Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Can Lydia open a way to the NeverNever herself? I can't recall if she did so during the Akuma fight or not.

Yeah, here's the charm:

Open the Way (••)
The Exigent has an affinity for the opening of otherworldly paths.
System: Spend 1 Essence and roll Perception+Occult (Difficulty local Gaunlet-rating) to open a Way. This can stay open for the rest of the Scene and be passed by entities from both sides

We really should be at least a little careful here. Checking what we're about to stick our head into isn't exactly crazy paranoid.
 
Frankly, Lydia's charm seems much better than Molly's sorcery, given the cheaper cost-

If it weren't for the fact that Calling the Calibration Gate can open not just a Way, but even a Gate to Outside. Not exactly useful for Molly atm, but it is kinda funny just how screwed the world would be if an Infernal Exalt with the Crown of Eyes and CtCG were negatively inclined towards reality. Even with Michael vouching for her, the White Council would heavily consider alpha-striking Molly immediately if they knew her full current capacity. Mab, meanwhile, would straight-up attempt to slay Molly, unless she believes Winter incapable of doing so and surviving the repercussions.

Just another reason we should keep Molly's secrets very, very well hidden.
 
This is covered under this part of my response:

What I was trying to say is that only the very first steps of actual "ascending to transPrimordialhood" can be covered within the "balanced, playable" rolyplaying game. The 5 dot charm at the top of a custom charmset is supposed to be the first brief and unsteady glimpse of the narrative glory that is hinted at. If the themes of "after walking a thousand miles neck deep in spiritual filth, we get a chance of power and glory beyond all others" are to be explored at all, instead of "we got dealt a sword liberally smeared with feces, but by God, we'll use it to slay evil and defend the innocents".
Like I said even then if we are that primordial being only very few things can reasonably fight us so balance is fucking gone already. Trying to balance it just sounds like trying to nerf it when even an essence 5 exalt can have large affects already.
 
I am under the impression it was "I may be noticed" because the Queens are social monsters who have the capability of cold reading that we just pulled information out of the ether by our reactions, not that they could trace back the use of our power.

"I shouldn't use XYZ ability in front of ABC because ABC may notice we did something and I don't want to reveal it." rather than "ABC can detect XYZ"

When it comes to the Queens it could be both. It should be noted that the Crown is interacting with something when it gives Molly answers, it cannot just know things, some part of the universe must vibrate in response, so when you are talking about beings that may or may not be universal threads of the universe it might pay not to poke them too much.
 
Yeah, ok. Fair enough. I'd still want to check with the locals first, but there's benefit to no one knowing we are here.

[X] Ask a question of your Crown
-[X] What environment and beings can be found in the part of NeverNever that is coterminous with Harvard's location on Earth.

When it comes to the Queens it could be both. It should be noted that the Crown is interacting with something when it gives Molly answers, it cannot just know things, some part of the universe must vibrate in response, so when you are talking about beings that may or may not be universal threads of the universe it might pay not to poke them too much.
I kinda assumed it looked at Samsara or something like that.
 
Yeah, ok. Fair enough. I'd still want to check with the locals first, but there's benefit to no one knowing we are here.

[X] Ask a question of your Crown
-[X] What environment and beings can be found in the part of NeverNever that is coterminous with Harvard's location on Earth.


I kinda assumed it looked at Samsara or something like that.

Molly does not know, Hall of Infinite Mirrors Effect so this is all human brain wild mass guessing, but it seems to her logical that it is looking at something external to itself to get information and if that is the case others should be able to do it too. I mean it feels a little silly and a lot blasphemous to think it but 'looking over the shoulder of God and reading the Book of Ages' is probably the best approximation she can come to in her head.
 
[X] Ask a question of your Crown
-[X] What environment and beings can be found in the part of NeverNever that is coterminous with Harvard's location on Earth.
 
I mean it feels a little silly and a lot blasphemous to think it but 'looking over the shoulder of God and reading the Book of Ages' is probably the best approximation she can come to in her head.
The only thing I can think of are the Shinma, the beings the divine what exists by being everything that does not exist. While never really mentioned in ExVWoD, they are something I can see still existing in some form if only because they define what form is in the first place by allowing the reality to be restrained into 'Can' and 'Cannot'. It is possible the crown calls to Shakshin, the aspect of the Witness which sees all of Nirvishesha, the Shinma of Identity which is a heartless void who's name cannot be spoken for it does not itself have an identity . It would also fit with the one-question per thing and how exploitable it is, we are asking a question on an objects 'Identity' and we can rules lawyer that with things that possess a different 'identity' like a lock of someone's hair rather then the person themselves, but can't use it on another piece of hair because that bears the same 'identity'
The Shinma are considered a Higher Power at least equal to the Primordials, perhaps even in some ways both greater and lesser and they have even less agency but more cosmic influence.
There are a handful of Essence 7+ Lore Charms for Solars that commune with the Shinma to to ridiculous things mere wyldshaping alone can't do, the kind of miracles of creation you would expect from the Yozi themselves when they first created the world.
The Shinma are really interesting even if they were written by a guy that was clearly flexing his degree in Theoretical Computer Science.
 
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I mean it feels a little silly and a lot blasphemous to think it but 'looking over the shoulder of God and reading the Book of Ages' is probably the best approximation she can come to in her head.
Why in the world would crown of eyes require outside collaboration? If the Book of Ages disagreed with it then the book of ages has a typo. It sees all.
 
Because it is eyes, eyes by definition look at something and there are even mundane experiments in physics where observation affects the outcome.
The double slit experiment is maybe the most misrepresented experiment in science. The observation in question involves sending a particle to bounce off. It's not a case where just looking affects the outcome and all the magic thinking it has inspired.
 
It's not a case where just looking affects the outcome and all the magic thinking it has inspired.
But there is literally no way to observe something without interacting with it in some, not matter how minor, way. Hell, even assuming the Crown of Eyes is capable of getting information without any interaction the fact that this information reaches Molly means that the possible futures change from this point onward. And time travel and ability to observe time are very much a thing in Dresden Verse.
 
But there is literally no way to observe something without interacting with it in some, not matter how minor, way. Hell, even assuming the Crown of Eyes is capable of getting information without any interaction the fact that this information reaches Molly means that the possible futures change from this point onward. And time travel and ability to observe time are very much a thing in Dresden Verse.
Yes if someone else had a crown of eyes and asked they could totally find out about our crown of eyes. But that doesn't seem to be what is being implied by others detecting us using the crown around them. That level of divination doesn't really care if you are in the same room or the other side of the planet.

Unless they are just reading Molly's mind that is. In which case they know about it without Molly using it.
 
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That level of divination doesn't really care if you are in the same room or the other side of the planet.

Unless they are just reading Molly's mind that is. In which case they know about it without Molly using it.
We know that Mab and other people with Mantles have at least some level of Intellectus connected to their domain. There are dozens of beings for whom Crown of Eyes existence and use will fall within their domain. They all will get very fractured intelligence, depending on their domains, but there are enough avenues to find out that Molly has something powerful to gather information. At minimum a few higher up demons in Hell whose domain is Secrets probably get pinged about Molly acquiring new information. They may not know how exactly she does it, and they will need a lot of legwork to find out more but the fact of acquisition would be hard to cover up. As Molly acts on it.
 
We have never bothered really hiding that Molly has extra sources of information. We mostly want to hide the limits of it or lack thereof. This is helped by the fact that Molly often pretends ignorance when she has knowledge. But we should switch it up a bit more and pretend knowledge when we are ignorant.
 
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We have never bothered really hiding that Molly has extra sources of information. We mostly want to hide the limits of it or lack thereof. This is helped by the fact that Molly often pretends ignorance when she has knowledge. But we should switch it up a bit more and pretend knowledge when we are ignorant.

There is a difference between being able to work divination and being able to work that divination. 'How to smash open the Outer Gates' is a valid question that you could ask while staring at a summoning ritual for instance, those are rare in absolute terms, but Molly could get her hands on it in relative short order. On the other side of things she could ask 'how do I kill a Fallen Angel' looking at Lash and she would get some kind of answer.
 
Frankly, Lydia's charm seems much better than Molly's sorcery, given the cheaper cost-

If it weren't for the fact that Calling the Calibration Gate can open not just a Way, but even a Gate to Outside. Not exactly useful for Molly atm, but it is kinda funny just how screwed the world would be if an Infernal Exalt with the Crown of Eyes and CtCG were negatively inclined towards reality. Even with Michael vouching for her, the White Council would heavily consider alpha-striking Molly immediately if they knew her full current capacity. Mab, meanwhile, would straight-up attempt to slay Molly, unless she believes Winter incapable of doing so and surviving the repercussions.

Just another reason we should keep Molly's secrets very, very well hidden.
That's not exactly the main benefit; it's that there are no defenses that can stop it from opening a portal. Trying to do so might get you smote, but the spell works as described everywhere.

As to if we'd eat an assassination - I'm not so sure. She's been active in defending reality, and if simply having power and the potential to abuse it was enough a lot more people would be getting stabbed in the back. She can do more damage faster than most, but the principle still holds.
 
I'm kind of surprised by the idea that the crown is IC asking something in the explicit sense. That's how it works mechanically, but it's a ungodly powerful super eye. Why does it require a specific well of information to peep on instead of looking at all of reality to pluck out secrets?

How would looking over god's shoulder even work when asking about the outside, which is by definition beyond his creation?
 
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