We aren't playing Exwod tho. Its a different world without nearly the amount of bullshit to be thrown at us.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
And? Molly is still an Infernal at the end of the day. We are still using ExWod mechanics to stat characters AND there are scary monsters like Mab running around.
So there are absolutely powerful people who can fight Solaroids running around. We even have Enemy 2 on them.
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Being disruptive is good, having the chance to upend the order of the world is a cool theme, but there has to be that chance that you lose, that the promise of a new dawn ends in failure. That is one of the things Exalted does very well and one of the things ExWoD also attempts. Sure you can smash up the local vampire den no trouble, but even exalts are not meant to breeze through fighting Methuselahs on the way to killing Caine.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If we have to spend multiple essanse on each Methuselahs we aren't exactly breezing though.
No, no factions have the bullshit tesources that wod has. No one can drop a technocracy battleship on our heads, or summon a country killing anti or malign us as a terrorist like pentex or a thousand other things that the factions in this world just aren't capable of. The technocrats have an entire dyson sphere for fucks sake and pentex can print super soldiers really easily. Like literally hundreds of thousands of abomination cyborgs or the sheer influence vampires have in that world.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
That is why Essence is throttled. The game is designed around the premise that the Exalted with the right charms are unstoppable until they run out. Methuselahs are similarly stated in that they have their own invulnerabilities.
Exalted, by design, are supposed to be the big boys of the setting. They are compared to Yama-Kings, Methuselahs etc for a reason.
Uriel can flex galaxies into non-existence. Mab can bitch slap nukes. There are plenty of powerful people and that is just Canon-Dreadson files, which this is NOT.
Because the Thousand Hells exist here, as do Yama Kings.
Unless the magic involved is keeping the antifreeze frozen but not cold, or frozen for a specific duration, that seems odd: the process of melting involves sucking in heat from the surroundings (like our skin). Probably not enough to trigger the charm's bonuses (it's not environmental). But make things colder to the point that without the charm we'd probably be taking damage-per-turn ... yes.
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Oracles can reshape universes, there is always a bigger fish in wod.
No she can't, we have seen battlegrounds. She would die to an Moab.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I mean the fact that a bunch of guys with guns just did us a bunch of damage does make it obvious that chance exists.
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Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
This is ironic given that exalted are, by design, weak to groups wielding guns.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Exalted excel at making everyone fight at their level.
Also I wonder how Harry is going to feel when our enemies go after him to get to us?
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Effort in a quest is not measured just in the abstract resources of the narrative, but also in the time you guys spent to solve the problem OOC, things like considering if you want to involve Odin or not. In any case I do not want to belabor by view of how narrative works, I'll just let my work show it and hopefully you guys will enjoy.
Thing is, the current thing that happened with GNSF doesn't change anything in that calculation?
The problem never was *can we throw down with the Akuma* it was * how do we counteract their plan against us*, leading to us asking Harry for help, and *how do we make sure the hostages are not killed when we try a rescue*, which being extra killy against one person isn't helping, because they are still in several different places and we can't be (technically, yet, but our clones would be far weaker than us so still unable to help as much as asking Odin).
So in that optic, us one shotting the big boss doesn't change anything to the equation and we can continue on our merry way with the charm unchanged. We would still have asked Odin and Harry for help if the guy responsible was far weaker but stil had the same minions under him, because we didn't do it due to his strength, but due to his preparation.
The weak point of any very strong individual will always be those around them and plans that specifically attack their weaknesses, make our enemies smarter, not tankier, can't kill them in one hit if they're not there, and we'll hesitate going to them if we think they are prepared.
If you get to the point of not worrying about at all about Molly's safety at all that cuts out a entire aspect of this game with a complex combat element, or more realistically I would count on large numbers of weak opponents which warps the story, but I cannot talk about that more without spoilers.
Anyway I have to run, will talk more about this in a bit.
Kemayo
A Certain Cheerful Tone Of Voice
- Location
- Missouri
I'm all for @Yzarc's quoted-post's take on it: Molly really should be able to absolutely stomp most supernatural beings that're trying to 1v1 her in close combat. She's an Exalt, and absolutely turbo-murdering single powerful (unkillable) opponents is quite literally what they were made to do, even in their original setting amongst other beings on their own power-level. If you're playing Exalted vs World of Darkness, the table-overthrowing nature of adding Exalts is kinda the point. I don't really want to read a story about our outside-context-problem Green Sun Princess needing to scrape out bare combat victories against mid-tier vampires.
However, for what it's worth, in this arc the successful threat to Molly for me as-a-reader has been: the fate of the people she agreed to protect, and her own relationships with her allies as she works out how much of a deal with the Jade Court monsters she wants to make.
(In a sense, this is a flaw of running a quest on actual dice rolls and strict TTRPG mechanics. It's a matter of personal preference, but I find narrative quests generally work out better overall.)
However, for what it's worth, in this arc the successful threat to Molly for me as-a-reader has been: the fate of the people she agreed to protect, and her own relationships with her allies as she works out how much of a deal with the Jade Court monsters she wants to make.
(In a sense, this is a flaw of running a quest on actual dice rolls and strict TTRPG mechanics. It's a matter of personal preference, but I find narrative quests generally work out better overall.)
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Exalted don't really seems to be made to be threatened by individualistic fights, us reaching the point where we are 1 vs 1 with the enemy is basically their losing state.
You can absolutely threaten us with other elements, like the ritual and the hostages there, but I personally never had any doubts that we would stomp the Akuma like we did every single final boss of every arc till now, you are far past the point where it's the fights that are threatening to me, it stopped when we stomped the Valkyrie with our shintai, and the Raksha's showing didn't change that, I care about other things.
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The issue is that an Infernal if properly prepared isn't going to run out of Essence, possibly ever, as long as there are people to kill.
Kemayo
A Certain Cheerful Tone Of Voice
- Location
- Missouri
The great part here is that it's pretty easy to create a situation where Molly will absolutely not want to kill the mortals who're firing guns at her. A random utter-asshole Infernal is less limited, of course, but that's not the person we have...
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Yes the conflict of the story has never been if Molly can win a fight. The conflict has always been Molly's power verse Molly's morals.
The exalted are heroes in the Greek sense and you cannot have Achilles without Hektor. In their native setting the biggest threat to Exalted are other Exalted, but since we are integrating them with WoD mechanics and dresdenverse narrative other sorts of stories have to be found. For me personally with the way GSNF works I have to tone it down a little to preserve that first element, or generally empower the native supernaturals. This is not going to be the first step in the Great Nerfening, you have my word.
This is a very good point. Molly can't be everywhere, and even if she can slay greater akuma in two swings of her sword, she still wouldn't have been able to save her subordinates.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Honestly, I do not mind gating the charm behind E4 and subbing it for another.
It is the proposed nerfing of the charm that I do not like as it does interfere with the power fantasy.
We rarely used the charm, nerfed as it was previously, so subbing it for another is the best as it also avoids the problem of homebrewing a alternative that may end up broken in different ways.
Quick comments:
In Proven Guilty, Thomas blasted Madrigal Raith with a shotgun at short range, first in the ankles, then in the knees without worrying about killing him. Either of which would have been mortal injuries for a vanilla.
Lara Raith walked off a landmine in Turn Coat.
Thats Lara, who McCoy feels free to force choke earlier in the same chapter.
Whites are the physically weakest type of vampire in the setting, have less endurance than other vampires when going all out, and vastly prefer social manipulations to physical ones. But they are objectively not weak at the higher ends, and still do shit like jumping off six story parking lots and walking away without a scratch.
And they are quite willing to seek powerups outside their native powerset. Whether magics or items or allies.
In White Night we see Vittorio Malvolo and Madrigal Raith show up with all three.
With specific regard to Lord Raith, the man did a deal with some entity, probably an Outsider, for an Investment-equivalent that gave him immunity to mortal magic. Not resistance, immunity, by word of McCoy. Which is why Maggie LeFay's death curse didnt attempt to strike directly at him, and why Ebenezar McCoy hadnt killed him three decades ago.
There's no reason why the Investment-equivalents he bargained for would be limited to magic immunity.
Do recall that we only see him in canon after three decades plus of starvation.
He's not at his best.
2)DF is not full of glass cannons. Wizards are relative to the rest of the setting, but most others arent.
Like I've previously pointed out, even ghouls, who are some of the lowest level antagonists of the setting, will survive losing half their limbs in a combat scenario and still remain not only conscious but ambulatory. Whites regen shotgun blasts to the knees and walk off center mass gunshot wounds to the sternum with no armor.
Nevermind Reds and Blacks and Icks and trolls/ogres and Jotun and grendelkin and the like.
Most have specific vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
That doesnt make them glass cannons.
Like I pointed out before?
In Proven Guilty, Thomas blasted Madrigal Raith with a shotgun at short range, first in the ankles, then in the knees without worrying about killing him. Either of which would have been mortal injuries for a vanilla.
Of course you can.
Lara Raith walked off a landmine in Turn Coat.
Lara didn't dispute the statement, but her eyes hardened like silver mirrors, reflecting the dancing flames that were still burning here and there as we moved through the site of the battle and out the other side. "Madeline has betrayed me, my House, and my Court. She is mine. I prefer you remained a living, breathing ally. You will not interfere."
What do you say to something like that? I shut my mouth and concentrated on finding Binder.
It took us about five minutes to reach the piece of shoreline where Binder and his companion had come ashore. A pair of Jet Skis lay discarded on the beach. So that's how they'd done it. The tiny craft would have no problems at all skimming over the stone reefs surrounding the island, though they would have been hellish to ride in the rough water.
We swung past the discarded equipment and up a little ridgeline, running along a deer trail. I knew we were getting close, and suddenly Lara accelerated past me, supernaturally fleet of foot on the even ground.
I don't know what triggered the explosion. It might have been a tripwire stretched across the trail. It's possible that it was detonated manually, too. There was a flash of light, and something hit me in the chest hard enough to knock me down. An ugly asymmetrical shape was burned into my vision as I lay on my back, trying to sort out what had just happened.
Then my body tingled, and Madeline Raith appeared over me. I realized that she was straddling me. There was a fire burning somewhere close by, illuminating her. She was wearing a black surfer's wet suit with short arms and legs, unzipped past her navel. She held a mostly empty bottle of tequila in one hand. Her eyes were wide and shining with a disorienting riot of colors as she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and . . .
And Hell's freaking bells.
The pleasure that surged through me from that simple touch was delicious to the point of pain. Every nerve ending in my entire body lit up, as though someone had run up the wattage on my pleasure centers, or injected their engines with nitrous. I felt my body arch up and shudder, a purely sexual reaction to a physical bliss that went far beyond sexuality. I stayed that way, locked into a quivering arch of ecstasy. It took maybe ten or fifteen seconds to subside.
From a kiss on the forehead.
God. No wonder people came back to the vampires for more.
I could barely register what was happening around me. So I only dimly noticed when Madeline produced a gun of her own, the other favorite model of those with more than human strength—a Desert Eagle.
"Good night, sweet wizard," Madeline purred, her hips grinding a slow rhythm against mine. She drew the half-inch-wide mouth of the gun over my cheek as she took a slug of tequila and then rested the gun's barrel gently on the spot she'd just kissed. It felt obscenely good, like a caress on skin that has just been shaved smooth but hasn't yet been touched. I knew that she was about to kill me, but I couldn't stop thinking how good it felt. "And flights of angels," she panted, her breath coming faster, her eyes alight with excitement, "sing thee to thy rest."
What do you say to something like that? I shut my mouth and concentrated on finding Binder.
It took us about five minutes to reach the piece of shoreline where Binder and his companion had come ashore. A pair of Jet Skis lay discarded on the beach. So that's how they'd done it. The tiny craft would have no problems at all skimming over the stone reefs surrounding the island, though they would have been hellish to ride in the rough water.
We swung past the discarded equipment and up a little ridgeline, running along a deer trail. I knew we were getting close, and suddenly Lara accelerated past me, supernaturally fleet of foot on the even ground.
I don't know what triggered the explosion. It might have been a tripwire stretched across the trail. It's possible that it was detonated manually, too. There was a flash of light, and something hit me in the chest hard enough to knock me down. An ugly asymmetrical shape was burned into my vision as I lay on my back, trying to sort out what had just happened.
Then my body tingled, and Madeline Raith appeared over me. I realized that she was straddling me. There was a fire burning somewhere close by, illuminating her. She was wearing a black surfer's wet suit with short arms and legs, unzipped past her navel. She held a mostly empty bottle of tequila in one hand. Her eyes were wide and shining with a disorienting riot of colors as she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and . . .
And Hell's freaking bells.
The pleasure that surged through me from that simple touch was delicious to the point of pain. Every nerve ending in my entire body lit up, as though someone had run up the wattage on my pleasure centers, or injected their engines with nitrous. I felt my body arch up and shudder, a purely sexual reaction to a physical bliss that went far beyond sexuality. I stayed that way, locked into a quivering arch of ecstasy. It took maybe ten or fifteen seconds to subside.
From a kiss on the forehead.
God. No wonder people came back to the vampires for more.
I could barely register what was happening around me. So I only dimly noticed when Madeline produced a gun of her own, the other favorite model of those with more than human strength—a Desert Eagle.
"Good night, sweet wizard," Madeline purred, her hips grinding a slow rhythm against mine. She drew the half-inch-wide mouth of the gun over my cheek as she took a slug of tequila and then rested the gun's barrel gently on the spot she'd just kissed. It felt obscenely good, like a caress on skin that has just been shaved smooth but hasn't yet been touched. I knew that she was about to kill me, but I couldn't stop thinking how good it felt. "And flights of angels," she panted, her breath coming faster, her eyes alight with excitement, "sing thee to thy rest."
I aimed a punch at Madeline's face. She caught my hand as the weak blow came in, and kissed the inside of my wrist. Sweet silver lightning exploded up my arm and down my spine. Whatever was left of my brain went away, and the next thing I knew she was pressing her chest against mine, her mouth against mine, slowly, sensuously overbearing me.
And then a burned corpse came out of the woods.
That was all I could think of to describe it. Half the body was blacker than a hamburger that had fallen through the bars of a charcoal grill. The rest was red and purple and swollen with bruises and bloody blisters, with very, very occasional strips of pale white skin. A few wisps of dark hair were attached to her skull. I say her because technically the corpse was female, though that hardly mattered amongst all the burned and pulverized meat that smelled slightly of tequila.
The only things I really recognized were the cold silver eyes.
Lara Raith's eyes were bright with an insane rage and a terrible hunger as she snaked her bruised, swollen left arm around Madeline's wind-pipe, and tightened it with a horrible strength.
Madeline cried out as her head was jerked back sharply—and then she made no sound at all as the wind was trapped inside her lungs. The burned, blackened corpse that was Lara Raith dug one fire-ruined hip into Madeline's upper back, using Madeline's own spine as a fulcrum against her.
Lara spoke, and her voice was something straight from Hell. It was lower, smokier, but every bit as lovely as it ever was. "Madeline," she purred, "I've wanted to do this with you since we were little girls."
Lara's burned black right hand, withered, it seemed, down to bones and sinew, reached slowly, sensually around Madeline's straining abdomen. Slowly, very slowly, Lara sunk her fingertips into flesh, just beneath the floating rib on Madeline's left flank. Madeline's face contorted and she tried to scream.
Lara shuddered. Her shoulders twisted. And she ripped an open furrow as wide as her four fingers across Madeline's stomach, pale flesh parting, as wet red and greythings slithered out.
Lara's tongue emerged from her mouth, bright pink, and touched Madeline's earlobe. "Listen to me," she hissed. Her burned hand continued pulling things out of Madeline's body, a hideous intimacy. "Listen to me."
Power shuddered in those words. I felt an insane desire to rush toward Lara's ruined flesh and give her my ears, ripped off with my own fingers, if necessary.
Madeline shuddered, the strength gone out of her body. Her mouth continued trying to move, but her eyes went unfocused at the power in Lara's voice. "For once in your life," Lara continued, kissing Madeline's throat with her burned, broken lips, "you are going to be useful."
Madeline's eyes rolled back in her head, and her body sagged helplessly back against Lara.
My brain got back onto the clock. I pushed myself away from Lara and Madeline's nauseating, horribly compelling embrace. Binder was sitting with his hands over his ears, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. I grabbed him under the arms and hauled him away from the entwined Raiths, maybe fifty yards downhill, through some thick brush and around the bole of a large old hickory tree. Binder was obviously in pain as I pulled him—and he was pushing with his unwounded leg, doing his best to assist me.
"Bloody hell," he panted, as I set him down. "Bloody hell and brimstone."
I staggered and sat down across from him, panting to get my breath back and to push the sight of Lara devouring Madeline out of my head. "No kidding."
"Some of the bloody fools I've known," Binder said. "Can't stop talking about how tragic they are. The poor lonely vampires. How they're just like us. Bloody idiots."
"Yeah," I said, my voice raw.
We sat there for a few seconds. From up the slope, there was a low, soft, and eager cry.
We shuddered and tried to look as if we hadn't heard anything.
And then a burned corpse came out of the woods.
That was all I could think of to describe it. Half the body was blacker than a hamburger that had fallen through the bars of a charcoal grill. The rest was red and purple and swollen with bruises and bloody blisters, with very, very occasional strips of pale white skin. A few wisps of dark hair were attached to her skull. I say her because technically the corpse was female, though that hardly mattered amongst all the burned and pulverized meat that smelled slightly of tequila.
The only things I really recognized were the cold silver eyes.
Lara Raith's eyes were bright with an insane rage and a terrible hunger as she snaked her bruised, swollen left arm around Madeline's wind-pipe, and tightened it with a horrible strength.
Madeline cried out as her head was jerked back sharply—and then she made no sound at all as the wind was trapped inside her lungs. The burned, blackened corpse that was Lara Raith dug one fire-ruined hip into Madeline's upper back, using Madeline's own spine as a fulcrum against her.
Lara spoke, and her voice was something straight from Hell. It was lower, smokier, but every bit as lovely as it ever was. "Madeline," she purred, "I've wanted to do this with you since we were little girls."
Lara's burned black right hand, withered, it seemed, down to bones and sinew, reached slowly, sensually around Madeline's straining abdomen. Slowly, very slowly, Lara sunk her fingertips into flesh, just beneath the floating rib on Madeline's left flank. Madeline's face contorted and she tried to scream.
Lara shuddered. Her shoulders twisted. And she ripped an open furrow as wide as her four fingers across Madeline's stomach, pale flesh parting, as wet red and greythings slithered out.
Lara's tongue emerged from her mouth, bright pink, and touched Madeline's earlobe. "Listen to me," she hissed. Her burned hand continued pulling things out of Madeline's body, a hideous intimacy. "Listen to me."
Power shuddered in those words. I felt an insane desire to rush toward Lara's ruined flesh and give her my ears, ripped off with my own fingers, if necessary.
Madeline shuddered, the strength gone out of her body. Her mouth continued trying to move, but her eyes went unfocused at the power in Lara's voice. "For once in your life," Lara continued, kissing Madeline's throat with her burned, broken lips, "you are going to be useful."
Madeline's eyes rolled back in her head, and her body sagged helplessly back against Lara.
My brain got back onto the clock. I pushed myself away from Lara and Madeline's nauseating, horribly compelling embrace. Binder was sitting with his hands over his ears, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. I grabbed him under the arms and hauled him away from the entwined Raiths, maybe fifty yards downhill, through some thick brush and around the bole of a large old hickory tree. Binder was obviously in pain as I pulled him—and he was pushing with his unwounded leg, doing his best to assist me.
"Bloody hell," he panted, as I set him down. "Bloody hell and brimstone."
I staggered and sat down across from him, panting to get my breath back and to push the sight of Lara devouring Madeline out of my head. "No kidding."
"Some of the bloody fools I've known," Binder said. "Can't stop talking about how tragic they are. The poor lonely vampires. How they're just like us. Bloody idiots."
"Yeah," I said, my voice raw.
We sat there for a few seconds. From up the slope, there was a low, soft, and eager cry.
We shuddered and tried to look as if we hadn't heard anything.
Whites are the physically weakest type of vampire in the setting, have less endurance than other vampires when going all out, and vastly prefer social manipulations to physical ones. But they are objectively not weak at the higher ends, and still do shit like jumping off six story parking lots and walking away without a scratch.
And they are quite willing to seek powerups outside their native powerset. Whether magics or items or allies.
In White Night we see Vittorio Malvolo and Madrigal Raith show up with all three.
With specific regard to Lord Raith, the man did a deal with some entity, probably an Outsider, for an Investment-equivalent that gave him immunity to mortal magic. Not resistance, immunity, by word of McCoy. Which is why Maggie LeFay's death curse didnt attempt to strike directly at him, and why Ebenezar McCoy hadnt killed him three decades ago.
There's no reason why the Investment-equivalents he bargained for would be limited to magic immunity.
Do recall that we only see him in canon after three decades plus of starvation.
He's not at his best.
1)Only on Halloween or at the Stone Table.
2)DF is not full of glass cannons. Wizards are relative to the rest of the setting, but most others arent.
Like I've previously pointed out, even ghouls, who are some of the lowest level antagonists of the setting, will survive losing half their limbs in a combat scenario and still remain not only conscious but ambulatory. Whites regen shotgun blasts to the knees and walk off center mass gunshot wounds to the sternum with no armor.
Nevermind Reds and Blacks and Icks and trolls/ogres and Jotun and grendelkin and the like.
Most have specific vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
That doesnt make them glass cannons.
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