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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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DragonParadox said:
  1. Yes
  2. About 10 minutes drive
  3. They do not have one, but they could try to get one, it will take 5-10 minutes. Molly could just try to navigate blind but she would have to roll survival to see how long she takes to get through
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Perception + Survival/Streetwise right?

Because if thats it, Molly can do it; dropping into the water or sewer system activates all the benefits of Boiling Sea Mastery, including the "Can see at least 200 yards around self" when self is the whole water/sewer system due to RVD.
Activate ATB as well, and you have a bonus of -3DC rolling to Perception rolls.
 
uju32 said:
How she did it and what she did has bearing on whether it could be undone in combat time, as well as what we can expect to see.
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There are limits to relevance at this timescale. If we had a week or two it'd be nice, but we would have learned about the gas attack from the news if we'd chosen a different order to our call list, and the order we did choose wasn't informed by anything.

We're a half hour from a major chemical weapon attack and only have that much warning because of dumb luck.


uju32 said:
You're missing my point.
If she doesnt have people willing to give her untraceable money to work with, she doesnt have people willing to lend her soldiers and operatives that might be linked to this affair. Which helps define the parameters of the threat profile we face.
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Prior to this we knew she had thralls threaded through at least part of a major mafia family, and had collected enough to finish her project. If we'd asked our crown questions an hour or two ago IC we could have cut this off at the knees instead of racing for the delivery point.


uju32 said:
Sandra has been here for at least three months that we can confirm. AND she's a true believer.
There are quite possibly contingency options in the event that her primary plan fails; a failure to pop the seal on the gate might fallback into attempting to stage a major Masquerade breach on TV with major civilian casualties
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Which we'd know if we asked what she was planning and where she was. The options here aren't ignorance or writing her biography, incomplete information leads to things getting missed but delays can wreck everything.

I vastly prefer the slower more information dense approach, but I regard this as a by the numbers screw up. Context is king, and in this one what's otherwise completely reasonable caution and professionalism is actually a risky behavior.

We can't claw back time we've already spent, and frivolous spending is going to make us come up short where it matters.
 
DragonParadox said:
Venom for a New Age​
13th of January 2007 A.D.
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COMMENTARY
So we have a convert.
At least there has only been one so far. Im assuming the other three are probably converts as well.

Im going to say that home brewing a second-generation nerve agent is genuinely impressive.
Dude's got talent.
Pity about how he chose to use it.

DragonParadox said:
He speaks of an attack with Verminous Agent X aimed at the Club Xanadu this morning
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Typo. Verminous should be Venomous.

=====

VX: Exposure, Decontamination, Treatment | Chemical Emergencies | CDC

Learn basic facts about VX exposure, decontamination, and treatment.
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov
Venomous Agent X. Otherwise known as VX nerve gas.
Persistent nerve agent. Oily, tasteless amber liquid. Heavier than air, slow to evaporate.
Water soluble.

This is not an impromptu attack in response to meeting Molly.
VX nerve gas is one of the harder agents to weaponize due to its physical characteristics, and while Frankie synthesized it, weaponizing it for major impact is a different kettle of fish.

To stage a successful chemical attack on a club, you need to case the joint, determine a reliable delivery system.
This was planned to happen.

If I had to guess?
We're looking at the fire sprinklers as the delivery system. And the VX is already in the water tank/reservoir that feeds them.
You dont wait until barely half an hour before your attack in order to attempt to move your bomb to the target.

Supporting evidence: The recent attempted fire at Club Xanadu demonstrated that the fire sprinkers work.
 
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Yog said:
[] Plan Trachops cirrhosus
-[] Alert others
-[] Have Clippy pull up Frankie Lewis's records to use as a focus to learn the ingress route for the attack
-[] Phone Silk
--[] Subterfuge and/or Leadership excellency, Empathy excellency
--[] start discrete evacuation
--[] plan an ambush for the attackers with forces available
--[] Ask for discrete approach routes, so you aren't observed by the attackers' lookouts
-[] Go there with the others, you need to stop the attackers, otherwise you will have Old One cultists with bloody nerve agents loose in Vegas and no idea where they will go next
--[] Call the Library of Congress to alert them about a masquerade breaching planned attack, and so they start preemptive cover-up

Something like this. LoC is only partially OOC-motivated - we want media protection and even half an hour of prep helps a lot.
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If I might recommend adding something to the phone call about pulling out the smoke detectors so the sprinklers don't go off.
 
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Seems like we should scribble a quick note to the Archive to make her aware of the situation in Vegas.
 
DragonParadox said:
Immunity to nerve gas is one of the things she can do with Shape Flesh and she can heal its effects with Restore Flesh, though given how fast acting it is she needs to be in physical contact with them when they are exposed to do any good in that regard.
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Molly and Lydia, as Exalts, both are harder to affect than Dresden or Lash.
Exalted lower the difficulty to resist, soak, or recover from all poisons and diseases by –2. Non-supernatural diseases can weaken the Exalted, but cannot kill them, and each successive roll an Exalt makes to recover from a disease lowers its difficulty by –1. Incurable diseases such as HIV are purged from an Exalt's system after (8 – Stamina) weeks.
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And Lash can purge poisons for free with Flesh 1, or confer scenelong poison immunity:
BODY CONTROL
This evocation allows the Devourer to alter the body chemistry of her host body and others. She can purge poisons (both natural and manmade) and increase or reduce metabolism.

System: Roll Intelligence + Medicine. The difficulty depends on the complexity of the metabolic change. Purging the body of fatigue poisons is difficulty 6. Forcing alcohol out of a person's system is 7 or greater, depending on the level of intoxication. Putting the body into a deathlike coma is difficulty 9 or more. To perform this evocation on another, the demon must be able to make physical contact, and the individual can attempt to counteract the effort with a successful resisted roll using the victim's Willpower ( difficulty 8 ). The effects of this evocation last for the duration of the scene, after which poisons removed or normal metabolism takes effect again, This evocation can alleviate one instance of poisoning altogether if a temporary Willpower point is spent.

Torment: Monstrous demons use a brute-force approach when performing this evocation, putting a terrible strain on a subject. After rolling, total successes are compared to the subject's Stamina. Successes that exceed the target's Stamina are suffered as bashing damage, which may not be soaked.
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Wait.
Club Xanadu is where all the unaligned supernaturals hang out. Mortal talents and lesser sorcerers, some Rampires and Whampires, et cetera. People with more mystical weight than the common mortal.

Its not a distraction, its a sacrifice.
I mean, its a distraction too, given the media aftermath of a mass murder event, but Im guessing the deaths are supposed to be one portion of a sacrificial magic working.
 
uju32 said:
We have no idea what fire sprinkler system is installed in Club Xanadu.
Or even if its the same system that was there before the fire that happened there according to Mayeda.
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To my knowledge in large buildings there's only three types of unique methods for fire detection though there are a lot of combinations of the three. The heat method which is using mercury bulbs or similar objects that detect heat build up and then pop and then that causes the fire alarm and the sprinklers to kick on. But considering this is a Las Vegas Building they probably don't have that because one Heatwave would cause a significant issue if the AC wasn't on. So it is probably in either an ionization which is a regular smoke alarm or a photo / thermal alarm which works with detection of open Flames using cameras both of which can be disabled without kicking the sprinkler system on by either turning off the power for the camera or by removing the sensor for the smoke alarm.
 
Degorium said:
To my knowledge in large buildings there's only three types of unique methods for fire detection though there are a lot of combinations of the three. The heat method which is using mercury bulbs or similar objects that detect heat build up and then pop and then that causes the fire alarm and the sprinklers to kick on. But considering this is a Las Vegas Building they probably don't have that because one Heatwave would cause a significant issue if the AC wasn't on. So it is probably in either an ionization which is a regular smoke alarm or a photo / thermal alarm which works with detection of open Flames using cameras both of which can be disabled without kicking the sprinkler system on by either turning off the power for the camera or by removing the sensor for the smoke alarm.
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Mayeda's letter told us that Cobbler appeared to claimed responsibility for the fire at Club Xanadu a couple weeks back.
Three days later I have a fight with that bitch Silk about 'fishing in her pond', like the Xanadu would even be standing if it weren't for me and lo and behold someone damn near sets fire to the place. I ask some people around town, not going to name any names since I know you don't like me mentioning my friends, turns out it had been rats with matches, running all over the place. Has to be magic right? The guy I was talking to said normies used to pull that shit back in Merry Old England, but I'm 90% sure he was bullshitting me.

But the letter continues in a shakier hand: I was right, Holy Ishtar I wish I wasn't. This rat comes into my room with a note between its teeth that says 'You've seen I can hurt ya mate and you've seen how I can help yea, lets' talk. Venetian Canals at midnight, I'll even bring you a snack.' As soon as I finished the rat jumped up and ate it right out of my hand. Killed it, just like out of pure instinct you know. I was gonna ignore the crazy son of a bitch altogether, cursing at the dead rat and shit when a bullet came though my window, parted my hair right down the middle, didn't break my skin. Guess I'll go. Leaving this letter, the bullet and the rat in here for you to find in case I don't come back.
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The system will have been reset/rebuilt since that fire, and we dont know to what standards it was.
I am assuming that it was suborned and primed then.

Critically, this is a supernatural hangout.
A meeting place for people with non-trivial amounts of magical power. I can see potential issues with installing a system that is largely reliant on electronic triggers in that scenario.



Right now, my understanding of things is that in commercial buildings like clubs, fire safety systems work like this:
  • Smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull alarms all feed into the Fire alarm control panel
  • The panel now controls and sends signals to the alarms, and other output devices, like activating the sprinkler system, activating emergency exit signs, opening doors, recalling elevators so floors can be evacced, and so on. It is supposed to be actively monitored by an approved monitoring system

Ergo, whoever is running this operation has to have that fire alarm panel under his/her control because its the only way to set off all the sprinklers across the entire club.
We need to get to it and HMP it. Getting a cyberdevil into the system will prevent them triggering shit.
 
uju32 said:
Wait.
Club Xanadu is where all the unaligned supernaturals hang out. Mortal talents and lesser sorcerers, some Rampires and Whampires, et cetera. People with more mystical weight than the common mortal.

Its not a distraction, its a sacrifice.
I mean, its a distraction too, given the media aftermath of a mass murder event, but Im guessing the deaths are supposed to be one portion of a sacrificial magic working.
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Could also be removing possible first responders. The plan was clearly in the works long before we came here. So, these guys would be local lesser responders. And also a number of them could be potential exaltation targets, if Sandra knew about those.

Degorium said:
If I might recommend adding something to the phone call about pulling out the smoke detectors so the sprinklers don't go off.
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Sure.

Here, let me update the plan:
[X] Plan Trachops cirrhosus
-[X] Alert others in our party
--[X] Have Lash give herself and them protection against nerve agents
-[X] Crown questions
--[X] Have Clippy pull up Frankie Lewis's records to use as a focus to learn the ingress routes for the attack
--[X] If part of the answer is "agents already present on the scene", use Club Xanadu's website or photo to learn how the infiltrators look
-[X] Contact people
--[X] Phone Silk
---[X] Subterfuge and/or Leadership excellency, Empathy excellency
---[X] start discrete evacuation
---[X] plan an ambush for the attackers with forces available
----[X] If the crown questions revealed presence of infiltrators, give their descriptions to Silk
---[X] Ask for discrete approach routes, so you aren't observed by the attackers' lookouts
---[X] Disable sprinklers
--[X] Call the Library of Congress to alert them about a masquerade breaching planned attack, and so they start preemptive cover-up
--[X] Write a note to Archive
-[X] Go there with the others, you need to stop the attackers, otherwise you will have Old One cultists with bloody nerve agents loose in Vegas and no idea where they will go next
--[X] If there are infiltrators, Molly goes ahead with RVD, and uses ATP inside to get rid of them, after warning Silk

We are very much at the godzilla threshold events starting to unfold.
 
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uju32 said:
Ergo, whoever is running this operation has to have that fire alarm panel under his/her control because its the only way to set off all the sprinklers across the entire club.
We need to get to it and HMP it. Getting a cyberdevil into the system will prevent them triggering shit.
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No one makes fire alarms digital. No one. They would be fully analog, always. That's just the basis of safety and security. They might be able to talk to digital alert system, even back in 2007, and this might be enough for cyberdevils to take control, but that's not a given. Could be a fully analog system built with relays.
 
Yog said:
Could also be removing possible first responders. The plan was clearly in the works long before we came here. So, these guys would be local lesser responders. And also a number of them could be potential exaltation targets, if Sandra knew about those.
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I do agree that it was in the works long before our arrival.
But I doubt she's going after potential first responders in an organized way.

Exaltation targets are the entirety of the human population in Exalted 2E, or anyone who's had a brush with the supernatural in ExWoD. These people get no special priority
Yog said:
No one makes fire alarms digital. No one. They would be fully analog, always. That's just the basis of safety and security. They might be able to talk to digital alert system, even back in 2007, and this might be enough for cyberdevils to take control, but that's not a given. Could be a fully analog system built with relays.
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This is the Siemens MXL fire control panel as installed in Potomac Hall, James Madison University in 2003
Wikipedia said:
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Here's a youtube video on it from 2020

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMx3J2iSxgc

Thats a circuit board. Its electronic. And so a valid target for HMP, if we can find it.
Location should be on the property maps filed with the city and fire department.
 
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Damn everytime we are getting ready to go after her something else comes up. Right after this we need to go straight to her. Let's not waste too much essence before then.
 
[X] Plan Trachops cirrhosus
-[X] Alert others in our party
--[X] Have Lash give herself and them protection against nerve agents
-[X] Crown questions
--[X] Have Clippy pull up Frankie Lewis's records to use as a focus to learn the ingress routes for the attack
--[X] If part of the answer is "agents already present on the scene", use Club Xanadu's website or photo to learn how the infiltrators look
-[X] Contact people
--[X] Phone Silk
---[X] Subterfuge and/or Leadership excellency, Empathy excellency
---[X] start discrete evacuation
---[X] plan an ambush for the attackers with forces available
----[X] If the crown questions revealed presence of infiltrators, give their descriptions to Silk
---[X] Ask for discrete approach routes, so you aren't observed by the attackers' lookouts
---[X] Disable sprinklers
--[X] Call the Library of Congress to alert them about a masquerade breaching planned attack, and so they start preemptive cover-up
--[X] Write a note to Archive
-[X] Go there with the others, you need to stop the attackers, otherwise you will have Old One cultists with bloody nerve agents loose in Vegas and no idea where they will go next
--[X] If there are infiltrators, Molly goes ahead with RVD, and uses ATP inside to get rid of them, after warning Silk

One minute. It's water-soluble. Could that potentially pose a threat to us if we are using RVD, if they've set up some sort of release system that trips on us moving through? We know we can be detected while moving in that manner.
 
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TonedMite said:
One minute. It's water-soluble. Could that potentially pose a threat to us if we are using RVD, if they've set up some sort of release system that trips on us moving through? We know we can be detected while moving in that manner.
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No, not at all.

We are immune to any harm done by liquids to us.

In fact, thanks to Charred Sinner Renewal we heal while swimming in poison.
 
[X] Yog

@AFAIK, it's impossible to remotely disable fire sprinklers, at least in the US. You can't even really do that by turning off their water supply, since the pipes already carry a decent amount of water at all times. Draining those pipes is not a quick or easy process, and that's if you know what you're doing.

Then again, it should also be extremely difficult if not impossible for the sprinklers to be remotely triggered without a lot of aftermarket modification.

All told, trying to use the sprinklers to deliver the VX is a needlessly complicated and difficult way of going about it. The systems are robust and simple to the point of being nearly foolproof. It would be much easier and more reliable for someone to just hide remotely activated canisters in out of the way places, such as air ducts, while the damage from the recent fire was being repaired. Or to use basic mechanical timers if you want to remove the possibility of techbane interference.
 
uju32 said:
Thats a circuit board. Its electronic. And so a valid target for HMP, if we can find it.
Location should be on the property maps filed with the city and fire department.
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The valid target needs to be computerized, not electronic, there's a difference. And while the example you show is computerized, there's almost certainly going to be an analog version.

A fire detector would work as a simple electric switch. If fire is detected, it would either create a short, or disconnect a power line. Then you wire all the detectors in a way that if even one is triggered, then the whole system is triggered. That's to make it as foolproof as possible. You might also add a supplemental computerized layer on top of that, to provide you with more information.

At least that's as far as I know these things are done.
 
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