fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
People go to other cities to do small jobs without being super strong all the time they are safer than the average human.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
While just the name would be useful in my opinion, I see your point. Alphabet is not very useful though (for one, does Old Realm even use an alphabet? I thought it used logograms). How about "where can I find the largest currently unclaimed collection of text in the language?" This gives us an option to explore later and a plot hook.
I am open to suggestions on the language question.
If we (or our cybervevils, or Thomas, or any of our minions) are not up to running it, we can always resell it. And it's a good front for redistributing media from our kingdom in the future.
That is true. I mean, having it would probably be nice / interesting, we could actually do stuff with it, I think, like employing actual magic for special effects (because cyberdevil possessed equipment = no techbane), and ghouls / other non-humans for actors, and when we get our kingdom, we could use it as a front to transmit entertainment media from said kingdom to real world for profit. But if we don't want those, we could always sell it for massive cash infusion (because a company is worth much more than its revenue stream).
1) Since the IRS can, anyone with influence over individual members of the IRS can as well.
From crime figures to national security to supernatiural nationstates.
And we're not even including magic, which is anything from divination to possession to shapeshifting.
I mean, I recall the details of Trump's former campaign manager's financials being leaked to the press by a highranking whistle blower in 2018, and that wasnt even a targeted campaign.
2) I agree that Madrigal's death is the White Court's business.
That doesnt mean we cant get caught in the splash radius if they happen to fuck up the coverup, or some of Madrigal's associates choose to play games. Which is why I dont want us to be anywhere we can catch splash damage.
And yes, the reputational damage is also a risk.
Especially given that we still have the Whampire blackmail/influence network information in our back pocket. And there's a good chance that Madrigal may have leaked that as well, wittingly or not.
3)We werent parrying or dodging them.
Its not all that unexpected to do damage to a target that is neither parrying nor dodging you, especially when you are armed with magic weapons apparently made with high-level Chimestry. I mean, this is a Level 6 Chimestry power:
Level 6 • Fata Amria (Clanbook: Ravnos) Rolls: Manipulation + Intimidation, diff targets Willpower
Using this power, a Ravnos may place a potent curse on a target. By evoking the power in her blood, the Ravnos essentially "locks" an illusory effect to the target, which manifests from time to time. The effects of Fata Amria can range from merely annoying to potentially lethal, depending on the severity of the curse and the number of successes rolled by the Ravnos.
System: A Fata Amria costs one Willpower point to initiate. The Ravnos verbally curses the target, then rolls Manipulation + Intimidation against a difficulty of the target's Willpower. The number of successes determines the strength of the effect, as shown on the table below. The example effect given is simply a guideline; the way in which the Fata Amria manifests is based solely upon the nature of the curse accompanying it.
1 suc - Inconvenient effects; target loses two dice from a given Dice Pool.
2 suc - Minor effects; difficulty numbers are raised by two when in a given circumstance.
3 suc - Major effects; target automatically fails a certain action at a pinnacle moment.
4 suc - Serious effects; target automatically fails certain actions in any stressful simulation.
5 suc - Disastrous effects; target fails all actions involving a given Attribute, Ability or Discipline.
Using this power, a Ravnos may place a potent curse on a target. By evoking the power in her blood, the Ravnos essentially "locks" an illusory effect to the target, which manifests from time to time. The effects of Fata Amria can range from merely annoying to potentially lethal, depending on the severity of the curse and the number of successes rolled by the Ravnos.
System: A Fata Amria costs one Willpower point to initiate. The Ravnos verbally curses the target, then rolls Manipulation + Intimidation against a difficulty of the target's Willpower. The number of successes determines the strength of the effect, as shown on the table below. The example effect given is simply a guideline; the way in which the Fata Amria manifests is based solely upon the nature of the curse accompanying it.
1 suc - Inconvenient effects; target loses two dice from a given Dice Pool.
2 suc - Minor effects; difficulty numbers are raised by two when in a given circumstance.
3 suc - Major effects; target automatically fails a certain action at a pinnacle moment.
4 suc - Serious effects; target automatically fails certain actions in any stressful simulation.
5 suc - Disastrous effects; target fails all actions involving a given Attribute, Ability or Discipline.
4)I dont know enough about this random Skavis bodyguard to be willing to entrust him with money or responsibility.
Thats a little like picking up someone off Skid Row to be your accountant.
They could be great, or they could be a disaster.
I'd be willing to use him as a combat trainer for the Jade Dogs, though.
Assuming thats even necessary.
===
Ultimately, I think there's a mismatch of expectations.
People hear movie studio with cult hits and they're thinking Disney or Sony, that release 15-30 movies in a year and make billions of dollars of income, with a library of thousands, or tens of thousands of films and series in the archives bringing in residual income when licensed to TV channels and airlines and the like.
When the truth is that this is more like Annapurna Pictures or Laika: passion projects of the rich kids of billionaires, with maybe 10 movies to their name and reputation, and income based on how successful the next movie is .
Annapurna Pictures - Wikipedia
Laika, LLC - Wikipedia
Annapurna is funded by billionaire Larry Ellison of Oracle and run by his daughter Megan, while Laika is funded by billionaire Phil Knight of Nike and run by his son Trevor.
Rich people's toys basically, run by nepo babies.
They are backstopped by billionaires even when if/when they arent currently making cash, and financial losses can be used as tax writeoffs elsewhere.
Thats not how movies work.
Madrigal Raith owned and ran it before, with the advantage of Raith money and Whampire mojo to help him.
The movie business is not like car dealerships or apartment buildings; you cant delegate it and leave. A lot of things depend on relationships and gut calls, movie budgets often balloon out of proportion, actors and directors fuck up and so on.
Are you willing to back some manager that, say, we'll commit to funding a 20 million dollar movie (Scream V in 2022 cost 24 million to make, not including advertising budget), sight unseen? Will you allow him to get into auctions for movie scripts or indie flicks?
Im not.
Seriously, the entire recent history of the Marvel and DC Films franchises should be enough to convince people about just how big of a gamble it can be to leave someone with a blank check in the entertainment industry and walk away.
Many, many movies make a loss.
We havent forgotten it. We moved it into an underground chamber that apparently smugglers used to use and walled it off.
The lab matters when we hit Alchemy 3.
Molly doesnt have Alchemy 3 yet, let alone Alchemy 4, and hasnt finished renovating Last Station.
She has nowhere to put it, and couldnt use it if she did.
When we get Last Station done, THEN we go looking for the lab equipment.
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Movie studios are not easily transferrable assets.
Ask the Weinstein Company, which went from being on the brink of a $500 million dollar buyout on March 1 2018, to the deal collapsing on March 6, to bankruptcy on March 19. And TWC was a medium-sized Hollywood player with a library of 520 movies.
Just from a purely financial aspect, small movie studios are a pretty bad investment vehicle.
And Molly would not find it ethical to use her powers to make people buy it, even if she was willing to spare the time.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
It mostly useful for allowing us to launder movies from our kingdom. Although that might take some trickery to explain how this small studio is suddenly able to produce more movies than the rest of Hollywood put together.
This is at best arguable, I feel. At the very least, without trying to investigate details of USA entertainment industry, majority of film studios in this page has a number of ownership transfer deals of various kinds in their history.
The smaller the studio is, the better and easier to transfer it, i feel.
Plus, as I mentioned, we actually have stuff that can make this very profitable with little personal involvement, namely:
1) Cyberdevils. That's post-production and special effects for essentially the cost of electricity, plus financial controls, plus protection against techbane if we were to use minor practitioners as performers
2) Our kingdom. If it is its own technologically advanced world, it is likely to have its own movies, TV shows, etc. Using this studio as a front to transmit the media into USA is not a bad idea in my mind.
We'll have to control ourselves and do only a few, but best, movies at a time.
Also, everyone, please be aware that I am changing my vote a bit, in regards to the question about language. Because it was correctly pointed out that just learning that it's "Old Realm" is not helpful. I tried to make the question more actionable. I am open to suggestions.
[X] Yes (Obtain Red Star Productions)
[X] Crown questions after the party is over
-[X] Occult excellency and ATB
-[X] Using the body of the sacrifice "Who is the Empyreal Chaos spoken of by the being summoned through this sacrifice?"
-[X] Using the bodyguard "What were the plans of the being that possessed their master's body?"
-[X] Using a random party goes of no importance "Where can I find the largest currently unclaimed collection of records in the non-human language heard by this person during the fight?"
I think there was an action for it last turn. As for recruitment you got new vampires last turn.
- Location
- Right Where I Am
Arc 5 continues the trend of this being great. I am absolutely on board with an eventual city-god of Chicago. I also love that Molly is remaining true to a belief in goodness. The power may have been Infernal, but the power is hers. Like Charity said in Proven Guilty, she is her father's daughter.
Explain to Hollywood, and the rest of the world, who the actors are, where it was filmed, who worked on the movie, who did the post-processing and production.
Seriously, thats not even vaguely feasible.
Ownership transfer deals =/= sales.
To point at just one example, The Weinstein Company went into bankrupcy, and the assets were picked up by another company.
The owners didnt get shit that I can recall.
The smaller the studio, the less of value it has to transfer.
What exactly are you selling? Chairs? Computers? In the absence of a stable, successful company, the value of a movie company drops drastically. Especially since staff are free to take jobs elsewhere.
It takes a significant sized studio with decades of operation to have a film library worth transfer.
And it takes a fair bit of industry connects to be able to sell at anything close to a price, instead of taking a haircut, or even their just waiting you out until you declare bankruptcy.
1)Not how it works.
VFX artists work hand in hand with the directors and producers and storyboard artists to do their cinematic magic.
They dont just work remotely and are never seen IRL. Work from home is not a thing at this point in time.
Never mind the idea of letting cyberdevils have to work with movie directors and producers, a lot of whom are....not known for their consideration, shall we say.
2)See my reply to fictionfan.
The idea of laundering wide distribution entertainment with unknown filming locations, unknown actors, unknown staff, unknown equipment, and so on is straight up preposterous. And I use the term deliberately.
People underestimate just how much scrutiny you undergo, how many people and how much logistical effort that it requires to make even a cheapass B-movie like the one where Alec Baldwin mistakenly shot and killed a cast member.
That was a movie with a $8 million dollar budget by the way,
What's the difference from the practical standpoint? It's a way to cash out.
If nothing else, land and infrastructure.
Yes, and? What is stopping us from reading in directors about supernatural? Or hiring those already in the know.
What scrutiny? No, serious question, what scrutiny and from whom? There are a lot of moving unseen parts in movie making, yes, but as long as nothing goes wrong (and nothing will, because the movies have been made already, we are just transferring them), no one will care.
Also, cartoons. Like, all the cartoons.
Red Star is known for making cheap horror movies, not quite in the Blair Witch Project range of 'some guys with a camera' but certainly expect early season Charmed levels of special effects... unless someone helps them out.
Harry had some of his friends make an RPG, you could do one better and make a Buffy like TV program with actual supernatural secrets.
And many shenanigans were had
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- Location
- Germany
We'd have to balance things carefully out.
Exalted can't be a part of the story, that would take any horror out of it.
Exalted can't be a part of the story, that would take any horror out of it.
I meant to say Charmed, you know 2000s wanna-be Buffy with witches and some of the worst plot points known to man. That level of special effects.
- Location
- Germany
Yeah sure, I just meant if we wanted to make a horror film or show with real DF/WoD Lore, we can't have an Exalted protagonist like this quest.
Being completly unphased by eldritch horrors of any kind makes for a decent action-show, but not for horror.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
To be fair, a show need not be good, just make money.
It could still be a horror story. I mean, young female invested with hellish powers from before the dawn of time to battle Lovecraftian horrors, thrust into the hidden supernatural world of immortals? That has tons of suspense. Just maybe tone it down to terrestrial tier?
This has potential. Our own Wormhole Extreme. With guest stars including Maeve, Lily, and a true angelic choir for opening music.
Though yeah, it would be more of an action story. For horror one, you probably want changelings.
Some bankruptcies are to allow you to reorganize.
The others are simply a forced sale of assets to pay your creditors. You dont get shit.
Only the majors own land and infrastructure.
Everyone else rents as much as possible.
The same reason why the Raiths have never read in any of their directors, despite their literally running an empire of porn studios and sometimes using Whamps as actors and actresses.
Including the White King's daughter and heir.
Screen Actors Guild(SAG-AFTRA) to ensure workers pay and conditions. Screenwriters Guild for the same thing
Directors Guild to meet the new director and schmooze, and to look for funding for their next movie. Movie financiers to explore the possibility of new deals. Rival studios checking to pick up a trick or six.
The actual theater owners and distributors who will actually show the movie on their screens, sell the DVDs in stores and broadcast them on TV. Your movie advertising company to advertise the movie to audiences needing to meet the actors for the publicity junket and media appearances.
Movie journalists looking for a story.Talent and PR agencies looking for new clients.
Certification organizations like the American Society For The Protection of Cruelty to Animals(if you check the end scroll of essentially any modern mainstream US movie that has animals in it, they're there). Rating agencies who will actually assign the movie a rating before it can be shown in the US.
IRS for payroll taxes during the duration of the filming.
State and local film boards where you claim to have done your filming with regards to everything from tax credits to paying for film permits and police presence during public scenes.
Police and other law enforcement if your filming shows evidence of the use of pyrotechnics (that actually requires licensed pyrotechnicians to do).
And thats just off the top of my head.
This is not my professional field, but I am aware that there is a humongous web of people involved or interested in every significant movie or TV production.
Thats what happens when you live in a modern society.
Thats in the vicinity of the 1994 Crow movie, and that cost 23 million dollars.Red Star is known for making cheap horror movies, not quite in the Blair Witch Project range of 'some guys with a camera' but certainly expect early season Charmed levels of special effects... unless someone helps them out.
Harry had some of his friends make an RPG, you could do one better and make a Buffy like TV program with actual supernatural secrets.And many shenanigans were had
Or the original Scream 1 movie, which cost 15 million dollars in 1996. Even the original Blair Witch Project ended up costing between 200,000-750,000 dollars by the time they finished production.
Short of literally scraping the bottom of the barrel(IIRC, Blair Witch literally bought a single camera for the movie, and returned it for a refund) we're still looking at a budget of 7 to low 8 figures.
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Charmed may be overselling it then, more like the Evil Dead. That cost 375,000$ in 1981 which is still 831,420$ in 2006. There is a market for under a million dollar budget horror films.
Incidentally?
Before Buffy the series, there was a 1992 movie, with Donald Sutherland and Kristy Swanson
View: https://youtu.be/pnZkV_aR_9w
View: https://youtu.be/SQol0ArfMa0
Yeah, that Charmed level of effect.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer cost 7 million.
I'll take your word for it; my tastes generally didnt run to that end of the spectrum.
That makes it rather hard to be a cult classic director though, with actual paid actors and shit, because you are going below actual professional paid crew with sets and into hobby project territory.
I mean, even the reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre(2003) cost 9.6 million and made 107 million.
While the 2006 prequel cost 16 million and made 51.8 million.
'Darby' always managed to find good actors willing to work for cheap somehow... Then again it was not just being a vampire with presence and dominate he also knew people, had contacts in the industry and was very good at promoting his work, that is why he was at Splattercon.
Duquette7
I am Fire, and I am Rain
[X] No
[X] Crown questions after the party is over
-[X] Occult excellency and ATB
-[X] Using the body of the sacrifice "Who is the Empyreal Chaos spoken of by the being summoned through this sacrifice?"
-[X] Using the bodyguard "What were the plans of the being that possessed their master's body?"
-[X] Using a random party goes of no importance "Where can I find the largest currently unclaimed collection of records in the non-human language heard by this person during the fight?"
[X] Crown questions after the party is over
-[X] Occult excellency and ATB
-[X] Using the body of the sacrifice "Who is the Empyreal Chaos spoken of by the being summoned through this sacrifice?"
-[X] Using the bodyguard "What were the plans of the being that possessed their master's body?"
-[X] Using a random party goes of no importance "Where can I find the largest currently unclaimed collection of records in the non-human language heard by this person during the fight?"
I feel the danger of police and IRS is massively overstated here for us. The police in Chicago is primarily dangerous to us on account of how corrupt and subverted as an organization it is. Subverted by the White Court and Marcone. Who want to ally with us/are allied with us. They cops won´t go after us and if they do it takes literally one call and they will back off. And the IRS, well, Lara can order warships around. At least for now she is our ally and will protect us, later we will be too powerful to care. Mortal organizations are the White Courts bread and butter. As long as we and Lara aren´t enemies we are fine.
[X] Yes (Obtain Red Star Productions)
[X] Crown questions after the party is over
-[X] Occult excellency and ATB
-[X] Using the body of the sacrifice "Who is the Empyreal Chaos spoken of by the being summoned through this sacrifice?"
-[X] Using the bodyguard "What were the plans of the being that possessed their master's body?"
-[X] Using a random party goes of no importance "Where can I find the largest currently unclaimed collection of records in the non-human language heard by this person during the fight?"
[X] Yes (Obtain Red Star Productions)
[X] Crown questions after the party is over
-[X] Occult excellency and ATB
-[X] Using the body of the sacrifice "Who is the Empyreal Chaos spoken of by the being summoned through this sacrifice?"
-[X] Using the bodyguard "What were the plans of the being that possessed their master's body?"
-[X] Using a random party goes of no importance "Where can I find the largest currently unclaimed collection of records in the non-human language heard by this person during the fight?"