Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[Xexilf]

Although, if Mab is able to leverage Harry's favor/fey debt(?), that might well make him a liability in a fight, if she could force him to flip sides.

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I dont think she could, and therefore she wouldnt. First, part of the agreement was that he can refuse her requests. Second even without that, he would refuse to turn on molly in such a situation, agreement or not. As Uriel noted in canon, he still has free will, and Mab cannot remove that without destroying him.

Now, there may be horrific consequences for him to refuse Mab to her face, but he would do it anyway. More, since Mab knows he would refuse such and force her to get nasty to save face, she would not ask, since she wants to get use out of him still.

 

[BronzeTongue]

I dont think she could, and therefore she wouldnt. First, part of the agreement was that he can refuse her requests. Second even without that, he would refuse to turn on molly in such a situation, agreement or not. As Uriel noted in canon, he still has free will, and Mab cannot remove that without destroying him.

Now, there may be horrific consequences for him to refuse Mab to her face, but he would do it anyway. More, since Mab knows he would refuse such and force her to get nasty to save face, she would not ask, since she wants to get use out of him still.

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It's also entirely at odds with her long term goals for their relationship.

Mab's whole thing is using Harry's debt to pull him further into Winter's orbit without ever setting him off in a way that'd make him willing to face the consequences of refusing her.

The contents of the favors themselves still benefit her, because she isn't going to waste them, but her task selection is unlikely to deviate from that pattern unless her goals change significantly.

 

[Vauron]

[X] Pauline, the various members of the Order of the Cauldron are known here and they are not likely to cause as much of a stir as Harry

 

[Alratan]

Some of that may be true, but it's doesn't actually contradict my point.

VEE ensuring a promotion doesn't ensure our agent has back room access the same way, and it doesn't ensure they won't get hit from other angles.

Our tools give us advantages, but our opposition isn't helpless and they won't just roll over for us.

Even if Molly did win an influence war for Chicago, which with the right prep she does have a good shot at, that doesn't mean the SI guys we're talking about right now would avoid becoming casualties of one sort or another, or that this would help them do their jobs in the intended way.

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If we near simultaneously swiftly take over the leadership and the key influence of Chicago and Michigan's municipal and state governments, along with the local federal courts, FBI, and federal prosecutors, it would be very hard indeed to counter. We'd only need a couple of hundred minions VEE-ed into from junior into middle management positions this year, who next year we could hit with another round of VEEs to uplift them into leadership positions.

That would make it very hard for other people to interfere with them afterwards from within the system. There'd be a fair amount of initial legwork, but much of that we can simply pay for by hiring top end local legal and lobbying firms in our identity as tech founder and subverting their top partners and having their associates unknowingly do the research and admin for us.

We don't need backroom access if our minions control enough of the leavers of power.

There's also the question of our Hell's capabilties. Both in terms of (magi-)tech level and general infrastructural capability. For example, there could be things like augury engines where legions of weakly precognitive cyberdevils are bound to parallel processors in supercomputer clusters that would massively increase our ability to do this kind of thing as they can be fed data about Chicago to detect potential threats to our takeover. Having that kind of magi-tech NSA would fit Molly's Crown of Eyes.

If we're looking at a situation where there's a mature industry enhancing mortals to something more (which would be in them for an Exalt's Hell), then our minions wouldn't need to be dependent on Molly's charms to enhance them. We could possibly have things like permanent alchemical treatment, implanted cyberware possessed by minor cyberdevils, genetic modification supercharged by healing magic, and synergistic combinations of the above that could be applied to our minions. Our Training charm is very limited. VEE is poor at granting abilities and attributes. Our Hell may have the infrastructure to make them Six Million Shekels of Silver Men and Women. And then we could unchain their inner devil personally.

The better our minions, the easier a time they'll have after we put them in position.

And as for the SI guys, we need to start Molly off on the process somewhere, so she's IC realise that for her, the best way to do a small thing like improve SI's capabilties is actually to take over Michigan, so that SI is operating in a much more permissive environment, as that's the main problem.

 

[tenchifew]

[X] With Harry, he's friendly with the owner and pops in from time to time, though most of the regulars are skittish around him

 

[Angelazreal1]

[X] Lydia, maybe her weirdness will distract from your weirdness and vice-versa

 

[fictionfan]

[X] Pauline, the various members of the Order of the Cauldron are known here and they are not likely to cause as much of a stir as Harry

 

[BronzeTongue]

If we near simultaneously swiftly take over the leadership and the key influence of Chicago and Michigan's municipal and state governments, along with the local federal courts, FBI, and federal prosecutors, it would be very hard indeed to counter. We'd only need a couple of hundred minions VEE-ed into from junior into middle management positions this year, who next year we could hit with another round of VEEs to uplift them into leadership positions.

That would make it very hard for other people to interfere with them afterwards from within the system. There'd be a fair amount of initial legwork, but much of that we can simply pay for by hiring top end local legal and lobbying firms in our identity as tech founder and subverting their top partners and having their associates unknowingly do the research and admin for us.

We don't need backroom access if our minions control enough of the leavers of power.

There's also the question of our Hell's capabilties. Both in terms of (magi-)tech level and general infrastructural capability. For example, there could be things like augury engines where legions of weakly precognitive cyberdevils are bound to parallel processors in supercomputer clusters that would massively increase our ability to do this kind of thing as they can be fed data about Chicago to detect potential threats to our takeover. Having that kind of magi-tech NSA would fit Molly's Crown of Eyes.

If we're looking at a situation where there's a mature industry enhancing mortals to something more (which would be in them for an Exalt's Hell), then our minions wouldn't need to be dependent on Molly's charms to enhance them. We could possibly have things like permanent alchemical treatment, implanted cyberware possessed by minor cyberdevils, genetic modification supercharged by healing magic, and synergistic combinations of the above that could be applied to our minions. Our Training charm is very limited. VEE is poor at granting abilities and attributes. Our Hell may have the infrastructure to make them Six Million Shekels of Silver Men and Women. And then we could unchain their inner devil personally.

The better our minions, the easier a time they'll have after we put them in position.

And as for the SI guys, we need to start Molly off on the process somewhere, so she's IC realise that for her, the best way to do a small thing like improve SI's capabilties is actually to take over Michigan, so that SI is operating in a much more permissive environment, as that's the main problem.

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A lot of your plans hinge on everyone else being incapable of noticing anything or acting in response to us.

We can only give one dot of background to any given person a year, so that means we'd need to be subverting people already in the system. A truly prodigious number of people at that.


They can't stop the promotions, but everything around that is fair game and they wouldn't just give up from the start.

Even setting aside how they interact with our minions, if we make such an overt push to take over a major city people will push back against us as well.

Fighting a multi-front shadow war against all comers is a bad plan, even with charm backed certainties in some areas.

We just had the jades throw off a plan that didn't even try to control things further than 8 hours out by simply doing something we didn't expect. A long term high exposure plan like you're outlining shouldn't be assumed to be foolproof or without consequences.

It's possible we'd win, but I think it'd be a proper fight that would cost us more than we'd have to pay with a subtler approach.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

This is the US not a third world nation a dozen officials we backed turning up dead would provoke a major nation wide manhunt for the perpetrators.

 

[BronzeTongue]

This is the US not a third world nation a dozen officials we backed turning up dead would provoke a major nation wide manhunt for the perpetrators.

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And? There are things that can be done other than killing. Once they've got the job scandals and political manipulations can be used to remove or sideline them.

Or else move power out of their reach.

It wouldn't be perfect, but the assumption we can do whatever we want without significant consequences is a dangerous one.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

And? There are things that can be done other than killing. Once they've got the job scandals and political manipulations can be used to remove or sideline them.

Or else move power out of their reach.

It wouldn't be perfect, but the assumption we can do whatever we want without significant consequences is a dangerous one.

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And? All of that stuff takes time months if not years, assuming it even possible. And even if they somehow do manages it so what just use VEE, end result we are in charge and have wasted all their political power, fighting something we can do everyday. It a net win we get stronger, and they waste their strength of stuff that is ultimately irrelevant to us.

 

[Nyarky]

We'd only need a couple of hundred minions VEE-ed into from junior into middle management positions this year

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As soon as your plan included *we only need a couple hundred minions* it was dead in the water, if we can get that many minions in the system already, we don't need VEE, and if we can't, we can't VEE them in.

It also hinge on us being able to keep said couple hundreds minions alive for a whole year, since they're free game for assassination after the charm do its thing, you can grant them the dot, it won't help them if they die right after getting it.

All of that stuff takes time months if not years, assuming it even possible.

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From people who can call an attack helicopter to go in another country at will? It won't take years, they'll just grease some palms and call some favors and suddenly all our newly promoted minions are *highly researched* for, I don't know canibalistic pedophilia or something.

 

[Klaus Wulfenback]

[X] With Harry, he's friendly with the owner and pops in from time to time, though most of the regulars are skittish around him

[x] Your father. Going to a bar with your dad is so uncool you feel like you might spontaneously shapechange into a perfect square, but he has a good reputation at least

 

[bengalqueen]

[X] With Harry, he's friendly with the owner and pops in from time to time, though most of the regulars are skittish around him

 

[Alratan]

A lot of your plans hinge on everyone else being incapable of noticing anything or acting in response to us.

We can only give one dot of background to any given person a year, so that means we'd need to be subverting people already in the system. A truly prodigious number of people at that.


They can't stop the promotions, but everything around that is fair game and they wouldn't just give up from the start.

Even setting aside how they interact with our minions, if we make such an overt push to take over a major city people will push back against us as well.

Fighting a multi-front shadow war against all comers is a bad plan, even with charm backed certainties in some areas.

We just had the jades throw off a plan that didn't even try to control things further than 8 hours out by simply doing something we didn't expect. A long term high exposure plan like you're outlining shouldn't be assumed to be foolproof or without consequences.

It's possible we'd win, but I think it'd be a proper fight that would cost us more than we'd have to pay with a subtler approach.

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We do need to start by subverting people already in the system, but Molly is beyond good at subverting mortals, and then keeping them subverted. She can just find some mid ranking cops and bureaucrats who've never themselves done anything that bad but feel guilty of turning a blind eye to their peers doing things they can't approve of but can't stop, and offer them the chance of power to do something about it. Even in Chicago there should be plenty of people who went in with good intentions but have been ground down by the system and the culture.

And as I say, we wouldn't need that many in the grand scheme of things, and it only takes a moment to grant a dot, even if it takes more to fully cultivate them, we can do it.

And people can try to push back, but it's hard and expensive for them to do so, much more than it is for Molly. Who's the opposition that has the resources to fight Molly here?

VEE is the subtle approach as there are very few connections left. Other people have to brute force things, actually getting their hands dirty blackmailing or bribing or murdering the way clear for their pawns to get their posts. We just let existence smooth itself out of their way. That's the beauty of it, enemies would find it very hard to work out what's happening. They wouldn't necessarily have any easy way of detecting who we'd put in post either, as there's no evidence of who we had. VEE doesn't leave fingerprints as far as we can tell.

The reason the akuma messed up our plan is because it was, to be honest, a bad plan. We're currently institutionally fragile and when they implemented their own plan our own assets weren't defended.

Part of the reason to take over Chicago is to avoid a repeat. It would give us a great amount of institutional power that would synergise very nicely with having our own Hell. And over the course of a year or two it's truly not that great an investment compared to the return.

As soon as your plan included *we only need a couple hundred minions* it was dead in the water, if we can get that many minions in the system already, we don't need VEE, and if we can't, we can't VEE them in.

It also hinge on us being able to keep said couple hundreds minions alive for a whole year, since they're free game for assassination after the charm do its thing, you can grant them the dot, it won't help them if they die right after getting it.

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I'm talking about to take over the entire federal, state and municipal government related to Chicago. We need that many minions because there's lots of institutions we're taking over, and because we'll need backups.

Firstly, they're not free game for assassinations, because it's dangerous to assassinate police officers, senior civil servants and politicians, and similarly influential people. Secondly, assassination is, cynically good for us. We'd probably be making use of morally questionably people for much of this, and as I said above, part of the benefit is that this would draw out our potential enemies., although a survived assassination attempt would be much better.

Thanks to the Crown if one of our assets get assassinated we can look at the body/crime scene and backtrack the organisation that did this back to those ultimately responsible. Thanks to our other charms, if it's not one of a literal handful of people in the material world, we can then take a day or two from our schedule to gruesomely annihilate them and do the figurative equivilent of putting their heads on spikes.

We'd only need to send the 'you kill one of mine, I destroy and your entire organisation' message a few times, and it would sink in.

Us attracting attention by doing this is a massive benefit, not a problem, as it gives us Crown foci. Taking over Chicago like this is bait for a trap as well as being a gain in its own terms.

 

[Nyarky]

We'd only need to send the 'you kill one of mine, I destroy and your entire organisation' message a few times, and it would sink in.

Us attracting attention by doing this is a massive benefit, not a problem, as it gives us Crown foci. Taking over Chicago like this is bait for a trap as well as being a gain in its own terms.

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That's overly optimistic, we are quite a good combatant, but lack some of the things that would allow something like that to be done: For one, any of them that has a civil identity creates the same problem for us as you say it does for them to kill ours, and we can't go to attack all of the ones that are in Fearie by ourself.

Edit:

Like, do you have any idea how difficult it would be for us to *destroy their organizations* when the ones most likely to react are the biggest ones?

There are lots of them to attack our plants and discredit/Kill/Arrest/stop them, there is one of us and we are not specced for that at all, just VEE alone is quite an investment, the kind of charmset we would need to be able to reliably attack organizations and sink them would never pass due to costing too much for what it gives.

 

[Yog]

In regards to Molly and government systems, I have to ask - what is the goal? Is the goal accumulation of personal power for Molly? Or is the goal obtaining the system that reflects Molly's core values, most of which, I presume, for users, are altruistic?

If it's the latter, then the whole approach of trying to get into control of the system is superfluous. I have to ask @DragonPardox several things - Endless Torment Emanation can target an office or a project. Can you rule what a "project" is? Specifically, for example, would it be possible to target "old boys club" kind of nepotism in a whole organization? If there's an organizied system of nepotism, corruption and such, would Molly be able to target those projects of an organization without otherwise affecting the whole of the organization? If the bureaucracy is set up to have loop holes, can Molly affect the projects of using said loop holes?

There's also Fulfill Prayer, which would only take us 12 XP to get:

Fulfill Prayer (•••)
The Exalt very lightly sets her fingers upon the
threads of fate and fortune, tugging them into closer
alignment with an offered prayer so that it is more
likely to come true. This is a very minor miracle: it
can't raise the dead or conjure wealth from thin air. It
merely nudges reality toward desirable outcomes, and
the more humble the prayer, the more likely it is to be
granted. It cannot cure a worshiper's cancer, but might
drive it into remission for a few years – or at least until
the postulant sees his son graduate.
The Exalt cannot answer her own prayers, but
there's nothing stopping her from lavishing her favor
upon the prayers of others that best align with her own
wishes or agenda.
System: The Exalt spends 1 Essence and makes a
Perception + Occult roll with a difficulty equal to the
local Gauntlet rating. The more successes garnered,
the more strongly fate and fortune will work to grant
the selected prayer. This is a matter of storytelling rath-
er than solid systems, but protecting "blessed" actions
from botches or granting free specialties are within rea-
son, if some systems manifestations of this Charm are
needed. This Charm can't answer prayers more than a
week old, and the prayers must be offered directly to
the Exalt in the sincere and uncynical belief that she
is a supernatural being capable of using her power to
grant miracles to those she favors.

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This is a much broad, if subtle, power than Verdant Emptiness Empowerment. The latter is actually pretty limited. It can empower an individual, and strongly at that. Fairly sure we could, for example, turn Daniel into a killing machine with it. But it can only affect the Empowerment receiver:

The Infernal can grant any of the following: a dot of
an Attribute; a dot of an Ability; a dot of a Background;
a Merit; or she can remove a Flaw. No character can
have more than one wish granted in the course of a year.

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Prayer Granting? Have a couple hundred people wish that the social systems of Chicago worked perfectly and without issues. Or that Senate passes universal healthcare. Or that there would be no corruption among the government. We have enough homeless who both would sincerely want this, and know that we are an ancient god being cosplaying as a teenage girl for that.

Even if each individual prayer is weak, once you have around a hundred similar prayers working together? I am fairly sure it would accumulate. @DragonParadox am I on the right track to how Prayer Granting work? Assume that a hundred people sincerely wished that Chicago Police was perfectly free of corruption, and we responded to their prayers (full CCC, TLF, BSM, WHWH, APB, and excellency suit working together, for at least 5 successes each). Would their prayers work together?

 

[fictionfan]

And? There are things that can be done other than killing. Once they've got the job scandals and political manipulations can be used to remove or sideline them.

Or else move power out of their reach.

It wouldn't be perfect, but the assumption we can do whatever we want without significant consequences is a dangerous one.

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The thing is an enemies have to use outsized amount of resources to counter our moves. For us promoting someone only requires us to find a person to make a wish and 5 essence getting that person out of position requires entire campaigns.

Of course we can also use VEE to subvert people already in a position of power. After all after we grant their wish they owe us a favor.

Or just use old fashion blackmail with NWS.

Prayer Granting? Have a couple hundred people wish that the social systems of Chicago worked perfectly and without issues. Or that Senate passes universal healthcare. Or that there would be no corruption among the government. We have enough homeless who both would sincerely want this, and know that we are an ancient god being cosplaying as a teenage girl for that.



Even if each individual prayer is weak, once you have around a hundred similar prayers working together? I am fairly sure it would accumulate. @DragonParadox am I on the right track to how Prayer Granting work? Assume that a hundred people sincerely wished that Chicago Police was perfectly free of corruption, and we responded to their prayers (full CCC, TLF, BSM, WHWH, APB, and excellency suit working together, for at least 5 successes each). Would their prayers work together?

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Prayer granting does cost 1 essanse each so even if we spend all our time in bleach we can only grant an average of 1 prayer every 15 minutes. Unless you are suggesting that we also do a lot of prayer eating.

 

[DragonParadox]

In regards to Molly and government systems, I have to ask - what is the goal? Is the goal accumulation of personal power for Molly? Or is the goal obtaining the system that reflects Molly's core values, most of which, I presume, for users, are altruistic?

If it's the latter, then the whole approach of trying to get into control of the system is superfluous. I have to ask @DragonPardox several things - Endless Torment Emanation can target an office or a project. Can you rule what a "project" is? Specifically, for example, would it be possible to target "old boys club" kind of nepotism in a whole organization? If there's an organizied system of nepotism, corruption and such, would Molly be able to target those projects of an organization without otherwise affecting the whole of the organization? If the bureaucracy is set up to have loop holes, can Molly affect the projects of using said loop holes?

There's also Fulfill Prayer, which would only take us 12 XP to get:

This is a much broad, if subtle, power than Verdant Emptiness Empowerment. The latter is actually pretty limited. It can empower an individual, and strongly at that. Fairly sure we could, for example, turn Daniel into a killing machine with it. But it can only affect the Empowerment receiver:


Prayer Granting? Have a couple hundred people wish that the social systems of Chicago worked perfectly and without issues. Or that Senate passes universal healthcare. Or that there would be no corruption among the government. We have enough homeless who both would sincerely want this, and know that we are an ancient god being cosplaying as a teenage girl for that.

Even if each individual prayer is weak, once you have around a hundred similar prayers working together? I am fairly sure it would accumulate. @DragonParadox am I on the right track to how Prayer Granting work? Assume that a hundred people sincerely wished that Chicago Police was perfectly free of corruption, and we responded to their prayers (full CCC, TLF, BSM, WHWH, APB, and excellency suit working together, for at least 5 successes each). Would their prayers work together?

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You would need a statistically significant portion of the population of Chicago to pray for institutional change before it had a significant impact unfortunately, same for any other large system I'm afraid. Also there are IC concerns with setting Molly up as a figure of worship, which is explicitly required for the charm, though that is of course the subject of future votes, you can change that, just be aware it comes with consequences

 

[Yog]

You would need a statistically significant portion of the population of Chicago to pray for institutional change before it had a significant impact unfortunately, same for any other large system I'm afraid. Also there are IC concerns with setting Molly up as a figure of worship, which is explicitly required for the spell, though that is of course the subject of future votes, you can change that, just be aware it comes with consequences

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Ok, I don't want to argue, but the text says

the prayers must be offered directly to
the Exalt in the sincere and uncynical belief that she
is a supernatural being capable of using her power to
grant miracles to those she favors.

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That isn't worship at all. For example, both Denarians and Mab would fall under this in Dresden's mind. And he certainly doesn't worship them. At the moment, I am fairly sure all whampire fledges we pull into MiS, and all Order of Cauldron members would fall under the category of beings that are valid targets for Prayer granting.

Also, do I understand that in general you need to have a significant amount of a group using the prayer granting in order to affect the whole of the group? This probably has synergies with collective rituals. Start with the prayer to Molly for the success of the ritual, Molly grants that prayer to all participants, we do the ritual.

 

[DragonParadox]

Ok, I don't want to argue, but the text says

That isn't worship at all. For example, both Denarians and Mab would fall under this in Dresden's mind. And he certainly doesn't worship them. At the moment, I am fairly sure all whampire fledges we pull into MiS, and all Order of Cauldron members would fall under the category of beings that are valid targets for Prayer granting.

Also, do I understand that in general you need to have a significant amount of a group using the prayer granting in order to affect the whole of the group? This probably has synergies with collective rituals. Start with the prayer to Molly for the success of the ritual, Molly grants that prayer to all participants, we do the ritual.

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1. That 'miracles' up there implies that you have to think the exalt is holy so you would have to bend the First Commandment a good bit... or well I guess they would since Molly would be the object of worship, but something tells me that is still frowned on.
2. Yes because in a sense they are collective rituals. I cannot really say much more about it without spoilers until/unless you guys buy and use Prayer eating

 

[Alratan]

That's overly optimistic, we are quite a good combatant, but lack some of the things that would allow something like that to be done: For one, any of them that has a civil identity creates the same problem for us as you say it does for them to kill ours, and we can't go to attack all of the ones that are in Fearie by ourself.

Edit:

Like, do you have any idea how difficult it would be for us to *destroy their organizations* when the ones most likely to react are the biggest ones?

There are lots of them to attack our plants and discredit/Kill/Arrest/stop them, there is one of us and we are not specced for that at all, just VEE alone is quite an investment, the kind of charmset we would need to be able to reliably attack organizations and sink them would never pass due to costing too much for what it gives.

Click to shrink...

Chicago is only one city. There aren't enough active super naturals able to act freely in the world to devote the level of effort to maintaining control of mortal institutions that you suggest. They have significant influence, but they don't have complete control. Most people can't do what Molly does with VEE, they have to actually do massive amounts of legwork themselves or have large conspiracies that create all sorts of evidence and present points of vulnerability to exercise influence on their behalf. If they want to put in their own chief of police or DA it's the result of years of work and that's a significant expenditure of valuable resources. For us it's much, much easier.

You're also assuming that the people we put in place will be completely helpless cyphers that need us to do everything. Why would they be? When we have them in post they can use the power and influence of their position to protect themselves, just as they would from regular threats to it.

VEE plus our social and combat charms is enough to cause chaos in organisations, as VEE is an absolutely amazing offensive social mass combat charm.

In regards to Molly and government systems, I have to ask - what is the goal? Is the goal accumulation of personal power for Molly? Or is the goal obtaining the system that reflects Molly's core values, most of which, I presume, for users, are altruistic?

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Gaining institutional power so we can do more good, securing an asset so bad actors can't turn it against us or the innocent, and gaining resources that can be turned to productive uses.

This is a much broad, if subtle, power than Verdant Emptiness Empowerment. The latter is actually pretty limited. It can empower an individual, and strongly at that. Fairly sure we could, for example, turn Daniel into a killing machine with it. But it can only affect the Empowerment receiver:

Click to shrink...

Turning people into a killing machine isn't the point of the charm. Choosing who the Mayor is, or the District Attorney, or the Chief of Police, or choosing to depose anyone we please who has someone who has a reasonably direct subordinate we can persuade to express even a fleeting desire for their job.

We can also grant fame, wealth, broad social influence, whatever.

Say we want massive social influence over Chicago? We're an infernal, so we use VEE to find a local minor celebrity who has a middling number of dots of Influence, and get them to wish for more and then get them to use that influence to do what we want.

VEE can transform the entire world, changing the actions, minds and beliefs of millions of people or more. That's how it can grant backgrounds. In ten years we could give someone Influence 10, or ' Your influence extends across the mortal world, with some respect granted even in the
Otherworlds.'

 

[Yog]

1. That 'miracles' up there implies that you have to think the exalt is holy so you would have to bend the First Commandment a good bit... or well I guess they would since Molly would be the object of worship, but something tells me that is still frowned on.
2. Yes because in a sense they are collective rituals. I cannot really say much more about it without spoilers until/unless you guys buy and use Prayer eating

Click to shrink...

Could you elaborate on the definition of miracle you are working on for the point 1 and how that relates to worship? I am having an issue understanding. Merriam Webster has three definitions, of which two have to do with divinities, but that only means aspirants would have to think that Molly is some manner of divinity. Like, Isabella already calls Molly "an ancient god beast", and Bob calls her a "god queen". I am fairly sure neither are sarcastic. People in the know, experts even, believe that Molly is someone capable of producing miracles, in the sense that she can do things that should be impossible under laws of physics and magic.

EDIT: To elaborate, would Satan be able to do prayer granting? I know it's covered in bargaining with demons, but if he wanted to, would he able to do it this way? What about Odin?

 

[DragonParadox]

Could you elaborate on the definition of miracle you are working on for the point 1 and how that relates to worship? I am having an issue understanding. Merriam Webster has three definitions, of which two have to do with divinities, but that only means aspirants would have to think that Molly is some manner of divinity. Like, Isabella already calls Molly "an ancient god beast", and Bob calls her a "god queen". I am fairly sure neither are sarcastic. People in the know, experts even, believe that Molly is someone capable of producing miracles, in the sense that she can do things that should be impossible under laws of physics and magic.

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Dresdenverse is a universe with gods who are not the White God, if one was to somehow not acknowledge that fact it would be less an act of faith and more absurd so in this interpretation and this world is emphasized as Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me. So you can acknowledge they exist (as that is objective fact) but not have them, which includes asking them for miracles.

 

[TonedMite]

Chicago is only one city. There aren't enough active super naturals able to act freely in the world to devote the level of effort to maintaining control of mortal institutions that you suggest. They have significant influence, but they don't have complete control. Most people can't do what Molly does with VEE, they have to actually do massive amounts of legwork themselves or have large conspiracies that create all sorts of evidence and present points of vulnerability to exercise influence on their behalf. If they want to put in their own chief of police or DA it's the result of years of work and that's a significant expenditure of valuable resources. For us it's much, much easier.

Click to shrink...

That may be, but something like this will not go unnoticed by… really, any polity which interacts with at the least North America, and possibly anywhere in the mortal world.
A sudden and dramatic change, even for the better, will not go un-noticed and, even independent of what we might ping as to a magically inclined observer, most of the major powers would generally not be inclined to assume that we are acting in a benevolent manner, or assume that this is some sort of ploy, distraction, or what have you.
The leaders/elders of these various organizations didn't get to where they were by being optimistic and/or trusting, after all.