Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Thanks. Still, the divine ancestor was benevolent, and if divine grand uncle is not, that's just more plot potential. So, anyway, does Molly think it's possible to call the divine ancestor for a talk?
Also, what about using gossamer as a substitute for ambrosia / as a way to strengthen the divine blood? If we get a circlemate out of this, that'd be a worthwhile investment.
If you know the correct rites, she does not at the moment, it would be possible to call his attention to herself.
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[X] Goofy: Hello, I am Molly Carpenter, cook-mechanic extraordinaire
Well, I guess we know what we are researching next. Getting a stealth specialist for a circlemate is worth the investment.
I repeat the quote:
He is explicit about not being privy to the details of what happened.
And given that he's made it clear he doesnt like the dude, you have to question how much is bias speaking. Hence I would like to see what the other Senior Council members had to say.
I mean, seriously, an unpleasant bastard is supposed to be able to secure the support of a solid third of the Council.
And then threaten to secede in the middle of a war, and the Merlin would buckle?
Arthur Langtry is not Fudge, and the Council is not the Wizengamot.
Strongly disagree.
I am one of the first to extol money's benefits, but it doesnt solve everything. Doesnt buy everything. Being able to pay for people's services is not the same thing as knowing stuff, or being acknowledged to know stuff.
And for Molly, there are realworld social benefits to a college degree.
Both in her family, and in the broader world. In addition to the social benefits of meeting normal people of her own age from across the world, nosy college student is one of the better covers for someone poking the supernatural.
A well as access to the people and resources of the UChicago library system in her own cognizance, which is, and I quote:
I fully expect Lydia to enroll in college as well.
In addition to learning, its a useful cover as opposed to playing idle rich girl, and it gives access to places and people that money ordinarily would not without drawing a lot of attention.
Its not a coincidence that Duke Paolo Ortega of the Red Court was also Professor Ortega of an unnamed South American university.
That the Corpsetaker's cover in Dead Beat was as Alicia Nelson, a professor's assistant, and apparent graduate student. Or that the Hecatean Hag in Welcome to th Jungle was under the cover of a visiting academic from London named Dr Dana Watson.
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By the time we'll be able to go to college, we won't need a cover, we already are perfectly able to bullshit a lot of people right now, we won't get worse at it with time, only better, and we are quickly gaining a reputation anyway, a cover will be the least of our worry if we are god queen of our own realm.
And what social benefits? They don't live in the same world, probably literally by that time, it's is very much a waste of time, we have other things to do than *learn* about things we won't ever use at a rate so slow for us we probably would have finished the entire curriculum in the first week.
- Location
- Germany
If we want the social chops, we get a White Court guy with credentials on our team.
I know so far we only hired Thomas, Bella and some outcasts, but getting a few well-connected and educated Whampire minions is utterly trivial compared to several years of college.
And if we personally want access to anything in their library, we can easily fake our way into it.
A mix of Cyberdemon-hacking and being a very good liar is enough for that.
We can already get infor from people with relative ease, as last seen in the Formor-clinic case and I strongly assume that we will only get better over the next years.
It's hard to overstate how easy it is to pretend to be literally anyone when you have supernatural Subterfuge and Etiquette and some little devils to help you cover the digital side of things.
Why fake anything? Donate a couple million for their renovation fund, and get a honorary degree in recognition of, I don't know, inventing new and revolutionary neural network based operating system, or diamond-based super batteries / vacuum energy generators.
EDIT: If, and when we go to college it's almost certainly going to be for socialization, and we are likely to be majoring in economics and politics. Maybe military strategy, if we can find anyone teaching that.
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Unless they are scions of ancient lineages of power, teenage super geniuses or boy detectives, espers, time travelers or aliens we aren't interested.
EDIT: We should totally cosplay Haruhi at some point.
What's the point you're making here? Cause the argument that minor talents shouldn't hold the council's behavior against it or that the council isn't obligated to do more because it's actually a foreign occupier for the whole planet or functionally a bandit tribe writ large it ridiculous.
The manner in which the council goes about locking down wizards and enforcing the laws does limit some very serious problems, but it also has very real consequences for everyone else around them and functionally the way they've concentrated power makes it very difficult to build up power independently of them without getting eaten.
It says something that Marcone was the first mortal to get recognized under the Accords in his own right. He's good but he's not that much better than everyone else. Dresden's unusual behavior and relationship with the guy was part of how he got enough breathing room to get where he did.
Dresden explicitly calls out the manacles as working by detecting the wizard moving magic and breaking their focus with pain. Running water works for the same reason it causes spells to weaken, DF wizards need to reach out with a little energy to take control of a larger amount of power in order to cast. A wizard chained up under a waterfall has to force project their initial catalytic efforts across something that rapidly erodes it away.
It comes up directly in Dresden's monologue after he's captured by the Denarians for the first time.
He also says that about literally burning your soul for fuel.
Harry's base description of how magic works seems very incompatible with the idea that you can leave it part of someone's soul and stop it from acting, but not influence their mental state.
You're being entirely too dismissive about it. Calling it custom and policy makes it sound like FDA guidelines on beef grades or something.
Some people, particularly powerful and connected people, getting away with subtle violations or loopholes related to fighting other practitioners interfering with the mortals is a demonstration that the council isn't run on ideology alone.
That doesn't change the fact that the core mission of the council is to limit and moderate the power of wizards and that the laws are just one part of that rather than a distinct and superior goal. This is why the council has a blackstaff, but doesn't appear to have purchased any senators (even if it does live to play with the stock market).
Consider the political climate of the crusades, and all the Middle Eastern wizards who had to come to Rome to speak in Latin for council meetings before they moved to their current headquarters.
Getting off the ground floor alone isn't necessary if you splinter off due to political differences or emerge from a separate base entirely. Odin can't be the only guy to help a mortal wizard anywhere on the globe.
Yet the council remains whole and uncontested.
I'm of the opinion that the reason the council reigns from Beijing to Budapest is that Butcher didn't think too hard about it and didn't want to write about that sort of conflict. However, if you take it IC then you've got to ask where all the other guys who wanted to split off to make their own councils or who already had something going when the white council showed up are buried.
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You know what would be even funnier than this?
Pretend to skip school and use super crafting to try to whip up a disguise as a local business owner (with some fake web stuff from Clippy). Fill a web page and some documents with delightfully vague sales buzzwords and then gladhand our way in as a guest speaker.
See how far we can take it on excellency and misdirection alone, then if we make it through the to the end reveal the trick and claim Molly wants to go into marketing.
… I'm not sure what benefit there is to this, but just imagine the looks on their faces.
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Sorry for returning to it, but... in his own niche, yes, he might in fact be better. Brother Divisimar is better than us in martial arts. Harry (right now) is better in magic. We'll surpass them shortly, but in the areas we don't specialize in, mortals can be better than us.
Adding to that... there's one more trick - beat naagloshii like a piniata till it coughs up "eat hearts of your slain enemies to gain their powers" tricks. Then eat the Dragon's heart, after we deal with the curse on it. And yes, I realize how insane of an idea it is.
We have Subterfuge 3, and manipulation 3. That's 12 dice. This is safe enough to abuse CCC. That's DC 4. The preparation (done with craft, and cyberdevils assistance and excellencies and WHWH) probably pushes this down to 3. That's an average of 10.8 successes. We can do this, and no one will ever know.You know what would be even funnier than this?
Pretend to skip school and use super crafting to try to whip up a disguise as a local business owner (with some fake web stuff from Clippy). Fill a web page and some documents with delightfully vague sales buzzwords and then gladhand our way in as a guest speaker.
See how far we can take it on excellency and misdirection alone, then if we make it through the to the end reveal the trick and claim Molly wants to go into marketing.
… I'm not sure what benefit there is to this, but just imagine the looks on their faces.
The speech itself is probably leadership and charisma. And that's another 12 dice, probably at DC 4. That's an average of 9.6 successes. Not quite enough to breach second level of legendarity, but we could totally motivate people into changing their lives for the better. A discount "you can be more" effect might be possible (better if we can breach 10 successes)
If you write it out, I would vote for this. It's childish, but it's fun and not in a harmful way.
[X] Plan Fake It Till You Make It
-[X] Abuse applicable changes during the setup process; CCC, BSM, WHWH and excellencies while writing and crafting, excellencies alone during the event.
-[X] Craft a Clark Kent style disguise and general look prior to the event, something that doesn't overly hide Molly's appearance (beyond the obvious like loosing the hair die and piercings) so much as change how it's seen.
—[X] The target being a serious late twenties-early thirties businesswoman that may or may not end up looking a bit like AceAttorney!Charity
—[X] Include elements like expensive looking leather business accessories, pens, and if possible a fancy mechanical watch.
-[X] Have Clippy generate a website and fake business documents that spend an exhaustive amount of effort saying almost nothing at all for a company called Abietarius Analytics which appears to do some sort of consulting.
--[X] Spend a little money to get a fake desk line for Clippy to answer while pretending to be a secretary.
-[X] Spend some time in advance writing notes for a speech on the importance of communication skills, preparation, and confidence in the modern world.
-[X] The day of the career fair slip away and change into the disguise, then slip out and confidently walk toward the teachers organizing the event while they're in the middle of something.
-[X] With excellencies, sell them on the idea that Margret Carver has a niece at the school and that she'd been invited to speak at career day.
—[X] Read our vampire minion in last minute and have her play that role if we need to name names, but try to avoid it via controlling the conversation.
-[X] If the speech goes through, then after some closing comments on how sometimes you need a little audacity to get anywhere, break the act a reveal that Molly's gimmick as practice for her career in marketing.
-[X] Stunt: Taking a deep breath, Molly fixes a look on her face that her mom sometimes wears when organizing events at church and walks towards the harried teachers with all the confidence she could muster.
—[X] Every line of her body language, cut of her clothes, even the shine of her delicate watch practically screams success and certainty. Of course I'm supposed to be here, why are you wasting my time?
—[X] With a hand shake and a few very nice business cards, Molly starts with the show.
Truthfully I'm not sure this is actually a good idea on any level, but it'd also be legendarily funny if we pulled it off.
We might also get some exp for it I guess?
Edit: errors
-[X] Abuse applicable changes during the setup process; CCC, BSM, WHWH and excellencies while writing and crafting, excellencies alone during the event.
-[X] Craft a Clark Kent style disguise and general look prior to the event, something that doesn't overly hide Molly's appearance (beyond the obvious like loosing the hair die and piercings) so much as change how it's seen.
—[X] The target being a serious late twenties-early thirties businesswoman that may or may not end up looking a bit like AceAttorney!Charity
—[X] Include elements like expensive looking leather business accessories, pens, and if possible a fancy mechanical watch.
-[X] Have Clippy generate a website and fake business documents that spend an exhaustive amount of effort saying almost nothing at all for a company called Abietarius Analytics which appears to do some sort of consulting.
--[X] Spend a little money to get a fake desk line for Clippy to answer while pretending to be a secretary.
-[X] Spend some time in advance writing notes for a speech on the importance of communication skills, preparation, and confidence in the modern world.
-[X] The day of the career fair slip away and change into the disguise, then slip out and confidently walk toward the teachers organizing the event while they're in the middle of something.
-[X] With excellencies, sell them on the idea that Margret Carver has a niece at the school and that she'd been invited to speak at career day.
—[X] Read our vampire minion in last minute and have her play that role if we need to name names, but try to avoid it via controlling the conversation.
-[X] If the speech goes through, then after some closing comments on how sometimes you need a little audacity to get anywhere, break the act a reveal that Molly's gimmick as practice for her career in marketing.
-[X] Stunt: Taking a deep breath, Molly fixes a look on her face that her mom sometimes wears when organizing events at church and walks towards the harried teachers with all the confidence she could muster.
—[X] Every line of her body language, cut of her clothes, even the shine of her delicate watch practically screams success and certainty. Of course I'm supposed to be here, why are you wasting my time?
—[X] With a hand shake and a few very nice business cards, Molly starts with the show.
Truthfully I'm not sure this is actually a good idea on any level, but it'd also be legendarily funny if we pulled it off.
We might also get some exp for it I guess?
Edit: errors
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[X] BronzeTongue
Isn't Mom currently on super-coffee?
Not with his dice luck, he isn't.
- Location
- Germany
[X] BronzeTongue
I love it.
This is what happens when you ask an Exalted to show off (well, it's the variant without explosions).
I love it.
This is what happens when you ask an Exalted to show off (well, it's the variant without explosions).
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Wait, @DragonParadox, would BronzeTongue's plan actually work? Or would it be breaking school rules in a way that we could get in trouble for? Just want to see how much we're risking before I vote to do a full Exalted showing-off plan.
- Location
- Germany
How would getting into trouble with the school actually impact us though?
At this point I consider the entire school-thing low stakes enough to risk a good joke.