Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
I'll try to do something in the evening.
Thanks.
I tried to keeps the enhancements feature simple because the charm as a whole was already getting pretty lengthy at that point, and to keep it easier to balance. The arcana features are very good and already balanced for servants of the infernal, so just accessing that aspect makes things a lot easier.
In terms of connections and exploiting them; this seems like a have your cake and eat it too moment. If something is close enough to be part of your soul - to share memories, an essence pool, and charm set with you, then they should be a vulnerability that way. In fact I'd argue that it shouldn't be possible to do it the other way at all.
That said, with TTON while the clone is active it can use our defenses - including those for shaping - and if we build them right just leave for home at will. I actually thought SGI clones dissolved into wind when killed and that these clones would basically do the same, but it isn't explicit in that charm and should be in this one.
Under those circumstances the vulnerability is only if they subdue the clone completely despite the defensive advantages and ability to teleport home at will. At which point it should be a vulnerability.
Having your weaknesses enumerated isn't fun, but doing it means they're addressed instead of being something we assume is perfectly immune to whatever right up until it's demonstrated it isn't. Again.
I fail to see the issues with clones, WOD mages stomp in both power and versatility everything short of the Angels. A captured clone still would do nothing help them against the Exalted.
The first of all acts was to name. Each titan tearing themselves from the roiling chaos and defining themselves against it. A fact that no debasement could ever wholly take from them.
Echoing that act their heirs turn their hands on their own souls; naming each part according to their own design, thereby becoming in small part like those spoke themselves into being.
System:
The infernal spends 5 essence and meditates for at least one scene, turning inwards to look at their own soul. Once there, she must make a willpower roll to search her own memories for something that defines her.
It can be nearly anything; important memories, strong beliefs, trauma, what matters is that it's true and personal to the exalt. This can be very unpleasant, and lower successes should result in facing less comfortable things.
Whatever she finds, the infernal then names and begins the process of shaping into a new facet of her soul. She may have no more than her essence rating of these. If one is destroyed its body dissolves into iron wind, and the element of her soul it embodies is numbed in whatever manner is appropriate until she repeats this ritual at +1 DC to find and reform it.
If the infernal dies instead her essence manifests as screaming wind and flees to the nearest clone, killing it in her place. This wounds the infernal's spirit, dropping her one essence level that may not be regained by any means before she reforms the facet she replaced.
Once named facets may be embodied or dispelled with a thought, supposing they aren't currently destroyed and are in the infernal's presence, but she must pay 1 mote to copy over any memories directly.
As they are subordinate faces of the infernal's soul she may not use her charms through them to directly affect the world. However, as they are still part of her they may still affect themselves.
In general this means abilities that solely impact the infernal and do not rely on active interaction. The infernal may not use excellency through a clone any more than she may fire a shotgun with her nose, but can defend any part of her 'face' with equal strength. When doing so they share the infernal's essence pool.
By default the clones form as an approximation of the infernal as a mortal, perfectly loyal to its creator, fully aware of what it is, and in possession of her memories. However, for the same resource investment as making one outright she may invest them with the appropriate number of arcana features.
If the infernal has a hell they may spend one arcana feature point to provide an emanation style return function. By spending one willpower they may vanish in a burst of flaying wind to return to her hell. This counts as a clone death for the purposes of the charm, save for that it does not numb the associated elements of the infernal's soul as the facet slides smoothly back into place.
Echoing that act their heirs turn their hands on their own souls; naming each part according to their own design, thereby becoming in small part like those spoke themselves into being.
System:
The infernal spends 5 essence and meditates for at least one scene, turning inwards to look at their own soul. Once there, she must make a willpower roll to search her own memories for something that defines her.
It can be nearly anything; important memories, strong beliefs, trauma, what matters is that it's true and personal to the exalt. This can be very unpleasant, and lower successes should result in facing less comfortable things.
Whatever she finds, the infernal then names and begins the process of shaping into a new facet of her soul. She may have no more than her essence rating of these. If one is destroyed its body dissolves into iron wind, and the element of her soul it embodies is numbed in whatever manner is appropriate until she repeats this ritual at +1 DC to find and reform it.
If the infernal dies instead her essence manifests as screaming wind and flees to the nearest clone, killing it in her place. This wounds the infernal's spirit, dropping her one essence level that may not be regained by any means before she reforms the facet she replaced.
Once named facets may be embodied or dispelled with a thought, supposing they aren't currently destroyed and are in the infernal's presence, but she must pay 1 mote to copy over any memories directly.
As they are subordinate faces of the infernal's soul she may not use her charms through them to directly affect the world. However, as they are still part of her they may still affect themselves.
In general this means abilities that solely impact the infernal and do not rely on active interaction. The infernal may not use excellency through a clone any more than she may fire a shotgun with her nose, but can defend any part of her 'face' with equal strength. When doing so they share the infernal's essence pool.
By default the clones form as an approximation of the infernal as a mortal, perfectly loyal to its creator, fully aware of what it is, and in possession of her memories. However, for the same resource investment as making one outright she may invest them with the appropriate number of arcana features.
If the infernal has a hell they may spend one arcana feature point to provide an emanation style return function. By spending one willpower they may vanish in a burst of flaying wind to return to her hell. This counts as a clone death for the purposes of the charm, save for that it does not numb the associated elements of the infernal's soul as the facet slides smoothly back into place.
Added what I'd filed as a default clone feature for SGI that doesn't actually exist.
If you want to use the clone as a connection point you need to take it alive in a place it can't teleport home from, which is about as safe as this is going to get.
Making any kind of clone that's part of Molly in a substantial enough way to use her charms but who's separated enough that nothing that happens to them matters under any circumstances sounds like bullshit to me.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Have you been reading the post in thread or just popping in to comment? Examples were given at length over several pages.
And none of them have any basis in reality again WOD mages are both vastly more powerful and Versatile then 99% in Dresden files. They can do things like turn entire armies into plants as as a baseline power just by looking at them, Flip gravity so people fall upwards into space and die etc. And they don't get anything more then +2 dice from actual blood of a person for spells.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
This is Dresden Files. I can't think of a better ritual focus than a captured clone with part of Molly's soul in it. You seem to have a major misconception as to how this setting works.
Ivar
Dark Reaper
- Location
- Russia Moscow
I understand and agree. Clones will always be a link to Molly. The method of solving this problem is the evacuation and/or destruction of the body. Whether the body simply disappears or becomes ectoplasm. The only question is how to organize the evacuation. Clones can initiate it from scratch - this is a good idea, self-destruction in such situations is reasonable. The only thing we need is the ability to blow them up remotely the moment we detect their problem. In this case, this can be achieved either by changing the charm or other methods. The problem in this case is not destruction, but detection that there is a problem there.
Dresden magicians receive a significantly larger bonus than OVOD magicians, that's all. That is why I advocate turning the body into an inert mass or completely destroying it upon capture.
And again WOD mages get the same advantages that Dresden mages do from that stuff, while also being vastly more powerful, and much broader in scope then Dresden stuff. And the Charm is still good.
Did DP at any point stated that sympathetic/ritual magic in the quest works in different ways than in base Mage? I'm genuinly curious, I skipped a lot of discussion while catching up to the story including house rules. Until stated I prefer to err on the side of official text.
Winning Vote
Arc 12 Post 1: Of Lies and Shadow's Eye
Of Lies and Shadow's Eyes
17th of January 2007 A.D.
Restored 2 Willpower -> Now at 4/9 (Two Nights' Sleep)
School feels loud, dozens of clashing voices mixing together every time the bell rings, whispers of students making time cutting across teachers making ends' meat, a strange thought coming back from Vegas, but there you have it. It's not like Mom and Dad had been greeted your return with quiet decorum when you showed up yesterday, but those decibels had had meaning to them even if that meaning had been 'tell me everything' and then 'complain about most of it'. Mom had not been a fan of bearding the almost-literal dragon in its den even though she had been more complimentary of Harry than you'd ever heard her in the wake of him getting hurt protecting you. You'd wisely not pointed out that it would have been better for all concerned if those things had decided to chew through your armor instead of the wizard's magic coat.
Not that you can really blame her. Dad had apparently been in the car with every intention to come after you, key in the ignition, as soon as he heard about the RPG ambush when the very literally named Gatekeeper had come a-knocking with news the enemy was forcing the Gate. How he had managed that conversation given that Matthew and Leech were in the room you have no idea, but your siblings had been surprisingly light on the teasing about going to Vegas since you got home. All that time working out how to answer to Vegas wedding jokes for nothing. It's enough to make a girl grumpy...
"No running in the corridors!" Principal Clark shouts after you.
As your head snaps back to look at him you manage to bite your tongue on an acid retort. For just a moment in his eyes you see the Molly Carpenter he still sees, a senior in High School like thousands of others before her boasting good grades, but way too many absences on her record.
"Sorry Principal Clark," you call back, mildly aggrieved and all is right in his world, not even noticing that your 'run' was just a walk that happened to be faster than most people's light jog. Most people, you realize, are content to live in a world populated by comfortable lies even if it's lies they tell themselves. Lies like Margret Carver, they do not even have to be a little bit true, just expected.
Without even really meaning to you veer off into the bathroom, close the door and turn on your heel to meet the eyes of the girl in the mirror. She looks kind of like the girl who had gone to Splattercon last summer, before one of her friends betrayed her, before she unknowingly betrayed two others, the hair is right, the height, the structure of the face. Maybe the cheeks are a bit more pale and nary a hint of a zit anywhere, there's a superpower a lot of people would kill for. But it's the eyes that are more different, a darker blue... or just deeper.
It's funny how many times you've heard the eyes called 'the windows of the soul' when they are really more like mirrors for the world to fill. Easy as breathing, light as the air in your lungs you draw in Essence and spin it thin, gossamer shadows, a fulsome lie for all the senses, black mirror's incarnation.
At first glance there does not seem to be much of a change in the mirror, Molly Carpenter still looks back, frowning in concentration, but she seems a touch less polished, precise in her expressions, more like what Principal Clark's idea of you than who you know yourself to be. Not someone you bow to and, more importantly, not someone to run away from. It feels solid like a shell of ice that sunset cannot melt away though inner fire might. I'll have to be careful how I burn essence.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 14/15 (Black Mirror Incarnation)
"Heloo! Your Imperial Moliness are you in here?" A familiar voice pulls you out of contemplation. "Are we going to math class or what?"
"We?" you ask mildly. "I don't recall stopping you from going to class."
"I'm stopping me from going to class," she counters airily. "If you're ditching I am too. I want to know what Vegas was like. Did you break any casinos? Rob any?"
"No, the only one I set foot in was the Luxor, it's a hotel too and we stayed there."
"No offense meant, but that is really lame," she scoffs
"We had too much excitement to tell the truth, poor Harry's still picking his coat out of his skin where those things melted it into him and God knows how things are going to shake out in Vegas with the new lord. It was touch and go for a moment there, if I hadn't brought help. There was someone with a plan for a last minute save, maybe if he wasn't lying through his teeth to come out on the winning side."
Isabela's just nodding along in understanding. "Yeah, that's how it goes when there's a shake up in the power structure according to Uncle Leinth, you never know where someone lands until the dust settles." She frowns at you, eyes glimmering just a little too bright to be a reflection of the florescent lighting. "Did you do something to yourself? You look... ordinary."
"Glamor, glad it's holding." Maybe you haven't been paying as much attention before, but you can see the Hunger moving though her, with her as she borrows its sight, a waking shadow bound in blood and bone and with that insight comes conviction. I can do it too, I can to it better. Awaken the Po and grant them mastery...
"What?" Isabela asks, catching your mood.
"I just figured out how to awaken people's shadow soul to gift them power." No reason to hide considering all the other stuff she knows about you.
You're not sure what kind of response you had expected, weariness maybe, some chin stroaking. Instead she perks up:"Cool, can I watch you do it?"
What do you reply?
[] Sure, you did promise Olivia five months ago
[] Not now, you do not have anyone in mind (Continue on to Boston)
-[] Write in who is anyone you invite along
[] Write in
OOC: Isabla did not get a roll to see though Black Mirror Incarnation. The demon's sight cannot pierce though a charm this powerful and specialized. One needs something like the Sight to pierce it, with all afferent risks.
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BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
There's no way your familiar with this setting and seriously trying to argue that a captured soul clone wouldn't be able to help our enemies in any way.
Not everything can or should be resolved entirely within one charm. One of the rules of thumb for homebrewing this stuff is that if you end up with a lengthy and complicated charm that's trying to give everything you want and none of the implications you don't it's probably gone too far. That's not always the case, but it frequently is.
As compared to SGI, TTON has a much narrower attack surface for us to guard. They don't need to win every fight as long as we don't choose to make them vulnerable. They just need to manage a mental action and avoid fighting inside a circle rated for trapping exalts. Ensuring that by other means is a lot more practical. I think the problem of detection and remote destruction should be handled by additional efforts we make and not directly as a special rule of the charm.
Well paradox doesn't exist and no one has avatars, so I wouldn't assume mage rules apply in all the gory details.
- Location
- Dallas Texas
Pretty sure Molly's mom would explode if we did this out the blue, let's stick to friends not family.
[X] Sure, you did promise Olivia five months ago
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
He is an adult or close enough and can make his own decisions. This is also safer than him going on a quest.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
We are already addressing that issue. He trains in Molly's world for gains rather than be given a power up or go on a "quest".
[X] Sure, you did promise Olivia five months ago
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Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
[X] Sure, you did promise Olivia five months ago
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[X] Sure, you did promise Olivia five months ago
Maybe Exalted magic can break those sorts of rules, but I don't expect normal magic to.
I am familiar enough with DF to be extremely sceptical of any attempt to capture a soul working without the soul cooperating somehow. Seems like the most pure example of free will.
Maybe Exalted magic can break those sorts of rules, but I don't expect normal magic to.
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