"Molly?"
"Yeah, Daniel?"
"Why does Lydia suddenly seem to violently despise the idea of me joining you guys in combat, after you two went on that 'training retreat'?"
"No reason, I'm sure."
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
"Yeah, Daniel?"
"Why does Lydia suddenly seem to violently despise the idea of me joining you guys in combat, after you two went on that 'training retreat'?"
"No reason, I'm sure."
1. Thanks.
2. Chilarity Prohibition Index works on bakemono too:
Lydia can't benefit, but the question is actually still relevant. Would a perfect mental defense protect against compulsion parts of our training charm while still allowing the charm to function? Because a 1 dot splendor can grant it.
Yes, a perfect mental defense would ward off the compulsion, but not the teaching, one is not needed for the other it's just... they are Hell charms, neither the Thousand Hells nor the Yozi were big on their subjects independence of thought.
- Location
- Right Where I Am
Personally, efficiency isn't my main concern with investing in Lydia. It's Lydia being a true friend and companion.
Would the perfect mental defense still be needed after completion (i.e. after the xp from the charm is spent), or would protection up to that point suffice, and then the Splendor could be given to the next trainee without the compulsion kicking in on the last one?
Hmm, that gives us options. And makes getting new circle members much more viable.
Get Chilarity Prohibition Index (12 XP), and craft a 1 dot Fascination splendor (Form of Dreams and Nightmares, Sacred Protection). We now can rapidly raise Order of Cauldron to Occult 5, Melee 5, Dexterity 5, Stamina 5, monsters.
Assuming 1 AP per charm use, and accounting for malcoffee, that's 70 xp per month. The charm use costs 1 essence per day per student. I think we can afford 5 students, so, say, Daniel, Olivia, Murphy, Isabela, and one more student. Even a one month of study would make a huge difference. After 2 months of study I am fairly sure we could max out their physical attributes, and occult + melee.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Thats a feature, not a bug.
I will remind you that we are not the only person with environment manipulation.
The Will of Kakuri froze the last such application when we fought him. Gard was able to buff us by reducing DCs; she or others could probably apply debuffs as well.
And fucking Madrigal had a curse talisman just hanging around his neck to apply a debuff to his enemies, no big deal.
He wasnt even equipped for war.
You are not providing the citation I asked for in good faith.
I have provided the rules of Prodigy crafting, as written down by Holden; I copied it out from the pdf you have access to.
The system that you have built a significant amount of theorycrafting around. Nowhere in it does it suggest that you get arbirarily scaling effects from piling on successes; it is more of a YES/NO.
Its currently on you to suggest how that doesnt apply here.
No, I was talking about the basic pool.
I was being generous; adding 1 Craft dice to Dex 4 + Craft 3 is an increase of 14%.
With the full Crafting pool it would be 2 dice to around 18 dice(Dex + Craft + Excellency + Stunt + WHWH), which would be 11%.
Which is, as you can see, less than 14%.
A mannequin wouldnt pass police either.
You either dont bother and try to tint your glass to pass at night, or you use a human driver if you cannot afford it.
If she wants machine spirits in her cars, she'd have asked for one.
She hasnt. Presumably there are reasons IC for it with regards to her own work with ghosts and her image in the supernatural as an independent actor and ally, not just a subject.
In the Dresdenverse, mental attacks can be a vector for shaping effects.
Witness Dresden's state after opening his Sight to see Shagnasty in Turn Coat:
When I pulled myself back together, I was sitting on the bed, my legs folded Indian-style. My palms rested on my knees. My breathing was slow and rhythmically heavy. My back was straight. My head pounded painfully, but not cripplingly so.
I looked up and around the room. It was dark, but I'd been in there long enough for my eyes to adjust to the light coming under the door. I could see myself in the dresser mirror. My back was straight and relaxed. I'd taken my coat off, and was wearing a black T-shirt that read "PRE-FECTIONIST" in small white letters, backward in the mirror. A thin, dark runnel of blood had streamed from each nostril and was now drying on my upper lip. I could taste blood in my mouth, probably from where I'd bitten my tongue earlier.
I thought of my pursuer again, and the image made me shudder—but that was all. I kept breathing slowly and steadily.
That was the upside of being human. On the whole, we're an adaptable sort of being. Certainly, I'd never be able to get rid of my memory of this awful thing, or any of the other awful things I'd Seen—so if the memory couldn't change, it would have to be me. I could get used to seeing that kind of horror, enough to see it and yet remain a reasoning being. Better men than I had done so.
Morgan had.
I shivered again, and not because of any memory. It was because I knew what it could mean, when you forced yourself to live with hideous things like that. It changed you. Maybe not all at once. Maybe it didn't turn you into a monster. But I'd been scarred and I knew it.
How many times would something like this need to happen before I started bending myself into something horrible just to survive? I was young for a wizard. Where would I be after decades or centuries of refusing to look away?
Ask Morgan.
I looked up and around the room. It was dark, but I'd been in there long enough for my eyes to adjust to the light coming under the door. I could see myself in the dresser mirror. My back was straight and relaxed. I'd taken my coat off, and was wearing a black T-shirt that read "PRE-FECTIONIST" in small white letters, backward in the mirror. A thin, dark runnel of blood had streamed from each nostril and was now drying on my upper lip. I could taste blood in my mouth, probably from where I'd bitten my tongue earlier.
I thought of my pursuer again, and the image made me shudder—but that was all. I kept breathing slowly and steadily.
That was the upside of being human. On the whole, we're an adaptable sort of being. Certainly, I'd never be able to get rid of my memory of this awful thing, or any of the other awful things I'd Seen—so if the memory couldn't change, it would have to be me. I could get used to seeing that kind of horror, enough to see it and yet remain a reasoning being. Better men than I had done so.
Morgan had.
I shivered again, and not because of any memory. It was because I knew what it could mean, when you forced yourself to live with hideous things like that. It changed you. Maybe not all at once. Maybe it didn't turn you into a monster. But I'd been scarred and I knew it.
How many times would something like this need to happen before I started bending myself into something horrible just to survive? I was young for a wizard. Where would I be after decades or centuries of refusing to look away?
Ask Morgan.
The Archive runs the Oblivion War against the Old Ones.
You know, notCthulu and his ilk. Who are the kind of entity where even reading stuff, seeing stuff, remembering stuff, can...engender change. She would not be able to do any such thing without both shaping defenses and mental ones.
Furthermore, when the Denarians had her captured, they didnt just do to her what happened with Dresden by having her touch a Coin with her skin in order to put a Shadow in her head.
Ergo, she has a shaping defence against that level of shaping bullshit.
I would straight up disagree with the idea that you can duplicate the effects of an always on five dot Celestial Exalt charm with a 1 dot splendor.That sounds.....implausibly broken.
Possession is shaping. Its not the only shaping effect we have seen in the Dresden Files; something like the entropy curse, for example, or the Barabbas Curse wielded by the Denarians, and even a Coin touching your skin and putting a Shadow in your head, are all shaping effects as well as Exalted defines the term.
Even in this quest thus far, the drugs that the Pathfinders were trying to develop would work by whats a magical shaping effect.
......
How the fuck would we know?
She is an EXIGENT. There are no textbooks for learning what powers she gets. She is literally fumbling in the dark IC, same as Molly is; worse, because at least Infernals have an apparent history on Earth Bet that Molly can reference if she is willing to pay the price. Exigents differ individually both in power and capability. There is no pattern to draw assumptions from.
For all you or I know, IC Lydia has been trying to develop something to protect herself against precisely this sort of threat for the last six months, and it hasnt worked out yet.
And just where are you getting the information to make these broad claims about someone who we have not seen speak onscreen for the last six arcs? How are you making assumptions about what Lydia and her father talk about?
The last time we got anything like an Arawn Interlude was around the end of Arc 2 IIRC.
And I dont remember us having a Lydia Interlude at all, not recently.
When Duke Paolo Ortega, their chief warlord and the dude who organized the death of Senior Council member Samuel Petrovich and his entire entourage, ate a satellite to the forehead?
It didnt shake their operations.
They have repeatedly escalated all the way through the Vampire War.
They started this entire affair by aggroing Mab. They followed up by aggroing Summer.
They just tried to pull off a coup attempt in the White Court.
In canon they attacked the FBI Chicago Field Office and executed a massacre of the agents there. In daytime.
I am not sure the Red Court are working from the same assumptions that the rest of the setting appears to be using.
I certainly cant assume that they will respond like one.
And furthermore, their spectrum of response does not require them marching an army to Chicago.
Calling in a favor or ten is on the table, as is hiring contractors.
Or making them. Its not like they are short on feral vampires they can expend as muscle.
That was the assumption of Molly and Lydia being in the same Circle; the XP is supposed to be shared.
The drip of XP she gets is a baseline; we are supposed to build her out from the bigger pool as well.
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No, just during training.
For most Infernals, definitely.
Infernal training charms are optimized for making minions, not raising allies.
If you dont want to dominate your followers, if you value independent voices, that can be a problem.
Hence my preference for One Hundred Devil Disciples.
Assuming the QM allows us to draw on the Infernal Dark Ages charmset.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Hard disagree. Do two player characters share xp?
The share xp was a pure quest construct and even otherwise, we specifically voted for companion xp to avoid sharing xp.
This is a question of right liquid, and being able to automatically refresh said liquid next turn, not a question of it being unworkable.
I'll concede on the subject of wonder forging. But crafting is not limited to wonder forging, and all other "mortal" types of craft do benefit from piling on successes.
Both possession and mental attacks can be shaping. Not all shaping is possession or mental attacks. 1 dot splendors can provide perfect always-on free defense against possession, or mental attacks (or, rather, supernatural attempts to affect one's mind), but not against shaping in general, or both possession and mental attacks at the same time (it would take two splendors to do so).
What you quoted is a classic example of artistic description of mental strain / damage manifesting as physical in some way.
She has mental defenses. Likely has possession defenses as part of mental ones. We don't see anywhere that she has generalized shaping defenses against, say, being turned into a duck.
And taking up a coin was never just about physical touch. It was always about a free will choice to pick up the coin. That's part of the rules.
I'll concede for now, but do note that Arawn has prepared protective equipment for Lydia. We can be reasonably sure she hasn't pursued shaping defenses from what we saw of her activities. It might be a case of not knowing such are available to get.
At risk of bringing real life politics into this, Red King is free to assume he'll take Edinburgh in three days. It doesn't change the objective calculus of war.
Also, no, they started the war by essentially tying Mab down. Yes, aggroing her in long term, but tying down her efforts in short to middle term, and also neutralizing her Winter Lady and Winter Knight, thus significantly reducing the number of available agents she has. You yourself argued that Mab is short-stuffed at the time when I suggested bringing her in for Kakuri situation. If not for our OCP intervention, Winter would have remained tied down for a long time. And this is when they were forced to improvise quickly.
That opens them up to DPE, but otherwise I don't see much downside.
Winning Vote
Arc 10 Post 1: Works of Craft and Guile
Works of Craft and Guile
29th of November 2006 A.D.
Green fire glares down, out of an inside out sky upon a forge of brass and blackened stone, demons work under his dreadful light, creatures hideous in their beauty, strange in their symmetry, spiteful scribbling of a broken demiurge singing still the praises of his undying glorious heart. Molten metals bubble up from the broken earth, springs of blood and bile, shimmering quicksilver-dreams, glittering like gold-greed. At five corners five lanterns hang, parlors hidden behind dark glass, each perfect in its stark simplicity, each filled with gifts so glorious as to glut an empire, the price of the Smith's work. In his vanity he finds the contrast pleasing, you know somehow, that none of them though the long ages have understood the test. the trick in the prices he asks though it had been writ in plain sight within the very halls they come to bargain with him.
They look outwards, to the Plain of Trials and Adjustments, they marvel at his ingenuity, his cruelty and his grace. City-sized automata battle against swarms of lesser clockwork soldiers, hell-striders and darting craft on golden dragponfly wings. Living swords slice away at armor styled from children's dreams, showpiece of screams and toybox of terrors to veil secrets, to guard shame.
As he burns eternal in the heart of the dome you see him burn upon the altar, you see him stand as an auburn haired man before the Fulcrum Bone, the Axis Mundi of a place that should not be, you hear him rage, you feel him weep and in the tongue of his sorrows you in so doing understand the tongue of magics as old as time, that which had never been meant for human lips to utter and yet there the Smith stands, there the Green Sun shines. Does he not wear the shape of a man?
***
It is not the first time you woke up with your face in a pillow wet from tears, it is the first time your tears turned to acid and burned a hole into said pillow. Better fix this before anyone else wakes up. As you bend Essence to the task, fingernails growing into needles of black glass with hooked grooves to hold the thread in place other ideas flood your mind. How to make a more restful pillow or one whose dreams grant foresight, how to make one that is the perfect tool of silent death, instead of distant flashes you see the patterns in the mind's as clear as the work of the Smith on that nightmare Plain of Trials and Adjustments
Hesitantly you try to sound out a word: "Thread Which Binds and Holds Firm"
The magic, the Essence of the world shudders, or twangs maybe, like an improperly plucked string. How thin the substance of existence has grown. This isn't going to be easy, it isn't going to be quick. But now at last you see, not only how things might be burned and broken, twisted, but clear as as a cloudless night under the stars how they might be made.
It almost feels like fate is conspiring when the next evening Harry calls to tell you he's done looking over the sword of the so called Will of Kakuri on Earth. He is obviously not entirely happy to be handing stuff like this over, even if he is handing them back since in his words both of them are made of 'liquid death and howling darkness', but from his studies, direct and indirect alike neither of them influence the mind of the user in any way, nor are they spiritually connected to Emma-O. Obviously he trusted the his dominion over the akuma enough not to double dip as it were.
Even though Harry gives you a vaguely scandalized look when you put it that bluntly he cannot deny the point. Instead he gingerly picks up the sword aims it at exactly the opposite corner of the laboratory you know Lasciel's coin is buried under and slashes down. Where the blade passes the air seems to bleed a murk even your eyes cannot pierce, a shadow of Kakuri Wan brought into the living world. Next he brings out a bucket of water and stabs the black blade into it, summoning not darkness but cold, the water freezes solid. "Works in the air as well, can't really do it in here since it will blow everything off the shelves."
"You could show me outside," you offer, eager to see more of Harry's successes.
"In the street?" he asks with emphases.
"We could go to my place... world," you fire back, realizing how that sounded, then realizing you do have an entire world to take him to, then quickly shoving the thought out of mind before it can run away with you.
"I've been ordered not to return there on my own until a full diplomatic delegation can form."
You bite back a huff. He does not have to sound so relieved about it. "And when's that?"
"About two weeks from now, give ir take a few days depending on how the war's going. By the standards of the Council this is lighting-quick," he explains before very deliberately moving on. "See this thing here at the pummel, looks like it's part of the sword but really..." with a practiced twist he clips off jet-black gemstone and presents it to you. "It's not. The book you wrote called is 'bleak ice or hollow jade'." With that he just kind of stops awkwardly. Little wonder you remember that passage 'made from the tears of the damned dead who now cannot weep'.
"Demon lords are not known for making their treasures out of pleasant things," you say tightly, your mind going back to the Green Sun in the dream.
Silence
Description: Forged without flame in the darkness of Kakuri Wan, this black steel sowrd bears a shadow of that dread place out into the living world. It is permanently Yin-aspected, thus cuts through flesh and spiritual matter alike, harming both corporeal beings and ghosts for STR+2 Aggravated damage
Abilities:
Bleak Ice Talisman
Description: No light may shine upon this gemstone for it is crystalized from tears shed in the endless dark of Kakuri Wan and frozen by its enteral winds
Ability: Can Store up to 3 Yin Chi or 2 Essence*
*Usable by both Molly and Lydia, may not be usable by other Exalts, deepening on how their Essence is aspected
Description: Forged without flame in the darkness of Kakuri Wan, this black steel sowrd bears a shadow of that dread place out into the living world. It is permanently Yin-aspected, thus cuts through flesh and spiritual matter alike, harming both corporeal beings and ghosts for STR+2 Aggravated damage
Abilities:
- Freeze a body of liquid smaller than 10m3
- Cover 20 m3 in darkness that only the wielder can see through
- Unleash an icy wind that deals 5 Dice of bashing damage to all targets in a 3x100m line (other effects of strong wind apply as appropriate)
Bleak Ice Talisman
Description: No light may shine upon this gemstone for it is crystalized from tears shed in the endless dark of Kakuri Wan and frozen by its enteral winds
Ability: Can Store up to 3 Yin Chi or 2 Essence*
*Usable by both Molly and Lydia, may not be usable by other Exalts, deepening on how their Essence is aspected
"Sooo... you are just giving me this stuff?" you prompt, weighing the sword in hand.
"They are not going to hurt you," he answers, the confidence in those words adding the unspoken corollary 'and you are not going to hurt anyone with them.' "I took out all the hell-vampire power in it and filled it with proper magic though."
"Thanks Harry," you flash a happy smile.
Without meaning to, definitely without meaning to be seen, his expression shifts into one that makes you smile ever wider. But you don't mention it, oh no, you have a bit more smaltalk about how people around the city are taking all the rumors swirling around, then you say your goodbyes and head to the Last Station... and if you happen to be humming at the time, well it's not like Black Rider or Clippy are going to say anything about it.
As you are unpacking the stuff again down below the jade starts to hum and a moment later the hum forms into the approximation of a voice you heard once before, though you are certainly not going to forget it.
"Hello? Hello? Is this thing working?" the shade of the Fallen, you had last heard in Harry's head asks. "It had better he working with how long it took to make."
You consider all the questions you could be asking at the moment, all the very grave and important questions. First thigh's first though, the practicalities. "What is this?"
"The details are long and boring and you wouldn't... well actually come to think about it maybe you would understand, but it's a long story. The short one is Harry asked me to make sure the bottled hell-fragrance wouldn't hurt you, which is a bit like a fish being hurt by salt water, but the important part of that is that the best way to make sure you would not be hurt when you use it would be to keep an eye and an ear on the vessel. So we may speak now, happy accident that."
How does Molly respond?
[] With suspicion
-[] Interrogate the shadow
-[] Flush the magic out, you do not need or want to talk to her (breaks the connection)
[] With hope, maybe you can turn her around.
[] Write in
OOC: Turn vote will be after this since it will impact options for that, even though technically Harry should have finished this at the start of next month.
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Rolls
Nightmare? No, just your regular everyday vision of Malfeas
Harry Research: 1, 2
Harry to tap the Talisman (-1 DC Tools -1 DC Lasciel Aid)
Lasciel Trick vs Harry (He is a talented and clever wizard, she is... more, also it is easier for her since he is distracted)
Harry to show off the demon sword
Perception+Empathy... as canon shows Harry is not as unaffected as he would like to be
Nightmare? No, just your regular everyday vision of Malfeas
Harry Research: 1, 2
Harry to tap the Talisman (-1 DC Tools -1 DC Lasciel Aid)
Lasciel Trick vs Harry (He is a talented and clever wizard, she is... more, also it is easier for her since he is distracted)
Harry to show off the demon sword
Perception+Empathy... as canon shows Harry is not as unaffected as he would like to be
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Actually yeah. @DragonParadox what are the downsides of being a COD?
General sensitivity to holy things is about all Molly can intuit, she is not sure since she has not suffered any so far, she could walk into a Church fine and it would feel weird asking her father to banish her by Faith.
- Location
- Germany
That would probably have a hard time working against her anyway.
She might be a CoD, but she is also a Prince of Creation and God has little right to cast her out.
[X] With wary hope - this is both a danger and an opportunity in equal measures. Perhaps, she can be redeemed. Perhaps, you might get some useful information out of her. And you'll never forget that she's a great danger
-[X] Talk to her
--[X] Empathy and etiquette excellencies, ATB
-[X] After the talk is over, and you are not in her presence, use Clippy's recording of the talk as the crown focus to learn her real motivations.
-[X] Talk to her
--[X] Empathy and etiquette excellencies, ATB
-[X] After the talk is over, and you are not in her presence, use Clippy's recording of the talk as the crown focus to learn her real motivations.
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@DragonParadox would Chirality Prohibition Index and Companions of the Hunter stack? Animals are mortal, so could we work together to make a dog who is objectively the best Good Boy in the world? (Don't worry, Mouse, you're still awesome.)
Daniel and Murphy might, though.
The FCF: We have plenty of chill, but what the hell's a 'Netflix'?
No this is a magical phone-call with someone who lives in Harry's brain, neither he nor his brain are present enough to examine.
If you had a animal of a sort that would fall under Companions of the Hunter and intelligent enough to be trained as a human yes
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Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Would not awakening their Po with Inner Devils Unchained not work for animals for the training charm?