Noting:
- Multiple other Red-aligned businessess appear to have come under attack, drawing off half-Red dhampirs.
- The Dragon is unconscious.
- A lot of New Blood traitors are in command positions over Old Guard loyalists.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
- Location
- Germany
I'm pretty sure this is going to end with us having to kill the sealed outsider anyway, making the Sin Eater obsolete.
And this kind of reasoning is how we end up with North Korea, and quite arguably Nazi Germany. Sometimes action is needed. And, in any case, the situation is different, because ours is a world that can commit to multigenerational occupation, and ours is the exalted mind that can plot integration of conquered territories.
And let's not forget, that chaos or no chaos, Red Court are at war with the human race, with the goal of subjugating it.
As to fomor being worse than Red Court... that's arguable, and they are not the only contenders to their places of power. We could take over. We have the resources for it.
From a human perspective, from where the vampires are standing they are engaged in ranching.
Well, yes. Which is exactly why they need to be dealt with. Replaced, if they have some manner of vital role to play, or removed from power directly, if not.
OK looks like we are bringing in the hell-powered fire teams. Ancient Luc is going to love pouring over the telemetry data.
Strongly doubt it.
I dont think there is one sealed Outsider; thats sorta what Demonreach is for.
And the lore says its a gate, not a prison. Im thinking the vision showed one guy, not everyone who could use that gate.
For another, an Outsider capable of single-handedly fragging most of a continent is likely on the same power tier as Zapathasura of the Week of Nightmares, and HE is definitely outside our weight class.
Or indeed the weight class of an E5 Solaroid.
Not true.
We got North Korea because two Great Powers, the Soviet Union and China, explicitly sponsored them as a pawn against a US client state. It had fuckall to do with anyone else. We got Nazi Germany because racism, and German reactionaries abetted the rise of an authoritarian ideology for material ends.
===
I've said before, and I will repeat again: I am no fan of the Red Court.
I am interested in pruning them back where we can do so without destabilizing everyone else, in advance of breaking their power completely.
But I also recognize that they are currently a systemically important faction with broad resources, whose existence has actively kept worse factions than them from springing up in places they rule.
Not out of virtue, but self-interest, because they wont tolerate the competition.
I have no interest in precipitate action where we dont have a good idea of the repercussions, nor do we have a plan for the aftermath of said action.
Thats just playing with the lives of nations.
===
The Fomor are bad enough to make the Erlking, whose goblins do torture for entertainment, describe how they treat humans as disturbing. That makes them as worse than both the Red and White Courts. And the Fomor, at least, are currently ruled by someone who is both cooperating with the Outsiders, and explicitly wants to break human society back to the Stone Age.
The Reds are only dumb enough to think they can use Outsiders.
For all their cruelty, they are parasites on human society, and are dependent on it, in ways that the Fomor, for example, are not.
=
I have serious doubts we could run South America.
Sanctuary is huge, but its a nationstate that largely recognizes Molly as godqueen, and for the most part, follows her will.
South America most definitely is not. Nor is Catholic Molly going to insist on this.
Nor do I think Molly has the stomach for the sort of ongoing bloodshed it would require to become the hidden mistress of a subcontinent of almost 700 million people and fend off challengers and pretenders to that power.
OOC? I have no interest in running supernatural South America.
I dont believe we can do it properly without it dominating the focus of the rest of the quest. I dont think we can do it justice either; I at least, know very little about South America, and I cant read Spanish or Portugese.
If we bring in a VTOL aircradt, particularly one possessed by a sutra with the Camoflague charm, no one is going to be scrambling fighter jets in response. If they can even perceive it at all they're not going to quickly realise it's not a civilian helicopter with a funny paint job that makes it hard to recognise from the ground.
Similarly if we bring in armoured vehicles in a parking lot. They may look strange but strange is actually normal.
If she can do that, given the magnitude of the threat we present she'd do it anyway. If she can do those things, it's even more important that we bring in our troops so we have organic anti-aircraft capability so we can shoot down suborned aircraft or engage enemy armoured vehicles.Whether or not we bring in heavy assets she can SWAT us by calling in reports, or activate mind control switches in people's brains
As she's planning to trigger the apocalypse there's no reason not to activate every possible local asset that she has. They'd all die anyway.
Edit: and if she does bring in her own air support as a response to us, even better if we have the Essence, as they're Cyberdevil fodder, and then we have friendly attack helicopters and fighter-bombers.
In the best (and so worst) traditions of Empire, the way to do it is not to run it yourself, it's to create the conditions in which the Sanctuary South America Company is incentivised and empowered to take over and run the place, while you remain in blissful ignorance about what they get up to technically not in your name.
Just keep it out of sight and out of mind.
Beyond that, the fomor are almost uniquely vulnerable to us.They have the great misfortune of living in the material world under the sea. That makes them exceptionally vulnerable to us teleporting on top of them and dropping Sanctuary made bombs on them. Or getting PIO and nuking them with Davy Crocketts.
An attempt by the fomor to move into the gap left behind by a collapsing Red Court should rapidly be followed by the elimination of the fomor as a meaningful power.
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Speaking of, Lydia has Carriage of the Ankou. We should have her bind an armored troop carrier in our kingdom, with a squad of soldiers always stationed inside. It should probably be a free action, given that it would take all of half an hour.
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The main tunnels under Las Vegas are apparently 15 foot tall and wide (and have square cross sections). You can literally drive a truck down them, which is apparently occasionally done for repairs or when there are major debris buildups. There are smaller four foot wide/tall) side tunnels but they only go up to the surface to connect to the road drains. You could literally take many smaller armoured vehicles through the tunnels.
The tunnel network was built as storm drains. It's not like Chicago's undertown. This a modern project built after major flooding in the seventies, not something that accrued over time.
It's a real shame we can't make it rain as if we could get water flowing through the storm drains then we could teleport around the network and bypass the guards. We probably could have done it we had that weather witch available and had started earlier.
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Arc 11 Post 80: Chaos Ascending
Chaos Ascending
13th of January 2007 A.D.
There is no question on what to do next, not really. With the Red Court divided against itself, leaderless and divided you have to cut off Sandra at the source, separate her from the dragon Dragon. Question is how to cover so much ground in time, how to plug all the holes to make sure she does not just scurry away. The sun isn't going to do anything to her, not the one that's in the sky at least.
Clippy's voice reading out t he CNN news feed almost entirely derails your thoughts:
This is Chase Black reporting live from Las Vegas Nevada where early this morning there has been an unprecedented show of firefighters, police, federal agents and paramedics. The Governor has declared a state of emergency and the FBI spokesman has confirmed reports on the ground from witnesses of an explosion without meaningful structural damage at Club Xanadu,which could indicate 'an unconventional payload', though no victims have been reported. This is in stark contrast with the reports we have all been getting to shootings at the Belle Rose, the offices of McKenzie and Company and local offices of the Red Earth Association. Thirty nine people are confirmed dead with tens more wounded, some of them critically What had seemed to be a upswing in gang violence has revealed itself to be so much more. The attackers are still at large. I repeat for anyone in Las Vegas, the recommendation has been given to shelter in place.
The Governor is expected to speak at 13:30 while the White House has released a statement that the president has been briefed as federal agents hasten to respond to this unprecedented attack.There is as of yet no confirmation that this is the doing of radical Islamic groups, but experts agree...
"No news of a another shooting at the Xanadu," the incubus in the back says, his habitual scowl shifting to something more thoughtful. "Silk was able to keep a lid on it, though who knows how much of the rest is the initial wave of attackers and how much is Red lickspittles primed to shoot. It's going to be a fucking nightmare in those tunnels. I've... talked to some people who used to live there, it's like a whole 'nother city."
"I have a plan for that, Clippy can you get your network to find a map. I'm going to go call in some reinforcements from the Spirit World," technically correct and not revealing too much of your capabilities to two new-made allies. All you need is Clippy herself and a bit of privacy. Jerome solves the latter by giving you the keys to the unility room in the basement so down you all go among the pipes and gasping air ducts, a prelude to a descent more perilous. The music plays and you are... elsewhere.
On the other side is a ready room containing Hand of Gently Falling Ash and a four of his fellow Chicago veterans, each leading a fire team that includes four more of their similarly equiped fellows, ready, willing, eager to put their skills to the test. In a certain sense the Red Court make an ideal target given that the Amethyst Hand has already had both vampires and infected to interogate about their strengths and weaknesses. You give the word to asemble and be ready at your word and, with renewed conficence, invigorated by the air of Sanctuary return to Vegas.
Regained 1 Essence -> Now at 10/15 (Natural Regeneration in your Hell)
"There's been an attack on the temple," Mr Adkin's words are like a punch to the gut.
"How? When?" you ask reeling.
"About seven minutes ago, someone tried to drive a truck filled with fertilized rigged to blow into the side of the building. The guards noticed and one of them shot at the driver, yes they are armed, but to little avail. Thankfully one of the acolytes was able to rouse the Divine Vengence in time. She slew the foe with sword and claw, though the shadow of her presence did rouse the sands."
"There was dust sorm," Lydia explains. "Not very big, barely half a kilometer across and it only lasted about half a minute though it could have been really bad, a police helicopter got caught up in it. If that had fallen on the truck."
You meet Harry's eyes. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Judging by the fact that you don't want to say is aloud, yeah," he sighs heavily. "Entropy magic, the whole city's been given a supersized dose of bad luck. That could be a spell Sandra and her lot have cooked up or a sign that the bad times door's starting to creak open."
"Not entropy," Tiffany corrects grimly. "What the Council sees as Outsider Sponsored entropy magic is one side of the coin. Chaos magic, misfortune upon foes of the Old Gods and fortune to their servants. It works best with agitated systems, the more unpredictability, the more violence. She is not just doing this for tactical reasons, but strategic as well."
"Ma'at reversed, Isfet," Mr Adkin says and for the first time since the fight at the temple you hear a tremble of fear in it.
For her part Clippy had been chugging along, getting the information you are looking for Connection to IRIS-peer network established, map of location of interest downloaded.
Looking down you are relieved to find a network of drains not the tangled mare's nest that is undertown, not the work of centuries, but one large project, vast and sprawling though it be.
Map of the Vegas Tunnels Gained
Reinforcements can be called in as soon as you are in the tunnels (20 Amethyst Hand Agents)
Chaos had indeed come to Las Vegas, you hear it in the wails of sirens, in the blaring of horns, you see it in the aimless rush of people not knowing where the shelter they were told to seek might be, in the shouts of friends parted and lost. Even Clippy feels it, in the slugish movement of the networks that bind the modern world together. Into this chaos you step... to recruit monsters. With Jerome's contact list to help you manage to rustle up sixteen vampires ready and willing to follow you into the tunnels. Some of them no doubt are hoping that you will disrupt the status quo enough that they can be on top, but in the voices of the two oldest of them you hear an echo of something more, understanding of just how high the states are.
16 Red Court Vampires recruited
The news filtering in keeps getting grimmer, an attack with acid spray at the Luxor, a pair of officers killed when the car they had pulled over in North Vegas went up in a fireball. Part of you wonders if you should show yourself just so Sandra's puppets will have a target and stop going after innocents, but the voice of reason, which in this case is also the voice of Usum notes that death and ruin are the point, she won't stop, can't stop if she wants her plans to work.
"I think we should get some lunch," Tiffany interjects, meeting Harry's resulting glare head on. "We are not going to be any better at solving this mess if we are also contending with hunger."
"Tiffany's the healer, she would know." Lydia weighs in.
Before you can say anything more Clippy alerts you to an incoming call. It's Harrowmont, probably about to cancel the meeting.
"Hello, Ms Carpenter? I've gone down to the boiler room and worked some magic to find anything.I did. There's... a hole, about four feet in diameter, too smooth to have been carved with, any equipment I can think so and there are some rather alarming sounds coming out of there. The Lesser Salamander I summoned does not want to go down there to investigate and I have never seen one of them display fear before."
Regained 1 Wound -> You are now fully healed.
What do you do?
[] Tell Harrowmont to get away from there now
[] Go to the university now
-[] Drive with the whole party
[] Go alone with Rendered Villain Dispersal
[] Write in
OOC: Good thing you guys did not hurt those spirits when you visited the temple, simple human guards would not have had much luck against the truck bomb.
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Rolls
*other people's many rolls hidden*
Making a guess about Chaos: Molly, Harry, Tiffany
Cyverdevils search
Recruiting Vampires
Well no one caught it since it was not there, it only fired up the moment this all went loud.
*other people's many rolls hidden*
Making a guess about Chaos: Molly, Harry, Tiffany
Cyverdevils search
Recruiting Vampires
Well no one caught it since it was not there, it only fired up the moment this all went loud.
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I am getting the feeling that whatever is up with Harrowmont is another Xanadu event. Something Sandra set up that we kinda need to do something about but is a sidetrack from Sandra herself and whatever she is doing.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, that's what I mean, nobody was able to catch the precursor stuff despite this being a strategic scale ritual, it only became detectable when it was too late to do anything about it.
Even now, the only reason we could ID it was because we were in a position where we could draw connections, and go "That can't be right..."
At the end of the day, it looks like damage control is going to be incredibly hard. We need to chase down and cut the root cause of this out before it hits critical mass. We've delayed the onset I think, but stopping it looks to be essentially impossible at this point, since the process looks to have become self-sustaining.
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- Location
- Germany
Don't fall for another distraction.
Sandra clearly set more things up to keep the city busy and we can't stop them all.
But we can stop her before the Big Thing happens.
Sandra clearly set more things up to keep the city busy and we can't stop them all.
But we can stop her before the Big Thing happens.
Man we really need to learn Mana manipulation at very least like to three dots because holy moly this is what the either the second or third time this kind of event has happened and we could only tell the first time happened with the Jades because they were being really obvious and loud.
With the first level of manipulation we could create Auspex spells, spells to see, hear and feel magic being cast. With the second level we could literally see who's casting it and what kind of spell their casting. Finally with the third level we could just outright break the Spells because then it turns into a contested role over the magical energy in the air against us who has Intelligence or manipulation of four and three and occult of five with Excellency either way.
All of the auspex spells would provide foci for our crown as well. That's even before the fact that we could theoretically use the Mana manipulation dots to perform our own version of this. Give ourselves good luck and good fortune over a large area for once.
With the first level of manipulation we could create Auspex spells, spells to see, hear and feel magic being cast. With the second level we could literally see who's casting it and what kind of spell their casting. Finally with the third level we could just outright break the Spells because then it turns into a contested role over the magical energy in the air against us who has Intelligence or manipulation of four and three and occult of five with Excellency either way.
All of the auspex spells would provide foci for our crown as well. That's even before the fact that we could theoretically use the Mana manipulation dots to perform our own version of this. Give ourselves good luck and good fortune over a large area for once.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
I really don't want to get distracted. At the very most I think we should drop drones of some sort down the hole and depending on what they find just have them blow it up while we go after Sandra. Needing to heal for so long really made us loose our lead.
@DragonParadox Are we fully healed yet?
@DragonParadox Are we fully healed yet?
Oh yeah, will add that.
There is no indication that sutras are anything like Exalted 2E or WtA spirits, who come with a suite of charms as standard.
Most Dresdenverse spirits do not appear to.
Cyberdevils certainly dont.
And WoD spirit charms are not absolute effects anyway.
==
You have an uncomfortable appetite for risk.
This is a major metro of millions, near a major military base, with congested air space and under a state of heightened alert.
The fact that you think you can operate armed military vehicles designed for an entirely different environment in the middle of this city in the daytime, relying for concealment on effects that have literally never been tested against the detection capabilities of modern tech and modern people?
Thats reckless. At best.
Especially given the stakes and consequences.
She isnt doing it anyway because she presumably has a budget of her own in magic use for each contingency, and right now as things come to a head power is at a premium.
If she thinks the primary threat is Molly et al, people who have been known to have a regard for mortal life, the optimal strategy becomes to buff her forces with swarms of mortals to throw at the attackers to slow them down, relying on the known restraint of both Molly's party and White Council wizards against mortals.
If there is an armed military force in play on the other hand that is prepped for that sort of scenario, summons that are resistant to mortal weapons become a priority.
As do strategic effects to impede their activity; for example, snarling up the roads by fucking up the traffic signals.
===
I dont think you are getting me.
You keep talking about escalation and bringing Bigger Guns(TM) into Las Vegas in response to the Outsider agent whose entire plan is to raise a ruckus and create Incidents that will among other things, break the Masquerade permanently. And your every suggestion contributes to conditions that make it more likely that they can make that stretch goal work.
I am straight out telling you we want to avoid that conflict altogether, not swing our technomagical dick in front of the US military.
There are no upsides and plenty of downsides to doing that.
===
And no, we do not want to implant cyberdevils in tens of millions of dollars of US military hardware that were hijacked in a high profile manner. The Library is apparently friendly, but the Library is not the only occult natsec agency in the US.
We'd never have a quiet life again. And thats the best case.
The PC is the daughter of a Knight of the Cross and has literally met an Archangel.
Out of sight out of mind is never going to work. Especially in a setting where other Powers will challenge any such claim on a sizable fraction of the human race, meaning she has to come and defend it.
And thats not even touching on the implications of the argument that we should run things like Renaissance-era European merchants and their governments.
===
No the fomor are not "uniquely vulnerable to us". And no they do not live in the material world.
They do not live underwater, they pass through underwater to wherever their NeverNever layer happens to be. Thats why there are Ways in the Great Lakes that lead to Fomor territory.
As for strategic bombing, I will remind you that the fomor were the people who built the tactical chemical WMD the Reds used in Central Africa. They have the biological knowledge and skill to make human bioware and war constructs, and equip their infantry with manportable energy weapons. They actually have a techbase.
Turnabout is very much fair play, and for every population center of theirs you try to hit, a human city or ten could very well eat a chemical or biological warhead.
Chicago is very much on that list.
Nevermind the risk of actually rousing their patron Titan Ethniu to actual activity, and someone able to do what she did in Battle Grounds is, at a minimum, a full E5 circle problem even after Heaven's new balance patch takes effect.
Wont work. For the same reason that our Hell is supposed to be secure against random outside intrusion.
A Terrestrial's charm is not going to be able to violate the sanctity of a Hell thats supposed to be at least in part connected to a Celestial Exalt's soul.
He does not have that authority alas, best he can do is try to convince his colleagues and he cannot exactly say 'I found a hole the salamander would not go down' nor is he the most charismatic of people.
- Location
- Germany
Bomb warning?