Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

In regard to the Last Station... I just had the image of Mister Grinch tiptoeing into one of the main halls, dinner table lain out, and just having shittons of ghouls who are increasingly laid back about their natural states along with terror and despair-channeling white court just turn their chairs around and staring. And staring. And staring. Even before he realizes that the wall behind him has a toothy grin.

And Mister Grinch, with a single gulp, politely takes as seat and is a good boy for the rest of the night.

Today is damn fucking well going to be merry or else skins are going to be used as war banners.
 
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[X] Swing by the Last Station for the feast
-[X] Invite Harry and Lash along.

Let's give Lash a pleasant first Christmas with some goodwill and togetherness. Harry also always has a bit of that longing to belong and connect in him, from orphan to outcast, and a Christmas feast at Last Station is, more than anything, a place for the outcasts we care for to find some belonging and connection.
 
Porter's train body is the most efficient way to increase security of Last Station, which is why it should be done this month
Perhaps it is.

However, our interests and responsibilities in Chicago extend way beyond Last Station, and a lot of the people we have assumed responsibility for dont live there either.
The social links provide early warning of shenanigans going on in the area. Which allows us to be proactive.

If you remember the events of White Night, the Cauldron murders had been going on for weeks if not months before Harry heard about them. They never threatened his warded home, and yet were a threat all the same.
Same as, in this AU, the Chinatown murders that went on for a while before we heard of it, and Broken Seeker's goons lurking.

We really need to establish the social links to get early warning of that sort of thing.

Pretty sure something new is unnecessary, our deal with that elf for mundane materials goes both ways. We can just sell materials through him.
Last we checked, they were different options:
"So about that..."
What do you want Thomas to focus on?

[] Getting documents for strike teams
[] Working with the Workshop to sell rather than buy precious metals and funnel those funds into accounts you can spend without questions from the government
[] Write in


OOC: After this we will have a talk with Porter, he has not woken up because of how fast you finished this.
We voted for option 1 then.
We havent implemented option 2.

To Taste Good Cheer​
25th of December 2006 A.D.
COMMENTARY
Wow.
5 sux on 19 dice? The dice dont appear to like Mrs Evens very much, do they?
 
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This is where we talk about it, how to prevent what happened with Will of Kakuri from ever happening again.
"Do you have any ideas how we might keep something like this from happening in the future?" you ask tentatively, not wanting to put him on the spot.

"The Chained One was greater in will an understanding than I and so he could ward me off even in this place, but.... hmm... If I had a means to strike from afar the ward would have availed him not. Greater powers than he have tried to chain me. Only one succeeded and he is no more."

Even though you are itching to know who that might be, that is not what you are talking about here. "What do you have in mind in terms of striking from a distance?"

"This is a train station yes, not just a delving in the stone. I am all that it is and thus can empower than just as the small shadow in does your portable telephone."

You are not sure what it says about you that the words 'rocket turrets and spider mines' are the first things to come to mind, other than being a Starcraft player. At least you did not get inspired by the Zerg...

Although...

Nope, nope, moving on. "I can do that, the physical bits at least, if you can just slide in."

"If they are a nature part of the station," the stone spirit confirms with a nod.

With that you turn in for the day, time to go home and... explain some things. Some of it is going to be easy. Daniel asking how Lydia did, Mathew looking for an excited story, but do you tell your mom and tad about the reason you let Eiko go or how thoroughly you killed her boss?

However, our interests and responsibilities in Chicago extend way beyond Last Station, and a lot of the people we have assumed responsibility for dont live there either.
The social links provide early warning of shenanigans going on in the area. Which allows us to be proactive.

If you remember the events of White Night, the Cauldron murders had been going on for weeks if not months before Harry heard about them. They never threatened his warded home, and yet were a threat all the same.
Same as, in this AU, the Chinatown murders that went on for a while before we heard of it, and Broken Seeker's goons lurking.

We really need to establish the social links to get early warning of that sort of thing.
I agree on general principle, but we have invited enough trouble (Red Court, Denarians, probably Black Court, Outsiders, and likely whatever we anger in Vegas) that making a fortress out of Last Station, so it would be legitimately too costly to assail is important, I feel. We need a stronghold, I feel, and need it before retaliatory strike arrives.
 
Must admit, I am a bit curious. What is Lydia doing this Christmas? Dunno if her family even celebrated it tbh. But I would have expected Daniel to invite her if she is just alone.
 
Must admit, I am a bit curious. What is Lydia doing this Christmas? Dunno if her family even celebrated it tbh. But I would have expected Daniel to invite her if she is just alone.

She celebrates Yule as the longest night, the shortest day in the company of the dead, specifically all the sane dead of Chicago who are both willing and able to take an invitation. She thought about inviting some members of Cauldron, but she is not entirely sure how that many ghosts in a constrained space would play with relatively weak mortal magicians. Maybe next year once she has assembled her court of the dead. :V
 
[X] Swing by the Last Station for the feast

Thinking about it, we owe our people some of our time. If possible some infernal super cooking would be nice too. Unnaturally filling and perfectly cooked turkeys by the flock, mash potatoes by the drum, and pies of even the weirdest flavors. The works.


Let Lash torment bond with Harry over the holidays in peace.
 
She celebrates Yule as the longest night, the shortest day in the company of the dead, specifically all the sane dead of Chicago who are both willing and able to take an invitation. She thought about inviting some members of Cauldron, but she is not entirely sure how that many ghosts in a constrained space would play with relatively weak mortal magicians. Maybe next year once she has assembled her court of the dead. :V
Evil Bob: "Sure.... suuuuure this isn't necromancy."

Heinrich Kemmler: "I have wasted my life."
Santa knows better than to mess with these wards. :V

More seriously you are not a needy child, that is strictly speaking who the legend is about, it is not everyone who gets supernatural gifts. For that matter it is not even that everyone who would qualify who gets one.
I'm sure he occasionally breaks through the wall of one dude or another riding the Krampus and, you know, goes about beating them to death with a lump of anthracite before... er... leaving it deposited up their stocking.
Thinking about it, we owe our people some of our time. If possible some infernal super cooking would be nice too. Unnaturally filling and perfectly cooked turkeys by the flock, mash potatoes by the drum, and pies of even the weirdest flavors. The works.
Did we ever figure out a proper wholesaler to source from? I remember we ran some math and found that any reasonable number of ghouls still wouldn't eat enough to raise an eyebrow or put much of a dent in our diamond manufacturing returns.

God, I want to have our minions start a restaurant in this setting with private dining options and the chance to order an entire, magnificently cooked cow as the main course for your table.
 
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This is where we talk about it, how to prevent what happened with Will of Kakuri from ever happening again.
I do remember the quote.

Do note, however that Porter simply says that a train means that he cant be driven/warded off like The Will did. And that it would be very difficult to chain him; not impossible, but difficult
It doesnt mean he cant be beaten.

Thanks for the citation anyway.
I agree on general principle, but we have invited enough trouble (Red Court, Denarians, probably Black Court, Outsiders, and likely whatever we anger in Vegas) that making a fortress out of Last Station, so it would be legitimately too costly to assail is important, I feel. We need a stronghold, I feel, and need it before retaliatory strike arrives.
AP hell is a thing as always.
Nevertheless, I feel strongly that overfocusing on one item leaves us open elsewhere. None of the other people we worry about even have a physical guard present.

We have spent the last six months, with 8 Actions or so building up Last Station. Thats been at a cost to other things and aspects.
Understandable, but that has limits.
You are proposing two Last Station actions in this coming turn:
  • Porter Train
  • Investigating the NeverNever side.

I dont think we can afford both this turn.
One or the other.
Santa knows better than to mess with these wards. :V

More seriously you are not a needy child,
that is strictly speaking who the legend is about, it is not everyone who gets supernatural gifts. For that matter it is not even that everyone who would qualify who gets one.
Point of correction:
Its canon that Santa Claus was allowed past those wards. So was Mab. And Winter Lady Molly. The wards and the guards dont stop those who come without hostility to the inhabitants. I quote:
I was just putting the extra bullet hole stickers I'd picked up onto the bike when
the fire crackled and popped and flared up.
"Merciful Heaven, what is this?" I mused aloud.
There was a sound that can only be described as a "foomph," and a sudden flood
of soot from the fireplace and then...
Well. Then.
He had a round face. And a little round belly. That shook when he laughed.
Underneath all the chain mail.
Kringle was a tall, burly man with long, silvery white hair and a magnificent
snowy beard.
He wore hunting leathers under a mail shirt, and over that was a
heavy, magnificent crimson hooded robe trimmed in white fur. He carried an
enormous sack over one shoulder—and there was no sword at his hip.
He looked at me and let out a low, rumbling laugh.
"Hey," I said quietly.
Google Drive link

View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pxLeRAWNPc86lY-h6cO75YbpkE8ShjHZ/view

Thats the free 2018 short story Christmas Eve on Jim Butcher's website, which was set post-Battle Grounds, where we see visits by Mab, Molly and Kris Kringle, in a pretty clear homage to the whole Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.
And Kringle actually brings Harry a gift: his father's old coffee mug. So yeah, not just children.

That said, I do recall it being canon that while Kringle doesnt deliver to all the children in the world, he still makes it to tens of thousands of homes every year. And that he's a master of time and space magics according to Winter Lady Molly in the other free Christmas short story The Good People
I was feeling quite pleased with the operation when a glaring red light fell over my shoulder.

I spun in my sleigh and sat up straight as Kringle's sled swept down out of the night sky and pulled up next to mine on Michigan avenue, hovering in the shadowy border between reality and the Nevernever, invisible to all but the most imaginative mortal eyes. His reindeer, enormous shaggy things that looked like they belonged in an Ice Age, paced in a snorting half-circle around me and the Unicorn. The lead reindeer was surrounded by a corona of fiery red light centered around its burning red eyes, not its nose.

The nose would have been cuter. This thing looked like it might casually snap its thick leather harness and rip my face off with razor-sharp hooves.

A shadowy figure with a single burning red eye sat in the sled at the tail end of the nine reindeer. They were, to him, what the Unicorn was to me. Amplifiers of his power. I mean, even though he only actually delivered to a token number of homes each year, enough to keep the magic of belief alive, he still made it to tens of thousands of locations in a single night. It took power on a level that made me uncomfortable to think about to manage that much spatial and temporal manipulation—for no better reason than to be kind, mostly to children.

Kringle was the very best evidence that Mab wasn't as cold as she seemed.
Wayback Machine link because website link is down:

The interesting thing there, for our purposes, is the unintentional symmetry between the Pacts of a Demon and the amplifiers that are bound to both Molly and Kringle.


The binding rules do explicitly say that you're not supposed to spam the ability. Each thrall is supposed to be a significant event in the game in it of themselves, making dozens of thralls to game the faith system that it supposed to be difficult to raise breaks the game.

The example demon it gives us is in the mid game and has 3 total thralls. That says something about what the rules are designed for here. Any plan that involves her taking more than single digit thralls over the the next year should be discarded out of hand.
Hmmm....

@DragonParadox
While Im speculating?
Here's a throwaway idea for Lash, assuming she has Flesh 3 or better.
Or was looking to drop points/expand into Lore of the Beast.

Dogs are known for their unconditional love and loyalties.
So buy some dogs that love you. Uplift them to sapience using Flesh 3, then offer them all Pacts.
A pack of loyal sapient doggies is gonna be a Faith drip if you can pull it off.
 
The ghouls would probably object to such a waste of long pork rinds.
Pre-battle snacks. You don't want to go to battle with an empty stomach.
His mistake was not being born with a license to mess with the dead, or simply becoming the an afterlife where his will is by default natural law. :V
The dude is absolutely going to be filing for a travel visa at some point. He gives zero shits about anything besides the secrets of life and death and, whoop, nobody else has a naturally two way afterlife running these days.

I'd say 'fuck that guy' except, yeah, we pretty much went on a first date with Broken Seeker. We're gauging whether somebody needs to be stabbed in the face with a soul erasing blade on a minute-by-minute basis and fuck if I know what happens when that asshole comes knocking. He has at least a 10% chance of not being face stabbed... immediately.

Even complete soul destruction wouldn't convince me he was gone, though. The man probably has copies. Copies that he passed out like party favors.
 
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Evil Bob: "Sure.... suuuuure this isn't necromancy."

Heinrich Kemmler: "I have wasted my life."

Kemmler wanted slaves not subjects, but yes he has in many ways wasted his life... and his unlife

@DragonParadox
While Im speculating?
Here's a throwaway idea for Lash, assuming she has Flesh 3 or better.
Or was looking to drop points/expand into Lore of the Beast.

Dogs are known for their unconditional love and loyalties.
So buy some dogs that love you. Uplift them to sapience using Flesh 3, then offer them all Pacts.
A pack of loyal sapient doggies is gonna be a Faith drip if you can pull it off.

Hmm I had not considered uplift, on the one hand it is workable in the long run, on the other she is in a bit of a bind, needing faith to work the major transformations that would give her that faith regeneration.
 
Kemmler wanted slaves not subjects, but yes he has in many ways wasted his life... and his unlife
Little distinction, sometimes. A man might willingly follow another to the point they would kill or die upon their master's word, given without explanation, and do so grinning. Bound by belief, perceived necessity, playing upon and cultivating ravenous desire, a thousand other reasons. Chains are the tool of the lazy and unimaginative.
 
Hmm I had not considered uplift, on the one hand it is workable in the long run, on the other she is in a bit of a bind, needing faith to work the major transformations that would give her that faith regeneration.
Not really.
Demon evocations up to <Lore>3 are free to use; only <Lore> 4-5 cost Faith.
In this case, Flesh 3:
• • • MANIPULATE FLESH
This evocation allows the demon to manipulate a subject's physical form (be it her own or another's), adding muscle mass, increasing bone density or expanding mental faculties.

System:
Roll Intelligence + Medicine. Each success is a point that can be added to any of the subject's Physical or Mental Attributes, There is a risk, however. Compare the total number of successes to the subject's Stamina. Any excess successes are suffered as bashing damage due to system shock. This damage cannot be soaked. To perform this evocation on another individual, the demon must be able to make physical contact, and the individual can attempt to counteract its effects — the Storyteller makes a Willpower roll ( difficulty 8 ).

Torment: Monstrous demons alter flesh and bone without regard for their subjects' frailty. If performed on another, a Willpower roll is made for the subject, with a difficulty equal to the demon's Torment. If the roll fails, the subject suffers a temporary derangement that makes him uncontrollably paranoid and prone to violence. If the roll is botched, the derangement is permanent.
So she can adopt an animal then use Flesh 3 to boost their Intelligence, Pact with them, and she has a thrall that she can also buff later on. Probably dog, because dogs are both on the smart side for domestic animals, and more predictably loyal through thick and thin, and much less capricious. But other animals are also options.
 
Not really.
Demon evocations up to <Lore>3 are free to use; only <Lore> 4-5 cost Faith.
In this case, Flesh 3:

So she can adopt an animal then use Flesh 3 to boost their Intelligence, Pact with them, and she has a thrall that she can also buff later on. Probably dog, because dogs are both on the smart side for domestic animals, and more predictably loyal through thick and thin, and much less capricious. But other animals are also options.

That was Erata'd to be scene long so it cannot be used for uplift.
 
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