation of Brass and Fire (••••) (12 xp perfect soak) yet and don't seem to be planning on getting it next spend either so a nuke kills Molly too at the moment.

But yes I think that Molly is very close to being able to beat most of DF in a one on one cage match. Shame those generally don't happen or aren't a good idea.

I look forward to questing when we get off the combat escalator.
 
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But yes I think that Molly is very close to being able to beat most of DF in a one on one cage match. Shame those generally don't happen or aren't a good idea.

Once we do get that charm (and somehow a nuke :whistle:), there's nothing stopping Molly from strolling into the Winter Court and making Mab swear a laundry list of concessions. What's Mab gonna do, not swear and get a first-hand taste of a human SUN? Once you have enough power, you don't have problems with your enemies. You have dead enemies and people who try not to be a problem for you.

Much like how Mab apparently set up the Accords 20-30 years ago on account of being the biggest cat on the block, once Molly hits a certain level she can set up her own Accords (without blackjack or hookers) and everybody's gonna wanna be signing on to those, because what Mab's capable of with the full Winter Court backing her is not remotely comparable to what Molly will be capable of, in a cave with a box of scraps :evil:
 
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Once we do get that charm (and somehow a nuke :whistle:), there's nothing stopping Molly from strolling into the Winter Court and making Mab swear a laundry list of concessions. What's Mab gonna do, not swear and get a first-hand taste of a human SUN? Once you have enough power, you don't have problems with your enemies. You have dead enemies and people who try not to be a problem for you.
I was about to say something about how crafting a nuke would be hard, but then I remembered that that we are a princess of the green sun and all our craft charms tend towards nuke stuff by default. We haven't tried it yet, but I suspect that Molly would get a substantial difficulty reduction when it comes to crafting a nuclear weapon.
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Molly hadn't done it on purpose. She was having fun crafting in her workshop. Nothing serious just some fun tinkering. But one thing lead to another and now Molly was looking at a dirty bomb capable destroying most of a city and leaving the rest of that city uninhabitable.

I should probably take it apart and forget I ever made it.

But it was such a nice sleek design. It seemed like a shame. Molly put the bomb in the corner after telling the cyber devil network to make sure that it never went off without Molly's explicit permission.

After all as they say better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it.
 
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In Exalted terms from everything we see most of the DF heavy hitters cap out around potent god or upper end 2nd circle. This seems pretty consistent in the books with Mab, Titania, Odin, Ethniu and everybody else who isn't an angel being in this range.

In particular, based off the things WoJ say they can do, a lot of them seem to work a lot like exalted gods in that they have the ability to pull off large scale effects within their domains but the intensity of focused effects they can generate is limited. They also generally have specific limitations and weaknesses deriving from their natures as well, the Fae and Vampires limitations are the most obvious example of this.

Exalts in contrast excel at focused application of power. Though they generally don't match the ease they can apply truely large scale effects. In particular the way Exalted can combine focused capability boosts with direct power makes them massively more dangerous at direct combat. Backing this up is the ability of Exalted to have absolute defenses, meaning that approaches built around brute supernatural power work poorly against veteran Exalts.

So in terms of direct combat capability if Molly learns a full suite of combat charms and increases her essence score she really can straight match or exceed DF heavyweights.
 
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Of course none of that matters because we keep bringing allies to fights even though our plans seem treat them as a liability. I really don't understand the double think.
 
Molly is very much not at that level yet.

Allies are massively helpful in fights against multiple opponents as we don't have the ability to simultaneously deal with a challenging opponent and pawn the mooks. Plus they can do multiple different things at once, which is really helpful in complex situations (like the Museum fight).
 
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