Supposition at best. And the primordials hun soul is their fetch soul. That is what determines their personality and such. We know they are fine loosing those.
Yeah because they lost the war and are stuck in the underworld. The infernal primoridals cannot do that as well.
What??? They are interacting with those guys. They don't happen by accidents, they give the abyssal exaltations as well or at least stole them and reprogrammed them.
No their fetich soul is their defining soul. Primordials do not have as a over entity a Hun soul. If you had to give them a singular Hun Soul it would be their entire third circle hierarchy not just their fetich. Also the primordials explode into a massive non-reactive Essence when they have their fetich killed I don't think that's really fine. Also going by going by this line of reasoning killing them would mean severing those Souls permanently which is what caused the never born to exist having no souls of definition means they die.
Also none of the Yozi or the never-born are primordials anymore. That's not just a naming difference it's an actual metaphysical capability difference Malfeas is no longer a near omnipresent omniscient God anymore. The principal of hierarchy is had her order broken she can no longer claim to hold the Perfection of ordered systems. The principle of law can no longer impose law over the universe only those who are subject to her power. The dragon beyond the world is trapped within his wings. The shadow of all things is no longer such so on and so forth. They neverborn even more so they have nothing but shallow references of their name and nothing else I can't think of any ability that they maintain or even what principles or ideas they were meant to represent anymore.
What are you talking about the exaltations of the abyssals were bathed in Oblivion true but they were stolen by the death Lords using necromancy to craft a behemoth to find the Jade prison with the help of the Yozi and crack it open. That's why the deathlords are the ones with the Montrances and actually command the abyssals and the neverborn still scream in impotent agony.
It is a mix of both of those things a spirit killer does grind up a spiritual Target so it can't come together correctly again and the spiritual residue does attempt to travel the river to be reincarnated because that's what the river was made to do recycle Souls so the world Titans do not have a wide enough Lane to be reincarnated and are mutilated so badly that they cannot reform.
the exalted didn't make the tombs the mausoleums built themselves on the edges of Oblivion the final resting places of the extremely mutilated essence of the neverborn the Labyrinth that's directly under the tombs terminate in Oblivion.
in a world without the river the spiritual residue of the dead primordials would have been scattered to the wind they wouldn't reform but they also wouldn't conglomerate like they did so there would be no Oblivion but their Essence might float directly into Mortals anyway I don't really know how it would work but without the river there's no way for the spiritual Essences of all of the never born to conglomerate and punch a hole into the world.
Edit: in a world without the River of reincarnation the shadowlands that appeared when the primordials died wouldn't be shadowlands they'd be tomb lands massive mausoleums hundreds of miles across would spring from the corpse shell of a world anyone who died there would become a ghost necrotic Essence would flow endlessly across those landscapes and you would find seven multiple Hundred Mile Long stretches of mausoleums and tombs across creation.
I don't buy that, because if the problem was that simple the primordials on the exalted's side would have presumably given them advice on the clean up. Autobot build most of causality, the mechanics of mortality, and the exaltations themselves. If scooping the sludge out of the river and dumping it into the wyld was enough then he'd probably have said something about that.
Moreover, I don't recall anything suggesting that the reincarnation system was holding them together. Being too great for it to break down and recycle doesn't imply that the things were just waiting to fall apart.
creation and the mechanisms of death definitely had a part to play, but not the whole of it.
If it was just death holding things together it couldn't quite handle then why wouldn't it also do this to gods? Elementals and divinities you kill like this do not reincarnate despite being much less of a strain on the system.
I don't buy that, because if the problem was that simple the primordials on the exalted's side would have presumably given them advice on the clean up. Autobot build most of causality, the mechanics of mortality, and the exaltations themselves. If scooping the sludge out of the river and dumping it into the wyld was enough then he'd probably have said something about that.
Moreover, I don't recall anything suggesting that the reincarnation system was holding them together. Being too great for it to break down and recycle doesn't imply that the things were just waiting to fall apart.
creation and the mechanisms of death definitely had a part to play, but not the whole of it.
If it was just death holding things together it couldn't quite handle then why wouldn't it also do this to gods? Elementals and divinities you kill like this do not reincarnate despite being much less of a strain on the system.
By conglomerate I didn't mean actually like hold together they're just lumps of essence I meant making it so there are seven of them in one place. That's why I mentioned the seven locations of tombs that would eventually just get cleaned up probably with Autos help.
I didn't mean to imply that the river was holding the neverborn together that's not what I meant. The neverborn Essences are whole. They are not held together by death or anything like that, no they are mutilated beyond belief not waiting to fall apart but rather unable to be broken down. By conglomerated I did just mean put into one metaphysical location which allowed the formation of a hole in the world.
The reason it doesn't have any problems with Elementals or divinities is because the river wasn't meant for them. Which is to say a God or an elemental that is killed becomes a part of creation rather than a part of the cycle of reincarnation their Essence distributed their spot in the perfected hierarchy opened a new God is either meant to take up their place and possibly their essence or their Essence is meant to just be reabsorbed by creation. The primordials were perfectly capable of unmaking any God that wasn't an incarna. As far as I can find any God or Elemental that is killed either by a primordial or an exalted with a spirit killer charm ceases to exist in their entirety. Do not pass go do not collect $200 do not get an opportunity to sip on the necrotic essence of the Titan Corpses and become a ghost nothing full on non-existence.
it seems to me that the only reason the never born actually appeared in the Underworld at all is because they were such massive spiritual presences. If they had less essence or less Souls there's a good chance they would have ceased to exist the second they got hit with a good strike from a spirit killer because the essence of deities just Fades back into creation along with the essence of Elementals.
Edit: Autocathon probably would have helped if the exalted considered the screaming Agony of their defeated foes something they wanted to change. They didn't in fact they wanted to make it worse / steal shit from their dead foes. In the end the never-born situation either required a massive infrastructure project necessary to open up the lanes of reincarnation to include beings larger than creation itself which would be possible but it would be a real pain in the ass to do that for your enemies that you like seeing in agony or the ritualistic greater destruction of every single edifice in the Underworld which might have been something they were willing to do but just never got around to.
Edit 2: I don't think you could fix the neverborn situation just by scooping them out of the River. I think you could fix the Oblivion situation by doing that but not the never-born situation theirs is a situation that requires either the systemic breakdown of their Essence which means destroying every single behemoth corpse Mausoleum tomb which is fine it would take a long time but as a Celestial or even just a Dragonborn exalt you have literally hundreds of years to do that. Or a reconfiguring of the system of reincarnation to allow multi-soul entities to pass through the river or allowing the river to reconstruct / break the bonds of multisoul entities come through it so things with hundreds of Souls get churned through one Soul broken off healed and then sent through so on and so forth until the whole entity is through the river.
Yikes this was way too close, we need shaping defenses asap. I, as always am a fan of heretical charms (since I cannot find word on if they are possible or not) and think we should work towards emerald angel unfurling
Yikes this was way too close, we need shaping defenses asap. I, as always am a fan of heretical charms (since I cannot find word on if they are possible or not) and think we should work towards emerald angel unfurling
We already have a shaving defense and we used it in this scene.
Ego - Infused Primacy Pattern
Whenever the universe dares to mar the Infernal's immaculate and ideal self, she may exert her will to reset herself to her default state of perfection.
System: Whenever the character is the subject of any supernatural power that seeks to transform, infect, taint, transport, or control her body or spirit, she may reflexively spend 1 Essence or 1 Willpower and roll Willpower against difficulty 7. Success undoes the hostile magic before it can finish affecting the Infernal, protecting her completely, and immunizes her against repeated attempts to exert the same sort of influence for the rest of the scene.
Also what is what is Emerald Angel Unfurling I must know the name is so interesting.
Edit: Googled it really cool we already have the shintai charm though. They are no longer attached to the Yozi because they are desiccated, out of function some combination of dead and or those two.
I fairily sure the exalted can't permakill the primoridals. Like i don't think we have seem them do this even once. Contrary to fanon there are things that exalted just can't do no matter what.
True, my speculation was just that the intersection of exalted bullshit and further primordial bullshit could have (more) unexpected consequences. We are basically talking about an inadvertent collaboration between Autobot and the remaining primordials after all, which tend to be pretty excessive.
If the problem with primordial derivatives like the Neverborn is that they can't be erased then a potential solution is making them part of a specific new primordial to duck the protection.
Sort of like a mirror to how the primordials got around the exalted "can never be lessened" clause to curse them anyway. If you can't reduce, supply a technical upgrade that in practice sucks pretty hard.
If they can't stop existing try to force them to exist as someone else.
It was made by the Dresden Files answer to Nagash and requires a specific Incarnae at a specific time of year in a major population center. It's a plot device even if it's distilled into a ritual that a wizard at minimum as powerful as Harry can theoretically try if they have the right training.
We've literally seen Listens to Wind only 3 or 4 times in the series.
We know very little about what he does, or can do, besides his being Native American, a doctor, and a shapeshifter.
I dont think we've actually seen him cast external magic that wasnt a counterspell.
Im going to note that we know that Grevane was running around the world since at least 1883, and was only finally killed in 2006. The Wardens first killed Kemmler in the early 1800s according to Bob, but had to kill him six more times after that, and only managed to make it stick in 1961.
And of course the Capriocorpus has been around since before the French and Indian War of 1754-1763.
The assertion that a secret archmage was going around consistently doing things worthy of that power and never got any attention from anyone is laughable.
Furthermore, if she is Life 6 (as opposed to borrowing the power of a patron, which is also possible), we dont know how she came about it. Could have been an investment of knowledge and skill, like Yama Kings can do for Exalts or akuma.
Or could have been a gradual improvement of her skills over decades or even centuries of life
The outsiders can make people stronger, but I don't believe it's that easy or trivial to hide.
It's also worth repeating that doing so and sending a life 6 mage to do Sandra's prior tasks is unequivocally pants on head stupid.
If you're building a social manipulator there are many, many, better ways to spend the same energy. If you're not then you shouldn't be using your agent as one.
I think the concept of paradox free archmages who don't even have to face the trial that kills most WoD aspirants is crazy, but in the hypothetical where they did exist anything they're doing that isn't based in their unique skills is a waste.
You don't send a life 6 mage to twist a teenager's head on backwards. I could maybe see getting one to make you something to do it, but not actually go handle it themselves.
Reincarnation a very least in exalted is the death of the Soul in all the ways that matter for primordials all of your personality all of your abilities all of your Supernatural power all of them disappear when you go through the river you are left with individual Souls every single first, second and third circle soul in a primordial hierarchy would all become utethered at best becoming gods Among the millions that the primordials already made at worse just another soul in creation.
Primordials have hun souls like oak trees have testicles.
Primordials designed the human soul around the concept of mortality. It's a wholly artificial construct that isn't like what the primordials or anything naturally arising from the wyld have. They aren't hive minds of mortal souls stuck together, they're living sets of physics complete unto themselves and capable of combining their different universal laws to make other self sustaining systems.
At the most basic possible level they are not the same as any of the things they made.
McCoy popping Krakatoa at a distance would have been like Forces 6/Matter 4+/Correspondence?, since we have an explicit Forces 5 Rote in Dead Magic 1 (Cuicuilco's Demise, Forces 5/Matter 4) for destroying a city next to a volcano by making the volcano erupt which requires the mage's presence and a human sacrifice.
If exploding a volcano is a matter of Forces 5 / Matter 4, then it doesn't take Forces 6 to do so under different circumstances.
Adding Corrospondence to do it remotely and more successes required on the ritual to replace the human sacrifice does not influence the base level of Forces involved.
I'm pretty sure everything McCoy has done can be explained with Forces 5, though some of the more out-there things definitely required an alignment of circumstances and a big Ritual to gather successes.
Edit: Also the idea that Corpsetaker was supposed to be an Archmage is absurd. Things would have gone very differently if that was the case.
She was good in Mind and Spirit, but not beyond the normal Spheres for sure.
Primordials have hun souls like oak trees have testicles.
Primordials designed the human soul around the concept of mortality. It's a wholly artificial construct that isn't like what the primordials or anything naturally arising from the wyld have. They aren't hive minds of mortal souls stuck together, they're living sets of physics complete unto themselves and capable of combining their different universal laws to make other self sustaining systems.
At the most basic possible level they are not the same as any of the things they made.
There is some level of capability to change between being a the third and second Circle Soul as well as a first circle demon and a god it's literally an embassy in Heaven they could go to to acquire amnesty and then their loyalty and their metaphysical makeup is changed. They are not sacks of human Souls that is true but the system by which Souls operate originates with them not just the Souls of humans but rather souls in general.
The primordials didn't engineer mortality from Soul out it was in physical form that they designed mortality the fact of the matter is there was no need to design just make a shittier god or in this case make a shittier version of the clay man that already made. All the Mortal species are just versions of their behemoth or inspiration that's rather the point the dragon kings didn't have mortality written into their souls they had it written into their flesh.
Creation as a whole is their conjoined project so it shares metaphysical aspects with all of them even if some of them are more prevalent or the base than others. They don't operate off of completely separate physics otherwise they couldn't use or otherwise interact with their Prime project.
Just like humans if they reach Essence 4 become deities in creation their lower Soul disappearing but still being themselves the idea is that the difference between a individual demon and a God is are you attached to a primordial and the difference between a God and a mortal is are you attached to Creation do you have a lower soul.
In the end there is an inherent similarity to everything the primordials made and the primordials because that is how creating a project Works your touch just felt in every single aspect of it. The way the souls work the way the cycle of reincarnation is work the way the Realms work the way the spirits work everything can be felt and understood through the primordials.
To say they are not the same thing as what they made is to misunderstand what they made. Sol cannot be the favored son and hated enemy if he is completely divorced from his makers. Hated and loved by Malfeas in such degrees that naked childlike versions of him dance his streets no, the primordials and the gods and The Mortals they made share a link in their metaphysical makeup that is undeniable. Luna cannot be the perfect lover of the primordial Gaia without sharing some similarity. The maidens cannot be the perfect operators of Fate without understanding The Uncanny operations and machinations of the Ebon dragon and Autocthon.
If a bunch of spirits can make an antishaping tattoo for Lunars on the spot out of nothing more than their own Essence?
We can almost certainly make a ring/necklace Splendor to duplicate the effect for Lash, though in her case it will only work while she has it on because its not a permanent tattoo like the Lunars get.
Arguable, because I am fairly sure that tattoos draw on the power of the exaltation itself. LIke, even if you made some great sacrifices, and had lunar tattoos inscribed upon a mortal, it's not a given that they would have the same effect.
Also, I have to wonder what would happen if an abyssal was to get lunar tattoos before their own mandatory journey to the spirit world.
And to comment on the chapter: now Adkin knows that our minions refer to us as "Divine Majesty". I'm guessing he'll remember this.
They've only been learning English for a short time, I'd be surprised if they use it outside of addressing people who can't understand their native tongue.
If you want to turn a guy into a Dragon you don't need Life 6.
You need Life 5 for the physical transformation, some level of Prime to give him internal magical reserves, Forces 3 for a good firebreath and maybe some Mind to make him adapt to his new body quickly.
With a combination of Spheres, a task that fits in your paradigm and enough successes gathered via lengthy, complicated and sometimes expensive rituals, you can do almost anything within the regular Spheres.
@DragonParadox : Why did we lose a willpower if Harry's counterspell worked? We have no need of Ego protection in that case and it's reflexive clearly worded at it can be used as we are being effected.
@DragonParadox : Why did we lose a willpower if Harry's counterspell worked? We have no need of Ego protection in that case and it's reflexive clearly worded at it can be used as we are being effected.
Because you acted before him, you have a fully reflexive action to cast a charm, he does not. It is one of the rare case of actions where the instinctive nature of charms worked against you.
There is some level of capability to change between being a the third and second Circle Soul as well as a first circle demon and a god it's literally an embassy in Heaven they could go to to acquire amnesty and then their loyalty and their metaphysical makeup is changed. They are not sacks of human Souls that is true but the system by which Souls operate originates with them not just the Souls of humans but rather souls in general.
The primordials didn't engineer mortality from Soul out it was in physical form that they designed mortality the fact of the matter is there was no need to design just make a shittier god or in this case make a shittier version of the clay man that already made. All the Mortal species are just versions of their behemoth or inspiration that's rather the point the dragon kings didn't have mortality written into their souls they had it written into their flesh.
Creation as a whole is their conjoined project so it shares metaphysical aspects with all of them even if some of them are more prevalent or the base than others. They don't operate off of completely separate physics otherwise they couldn't use or otherwise interact with their Prime project.
Just like humans if they reach Essence 4 become deities in creation their lower Soul disappearing but still being themselves the idea is that the difference between a individual demon and a God is are you attached to a primordial and the difference between a God and a mortal is are you attached to Creation do you have a lower soul.
In the end there is an inherent similarity to everything the primordials made and the primordials because that is how creating a project Works your touch just felt in every single aspect of it. The way the souls work the way the cycle of reincarnation is work the way the Realms work the way the spirits work everything can be felt and understood through the primordials.
To say they are not the same thing as what they made is to misunderstand what they made. Sol cannot be the favored son and hated enemy if he is completely divorced from his makers. Hated and loved by Malfeas in such degrees that naked childlike versions of him dance his streets no, the primordials and the gods and The Mortals they made share a link in their metaphysical makeup that is undeniable. Luna cannot be the perfect lover of the primordial Gaia without sharing some similarity. The maidens cannot be the perfect operators of Fate without understanding The Uncanny operations and machinations of the Ebon dragon and Autocthon.
Godhood is two different things in this case; a political position and a type of entity the primordials made to fill it. Moving between types of subsoul is more like growth in their own context than spiritual change. A human who ascends is getting a political post and presumably has worked out a form of immortality through essence shaping.
Each of them is an alien reality that has its own rules, and each of them contributed parts of what made of creation, but that doesn't mean that this is fundamentally the same across all of them. Remember that it's canon to the quest and Exalted that the process of reincarnation was something pioneered by Autobot. His various species were experiments and their souls shaped to purpose for this new concept he was making in their shared sandbox.
That as much as directly states it wasn't the natural order for any of them because he wouldn't have needed to design a whole new thing leveraging the mixed principles to get it to work.
As to them needing to be similar; no, you're just wrong on that. All of the primordials were at minimum as alien to each other as they were to humans. Each independently willed themselves to be from raw chaos and each had a different mythos covering an independent way reality could work. Gravity and electromagnetism are infinitely more similar than Gaia and Autochthon. They were still friends and enemies among themselves.
Creation was an engineered construct intended to serve a specific purpose. It uses what the primordials knew best but is something novel they built in the same way a computer is built in a way that makes sense to humans but doesn't have a cloned human brain inside doing math.
I do have to reiterate none of the rituals or spells you are saying requires any level of arch sphere. Even the vampire still only requires Life 5. Popping a volcano from a distance still not even Force 5 it's just force 3 with matter 3 and correspondence possibly also three maybe two if you're feeling generous. Spheres are meant to represent capability and mastery of manipulating areas of reality you gain the power by increasing Arete or casting in ritual you really really shouldn't use archpheres just full representations of power when that is not what the Spheres are supposed to do. Forces is a minor exception but even then it's still grants more capability than it does outright might Mastery over the forces of reality rather than having a bigger hammer.
No, you are wrong.
I have previously addressed this, but since you appear to have missed it, let me do so again.
1) The vampire was transformed from an ambulatory humanoid into an immobile sapient fleshgarden with 35HLs and an unknown amount of armor and other abilities, but which that was still sapient enough to talk and exercise target discrimination when intruders showed up in its AOO.
Thats Perfect Transformation of Others, a Life 6 effect.
White Wolf Wiki said:
Perfect Transformation of Others: The mage can transform lifeforms into other lifeforms without altering their intelligence.
There was also getting the Outsider to possess the resultant construct to give it the power to cast shaping effects, which was at least a Spirit 4 effect. You need Spirit 4 to make fetishes, and to get spirits to possess other people
White Wolf Wiki said:
Bind Spirits: The mage can summon or otherwise compel Spirits to fulfill his orders.
There's probably some Mind in there as well, since zealot or not, I doubt that the people in that construct were volunteers.
But we didnt interact with it long enough to give any indication one way or the other.
2) The only canon rote I can find for popping a volcano is Cuicuilco's Demise from Dead Magic, and its explicitly Forces 5.
Dead Magic chapter 3 said:
Cuicuilco's Demise Forces 5, Matter 4
Cuicuilco was a great city in the Mexican central highlands, until its destruction in A.D. 150 by an erupting volcano. Teotihuacan went on to become the most powerful remaining city of the region. Some mages speculate that Cuicuilco's demise was planned in a fiery disaster to end its potential threat, while others attribute its end to the act of angry gods or unfortunate tectonics. Whatever the case, some sort of ritual has been handed down that points to magical influence.
The mage must sacrifice a human victim, as might be expected for magic of the Mesoamerican sort, in order to awaken the power of the volcano (fire gods and what-have-you, after all.) In some versions, the victim might actually be thrown into the volcano; in others, the subject is merely slaughtered near the volcano's base. Either way, the ritual is dangerous, since it is unlikely that the mage will get out in time.
System: Effect successes generate tremendous tectonic forces and pressurization of material in the heart of a chosen volcano. With enough successes on such a ritual, the mage could theoretically cause a volcano to erupt, perhaps destroying an area just as Cuicuilco was destroyed. Such an Effect is a phenomenal feat, easily requiring twenty or more successes for even a marginal result; a mage who scores fewer successes might succeed in getting some unpleasant burbling and maybe a single stream of lava from a volcano, but no spectacular eruption. Don't botch.
And yes, the eruption of the Xitle volcano that destroyed Cuicuilco is a real event. You can look it up if you choose.
===
By comparison, the 1883 Krakatoa eruption that McCoy takes responsibility for not only literally obliterated 70% of the island's then surface area?
It created >30-46 meter high tsunami waves that were recorded as far away as South Africa and the English channel, while it threw enough shit into the air to cause a volcanic winter and drop Northern hemisphere summer temperatures by around 0.4 degrees Celsius.
It was heard 4800km away in Mauritius, and the acoustic pressure wave is recorded to have travelled the world 3x.
It killed 36,000-120,000 people, depending on your chosen estimates.
Now that just looks wrong to me.
If exploding a volcano is a matter of Forces 5 / Matter 4, then it doesn't take Forces 6 to do so under different circumstances.
Adding Corrospondence to do it remotely and more successes required on the ritual to replace the human sacrifice does not influence the base level of Forces involved.
I'm pretty sure everything McCoy has done can be explained with Forces 5, though some of the more out-there things definitely required an alignment of circumstances and a big Ritual to gather successes.
Edit: Also the idea that Corpsetaker was supposed to be an Archmage is absurd. Things would have gone very differently if that was the case.
She was good in Mind and Spirit, but not beyond the normal Spheres for sure.
I provide the exact Rote upthread, as well as the actual volcano.
All eruptions are not equal, just like all explosions are not equal. Krakatoa was a significantly more expansive effect than Xitle, and due to the location couldnt be performed on the scene even if he wanted to.
And doing it at a distance would have required the ability to sense the interplay of forces he was looking to manipulate.
Essentially, it would have required this:
•••• • Economy of Force/Sense Universal Force
Opening himself to the universal force, a mage can see
the interactions of Force Patterns and their natural begin-
nings and endings. Though normal Force perceptions allow
a mage to spot interactions of such Patterns, this level of
Archmastery lets a mage draw connections between a Pattern
and its origins, its interactions with other Patterns and its
eventual destination. Such a broad view allows the mage to
determine where and how to apply force for maximum effect
with minimum effort.
[With the ability to sense universal forces, the mage's other
Forces Effects become much more efficient. Perceiving Forces lets
the mage trace a Force Pattern back to its origin or extrapolate
its likely results. The mage can also direct other manifestations
of Forces with half the usual required successes, as long as the
mage has already activated universal perception.]
Which has been a commonality of most of his engineered disasters.
It took Forces 5 to pop Xitle from the foot or the summit of the volcano, and create a pyroclastic flow that destroyed a nearby city.
You're going up a tier for a much more emphatic effect; Krakatoa blew up 70% of the island, rearranged the local geography, created tsunamis, and dumped > 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere, modifying global climate). Grokking the forces to do so at a distance and adding Correspondence to do it from a distance.
Krakatoa 1883 and Tambora 1815 would both be/require Forces 6.
Xitle ~250CE would have been Forces 5.
My two cents.
Anastacia Luccio, prior to losing her original body, was on the Senior Council track, just like Ebenezar McCoy was when HE was Captain-Commander. She was no pushover, is what Im saying, yet she got yeeted out of her own body like a Section 8 tenant with an eviction notice.
It wasnt even a fucking ritual; she wasnt even incapacitated.
Im not saying that Corpsetaker had mastery of more than one Sphere.
But translating the bullshit she pulled in that scene to Mage? Where she bodyjacked a senior mage while impaled by a magic-disrupting sword? Would require either Life, Mind or Spirit at 6, depending on how she'd altered herself.
Especially since she later survived her own death and continued in a different form for several years..
For comparison, we know Neville Sinclair Nevermore of the Hollow Ones
Spheres said:
Spheres: Correspondence 5, Entropy 2, Forces 3, Life 5, Matter 2, Mind 3, Prime 3, Spirit 2, Time 3
Could allegedly transfer his soul and Avatar between bodies, and he only Mastered Life and Correspondence.
But he couldnt do it on the fly.
And not while being stabbed with a magic disrupting blade.
Arguable, because I am fairly sure that tattoos draw on the power of the exaltation itself. LIke, even if you made some great sacrifices, and had lunar tattoos inscribed upon a mortal, it's not a given that they would have the same effect.
Also, I have to wonder what would happen if an abyssal was to get lunar tattoos before their own mandatory journey to the spirit world. And to comment on the chapter: now Adkin knows that our minions refer to us as "Divine Majesty". I'm guessing he'll remember this.
If we know about Ancient Mai's stone hounds I think we'd know about spontaneously created life.
Perhaps not, but you're the one trying to fit archmages in anywhere there's a sliver of free space.
We know about Mai's stone hounds because we actually have seen a White Council meeting
Most people dont. If she didnt bring them out of her laboratory/workshop, we wouldnt have a clue that she was building magical autonomous drones either.
That you've never encountered something in the field does not mean they dont exist.
Yeah, but people knew who they were.
The assertion that a secret archmage was going around consistently doing things worthy of that power and never got any attention from anyone is laughable.
And how many people know Sandra Marling under a different name and face?
Hell, how many people knew of Cowl in canon before he showed up in Chicago in Dead Beat a year and half ago?
The presumption that we must know everyone of note in the setting else its not plausible is ridiculous.
=
Furthermore, gambits of this scale are not common.
Not that they arent tried, but usually they do not come anywhere this close to success. They often break down a lot earlier and the agents involved are either captured/killed, or successfully abscond, erase their trail and vanish to try again.
Sandra Marling in canon successfully vanished after Splattercon despite her role in fucking with both Dresden and Winter, and Dresden for all his efforts couldnt find her. Hannah Ascher canonically staged her own death and vanished for three years while on the White Council wanted list.
In this quest, Kattrin Sigfridsdottir vanished totally from the surveillance of Odin's resources since the late 1980s, around two decades. And thats after evading them for a millenium before that.
The outsiders can make people stronger, but I don't believe it's that easy or trivial to hide.
It's also worth repeating that doing so and sending a life 6 mage to do Sandra's prior tasks is unequivocally pants on head stupid.
I agree that trivial is unlikely. Especially if they want to hide their influence.
But the Outsiders canonically did it for Vito Malvora in canon, so we know its a thing they can and do do.
What other constraints there are on them are unknown.
We also know that its an established mechanic for Infernalists in Mage and Vampire The Masquerade, that the Fallen and Earthbound in Demon the Fallen can do it to empower their thralls, and that Yama Kings will do it for akuma as well in canon Kindred of the East, as well as for Exalts in ExWoD.
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Its worth repeating that you are just wrong.
The Dresdenverse is a setting where we have canonically seen what are Native American gods of pain and fear, being used as bounty hunters. Where ancient vampires like the son-in-law of the Red King will attempt personal assassinations. Where Walkers are used as field operatives, and you can run into a Knight of the Blackened Denarius impersonating a dead priest or robbing a yacht.
The idea that a Life 6 mage is somehow too good or too valuable to risk does not fit observed Outsider faction operational patterns, or indeed the patterns of any of the major bad guy groups.
It certainly doesnt fit WoD either, where you could and would run into Fallen angels on the streets working for other Fallen.
If you're building a social manipulator there are many, many, better ways to spend the same energy. If you're not then you shouldn't be using your agent as one.
You talk like Dresdenverse factions can spec out the innate aptitudes of their recruits, their strengths and weaknesses from the factory the way you spec a luxury car.
I mean, you've been at the gacha roll for ages, and you finally luck into a magically potent human who is ideologically simpatico with your goals and willing to pursue them. But their aptitudes are Life, not Mind.
So throw him/her back and wait for the gacha roll?
I think the concept of paradox free archmages who don't even have to face the trial that kills most WoD aspirants is crazy, but in the hypothetical where they did exist anything they're doing that isn't based in their unique skills is a waste.
You don't send a life 6 mage to twist a teenager's head on backwards. I could maybe see getting one to make you something to do it, but not actually go handle it themselves.
This is not WoD.
The balance mechanic for wizards in this setting is the fact that unlike World of Darkness, they are not the biggest swinging dicks in the setting. A critical one, but not the only one.
Man, thats not actually true.
Senex bani Euthanatos, the Old Man, was literally (in)famous for being THE assassin archmage among the Euthanatos, and canonically did do shit like that in oWoD.
Because you acted before him, you have a fully reflexive action to cast a charm, he does not. It is one of the rare case of actions where the instinctive nature of charms worked against you.
Reflexive means being able to use on other people's turns. Including after they have done their action. The very wording of the effect indicates you can have things like we are in the middle of turning to stone when the process promptly reverses.
Reflexive means being able to use on other people's turns. Including after they have done their action. The very wording of the effect indicates you can have things like we are in the middle of turning to stone when the process promptly reverses.
I'm fairly sure that the Exalted Host did permakill some of the Primordials, it's just that they did it so well there is no trace of them left, not even in time or memory. The Neverborn are the ones they didn't do so good a job at.
I am thinking about that. I'll make a detailed post about this later, because the lore of how abyssals in ExvsWoD
a) translates badly to Dresden Files cosmology
b) opens up a ton of loopholes and strange interactions.
