Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Nobody on that list will survive the equivalent of Don Phillipe De Leon showing up with a war party of three Blood Packs, like happened in Cleveland. Nevermind if someone more serious like the Eebs showed up.
Molly herself is a hard target, but many other factions are not.
And Molly setting up here would both make her an explicit liar, and would materially affect her ability to go to other cities in pursuit of Outsider business because the locals would get in the way of a perceived interloper.
- Location
- Canada
Don Phillipe de Leon and three Blood Packs would also not survive the equivalent of a Molly, and they know it. Which is why they would never come to Las Vegas if they know Molly is there, much less make an enemy of her.
And no locals would get in the way of Molly, because they know that would make them former locals of Las Vegas/whereever and new locals of the underworld.
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- Location
- Germany
Molly never came here to prevent Outsider plots, well not primarily.
She came here to hunt down a woman who fucked here over personally.
Taking the city in the process is just using your opportunities as they are given.
As for the threat of an Older Red coming up from Mexico, they can threaten back with Molly coming down.
We have more than proven our willingness to take on the Red Court's best by murdering Arianna Ortega in her private plane over Red territory.
Even the stupidest Lord of Outer Night will believe that Molly wouldn't hesitate to murder them if they come to Vegas.
Edit: Minor note, the Ra-Golem with its ability to manifest powerful spirits might actually defeat a strong Red party, if mostly by abusing his skill with Sunlight and their weakness to it.
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BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Irrelevant, we can spare another day or so to wrap things up in Vegas. The Dragon replacement likely won't be taken care of by the end of today either. We don't need Shintai to take care of the remaining Reds and can use essence for Charms so also irrelevant. Again we don't need the entire party to kill Reds and we can wait for them to heal before attacking or just keep them in the Five Courts until it's done. No rush. Hand of Ash is not a deciding factor here.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
The other situations were not desperate either and were all at the end of arcs to help tie up loose ends.
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Demons in the Details
Demons in the Details
Demon summoning is a fraught subject among the wizards of the White Council. On the one hand if one does it right, if one is careful then it is a path to get what you want none the worse for wear and many wizards over the centuries have done so. One can argue if this is because wizards are just that clever, just that wise or because the powers Down Below had other more nefarious plans? None can truly say. But the fact of the matter is it is a tradition of the White Council going back to the days before there was a White Council, old Hermetic texts are filled with demonology for the purpose of interrogating or making use of the demonic.
However when demon summoning goes wrong it tends to go very wrong since most demons are usually clever enough to let the summoner get a lot over their head before they spring the trap. That is how you get some very nasty warlocks so generally speaking the common wisdom of the White Council is 'do not play with the hell beasts until you are at least in your first century, or you have someone who is with you to help'. It is not considered against the Laws, there are only Seven Laws and by word of the Original Merlin they are very clear and not prone to creep since he did not want to see another Wizard War first and foremost.
That said if for the sake of argument one would consider someone working in enforcement, a Warden, and they see a person of interest they are already suspicious of, not of being some kind of mastermind, but reckless to the point of Lawbreaking, summoning demons. That is not a good sign. Now a sensible warden, or someone not suffering from terminal burn-out, would then go to the wizard and explain why it is not a good idea to consort with the infernal unless you are very sure of your work. Conversely if you think they are just a warlock waiting to happen why not get in their face and be aggressive? If they take the first shot with magic you can get this over with no one the worst for wear but the perpetrator.
Incidentally the other reason why you will not see many novices binding demons is that the information on how to do so is not readily available to them. Proper books on demonology that have not been sabotaged by the sort of people who want demons loose on Earth are rare and most of them are held by wizards of the White Council, the older generation thereof, or other established supernatural powers. When said elder wizards feel one of their juniors, usually but not always their apprentice, is worthy of it they will share insights into the perilous art of binding and compelling something that really truly wants to kill you and ruin all you hold dear.
Now let's put ourselves back into the shoes of that Warden again, the one who is suspicious of a junior wizard. What if said target suddenly develops a knack for demonology? What kind of sources does one believe he used?
OOC: In conclusion, Morgan was a pretty bad cop in Storm Front, though in his defense he had all the PTSD and he could not retire because there was no one to replace him in a world that needed more Wardens not fewer.
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Of relevance:
We cant hold this place in the face of everyone else.
Molly has a limited throughput of agents from Sanctuary, and in her absence there is nothing here preventing a bunch of Red Court vampires and allies showing up one night, and killing everything and leaving.
And for face's sake they would have to respond to Molly doing this shit publicly.
Whereas the Sin-Eater is legally entitled to.
By whatever treaty it is that Winter and Summer are obeying by staying out of the city.
I mean, we did literally just have a bunch of lesser Outsiders shrugging off physical damage by hypertech Sanctuary weapons.
So its not like even Sanctuary agents have that much recourse besides dying.
- Location
- Germany
Molly is a phone call and a water connection away.
Always.
Just wait for the first Red Pack that tries it and ends up dead.
Edit: Besides, not like they can hold anything either. If they kill some of ours, we can retaliate harder, that's for sure.
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BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
If we are in the NeverNever or the Five Courts that won't work without an interdimensional phone so not always unless we fix that. If the known Outsider using faction tries to grab a foothold in the city with a Gate to the Outside in it we should probably drop what we are doing to handle it.
I think we should call up on Maeve at this point and ask her how the Reds would respond to us telling them to stay the hell away from the Gate after they almost screwed it up for everyone.
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Unless it was to lull us into a false sense of security and then back stab us at a critical moment. It's basically impossible to disprove, as even the vampires who were going to do it might not know they had triggers built in to do so.
They dont have to.
Half-Red or mortal agents in Vegas. Or even just send spirits to do recon.
NeverNever jaunt into Vegas, hit everyone working with Molly, go home. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Even better if they pull Molly into an ambush and dump Outsiders on her.
And young Rampires are easy to make if you arent especially picky, like in a war.
And thats not counting the blood slaves.
Have you heard of cellphone jammers? Or stingrays?
I mean, when WE went after Kattrin's flunkies in the shop, we just took out the phone box for landlines beforehand.
And that was us working with improvised shit.
What do you think an organization with access to nationstate resources can do?
The cartels have been able to access high end govt shit in Latin America, and they have nothing like the control that the Red Court allegedly does in Latin America.
This is where I repost that Girl Genius page about escalation and Bad Plans.
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More specifically, Lara is a True Venatori. Fighting the outsider is a big part of her business so she's actively interested in fighting this stuff rather than passively trying to avoid punishment for it.
The white council allows demon summoning under tight controls, they don't organizationally summon Hell's bruisers to kill things for them or make deals with Denarians for fire support.
Hell, as awful as it is, isn't interested in exploding creation. Working with them is bad, but Outsiders are a line. If you're doing business with them it doesn't matter if you think you've got it under control, that you're actually exploiting them, or whatever else. You're either too dangerous or stupid to live.
There is some wiggle room since no rule is absolute, but I don't see anything worth noting here. I don't care if you think you've got the upper hand, if you knowingly and willingly in any business with the Outside you should get the axe.
Because it wouldn't work. Attacking a wizard in their lab is known to be a comically bad idea because they benefit from prep time. Trying that on a leyline nexus a collective of the best mages to ever live from across the entire planet have spent centuries defending is a suicidal.
For the more WoD inclined, pause to consider what would happen if you got the best practitioners from every tradition save the technocracy and convinced them to wholeheartedly work together on raising and continuously improving a fortress integrated into one of the largest dragon nests on the planet.
For a period of over five hundred years.
Many of the strongest wizards alive like to show off by adding something from their specialty to the defensive scheme, adding layers upon layers down the ages.
A nuke is not what I'd hang all my hopes on going up against that.
- Location
- Canada
Remember the last idiot who thought she could rope a minor diety into doing her dirty work? Who then peaced out and left the country? Remember what happened to her?
Yeah, Molly has a track record now, with Arianna and Sandra, of hunting down those who make trouble for her. And if the daughter of the Red King with multiple Elders, and the Outsider-summoning archmage with a Dragon, both couldn't take Molly's heat, who the heck is gonna try for third time's the charm?
We don't need to kill everyone, because everyone knows we can kill anyone who comes to make trouble. No one is going to willingly come to make trouble, and even those who can force others to do their dirty work will think twice after Molly hunted down the two previous 'masterminds' who tried a similar plot.
- Location
- Germany
Worst case they do.
And then we kill two Elders or better for every one of ours they killed.
We are able and if I get to vote really fucking willing to escalate this as far as it needs to go.
Then we can show up the next morning, capture a couple of Lords of the Outer Night and consign them to literally eternal torment and advertise that fact.
The balance of terror is very much on Molly's side here.
A fake dragon, Molly feels very strongly about that designation, it was as fakes go quite well made, not at all tacky, but still far from the genuine article.
Respectfully, I do not believe thats true.
We walked in there with with two diplomancers and Molly projecting Demonic Primacy
Its hard for CoDs to mislead us. Not impossible, but Hard.
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We are unlikely to be out of contact for significant amount of time - longer than a week or so. And we have already shown ourselves to be willing to reap bloody vengeance on those slighting us. Threats of retribution are an entirely valid tactic.
- Location
- Canada
Remember, Molly has never lost.
And not in the way Mab has never lost, where temporary losses are forgotten after her century-long plan comes to fruition and ruins your life out of left field.
Molly has never lost in the sense that literally everyone who has tried to make trouble for her is dead. Nigh-immediately, on supernatural timespans. Within the hour, day, week, or at most half-year with Sandra. Only that one would-be thief who tried to snatch her meal from her is alive, and I won't bet on that Blamphire living out the year. Everybody else? Elder vampires and gods, Outsiders and monsters? DEAD.
Molly brings a very viscerally immediate fear of death into literally everybody with a brain and even those without (Outsiders amirite).
And not in the way Mab has never lost, where temporary losses are forgotten after her century-long plan comes to fruition and ruins your life out of left field.
Molly has never lost in the sense that literally everyone who has tried to make trouble for her is dead. Nigh-immediately, on supernatural timespans. Within the hour, day, week, or at most half-year with Sandra. Only that one would-be thief who tried to snatch her meal from her is alive, and I won't bet on that Blamphire living out the year. Everybody else? Elder vampires and gods, Outsiders and monsters? DEAD.
Molly brings a very viscerally immediate fear of death into literally everybody with a brain and even those without (Outsiders amirite).
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- Location
- Who knows?
[X] Yes, there are still some loose ends to handle
The Reds were involved in a scheme to glass a significant portion of the continental US. Just the Masquerade breaking would've been the least of everyone's worries since I don't think the Masquerade being on or off would've mattered if a crippled US started loosing and launching nukes.
While full slaughter might be much, I think it is very easy to sell "this level of fuck up warrants an anvil dropped on you." Like "these fuckers did what?" before cutting them off is a perfectly face saving method for Red leadership. We could honestly and genuinely say that things here were nearly bad enough that the the Winter Court would've felt the need to start their own war against the Red Court from the amount of Outsider fuckery. Seriously, I'm pretty sure we had a few "guys maybe we need to bring in the current Guardians of the Gates to the Outside" vote options.
The Reds were involved in a scheme to glass a significant portion of the continental US. Just the Masquerade breaking would've been the least of everyone's worries since I don't think the Masquerade being on or off would've mattered if a crippled US started loosing and launching nukes.
While full slaughter might be much, I think it is very easy to sell "this level of fuck up warrants an anvil dropped on you." Like "these fuckers did what?" before cutting them off is a perfectly face saving method for Red leadership. We could honestly and genuinely say that things here were nearly bad enough that the the Winter Court would've felt the need to start their own war against the Red Court from the amount of Outsider fuckery. Seriously, I'm pretty sure we had a few "guys maybe we need to bring in the current Guardians of the Gates to the Outside" vote options.
I think it is entirely possible there was some weird subliminal shit/brainwashing they weren't aware of since we literally saw Sandra do such a thing to an entire gang. No one in Tommys Crew actively signed up to bomb the Vegas Strip.
As I said, if there were embedded mind control triggers even they wouldn't know about it.
That's the whole point of that suggestion, that no one can ever take the risk of having them running free again because of the land mines Sandra may have left in their brains.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Why are we talking about holding Vegas anyway? It seems like the goalpost was moved.
The intent here should be to get rid of the Reds who were working with the Dragon and to stop them from posting up next to the Outsider Gate in future. We know all the names needed right now allegiance wise from the earlier Crown question. Get rid of those Reds let the LOC get rid of identities and done.
Keeping those who are known to deal with Outsiders from entrenching themselves next to the Outsider Gate in the future by swinging back around and dealing with them when they do is something we are capable of doing and doesn't require us to take over Vegas or anything like that. It just needs to be made known to us that the Reds are doing business here as they were before.
The intent here should be to get rid of the Reds who were working with the Dragon and to stop them from posting up next to the Outsider Gate in future. We know all the names needed right now allegiance wise from the earlier Crown question. Get rid of those Reds let the LOC get rid of identities and done.
Keeping those who are known to deal with Outsiders from entrenching themselves next to the Outsider Gate in the future by swinging back around and dealing with them when they do is something we are capable of doing and doesn't require us to take over Vegas or anything like that. It just needs to be made known to us that the Reds are doing business here as they were before.
To be honest, the fact that the Dragon was conspiring to trigger the apocalypse seems like a strong justification for a significant punitive expedition in Red Court territory to reinforce the message that these antics will not be tolerated.
We can even tell them that they're on two strikes. We've been restrained so far in dealing with Arianna and the Dragon, but they're on their last chance, and if they piss us off again they're out.
If we want any kind of diplomatic solution we need to announce our red lines. That way when/if they cross them it enhances our credibility rather than detracts from it.
For example, we can just say that their outsider summoning privileges have been revoked, and the issue of the Red Court doing that can be dealt with either by them stopping doing it or us stopping the Red Court existing.
We can even tell them that they're on two strikes. We've been restrained so far in dealing with Arianna and the Dragon, but they're on their last chance, and if they piss us off again they're out.
If we want any kind of diplomatic solution we need to announce our red lines. That way when/if they cross them it enhances our credibility rather than detracts from it.
For example, we can just say that their outsider summoning privileges have been revoked, and the issue of the Red Court doing that can be dealt with either by them stopping doing it or us stopping the Red Court existing.
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We dont actually have the Actions to do that even if we wanted to.
See, thats the difference between being an established nationstate, and a fledgeling just starting out.
The QM has ruled on this, so I'll let it speak for itself.
I mean, I think everyone is of one mind with regards to Outsiders in general and their collaborators.
But I have zero interest in making our lives more difficult in the future for some momentary satisfaction now.
Let the Sin-Eater enforce his laws in his own territory.
We might make "suggestions" but we are not a superpower like Winter, we dont get to make proclamations about other nationstates and make them stick.
Word of QM is explicit that Oppenheimer's light has as much magical potence as it has mundane destructiveness in this AU.
So no, I rather suspect that it might be more effective than you are assuming.
Not that the Red Court would have been sure, of course.
And if they arent sure....well, this isnt something you try more than once.
I dont think thats plausible.
This was endgame.
If Sandra had her hooks in those people, they would have been underground running security(note that she ran out of mortal soldiers) or causing havoc up-top.