The fact that Nicodemus very carefully had everyone not say the name Hades when plotting to rob him argues against this. They just know how to practice proper information security.
Maybe.
Or maybe Hades is enough of a Great Power that the Fallen cant protect against him
Unlike the Archive.
No idea which.
Not every job they pull is about crazy high level stuff. That thing in Cleveland for example; it would have been bad, but it wasn't a profound sign of anything.
Not every job they pull has immediately evident consequences. That doesnt mean that there isnt some sort of prioritization process going on, and the fact that this was considered worth getting Sanya's attention is suggestive.
That thing in Cleveland is a bad example; if it had been allowed to go on, at best it would have allowed the Fomor to perfect a
mass-deployable servitorization formula that would have caused tens of thousands of human disappearances while allowing them to amass a disposable army that they would be able to use in the real world.
Worst case, they would have fumbled and Iku-Turso would have broken out of jail in the middle of a major waterway, next to a 2 million person metropolitan area, with another 40 or 50 million people within 200 miles.
You're the one making strong claims here; if it's unclear the null hypothesis is that they aren't.
There are entities available who were around when the current iteration of the setting was set up, and most major players were around for the latest software patch implemented by the White God.
We know, for instance, that Dragons helped build the place, and some of them are still around.
This isnt just ancient history.
Follow the movements of local events and reacting explains it better. Nobody has complete information, they know enough to make good plays but not so much that they can make perfect ones.
It doesn't open up questions like "why did Hades know all this, but the fallen didn't and got played for it?". You could just keep piling on restrictions, but at that point you're just taping over plot holes.
I dont agree.
According to Skin Game, Hades performs a function, apparently, and has since at least the death of Christ.
And he both predates the Fae Queens, and is apparently linked to the Fae, because he was pretty strongly linked to Hecate, the Triple Goddess, who apparently empowered the Fae Queens in the Dresdenverse.
Do remember that he was present in the armory during Skin Game, and none of the three living Denarians there or their Fallen apparently saw him; not Nicodemus, not Blood on His Soul, not Hannah Ascher.
Only Dresden did, and only because Hades wanted to meet and talk to him.
There's a difference between not be able to attempt something and be blocked from succeeding.
I'm not sure what you're talking about with the exaltation being impossible to manipulate. The base criteria literally did change completely for different exalt types when they got reworked, and that's not even what Mab would need to do here.
When Uriel arranged for Molly to exalt he didn't strong arm the exaltation, he arranged for it to get loose when she was the only even vaguely valid option nearby and it couldn't get away on its own*. That's why she even got it in the first place instead of going to a person with a stronger infernal resonance.
Getting a marginal candidate into her own garden with no other mortals in the same dimension to choose from before getting grabbed again doesn't require primordial power to arrange if you know the trick of it.
* The exaltation is not an exalt. It can do a lot, but without a wielder there are more limits. Which is why trapping them worked where putting the entire Solar deliberative in a single box and keeping them there would have energetic consequences.
Im not sure I agree there's a difference under these circumstances.
The base criteria were tweaked not wholesale changed, and remain similar enough that you can convert a Solaroid's candidate back to factory settings without killing or harming the current bearer.
Thats how similar they are.
Putting a marginal candidate next to the shard does not, as far as I am aware, make any difference to the Exaltation.
It could still travel half a world away for a candidate that suits it better.
Uriel and his companions are GMPCs on an entirely different scale of plotting and knowledge than any other NPC in the setting .Or indeed anyone else allowed to act.
And even he didnt strongarm the Exaltation, as you note.
Not by scrying it alone, but the dragon blooded didn't need to be Celestines to materially effect their activation by opening the door to their cage. I find it unlikely we're going to scry it and leave it alone if we see a working prison.
The DBs didnt affect their activation; they simply unlocked the box they were in.
If they hadnt already been active, there is no indication that unlocking the Black Vault would have had any effect in the first place.
Where I'm getting this from is that we're clearly not just taking a peek. This is most likely going to end with us going to get the thing.
There's also the issue of people picking up information from us. It's not like we have something to protect us from being spied on. Going to add things to the defenses could easily be the thing that reveals them.
If this stuff could be immediately turned into an exaltation road map without our input I'd expect Summer to be on the way to attempting to free a Lunar by now. Our input isn't necessarily a requirement, but it's highly likely to dramatically ease the process.
1)Thats not a given.
Its certainly possible, but not a given. Especially since we cant actually use a Lunar Exaltation or determine its candidate, and at best, we get a headstart on using the Crown to figure out who it goes to.
If it is a Lunar Exaltation, I am entirely willing to call the entire exercise a success if we can keep it being dunked into Oblivion, or having the newly chosen Exalt fall into the hands of a Yama King.
2)I will reiterate that assuming this is a Lunar Exaltation is premature at best.
3) I have zero anxiety about people picking up information from us.
Nemesis has had pretty high-level penetration of Summer for several years now, up to the level of Summer Lady Aurora. Anything we've been told, I think its safe to assume Nemesis already knows.
3)There is no motive Im aware of for Summer, or Winter, or any of the Fae to have been previousl interested in awakening/freeing any Celestial Exaltation shards.
When Winter came into possession of Usum?
Mab simply buried Usum in Arctis Tor after recovering him from Enma-O's forces; she didnt try to find candidates, weaponize it, or even attempt to interrogate Usum for any lore he might have had, unlike the Yama Kings.
Progress isn't the same as success. I don't doubt Emma-O has been looking for a another infernal shard since he got the first one, but despite having personal knowledge of how they're hidden, what they look like, and access to the region containing them he's got nothing.
It'll happen eventually, but I don't see a particular reason to believe anyone is doing very well yet.
And there's no indication that has stopped him or his peers from looking.
Any more than Nemesis has stopped working at undermining the Courts despite, at a minimum, hundreds of years of failures or at best, marginal successes.
That doesnt mean you dont take them seriously.
True, but I was thinking more about stuff like this:
They're not the worst option or anything, though a well built one will be able to kick our ass pretty quickly if we don't leverage our crafting edge well enough, but Lunars have a whole thing about being outcasts and not playing well with groups.
1)I do not agree.
ExWoD Lunars are very tough and resilient soakmonsters, but I did a thought exercise on building an optimized Lunar a couple months back, which involved looking at most of their charmset.
They have 25% less Essence than a Solaroid at E3, and no real perfect defense other than the Full Moon anima power, their version of Rage Recast is a 5-dot charm, and they have no Signature Charms to fall back on.
Lunars come hard out of the gate, and there was always the potential that an E1 Lunar would be able to kill an E1 Infernal with the same XP, because the E1 Infernal didnt have access to shintai, while the Lunar has Rage Mode from the beginning.
But that was only true at the start, and changed as soon as they started climbing in enlightenment.
E3 Infernal!Molly in shintai will murder an E3 Lunar in Rage Form with roughly the same experience to spend on charms, assuming a 1v1 engagement. No need for craft or anything else.
The Lunar would need Investments from an external power(Yama Kings, Old Ones, Hell, etc) to punch at the same level 1v1.
2) Thats about the same argument made about Infernals.
And Solars for that matter. And Abyssals.
I dont really see it as an issue.
Friendly is better than not yeah, but I containing a Lunar long term isn't an easy thing.
I think there are good odds it's a lunar; the themes are right and this sort of prison setup isn't as necessary for Rakasha.
It's worth noting that he seemed to be the only one, and that everyone else disagreed with him because a rogue lunar would have been a disaster. It looks like he felt that way in the end too.
My read is that he had a specific person he wanted to exalt, but before it could happen they did something that disqualified them from becoming a lunar. Rather than roll the dice he locked it away.
Summer fey could weep for the death of a well meant and wondrous dream dying even if they didn't want it to succeed. Feeling sorrow isn't the same as being sorry after all.
1)I dont expect it to be, and frankly having to contain a Lunar Exalt is a failstate.
But I'd rather have that problem than have to deal with the one from a Celestial Exalt having been tossed into the Dresdenverse equivalent of a Nephandi caul, or having been induced to make binding deals with a Yama King.
2)The themes for a Lunar and a Fae-aligned entity are very similar. So it could easily be either.
Its just the details that make me doubt that this is a Lunar Exaltation.
A lesser dragon seems an unlikely candidate for containing a Lunar Exaltation; I doubt a Great Dragon could.
And I dont see a Sidhe noble thats not a Queen having the mojo to contest a big-D Dragon.
3)The children of the moon he was referring to appears to be whatever group that shapeshifter that Sanya shot belongs to.
Im thinking some sort of cult.
Not like its the first one we've seen in canon OR this quest; see the Stygian Sisterhood.
4)The thing there is that Exaltations in general are designed not to take external orders/designation.
Its possible, with some effort, if you are a Primordial-tier entity with preptime to modify the targeting criteria. Its not possible to tell them who to pick.You can put the perfect candidate right next to an Exalt you are about to murder, and its entirely possible it flies half a world away to pick someone else.
Maybe if you are Uriel in this AU.
5)Fair.
Does anyone remember what we did with that Yin sword we got back from Dresden did we give it to our brother or something I can't remember and I don't remember what chapter it was in?
Its in our treasury.
We promised it to Daniel, but he's going to have to get training, and we are going to have to remodel it so that carrying the weapon of a dead greater akuma doesnt put a target on his back.
Edit:
Unrelated to all this, but don't we have three of exorcisms to perform?
If we're planning on using the crown against nemesis and trying to soul kill the individual pieces we probably want a ritual space set up for our charms. Which has the complication of hinting at how our buffs work, and asking the Queen of Summer for a walk in freezer if we try to use WHWH.
Its safe to assume that Titania/Lily/Summer are competent enough to arrange a secure ritual space.
This is Avalon after all. The heart of Summer's power.
As for our charms, there's really nothing that marks it out as a general Molly thing as opposed to a component of the magic ritual we are using to exorcise Nemesis, and we can use any liquid to do this to obscure things. If we ask for holy water from a Catholic church, or a gallon of olive oil in order to activate Boiling Sea Mastery? Still works.
Besides, Sapphire Ritual of Exorcism is a yes/no spell where you roll Int+Occult against DC8.
One sux and you pass.
Since Occult is Key for Molly, we cant botch. We can just spend a Willpower to autopass the roll.
