Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Er... I'm not sure if you guys noticed but...

A character activates the dark rider by committing six motes to it, making the statuette blur into
the character's shadow. The shadow takes the form depicted by the statuette. From there, it watches the
character's back, making it impossible to surprise him. The monstrous shadow also lends the character a
frightening appearance, adding three dice to social rolls that benefit from the unnerving mien.


This thing is a surprise negator. For Exalted that's not extraordinary, but in this Fifth Age of the world it very much is. And it can also do other things that will be tweaked
Like I said, the 1E version is better:
DARK RIDER
These miniature figurines come in a variety of forms, most commonly human or animals, occasionally depicted with armor or weapons(if appropriate). When inactive, they appear to be expensive knick-knacks or decorations

The Chosen must spend 10m of Essence to activate the dark rider. When activated, the figurines shadow grows and replaces the Exalted's own, riding along with her for the scene. The sight is disturbing to those unaccustomed to such unusual displays and gives the Exalt two extra dice in Intimidation or Leadership rolls with mortals who witness the merger. While the dark rider serves as the Exalt's shadow, she can see around herself with perfect clarity, making it impossible to sneak up on her without the use of Charms for concealment and stealth.

The Exalt can send her dark rider-shadow away to spy on a person or location, leaving her without a shadow until the scene ends or the rider returns. The riders moves at a speed equal to the Exalt's Willpower in yards per turn, or it can ride in another's shadow, travelling along with him. The Exalted can see through the rider's eyes at will. When she does so, both ehr eyes and those of the rider burn a deep crimson.Even with the dimly burning eyes, the dark rider is difficult to spot unless the Exalted deliberately calls attention to it(having it slither across a brightly lit area, act in an otherwise unnatural manner etc). Perception + Awareness rolls to spot the dark rider are at a +3 difficulty, +2 when the Exalt is scrying through it.

The dark rider can also take a target captive. Each turn, the player of the Exalt rolls Dexterity + Brawl or Martial Arts in an extended test against the target's Dexterity + Dodge(if he's aware) and must gather successes equal to the target's Willpower score. Once the Exalt has sufficient successes, the dark rider appears to consume the target, leaving no trace behind. Once the duration expires, the target will be expelled wherever the dark rider is at that moment. If the target ends a turn three or more successes up on the dark rider, the rider dissipates and flees back to its possessor, to appear before her as a figurine. Any conscious character will be alerted of his envelopment after, at most, one turn of attack, but an unconscious character may be enveloped and transported without ever awakening.

Dark riders have no traits of their own except soak and health levels. Only fire can harm them. Each dark rider has five health levels and 3L of soak. If set on fire they burn quickly and leave no trace. Dark riders are also dispelled by extremely bright light (that of the sun, for example). Such light includes the Zenith Caste anima power and Solar Charms that do aggravated damage to Creatures of Darkness. Dark riders dispelled by Solar magic or fire are forever destroyed.

ORICHALCUM
Dark riders crafted from the solar metal are unaffected by light of any brightness.
They are still vulnerable to fire and can still be dispelled by Solar magic like Solar Spike and the Zenith Caste anima power.

MOONSILVER
Moonsilver riders can, when hitching a ride in another's shadow, shift into a more innocuous shape to avoid detection or take on a monstrous shape to draw attention to itself and whoever is casting the shadow. The former means the difficulty to detect it is +4 instead of +3, and the latter means that its automatically noticed. Additionally, the Lunar adds +5 dice to Perception tests made through the dark rider's senses.

JADE
Jade riders are more durable. They have four soak and eight health levels. Jade riders cannot resist light any more than other varieties.

STARMETAL
A dark rider crafted of starmetal can flit through the air, travelling at 10 times normal allowed speed until it returns to earth.

SOULSTEEL
Soulsteel riders that enter a shadowland can carry entrapped victims into the Underworld, even if the time of day would not normally allow it. So long as they are in a shadowland, dark riders made from soulsteel can freely pass between the lands of the living and the dead, regardless of the time.
Its a (slow) surveillance artifact and kidnap automaton thats vulnerable to bright light and fire.
And the 1E version allows you to own it without having to commit a mote to attuning it.
Given the textual links, Im assuming we have the Orichalcum MM version.

The immediate use I can see if we're willing to risk it in Yomi Wan is to use it as a Bag of Holding for Joe Magarac.
When we find him, use it to shunt him into its dimensional pocket, leaving Molly's hands and attention free.

The lore question we have yet to answer is whether its dimensional pocket is currently empty.
Or if there's a person stuffed inside it.
 
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Yes, those are her current Lores.

But of them all, the one she embodies most is Longing, and that doesnt really translate here.
You could make an argument for Flesh and Awakening being related to Water, for change/transformation, but not really Wood's themes of virulence in this scenario.

I do not agree.
In this paradigm, Wood is at best fecundity, not life.
It doesnt encompass every or even most forms of life
They are still her current lores and insights, of which longing isn't even the most developed.

Strongly disagree on wood here. It is life and everything within it. There are other things involved, but in the sense that mud is water and earth and not as some unspoken other thing.

Remember the exorcism?
With the tides the world's blood moves
With the winds the world's breath flies
Bright in flame the world's soul dances
Deep and dark the world's slow trances
Green, bright-growing life takes chances
As funny as it would be the primordials didn't make the fifth element of the world sex or pin the eastern edge down with a big pole of concentrated fuck.

Wood is the element of life, and covers place of all living things in creation.
I didnt say Cold, I said Ice. Kakuri is Night and Ice.
Wind would be the Adorjan Hell; the Hell of Being Skinned Alive. And the thematic implications of that Hell are all wrong for this anyway.


The wiki has this:

In Kakuri, there is no light or warmth. The realm is mostly wasteland, and the souls captive here are constantly flayed by a frozen wind full of jagged ice shards. Fire does not last, only turning blue and sputtering out in the wind.

Even in places that are sheltered from the ceaseless cold, the energies of Kakuri sap at the will of all inside it. Beginning as a feeling of general listlessness, even the most willful eventually give into feelings of hopelessness and surrender to the ice.
Cite

Biting cold wind on a flat lightless plain is pretty wind aspected, it just as other additives too. In any case the ice is less thematically prevalent than the bitter cold itself.
 
Yeah wood seems to be life in this instance. I'd rather have the healer specced working on that than air. Though really air and wood both fit Lash.

[X] Plan Wildfire
-[X] Wood: Tiffany
-[X] Fire: Molly
-[X] Earth: Lydia
 
Does Tiffany really fit the "virulent" part of Wood though? I dobut she will be better at it than Mother Summer and all even if so.
[X]Plan Storm, Earth and Fire
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Anaja on May 15, 2024 at 9:18 PM, finished with 63 posts and 13 votes.
 
Does Tiffany really fit the "virulent" part of Wood though? I dobut she will be better at it than Mother Summer and all even if so.
[X]Plan Storm, Earth and Fire
Mother summer is doing the mixing for everything, and would have done all this alone without our help. This is about who we assign where to enhance those effects, which is why assigning the life lore demon to the life element is the most efficient option.

As to her connection to virulence, this is an emotionally charged magical plague and she has longing. Knowing the body's physical defenses through flesh and mental ones through longing form an excellent basis for tuning a weapon to bypass them.
 
True, but doesn't this exact argument work for Air just as well?

Putting Tiffany on air is like bringing a mechanical engineer and having them do your taxes.

Does she have the mathematical chops and attention to detail to do it? Sure, probably. However you're missing out on her primary abilities and she's probably going to miss nuance that an actual accountant wouldn't.

If there was no better placement or something critical would suffer for not putting her there over somewhere else that'd be one thing, but we don't have reason to believe that.

So why wouldn't we send our engineer to go design us a combat viable chain sword instead of file paperwork?
 
They are still her current lores and insights, of which longing isn't even the most developed.

Strongly disagree on wood here. It is life and everything within it. There are other things involved, but in the sense that mud is water and earth and not as some unspoken other thing.
Remember the exorcism?
As funny as it would be the primordials didn't make the fifth element of the world sex or pin the eastern edge down with a big pole of concentrated fuck.

Wood is the element of life, and covers place of all living things in creation.
Developed does not equate innate inclination. It made sense that what influence she had over her incarnation would be spent on an immediately useful dual-use Lore.

You are right that Wood is life in Creation.
However, this is not Creation. Life here extends to a lot of other things, and the themes of life are broken up among all the classic elements. That (appears to be) why Wood here is virulence, its ability to cause severe disease, not life in general.


I dont think you can have it both ways either.
You cant simultaneously declare the Lores as your principal justification for deciding that Lash is inclined towards Wood.
Then ignore that Lash's portfolio does not cover Wild, or Beasts, just Flesh, which is a principally human application.

For something that is aimed at infecting living souls and spirits in Hell, the Demon Lore would actually be Spirit.

Biting cold wind on a flat lightless plain is pretty wind aspected, it just as other additives too. In any case the ice is less thematically prevalent than the bitter cold itself.
I've read the entire Kakuri writeup in Thousand Hells.
I dont really think so.

Changed my mind. Again.
[X] Plan Wildfire
Furthermore, I would rather prefer Mother Summer to be in charge of the elements that apparently govern severity(virulence/Wood) and its ability to infect people, resist efforts to stomp it out, and to jump species and realms(eroding all certainties/Water).

She's the professional plague brewer.
She has the millenia of experience with disease behavior. She's the likeliest to have great control of the severity of such a thing, and the ability to lock it down against other people trying to use it against other species. Like Fae. Or humans.
 
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Furthermore, I would rather prefer Mother Summer to be in charge of the elements that apparently govern severity(virulence/Wood) and its ability to infect people, resist efforts to stomp it out, and to jump species and realms(eroding all certainties/Water).

She's the professional plague brewer.
She has the millenia of experience with disease behavior. She's the likeliest to have great control of the severity of such a thing, and the ability to lock it down against other people trying to use it against other species. Like Fae. Or humans.
Now I'm just confused. Mechanic wise does assigning an element to someone stop Mother Summer from doing anything in that direction or is it more of a contribution thing? I think you and BronzeTongue have different ideas of what the vote is for.
 
Now I'm just confused. Mechanic wise does assigning an element to someone stop Mother Summer from doing anything in that direction or is it more of a contribution thing? I think you and BronzeTongue have different ideas of what the vote is for.
Maybe.
My understanding is that we are crafting a disease. Its a form of life in and of itself, and the elements govern the individual aspects where we'll individually put the most effort.
Elements you realize, each of your three will have to align your contribution to one,m but which might that be?

[] Flame, that it be kindled bright and burn far

[] Air, that it would slip under any ward

[] Earth, as solid and unbreakable as the mountains

[] Wood, Virulent and ever-changing

[] Water, Eroding all certainties
Flame is how powerful and widespread it is, as per its root power.
Air is how sneaky it is, and how good it is at defeating countermeasures meant to limit its spread.
Earth is how hardy and persistent it is, once it roots itself in a population.
Wood is how severe it is as an infection, and how good it is at adapting to its individual hosts/type of hosts
Water is how mutable it is.

Thats my understanding, and I made my choices with that in mind.

Remember, Mother Summer could do all this.
But Mother Summer has restrictions on what she is allowed to do in interaction with the rest of the setting, and how much.
 
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[X] Plan Green Flame Rising
-[X] Flame, that it be kindled bright and burn far: Molly
-[X] Earth, as solid and unbreakable as the mountains: Lydia
-[X] Water, Eroding all certainties: Lash



Tiffany is of the aspect of life, but even more so she is of transgression. She is erosion of all certainties, thrice rebelling, and rebellion inspiring. Someone made with a purpose that were changed. Water is her element.
 
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I'd rather have Summer working on Wood than.. anyone else since that's her thing and I'm not sure if putting someone else on it would necessitate her not touching that aspect.

Just incase that's what it means I'll vote to have Summer work on Wood.

[X]Plan Storm, Earth and Fire
 
Water is how mutable it is.
And conceptually Lash is closest to Water. Because "being mutable and changing" is what she is. She is something new, born of something old and changed in ways never seen before, and her very existence is a change. her Lores are also about mutability. And, finally, this is about rebellion, and Water is the element for that.
 
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