Depends is their a system scrubbing the knowledge of sorcery from the soul. If not well Souls can retain information across lifetimes.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
We don't know how physically big an Old One is. I am very worried about it.
What does this refer to then? I don't see an alternative explanation. It shouldn't carry over, yes, but the world has been broken and remade, and the rules are different than they were. It is the answer to how Dresden's magic is different from that of other White Council members (including Rashid's by the way).
At the very least this, coupled with the mention of Salinan working, establishes a strong enough basis to try and teach Harry Ancient Sorcery.
True Faith merit exists and can produce active effects. And I wasn't referring to whampire wizards, but to whampires in general using their disciplines. Or people like brother Devsimar, who can use their life energy for certain things without being able to use normal magic. Point is, ability to use Ancient Sorcery and ability to use mortal wizardry are separate things, this has good enough mechanical and narrative basis.
Sorry, but yes, you pretty much have to be a misantrope when the same or worse powers already exist in the setting and are possessed by literal people-eating monsters deeply embedded into the world and human society, pulling the strings.
Yes, the potential for abuse exists, but at least this way humanity gets more instruments it desperately needs to protect itself against predation.
It's frankly conceited to think that Molly is somehow the best of humanity or is especially special.
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I am 70% sure that Listen-to-Wind was stated to be starborn
If so, or if Rashid is a starborn, then the ability to use Ancient Sorcery is uncoupled from being a starborn. We only know that Harry's magic is different from that of other White Council mages in the way that corresponds to initiation into Ancient Sorcery.
Hmm... We know that Starborn are ancient souls from previous Ages. That's all we can be sure about. The other question was about Harry. We know that humans in the Age of Legends could initiate into Sorcery by passing the trials. We know, or at least I think I can be relatively sure about this ( @DragonParadox does Molly IC understand the response she has gotten from the crown in regards to Harry's magic?) that Harry himself is initiated into Sorcery, and that is the way his magic is different from other wizards of the White Council.
It's possible (and I apologize to @uju32 for previous assumption, I think I have been wrong) that Harry has initiated into Sorcery unknowingly over the course of his life.
Assume for a moment that Salinan working still persists in some way. Based on DuMorne's question, at least some knowledge of its survives, and this could mean that some version of it survives. Let's further assume that only ancient souls from the Age of Legends count as human / mortal / eligible for learning Sorcery under Salinan working. This gives Starborn the capacity to initiate into sorcery. One that Harry has fulfilled over the course of his life. I am fairly sure there are events in his life that would count as trials.
Molly does not have any more context for that answer. She does know enough to recognize that series of words as relevant to her kind of magic, but that is about it. The only way to know is Harry can be initiated into Ancient Sorcery is to try and do it, with the afferent risks which include 'the student was immolated by their own soul igniting from within' and the like.
The crown will never give you wrong information, but that does not mean it will give you all the information and there is only so much you can indirectly gleam from things Harry has made. You could try pointing it at Harry himself for better resolution.
OK. Definitely to be put under "more prep required". Does Molly know enough to know what Harry would be rolling when trying to initiate / do Ancient Sorcery and to make a 1 or 2 dot splendor to prevent him from botching (Invincible Assertion + Mystic Fortification)?
Anyway, the next avenues of research, I feel, would be to compare Harry's soul to that of another wizard (this we already voted for, so this is scheduled), compare his soul and magic to that of human inhabitants of our realm, compare the same to a fae, for completeness sake, and then develop a magically significant horoscope together with him. I think I'm going to schedule an AP for next month for this in my planning.
He could not be rolling just one thing, the first part of any attempted initiation would be Molly trying to reinvent a training course.
Hmm, the invention part itself should be safe enough. That's obviously INT+Occult and we have a lot of those and can't botch.
BoredMan
Dinosaurs came in many flavors. Like potato chips.
But she is? This is a quest. Before Molly commits to a major action a bunch of different people debate over the morality and or efficiency of differ tactics and vote. Regardless of what knowledge or perspectives Molly herself doesn't have that may have been used to argue and reach that deciding vote, as long the winning action itself is in character enough it goes through.
Pointing at Molly the player character and going "she can't be a unique case of mentality" seems dishonest somehow.
I understand what Yog is saying the fact that the white court the Jade court The red court What remains of the black Court ghouls Demons evil gods the faery at all And countless other people Eaters killers and enslavers. The idea that the chosen would go about deciding to destroy the entire world or otherwise jeopardized the world itself instead of trying to get rid of those things. First is an inherently misanthropic. Because in the end there will be Just as many twilights is there are Zeniths Eclipses. For Every dawn or daybreak that goes loud And Destructive, there will be Others to undo the damage . This of course ignores the fact that 2/3 of the lunars are also not violence oriented. All of the Sidereals Work to preserve and find The Secrets ends and ensure the Journey's of the world.
Pretty much all of the infernals would be drawn into lockcombat with their local Evil supernatural factions For the chance to be the one true king of that area wether that be The thousand Hells or material underworlds Is up to chance. Abbysals Follow the same pattern as solar's. Except they happened to look creepy and be slightly better at killing stuff flat out. They have no reason to throw themselves in with outsiders or enemies of humanity anymore than any other human does.
Pretty much all of the infernals would be drawn into lockcombat with their local Evil supernatural factions For the chance to be the one true king of that area wether that be The thousand Hells or material underworlds Is up to chance. Abbysals Follow the same pattern as solar's. Except they happened to look creepy and be slightly better at killing stuff flat out. They have no reason to throw themselves in with outsiders or enemies of humanity anymore than any other human does.
BoredMan
Dinosaurs came in many flavors. Like potato chips.
First of all, you seem to be making the mistake of assuming that someone needs to be malicious in intent to do bad things or make unwise decisions. Secondly how can you possibly say that they have no reason? You have no idea what life any future Exalted may have led before turning. Who they were raised by, what they were raised by, the manner of environment they were exposed to. What if one of them is a nihilist and thinks ending everything is a worth while goal? Now they have the power to try.
Its not misanthropic it's acknowledging that there are all sorts of people out there you can't make any assumptions based on your own common sense about what people will or won't feel like doing when given, phenominal cosmic power, good or bad.
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That doesn't answer what I said the solars choose for the skilled the Victorious The fighters Speaker inventors that put everything of themselves into what they do. Why would they wanna destroy the world. The lunars pick for survival The excellence of attribute The kind of person that Severs their hand with a smaller rock to prevent themselves for being trapped in a chasm, The kind of people that could make the twenty six mile run with no training to alert the people they want to save. Why would they wanna destroy the world. The Sidereals are fated To be people that wish to protect the world to see it thrive and be more than it once was. Why would they want to end the world. The Abbysals Pick for the same thing solars do except the literally didn't want to die. The infernals again a wild cards, but follow the same pattern as solars. Except their chance, the opportunity they missed it and in missing it we're granted a second chance. So why would they want to end the world.
BoredMan
Dinosaurs came in many flavors. Like potato chips.
People are more than their exaltions. The way Molly acts isn't always in line with the nature of her charms for example and that is without our own input needed. Simply put the answer to your question could have a wide range of responses depending on the person and yes they might not even want to.
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Summer Knight chapter 10:
Generally, when the term Queens is used in plural in the Dresdenverse, they are referring to all of them.
Not just Mab or Titania.
My dude. Canonically Abyssal Exalted are supposed to destroy the world in Exalted 2E.
Thats what the Neverborn want them to do, corrupted their Exaltations to do. After their freedom from the Jade Vault, there were around 100 Abyssals, compared to roughly 150 Solars and 50 Infernals.
This is how the Abyssals are introduced in ExWoD:
They are literally called Agents of Extinction.ExWoD p26 said:
The fact that the Neverborn arent supposed to exist any longer to coerce them doesnt change the criteria used to choose them, or the goals programmed into their shards.
And thats before you look at the rest of the Exalts, who come from different walks of life and different nations.
Exalts span the breadth of human experience, some of them grievously wronged, and some just want to watch the world burn.
Do not assume altruism.
Its magic. Physical size has nothing to do with this.
And like I have said previously, there's a lot of prisons on Earth for intruding entities, from the Sleeper in the Pacific to Demonreach in Lake Michigan.
We have insufficient data to support this assertion.
Molly isnt learning Ancient Sorcery spells by looking at nature where its encoded; if she didnt have the Brigid's Heir Merit that gets shit from her Exaltation, she would have to track down physical records and read them.
Note that the Crown itself did not interpret any special significance to the words you bolded.
Furthermore, the example of Dragonblooded and Sidereal Martial Arts in Creation very much suggests that we dont fucking try shit unless we know what the fuck we're doing here. These are primordial energies, and there's risk not just to the user, but to everyone around him.
Everytime a DB tried to initiate a SMA charm in Exalted 2E, it blew up the DB, his dojo, and a couple square miles of adjacent Creation. Even in the Dresdenverse, soulfire explicitly required Uriel giving Dresden access to it; he couldnt just learn that shit, even though he was apparently powering it with his soul.
True Faith and Faith magic in this AU exists in a setting where there is an existent Heavenly infrastructure with a vigilant White God and activist loyal angels. Humans get to generate it, but they dont have any control over how it manifests.
The Knights dont actively manipulate it, and they actually carry Swords.
You kinda have to be both a wizard and a Believer to actively manipulate faith magic.
Whampires literally all have a magic demon inside their heads responsible for their superpowers.
Shih bridges I have no idea about the theoretical basis of how they work in this universe.
Could be Sponsored Magic.
Molly isnt learning it the same way mortals do, so she doesnt have any insight.
Shih magic is strictly internal, that is why it is so cripplingly dangerous to use and , especially, to learn, the Shih is using the energies they need to live. A human has 7 points of Chi in total in their soul, you physically cannot survive with less than 3 of them and by the time you are there breathing is s struggle.
Uju The neverborn are literally outsiders now and without the deathlords There's No one to force them in that direction. As people aren't the exaltations abbysals Still canonically have the same selection catalog as solar as except they have to be on the brink of death. Without resonance They're no more Agents the extinction then any other human or I guess death Aspected Divinity.
Leaving the useless rehash of Bronze vs Gold faction arguments for a moment...
My point stands - you don't need to be a magic user to become an Ancient Sorcery user. Neither mechanically nor narratively. I'll probably give you that you need to be able to manipulate or at least invoke some manner of energy first. And yes, invoking works too - half the AS spells are "you invoke X, supplying magic juice, effect happens". You dont actually manipulate energy yourself, not necessarily.
Edit: on teaching Dresden and others AS - lots of preparatory precautions first, obviously, but something worth investing in. Spreading the knowledge of Exorcism is a benefit to the world
Magically speaking, there's no limitation on what can pass through. Ligier or Viator of Null Space could pass through the Calibration Gate in all their undiminished terrible glory, and where would we be then?
OK then. How would you interpret the crowd's answer to the question "how is Dresden's magic different from magic of other white council wizards?"?
That's different, specifically thanks to Salinan working.
Molly's followers can develop True Faith, presumably without Molly developing special infrastructure for it.
My point stands - you don't need to be a magic user to become an Ancient Sorcery user. Neither mechanically nor narratively. I'll probably give you that you need to be able to manipulate or at least invoke some manner of energy first. And yes, invoking works too - half the AS spells are "you invoke X, supplying magic juice, effect happens". You dont actually manipulate energy yourself, not necessarily.
Edit: on teaching Dresden and others AS - lots of preparatory precautions first, obviously, but something worth investing in. Spreading the knowledge of Exorcism is a benefit to the world
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Humanity does, but exalts aren't the optimal choice for that because they'll do what they like and not necessarily what anyone else would want. See the Salinian working and how it almost broke reality.
You're being wildly optimistic about every part of this. Even setting aside the fact that infernals are chosen by demons for being assholes, confined only by how urgently they want the job done, all it take is a small number of exalts being selfish or having a different idea of what's good for everyone to end in flames.
I just don't see an exalt killing and replacing the last boogeyman in search of their own kingdom or simply burning everything down as an improvement simply because a human is the one doing it. Without a structure we don't have and can't provide exaltations aren't weapons for humanity. They're weapons for humans, whichever ones are holding them at the time.
Even if you were right about 90% of exalts a 10% misfire rate here would cause incalculable harm. I think it's reasonable to say there would be significantly more disunity than that.
O k what am I missing I don't remember this salinian working Getting any where near close to actually breaking reality. It just allowed people who had enlightened essence to initiate Into sorcery. The only line I remember is. Everyone looked in horror but that was the deliberative, a governing body? Of course they don't want anybody with an occult of greater than three And enlightened essence To be able to use Sorcery. Suddenly having to take tens of thousands If not, Hundreds of thousands of what used to be unimportant mortals concern seriously. Because they might Make their Displeasure Known by summon demons or casting spells Or otherwise mess with your infrastructure is a horrifying thing for a controlling government. Never mind the fact that she snuck in to a bill past by the deliverative.
Infernals are not really chosen for being assholes, they are chosen for failing from the same pool of candidates as Solars and Abyssals. Basically in canon Exalted what happens is when someone comes to a point in their lives when they are asked to do the (nearly) impossible physically, socially, mentally, magically etc... does not matter which, and:
- The Solar wins and gets Glorious Golden Power from the source of all perfection.
- The Abyssal dies and is given a second chance by dead gods dreaming to destroy that which had killed them.
- The Infernal loses and they are given a chance to avenge themselves by demon gods yearning for the power they have lost.
I'll make a long and probably at least partially rambling post o the subject in a couple of hours, but the basic gist is that in the age of legends all exalts labored under manifold death curse of primordials, were essentially, as a society, forged from an unimaginably bad and traumatizing war, had their patron deities who were supposed to at least somewhat direct / help them / serve as the moral authorities hopelessly addicted to transcendentally entrapping games of divinity, and even despite that the vision of gold still existed, and even at the time of usurpation on average the society was something that a lot of modern mortal humans would kill their firstborn to join.
And in Dresden Verse specifically White Council provides a good example of how a society of super powerful long lived humans can self-organize, and, again, the deck is stacked against them.
As I said, I'll make a much more detailed post about my thoughts on the subject in four to five hours.
Half of their selection criteria for who to exalt fall into categories like "Death cult leader". They also still suffer from curse requirements that have such delightful effects like erasing their name and punishing them for having children.
There whole arrangement is clearly designed to other the exalt to encourage them to do awful shit. They don't have to, but you're basically asking for everyone in Menzoberranzan to become Drizzt.
There's also still infernals, with actual demons calling the shots based on how compatible they think you are with the ideals of hell. Molly only technically met the most basic condition and got it because there was no other option.
Even without that though there's still the matter of people being people. This isn't the age of legends where there's cultural uniformity backing a system powerful enough to keep them in check and prepared to do so.
As @BoredMan said, people are more than their exaltations and you don't have to be malicious to make bad decisions. The exalted do not have a wisdom excellency.
Hundreds of people with their own experiences, priorities, and beliefs all over the world are not going to uniformly agree on much. Most would probably think outsiders are bad, but that's not enough to make us happy with winter is it?
Your game so you can change it if you want, but for ExWoD the demon is filtering the pool:
From page 448.
The question covers the cracks in the system, but it also lays out what the regular function is. The demon is looking for people who qualify for the most literal function of the job and selecting the host it thinks will use power in a way they like.
I think you're writing off a bit too much of the fluff for Abyssals as well. They don't have a demonic guidance system, but the introduction they're given is pretty clear on the goals and themes of what the Neverborn did to them.
Being solars in black eyeliner undercuts their entire group, and waters down the narrative of the rare individuals who overcome it.
We're starting from a very different place than them. Get a dozen different people together and you'll get two dozen different opinions about any given topic.
You're envisioning your utopia, but what happens in the meantime when people with deep and abiding differences in beliefs use their new vast cosmic power to settle them?
I've laid out a number of entirely reasonable scenarios where this goes off the rails and you've had answers for none of them. Maybe everything works out, but it seems to me that the practicalities are being ignored. If things deviate even a little, even if that deviation is itself a predictable part of human behavior, then things get nasty.
The world can be changed for the better, but not by adding god-kings to it.
The white council is made up of people who couldn't explode the setting individually until they'd been hooked into it for centuries and have too much to lose. They also had a divine head start to get in place.
If we want to return some of the Glory of the elder days MA seems a better option then Sorcery. Sorcery is hard even for people with experienced teachers which Molly is not. While MA is an already developed to a degree, so improving it back to it's old glory is easier. In particular Molly would have easy inspiration to develop Path of the Arbiter style, given that it is basically Micheal's actual personality already.
This is something both you Bronze tongue and Uju do Which is it are Exalts Behemoths on the playground that get to do whatever they want, Or are they humans with a limited supply of power Liable to face resistance to pretty much anything they want to do.
You can't have it both ways either. We treat them as humans that have a kind of wide breath of supernatural abilities. Or we stopped pretending like we're human. But you can't have us pussy footing around All the time and then pretend like adding More exalts is suddenly going to make the world crazy.
We either act like a world shaking power or we decide. We're not a world shaking power and we have peers and adversaries what you cannot pretend like These people would exist in a vacuum.
I cannot stand this constant advocacy for non action as if that is better than making a mistake. Or committing to a course of action and correcting on point. It's not it literally, isn't. It's worse in pretty much everyway.
You can't have it both ways either. We treat them as humans that have a kind of wide breath of supernatural abilities. Or we stopped pretending like we're human. But you can't have us pussy footing around All the time and then pretend like adding More exalts is suddenly going to make the world crazy.
We either act like a world shaking power or we decide. We're not a world shaking power and we have peers and adversaries what you cannot pretend like These people would exist in a vacuum.
I cannot stand this constant advocacy for non action as if that is better than making a mistake. Or committing to a course of action and correcting on point. It's not it literally, isn't. It's worse in pretty much everyway.
Abyssals in EXvsWoD are not Solars in Black Eyeliner, they are Solars with inverted horrible death powers, to which dread and deathly things bow and worship who must surround themselves with the marks of death to stave off the curse bound to their very soul but they also are not facing the same sort of pressures they do in canon, they do not have to commit atrocities to to lower their Limit Track so they can act in a pro social manner much more readily than their Age of Sorrows predecessors. I do not want to coment more on what would happen in this quest since those would be spoilers.
Anyway Vote Closed, let's meet the scariest little girl around.