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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on May 27, 2024 at 8:34 AM, finished with 84 posts and 19 votes.
  • [X] Plan Bitten By A Radioactive Toddler no AtP add buffs
    -[X] Ask Tiffany to reapply buffs
    -[X] Molly Activates Shintai
    —[X] While doing do she attempts to make the changes appear to be a symptom of the plague as much as is practical.
    —[X] Using Shintai Molly clears the path for the raiding party as they blitz to Joe's location.
    -[X] [Stunt]: Casting a critical gaze over the way ahead, consideration firming to resolve in Molly's eyes. "Old man, you are trying my patience" something rumbled beneath her words, beneath her feet, here of all places the truth of her nature rising to the surface with unseen strength.
    —[X] It was the howling of iron wind like countless gnashing teeth. It was the crackle of lightning that danced with the work of clever hands and raged at their desecration. It was the grinding of a wheel cradling five billion souls in a world that loved them and wanted to see them grow. For one moment more it echoed out into hell, and then things began to change.
    —[X] In the world around them the city took on the cast of a different dream. Neither surrounded or alone, held in place or forced to flee, made to fit a mold or barred from your true nature; in each line the city spelled out a message to those within. You matter. The world cares and it wants you to succeed.
    [X] Plan Bitten By A Radioactive Toddler
    -[X] Molly Activates AtP and Shintai
    —[X] While doing do she attempts to make the changes appear to be a symptom of the plague as much as is practical.
    —[X] Using Shintai Molly clears the path for the raiding party as they blitz to Joe's location.
    -[X] [Stunt]: Casting a critical gaze over the way ahead, consideration firming to resolve in Molly's eyes. "Old man, you are trying my patience" something rumbled beneath her words, beneath her feet, here of all places the truth of her nature rising to the surface with unseen strength.
    —[X] It was the howling of iron wind like countless gnashing teeth. It was the crackle of lightning that danced with the work of clever hands and raged at their desecration. It was the grinding of a wheel cradling five billion souls in a world that loved them and wanted to see them grow. For one moment more it echoed out into hell, and then things began to change.
    —[X] In the world around them the city took on the cast of a different dream. Neither surrounded or alone, held in place or forced to flee, made to fit a mold or barred from your true nature; in each line the city spelled out a message to those within. You matter. The world cares and it wants you to succeed.
    [X] Plan Shell Game
    -[X] Lydia opens a way (spend willpower for success) allowing Nergui, the technician, and any elementals who want out to exit, seeking to regroup in Boston. She however stays with the raiding party.
    -[X] Tiffany applies a heat resistance effect to herself and Lydia, along with whatever stat boosts she can to all three of them as the evacuation progresses.
    -[X] Molly activates TLF and AtP, interacting with the party and elementals who choose to stay so they can see her.
    -[X] Blitz to Joe's location but stop to apply combat buffs just prior to entering if possible.
    [X]Plan Wrecking Ball
    -[X]Ask Lash to reapply buffs to applicable party
    -[X]Activate Shintai: -2m, -2WP
    -[X]STUNT: You murmur quiet thanks as Tiffany withdraws her hand from your shoulder, the rush of strength a background sensation to your mounting irritation at the wall underneath your hand. You take a look over your shoulder at the people behind you, and your eyes fall on the bakemono, you make your decision."Fuck it, we ball." And with an effort of will you become.
    [x] Press on alone
    -[x] The others leave by way of Lydia's charm (Mikaboshi can contest this)
    --[x]You smile "Well now I get to handle the easy part". You had intended to just be reassuring, but you find that you actually mean it. Right now with the Wicked City at high alert and dangers pressing on from every side you feel more relaxed and comfortable then you felt in a hot tube. You can see everything around yourself in perfect clarity. More important you understand it all. The twisted Fung Shu of the city is as clear to you as if you built it yourself. The plans of your enemies as clear to you as if you had help make them. But not quite after all if you had built this place you would have included an extra surge protector to stop yourself from causing a short brownout right now by stabbing this surge protector.
    [X] Try to find a way around the heat trap
    --[x]You smile "Well now I get to handle the easy part". You had intended to just be reassuring, but you find that you actually mean it. Right now with the Wicked City at high alert and dangers pressing on from every side you feel more relaxed and comfortable then you felt in a hot tube. You can see everything around yourself in perfect clarity. More important you understand it all. The twisted Fung Shu of the city is as clear to you as if you built it yourself. The plans of your enemies as clear to you as if you had help make them. But not quite after all if you had built this place you would have included an extra surge protector to stop yourself from causing a short brownout right now by stabbing this surge protector.
    [X] Tiffany uses Shape Flesh to grant Immunity to herself and Lydia so that they may follow
    -[X] Nergui Departs by way of Calibration's Gate (Mikaboshi cannot contest this)
    --[X] Open the Calibration's Gate (Mikaboshi may not contest this)
    --[X] He escorts the rescued victims out
    ---[X] You'll meet immediately after rescuing Joe. Establish means of contacting each other and a rally point.
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uju32 said:
Arcana may allow you custom build, but they have a relatively limited set of features.
And they are pretty resource-intensive to make, in both money, magic and time.

Just looking at golems, for instance, which are the least complicated application for Molly to pursue?
You need
1) Resources 6 as a rating for anything rating 4 or higher
2) Rating 3+ reagents or Prodigies or Fetishes to sacrifice for each 5-dot golem
3) A couple weeks crafting time per arcana
4) A Dragons Nest for each arcana to animate it

You can go out and recruit 4x Gafflings or Jagglings with a single AP.
Making 4 Arcana with a rating of 3 or higher is the work of multiple story arcs
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Phantasms and their infernal exclusive variant, emanations, have essentially none of those problems. Which is why I referred to them in that post.

Phantasms are artificially-constructed spirits, anchored to a physical keystone. The most
common sort of phantasms, ephemera, are mostly designed to operate in one of the otherworlds,
with limited capability to physically influence the mortal world. Others are emanations, with
greater agency to act in material reality but still not natively part of it
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Phantasms have the simplest requirements, needing only a keystone to anchor them in the world.
This can be nearly any small object of great emotional or financial value. If the keystone is of
great emotional significance, that significance need not necessarily be to the Exalt making the
phantasm. In the case of 5-dot Phantasms, the keystone needs to be a magical item of some kind,
such as a Fetish or Prodigy, rated at 2 dots or above.
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Phantasms are built through sorcerous ritual rather than physical handicrafts. Weaving an
epehemera or emanation is an extended (Charisma or Intelligence) + Occult roll against
difficulty 8, made at two-week intervals, requiring a total of (Arcana's rating x 4) successes. A
botch at any point ruins the entire project, renders the keystone unsuitable, and necessitates that a
new spirit must be conceived and designed
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Pretty sure DP has house rules away the no repetition rule at some point too as a side note.

Unlike all other Arcana a dot rating isn't specified for what great value means, but it doesn't matter because a 2 dot prodigy is trivial to make* and presumably would work for all lower dots if we cared to make something weaker than the maximum. Though I'd hope a 1 dot would be enough.

To awaken a Prodigy, the Exalt must enact a ritual lasting (Prodigy's rating) hours, during which
she infuses it with her divine Essence. (Prodigy's Rating x 5) Essence must be spent to properly
catalyze vessel and enchantments.
While one-dot Prodigies can be awakened anywhere, Prodigies rated two dots and above must be
awakened within a Dragon Nest.
One and two-dot Prodigies can be awakened with nothing more than this infusion of Exalted
power
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1-2 hours and 5-10 essence discounting our vastly accelerated crafting for the base item to enchant. Then we make an extend occult roll against difficulty 8, which we have no reason not to move down to 4 with modifiers. Statistically speaking we have good odds of making anything 4 dots and below in one cycle.

Assuming CCC, WHWH, BSM, and stunt, here's our success table discounting 1s and 10s:

Here are the figures (both cumulative and non-cumulative) for 22 10-sided dice rolled against a target number of 4:

The probability of 22 successes is 0.0390982104858298
The probability of 22 successes or more is 0.0390982104858298
The probability of 21 successes is 0.368640270294967
The probability of 21 successes or more is 0.407738480780797
The probability of 20 successes is 1.65888121632735
The probability of 20 successes or more is 2.06661969710815
The probability of 19 successes is 4.73966061807815
The probability of 19 successes or more is 6.8062803151863
The probability of 18 successes is 9.64859482965909
The probability of 18 successes or more is 16.4548751448454
The probability of 17 successes is 14.886403451474
The probability of 17 successes or more is 31.3412785963194
The probability of 16 successes is 18.0763470482185
The probability of 16 successes or more is 49.4176256445379
The probability of 15 successes is 17.7074420064181
The probability of 15 successes or more is 67.1250676509559
The probability of 14 successes is 14.2291944694431
The probability of 14 successes or more is 81.354262120399
The probability of 13 successes is 9.4861296462954
The probability of 13 successes or more is 90.8403917666944
The probability of 12 successes is 5.28512937436458
The probability of 12 successes or more is 96.125521141059
The probability of 11 successes is 2.470969577625
The probability of 11 successes or more is 98.596490718684
The probability of 10 successes is 0.970738048352678
The probability of 10 successes or more is 99.5672287670367
The probability of 9 successes is 0.32002353242396
The probability of 9 successes or more is 99.8872522994607
The probability of 8 successes is 0.0881697487290501
The probability of 8 successes or more is 99.9754220481897
The probability of 7 successes is 0.0201530854237829
The probability of 7 successes or more is 99.9955751336135
The probability of 6 successes is 0.00377870351695929
The probability of 6 successes or more is 99.9993538371304
The probability of 5 successes is 0.000571568599203926
The probability of 5 successes or more is 99.9999254057297
The probability of 4 successes is 6.80438808576103e-05
The probability of 4 successes or more is 99.9999934496105
The probability of 3 successes is 6.1392975209874e-06
The probability of 3 successes or more is 99.999999588908
The probability of 2 successes is 3.9466912634919e-07
The probability of 2 successes or more is 99.9999999835772
The probability of 1 success is 1.610894393262e-08
The probability of 1 success or more is 99.9999999996861
The probability of no successes is 3.13882253522024e-10
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Key abilities can't botch so this is strictly lower than our count would be.

So we have a better than 96% chance to make a 3 dot arcana in a single cycle and a nearly 50% chance to do so with a 4 dot. For something like this I'd also say it's worth spend a willpower point to nudge the odds a bit, bringing us to single cycle builds for 4 dots roughly 2/3rds of all such projects.

As to utility, they can take regular merits and per the ruling from forging Bane we can give them sorcery with freebies. I know you didn't like that, but it's something we can do.
 
Yog said:
Or we raise a manse to power as many arcana as we want with no downtime.
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It's not like they're used up forever or can't be used to make arcana over and over again as they recover. Pretty sure DP even ruled that it only disrupts them for the purposes of exalted craft rather than materially lessening them.

Supposing we take Boston we're going to want to establish control of as many of the local dragon nests as we can anyway, so cycle through a set while they cool off wouldn't be a huge burden.
 
BronzeTongue said:
It's not like they're used up forever or can't be used to make arcana over and over again as they recover. Pretty sure DP even ruled that it only disrupts them for the purposes of exalted craft rather than materially lessening them.

Supposing we take Boston we're going to want to establish control of as many of the local dragon nests as we can anyway, so cycle through a set while they cool off wouldn't be a huge burden.
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Raising a manse is still worth it for a city-wide charm-grade effect.
 
Yog said:
Raising a manse is still worth it for a city-wide charm-grade effect.
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Yeah I'm going to pitch Mana Manipulation again when the XP spend comes just the ability to do tapestry, Feng Shui or similar things to All is Poison using our occult skills is enough of a thing for me and I'm hoping it'll help with the Manse planning and construction as well.
 
BronzeTongue said:
I'd prefer making city gods, but I'm not opposed to it.

My primary point is that we've paid the buy in for Arcana already; we don't need to wait until we've built even more infrastructure or go through dragon nests like Kleenex to use them.
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Those should be complimentary projects, really.
Degorium said:
Yeah I'm going to pitch Mana Manipulation again when the XP spend comes just the ability to do tapestry, Feng Shui or similar things to All is Poison using our occult skills is enough of a thing for me and I'm hoping it'll help with the Manse planning and construction as well.
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This is probably a good idea. We could certainly benefit from mana manipulation.
 
Yog said:
Raising a manse is still worth it for a city-wide charm-grade effect.
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Making a manse would be great (in fact, the best thing would be to have both) but we would spend several arcs in terms of time and resources, even if we focused completely on it (as already mentioned in your and DO's previous discussions), which we never can. We have to make city gods for now because our incredibly urgent need is to secure our controls in our cities (Boston and Chicago).

Then we can think about building a manse.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Phantasms and their infernal exclusive variant, emanations, have essentially none of those problems. Which is why I referred to them in that post.
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They kinda do though?

You need the week of design work; not sure if there's a house rule allowing you to reuse a given design for phantasms.
The Prodigy is relatively straightforward, so I dont count the construction time as much.
Then the two or four weeks of actual construction for a 5-dot to give you an emanation with no charms.

Then you are still using a Dragons Nest for the animation process, essentially taking it out of circulation for a month plus.

I dont think I was exaggerating in pointing out that this will take multiple months for something you intend to take into the heart of a Yama King's power. A 3-dot wont cut it, and I wouldnt rely on a 4-dot either.
And you'd end up with a specialized construct, not a spirit with actual spirit charms.


If we were actually inclined to do something like that, I wouldnt use ESB at all, never mind building emanations.

I would instead advocate building a bunch of flying drones in Sanctuary, HMP them all with cyberdevils, all of whom are equipped with an activateable self-destruct for if/when they are captured or disabled and want to eject.
Just overload the electricals and you end back up in Molly's anima.

Basically steal Mikaboshi's drone strat and actually use the couple billion people in our Hell.
Yog said:
Or we raise a manse to power as many arcana as we want with no downtime.
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We are not investing the effort of a manse in any sort of short or mediumterm scenario.

There is no evidence I recall at the moment that current magical geography can support it, or that we can afford it either; raising Manses in Creation was a non-trivial endeavor that would take the work of several years to build one in a setting where geomantic engineering was well-understood and established by the work of elder Solars and 3CDs.
Article:
While useful, demesnes are not portable, and their untamed energies can gradually mutate beings dwelling in close proximity
like the touch of the Wyld does. For these reasons, Exalted raise manses atop demesnes they control whenever possible. Doing so is an enormously costly undertaking, both in terms of the resources required and the labor that goes into raising one of these arcane citadels. Characters must have at least 12 Ability dots divided among their ratings in Craft, Lore and Occult to design such a structure, and then, only for manses rated 1 to 3. Appropriate specialties count toward these totals. The total number of required Ability dots rises to 15 for level-4 manses and 20 for level 5. Characters cannot design a manse with a rating greater than the rating of the demesne it is intended to cap.

Designing a manse is a dramatic action requiring a month of in-game work, followed by a roll of (Intelligence + [the architect's
lowest rating in Craft, Lore or Occult]) at a difficulty of the manse's intended rating. Other characters with sufficient Ability totals to build the manse may check the results, providing limited cooperation. If the roll fails, the character finds flaws in the blueprint and must start over from scratch. If the roll succeeds, actual construction may begin. In the event of a botch, the character's
designs include fatal flaws that will make the manse collapse or even explode within a month of its construction.

The construction materials and pay for 100 workers costs Resources 3 per month for level-1 through level-3 manses.
Level-4 and level-5 manses cost Resources 4 per month (or Resources 3 for materials, assuming unpaid slave labor).

The entire construction project takes a number of years equal to twice the manse's rating. Adjust this time proportionally to the labor pool available, so 200 workers take half as long, while a lone, maddened Exalt hauling stones into place would take 200 years of grueling daily effort to build a level-1 manse. Using supernatural labor also speeds the process, with every such being counting as multiple mortals. For instance, most First Circle demons are worth five laborers. If a completed manse has a lower rating than the demesne it caps, the excess energies produce dramatic but largely useless special effects around the manse.
Source: Exalted 2E p133
That was the canon writeup in Ex2, and IIRC, none of the Crafting charms applied to this.
Which was why a lot of the time elder Solars involved 2CD and 3CDs in their design and construction back in the Age of Glory.

In this setting we're likely starting from base fundamentals on how geomantic engineering works in this setting, and making sure there are no unforseen consequences. Its gonna be easier to build that helicarrier that Holden mentioned as a multiyear project than to try to raise a manse in this magical setting.

And frankly we have too many other demands on our time.
 
uju32 said:
We are not investing the effort of a manse in any sort of short or mediumterm scenario.

There is no evidence I recall at the moment that current magical geography can support it, or that we can afford it either; raising Manses in Creation was a non-trivial endeavor that would take the work of several years to build one in a setting where geomantic engineering was well-understood and established by the work of elder Solars and 3CDs.
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Yog said:
Canon ExvsWoD is clear on the subject and doesn't allow manses. This is a higher energy setting. So, I'm guessing, a multistage project at the very edge of possibility. First raise Dragon Nest to 5 dots, then do multiple linked 5 dot wondermaking projects. Something like that?
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DragonParadox said:
Yep, it is basically making your own Demonreach, though of course you do not have to make it a prison.
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Vanguard_D said:
How would improving the Dragons nest look in this? ExvsWoD book has the dots on it only being how secure it is rather then how big and powerful it is. So would Molly just go around turning it into a fortress or something?
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DragonParadox said:
It's a gemomatic working so some adaption of how that works in exalted would be used. Imagine a public works project, but it is also high grade magic. It would require significant amounts of labor not just mundane, but arcane as well, sorcerous assistants and on that note it is a good thing you have a friendly elemental.
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Yog said:
Hmm... That would take a lot of AP, wouldn't it? What kind of benefits are we looking at?
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DragonParadox said:
  1. The most immediate benefit is a manse would not constantly drain from crafting.
  2. You would get a heart-stone, which is the thing you need if you want to build a daiklave or other works of sorcery and artifice out of lost ages
  3. Chicago would have a lot more magic overall to direct, a lot more magic, enough so for city wide enchantments like 'any Red Court vampire who tries to hunt here gets lost and always ends up on the same street where coincidentally there is a payroll of Molly and Co'. We are talking one or two enchantments about a strong as your charms.
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So, rough guess about as many AP as it took to restore Last Station adjusting to our increased resources and capabilities - about half a year or so worth of investment. An upper boundary midterm project, but one well worth it, I think.

So, start with a city god, then start the manse buildup. We should even get benefits along the way, as first we'll be improving the Dragon Nest (which we still need to do as per agreement with its inhabitant elemental).
 
uju32 said:
You need the week of design work; not sure if there's a house rule allowing you to reuse a given design for phantasms.
The Prodigy is relatively straightforward, so I dont count the construction time as much.
Then the two or four weeks of actual construction for a 5-dot to give you an emanation with no charms.

Then you are still using a Dragons Nest for the animation process, essentially taking it out of circulation for a month plus.

I dont think I was exaggerating in pointing out that this will take multiple months for something you intend to take into the heart of a Yama King's power. A 3-dot wont cut it, and I wouldnt rely on a 4-dot either.
And you'd end up with a specialized construct, not a spirit with actual spirit charms.
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Having charms isn't the measure of something being useful and powerful. Spirit charms aren't the same as exalted ones anyway, there's a lot that can be done with the arcana features and merits. We did get a ruling on reusing designs, so that shouldn't be a problem either.

I think 3 weeks is a good turn around for a 4 dot and it would go down after the first build. It also doesn't have to be an exclusive thing, we can be doing other stuff while working a project like this.

I find your approach to this aggravating, Molly's crafting can do more than make random McGuffins. It's considerably more rewarding and less difficult than you're presenting it to be even if you're not interested in the narrative beats of doing so.

The time is manageable, the resources straightforward to acquire, and under the rulings we're operating on the lost potential is only other crafting projects that we wouldn't be doing anyway if we don't craft things in our dragon nests.

If you read through the sample designs in the thread it's pretty obvious that they can do a lot, even if facing off against everything a demon king can do in the heart of their power alone isn't in the cards*. If you use that standard then even being able to churn out clones of Nergui wouldn't cut it.

*To be clear on that, the point of that specific build was to make something with good environmental control and make it immune with a splendor, but really a good sorcerer build could do a good job with this kind of problem.
 
DragonParadox said:
Negative in that case does not mean Yin Aligned, it means misaligned, it is misaligned to a degree that cannot be achieved in reality.
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Here we go:
Article:
The buildings and neighborhoods of the Wicked City themselves strongly resemble those in cities like Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong, though the structures of hell are gloomier, sharper and more twisted. Akuma frequently report feeling a disturbing sense of familiarity with the Wicked City, and Mikaboshi prefers it thus. The Yama King wants all those who see his city to understand his grand vision of a hellish metropolis connecting Yomi and the urban centers of the Middle Kingdom. He also wants those in his hell to see the comfortable trappings of the daily world perverted toward his demonic ideal. By undermining faith in the known and comfortable, Mikaboshi increases his subjects' feelings of dread and suffering, and his power with them.

The feng shui of the Wicked City is beyond negative, instead resting in the realm of the impossible. No place in the Middle Kingdom could warp and pervert the flow of Chi the way the Wicked City does. The entire landscape assaults the Chi of the city's victims. "Poison arrows" point everywhere; every structure interferes with the natural flow of energy; and razor-cornered metal boxes are everywhere, spiraling in directions that cause vertigo from the merest glance. For the demon servitors who dwell here, the foul Chi serves as an almost electric charge that empowers them. For all others, the disharmony saps their will and impedes rational thought. The more time one spends in the Wicked City, the more destructive the vile Chi becomes.

[.....]

There are no safe places in the Wicked City. Every street corner can be home to a demon of iron and violence. Every worker can be an akuma spy. No one can be trusted and everyone is the enemy. Even the imprisoned may betray a visitor for the chance to gain promotion. It is a place where all the worst elements of greed and capitalism meet in. Yomi's atmosphere of corruption.

The technology of this domain is beyond disturbing. The corrupted Yin of this place feeds all manner of implants, gadgets and devices that serve only to heighten the suffering of the doomed. Cyborgs hunt workers who have escaped their workshops, and cameras observe everyone. Citizens are jacked in to this hell through direct bionic connections that allow them to feel the feet that walk the streets, hear the whispers muttered in corners and recognize individuals by their voice and retina patterns. Mikaboshi and his lieu- tenants miss nothing that occurs in the Wicked City.

[.....]

The Wicked City makes the worst cities on Earth look like tranquil suburbs. It is a place of pollution, death and tortures of the foulest sort, a product of man's own abuse of technology and nature. Most importantly, the City portrays a clear picture of what the Middle Kingdom will become should Mikaboshi rule in the Sixth Age as the Demon Emperor.
Source: Thousand Hells p36

Article:
The majority of Yama Kings are imbalanced toward either the Yin or Yang principle, manifesting the most vile and twisted aspects of their imbalance the way mortals demonstrate their taste in clothing or hobbies. Those inclined toward Yin are ceaselessly calculating and cruel, while those with a Yang imbalance exemplify the vices of incendiary rage and insane over-stimulation.

Some few Yama Kings have maintained a balance of Chi, or represent unfathomable mixtures of Yin and Yang. These entities are rare and odd, even among the bizarre ranks of the Yama Kings, who consider them to be odd curiosities. Of these, only the fabled Yen-Lo ever had any power to speak of, not that it helped him much in his struggles with his peers and rivals.
Source: Thousand Hells p47

Article:
Mikaboshi is a product of his own ambition. He began his days as a philosopher and scholar in Japan, and traveled to China to study in the schools of the nascent Dalou'laoshi. Mikaboshi's mastery of the principles of geomancy and alchemy made him one of the most celebrated scholars of the time, and he was invited to be an advisor in the Chou Dynasty. However, Mikaboshi wanted to rule, not advise, and he returned to Japan vowing to rise to power one way or the other.

The way he eventually chose was infernalism. With his vast knowledge of magic, Mikaboshi ensnared a demon and interrogated it. After pulling all knowledge of Yomi and the spirit worlds from it, Mikaboshi slew the demon, butchered it and distilled the creature's essence into an elixir that granted Mikaboshi access to the cold realms of the dead. When he returned from the Yellow Springs, Mikaboshi used his standing in the court and his skills as a fang shih, or geomancer, to have a series of monuments built in the cursed chueh ming configuration that amplified and concentrated unhealthy Chi at the center. When the construction ended, Mikaboshi returned to the Yin realm to the center of the chueh ming configuration to see what he had wrought. Weeping ghosts stood around him, and he felt the Chi of their suffering flow to him (a result of the demon elixir).

That, however, was only the beginning. Mikaboshi had larger and more complex configurations built to harness corrupt Chi until a visiting artisan of the Dalou'laoshi saw what Mikaboshi was doing and sent word back to the school. Mikaboshi's configurations were torn down, and he fled to the Yin realm where power was plentiful for him. He built configurations in the Yin world to channel torment from the mortal world directly to him, but unable to harness the power that flooded through those channels, Mikaboshi grew grossly fat.
Source: Thousand Hells p51-52


TLDR
  • The Wicked City is Yin-aligned
  • All the powerful Yama Kings are either Yin- or Yang-aspected, with the sole exception of Yen-Lo, who is now dead
  • Yin-aspected YKs are cruel and calculating, unlike Yang-aspected YKs, who are emotional and overstimulated
  • Mikaboshi rose to power on Yin energy harvested from torturing ghosts, and when discovered, fled to the Yin World, where he built further magical formations to empower himself. He's Yin aligned, and the city he built is Yin-aligned with him.
 
Yog said:
So, rough guess about as many AP as it took to restore Last Station adjusting to our increased resources and capabilities - about half a year or so worth of investment. An upper boundary midterm project, but one well worth it, I think.

So, start with a city god, then start the manse buildup. We should even get benefits along the way, as first we'll be improving the Dragon Nest (which we still need to do as per agreement with its inhabitant elemental).
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I must have missed that discussion. Or forgotten it.

I will argue that no, that should not work here. The world has changed enough that we cant even build basic daiklaves, let alone other Exalted artifacts, and Essence is a bare trickle at best; I dont really think that we should be able to do the sort of geomantic engineering that is involved in raising manses. Certainly not as a Last Station-tier project.

Demonreach, for example, is a focused plot fiat project by a legendary DMPC that required multiple instances of time travel to construct, and has, to my knowledge, no peer anywhere else in the setting.


Raising a city god would be a big enough project on its own, and assumes that we want one with that much power/influence over a metropolis of several million people.
But at least it appears to be in principle, possible.


BronzeTongue said:
Having charms isn't the measure of something being useful and powerful. Spirit charms aren't the same as exalted ones anyway, there's a lot that can be done with the arcana features and merits. We did get a ruling on reusing designs, so that shouldn't be a problem either.
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I dont agree. Charms do things that attributes and abilities cant.
The Arcana features and merits will help, dont get me wrong, but I dont really think they are scaled for that sort of encounter.
And I think that was deliberate on Holden's part.

I've made my opinion of the Craft reworks goals sufficiently clear previously, so I dont see a need to go over them again.
BronzeTongue said:
I find your approach to this aggravating, Molly's crafting can do more than make random McGuffins. It's considerably more rewarding and less difficult than you're presenting it to be even if you're not interested in the narrative beats of doing so.
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Im sorry that you feel that way.
And if you'd prefer to drop the topic, no problem.

But thats how I see a lot of the decisions made in the Craft rework. A lot of these appear to be deliberate choices by the author of the game in order to limit the applicability and cost/benefit calculations of Exalted Craft to the setting. I didnt write them.
And Ive been pretty opinionated about not liking most of them. But they are still there.


Nor am I opposed to Arcana on their own merits. They are essentially point-build familiars.
I think Ive previously mentioned my preferred option for Daniel being to simply build him an armor suit as a transforming 4-5-point Golem and let them operate via teamwork rules with that sword.

But I dont see the cost/benefit working out for something supposed to operate in the heart of a Yama King's power.
That seems well above their pay/power scale. Even as support troops.
 
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Arc 12 Post 77: Giant's Fall
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    • Giant's Fall ​

    28th of January 2007 A.D.

    At first you think Tiffany is speaking Enochian, then you realize it's plain English, trying to find some kind of focus among the growing noise of the fortress awakening all around you to the sound of marching feet and and turning gears ready to grind all intruders to dust. "Gather 'round, gather 'round. Godmother's gifts abound." She saves the last working for herself and maybe the lack of incantation was bad luck, her neck snaps back with a crack half stone and half bone before she manages to right herself with a snarl. You still don't speak Ancient Sumerian, but you'd bet that's at least six curse words you'd recognize now.

    Yet all of that is made distant by the indubitable peril of the flame ahead of you. If it weren't for the technician all of you could find some way across, but you can't bring yourself to resent him for it, not for wanting out.

    A way clear, a way through, a way that isn't obvious, you wrack your mind for answers until you remember something you have always known. How could you not after all, it is part of you.

    On the edge of the Great Twilight Plains where the light of the Ring of Fire is but a sliver on the horizon and the ice of the Wastes grinds halfway around the horizon there grows a peculiar species of spongy yellow lichen that the heartiest members of Zenga tribes harvest great swaths of each year to sell on hundreds and thousands of miles all the way to the Jungles and the Five Cities. When exposed to heat Icecrown Lichen drinks it like a sponge and uses it to grow exponentially.

    In brass you are adorned, in ice mantled, in fire crowned, but tis not ice nor brass nor fire that grows from your feet into the passage onto corridor ahead. A carpet of gold drinks the dreadful heat of Mikaboshi's trap far faster than it would in nature true, but still showing all the signs of a biological vector, a secondary attack perhaps. The sound of your drill overpowers the horrid din of the dark city freeing your companions from its chains, even as the lack paradoxically weakens you., unable to drink the corruption of this place

    Lost 2 Essence and 2 Willpower -> Now at 10/15 Essence and 4/10 Willpower
    TLC no longer Active as the Area of Dimensional Overlap is not a Place of Desolation
    All is Poison No longer active within the Area of Dimensional Overlap
    -1 DC to all actions from King and Kingdom

    Beyond the blooming lichen abomination stalks. It could perhaps be called humanoid the black armored figure hunched under the weight of a cage of brass shaped like the delicate orbits of electrons. In place of a head it has between its vast shoulders twice as wide as a man is tall a throne black too, not iron but silver you know, tarnished by the long ages and upon that throne a withered husk, once-man, somehow, horrifically still living. It bears no weapon, but in its right hand a hammer that had been roughly wrought from the columns of a far more ancient City, sticking the ground like thunder. One once had glimpsed in dreams.

    A glimpse is all you get as the misshapen giant raises its right hand and from it flies a swarm of darts, each bright and sharp in your vision, from the hydraulic mechanism to the tip of the poisoned needles.

    "Lydia, cover us!"

    Like the arc of the crescent moon though the sky moves the daughter of death, hands not a blur, for simple speed no matter how great could never have caught so many darts so swiftly thrown but simply on time.

    Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Now at 6/7 (Dexterity Excellency)

    Without a word, the time for words is long since past, you charge the thing holding your sword at a cautious mid-chest guard just like your father had taught you years and years ago, when the sword a weighted stick, not burning brass. So the abomination raises a competent counter accounting for the difference in size the head of the hammer against the whole of your blade, but you twist at the last moment following the arc of the hammer down and cutting at its knee, slicing though mismatched servos and conjoined demon engines.

    Ascendancy of Man Takes 5 Damage -> Now at 30/35

    Out of the corner of your eye you see a bolt of lightning flash over the golden plain new made, an iron arrow at its core. Perhaps it's instinct, perhaps it's just a lack of experience, but the thing before you tries to parry again with the hand that had lost the darts. Steel, it proves, can catch lightning, for all the good it does.

    Nergui loses 1 Willpower -> Now at 8/9
    Ascendancy of Man Takes 4 Damage -> Now at 26/35
    Ascendancy of Man suffers +1 to all Soak Rolls from Electrical backlash

    Lash tries to shine a light onto the corpse 'maneuvering' the colossus, though to little effect as putrid fog begins to bellow from its pores. Something's growing on... a mass of cartilage and chitin, to protect against the lighting, you realize, hacking and coughing. Another clash and clang, half duel, half tunneling into the giant's form. Gallons of viscous fluid wash over you, working their way thought he gaps in your armor, but your throat, your lungs, all are brass.

    You Lose 1 Essence -> Now at 9/15 (Steel Skin)
    Ascendancy of Man takes 15 Damage -> Now at 15/35

    It can't adapt to Usum's flames, you realize, though at that moment do not wonder why, just thankful at the fact. Which is of course the precise moment you get hammered in the middle of the chest by the big brute. Mom's voice at a time you weren't supposed to have heard her goes through your head in the midst of all the ringing. Good is good, but Murphy's an ass.

    You Take 4 Lethal Damage -> Now at 23/27

    A bolt not of lightning, but the pale radiance of the grave flashes by you, missing by inches... and not missing the corpse on the throne at all sending withered flesh and tainted bone to the dust it should have been. The thing crashes apart pieces uncounted flying over the golden field. Only the hammer and the... Essence cage on its back survive

    Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Now at 5/7 (Hunter's Bolt)
    Lydia regains 3 Essence -> Now at 7/7 (Rest Granting Strike)
    Ascendancy of Man takes 15 Damage -> Destroyed

    "Darn!" you gasp, floating back from the wreck, "Good work Lydia, that was..."

    "Very large," she sounds a little disbelieving.

    "Yes, yes you are both marvelous heroines that slew the monster foul, now lets get out of here, before we have something even worse on our tail," Lash cuts in as she heads right to the correct door.

    As the iron elementals start to gather the pieces of foul mechanism, to cleanse, recycle and reclaim you come at last to the last door, the one you'd learned about from the memories of renegade demons. A thing in three parts it is, that opens like an insect's mouth, at first seeming like steel stained with rust unless one looks closely enough to notice, that the red is blood and it is always fresh.

    In three short cuts you slice it open to reveal... oddly enough an old fashioned machinist's shop, from upright lathe to dies and tongs and anvil, and chained to that anvil a giant of a man with skin of steel and eyes like embers burning in the furnace. "Who the fock are you?" he asks in a thick, but easily understandable accent, that you suspect isn't quite like anything any one language would produce.


    "We the fuck are the people busting you out!" you answer, in defiance of every recommendation of how one aught to speak to fey, most fey at least. A spirit that was born of the bubbling melting pot of Nineteenth century steel mills isn't going to be one for fancy manners. Thus you are rewarded with a toothy smile, the teeth being ceramic you're pretty sure.

    Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 8/15 (Etiquette Excellency)

    "There's somthin' in the air..." he sniffs as elemental swirl around him like odd inorganic butterflies "That you?"

    "Yep," you answer reaching out to shake hands. "Molly Carpenter."

    "They call me Joe, Joe Magarac," the fey says as he takes your hand. He looks down at the chain, but doesn't say anything. A fey however odd is still a fey.

    You slice it in one blow even as outside your bubble of elsewhere more alarms begin to blare. The technician you had saved above starts from awe to dread. You might not speak the language, but you recognize the sound of someone worried about incoming enemies, probably nothing as beefy as... the thing out there, but still trouble you don't want to meet.

    How do you get out?

    [] Sanctuary is close. Step into it (The others will have to defend you for 4 turns)

    [] Lydia tries to Open the Way, bearing just the people in this workshop with her. (Mikaboshi may contest this)

    [] Open Calibration's Gate (Mikaboshi may not contest this, but will briefly create a cosmic alignment through which any of the demons of the Wicked City may pass; you may have to defend the gate on the other side until you can close it)

    [] Write in

    OOC: And done. I thought about making this two updates, but by now I think I have a good enough sense of how you guys prefer to fight to roll though something like this.
     
    Last edited:
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    • DragonParadox said:
    OOC: And done. I thought about making this two updates, but by now I think I have a good enough sense of how you guys prefer to fight to roll though something like this.
    Click to expand...
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    Really a big difference to the old D&D.

    Lots fewer options in the actual fight, less complicated buff-schemes and all that.
    Maybe a Wizard or a Vampire with a focus on Thaumaturgy would make for more varied combat, but Molly just has the Sword and the choice where to best apply it.
     
    If we hold open a gate, I wonder if we can get any WMD transferred over to us fast enough to throw through right before it closes.
     
    uju32 said:
    I must have missed that discussion. Or forgotten it.

    I will argue that no, that should not work here. The world has changed enough that we cant even build basic daiklaves, let alone other Exalted artifacts, and Essence is a bare trickle at best; I dont really think that we should be able to do the sort of geomantic engineering that is involved in raising manses. Certainly not as a Last Station-tier project.

    Demonreach, for example, is a focused plot fiat project by a legendary DMPC that required multiple instances of time travel to construct, and has, to my knowledge, no peer anywhere else in the setting.


    Raising a city god would be a big enough project on its own, and assumes that we want one with that much power/influence over a metropolis of several million people.
    But at least it appears to be in principle, possible.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Raising a city god is an upper tier standard crafting. Manse is the lower to middle epic / plot crafting. Dresdenverse is a higher energy setting than WoD, so we are allowed more.

    It's a Last Station tier project adjusted for our growth. We did Last Station as a "knight errant" character with no infrastructure and mostly at E2. We are now near E4, and have our kingdom, fey favor, and circlemates (and will likely have other ones by the time we do this). We'll have the city god to help too. So, adjusted for the level of resources, it's about equal, I think, in how many AP we'll need to sink into this.

    DragonParadox said:
    Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Now at 6/7 (Brawl Excellency)
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    This should be Dexterity excellency, I think. She has attribute excellencies, does she not?

    [X] Lydia tries to Open the Way, bearing just the people in this workshop with her. (Mikaboshi may contest this)
    -[X] Tiffany boosts Lydia's perception to 10
    -[X] Lydia uses Willpower for additional success
     
    I'd say to go for Lydia, but her perception and occult are both pretty poor, which means I'm not sure she can win a contest.

    Ninja: Tiffany can boost Perception. I forgot about that. Anyone have a stunt?

    [X] Lydia tries to Open the Way, bearing just the people in this workshop with her. (Mikaboshi may contest this)
    -[X] Tiffany boosts Lydia's perception to 10
    -[X] Lydia uses Willpower for additional success
     
    uju32 said:
    Here we go:
    Article:
    The buildings and neighborhoods of the Wicked City themselves strongly resemble those in cities like Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong, though the structures of hell are gloomier, sharper and more twisted. Akuma frequently report feeling a disturbing sense of familiarity with the Wicked City, and Mikaboshi prefers it thus. The Yama King wants all those who see his city to understand his grand vision of a hellish metropolis connecting Yomi and the urban centers of the Middle Kingdom. He also wants those in his hell to see the comfortable trappings of the daily world perverted toward his demonic ideal. By undermining faith in the known and comfortable, Mikaboshi increases his subjects' feelings of dread and suffering, and his power with them.

    The feng shui of the Wicked City is beyond negative, instead resting in the realm of the impossible. No place in the Middle Kingdom could warp and pervert the flow of Chi the way the Wicked City does. The entire landscape assaults the Chi of the city's victims. "Poison arrows" point everywhere; every structure interferes with the natural flow of energy; and razor-cornered metal boxes are everywhere, spiraling in directions that cause vertigo from the merest glance. For the demon servitors who dwell here, the foul Chi serves as an almost electric charge that empowers them. For all others, the disharmony saps their will and impedes rational thought. The more time one spends in the Wicked City, the more destructive the vile Chi becomes.

    [.....]

    There are no safe places in the Wicked City. Every street corner can be home to a demon of iron and violence. Every worker can be an akuma spy. No one can be trusted and everyone is the enemy. Even the imprisoned may betray a visitor for the chance to gain promotion. It is a place where all the worst elements of greed and capitalism meet in. Yomi's atmosphere of corruption.

    The technology of this domain is beyond disturbing. The corrupted Yin of this place feeds all manner of implants, gadgets and devices that serve only to heighten the suffering of the doomed. Cyborgs hunt workers who have escaped their workshops, and cameras observe everyone. Citizens are jacked in to this hell through direct bionic connections that allow them to feel the feet that walk the streets, hear the whispers muttered in corners and recognize individuals by their voice and retina patterns. Mikaboshi and his lieu- tenants miss nothing that occurs in the Wicked City.

    [.....]

    The Wicked City makes the worst cities on Earth look like tranquil suburbs. It is a place of pollution, death and tortures of the foulest sort, a product of man's own abuse of technology and nature. Most importantly, the City portrays a clear picture of what the Middle Kingdom will become should Mikaboshi rule in the Sixth Age as the Demon Emperor.
    Source: Thousand Hells p36

    Article:
    The majority of Yama Kings are imbalanced toward either the Yin or Yang principle, manifesting the most vile and twisted aspects of their imbalance the way mortals demonstrate their taste in clothing or hobbies. Those inclined toward Yin are ceaselessly calculating and cruel, while those with a Yang imbalance exemplify the vices of incendiary rage and insane over-stimulation.

    Some few Yama Kings have maintained a balance of Chi, or represent unfathomable mixtures of Yin and Yang. These entities are rare and odd, even among the bizarre ranks of the Yama Kings, who consider them to be odd curiosities. Of these, only the fabled Yen-Lo ever had any power to speak of, not that it helped him much in his struggles with his peers and rivals.
    Source: Thousand Hells p47

    Article:
    Mikaboshi is a product of his own ambition. He began his days as a philosopher and scholar in Japan, and traveled to China to study in the schools of the nascent Dalou'laoshi. Mikaboshi's mastery of the principles of geomancy and alchemy made him one of the most celebrated scholars of the time, and he was invited to be an advisor in the Chou Dynasty. However, Mikaboshi wanted to rule, not advise, and he returned to Japan vowing to rise to power one way or the other.

    The way he eventually chose was infernalism. With his vast knowledge of magic, Mikaboshi ensnared a demon and interrogated it. After pulling all knowledge of Yomi and the spirit worlds from it, Mikaboshi slew the demon, butchered it and distilled the creature's essence into an elixir that granted Mikaboshi access to the cold realms of the dead. When he returned from the Yellow Springs, Mikaboshi used his standing in the court and his skills as a fang shih, or geomancer, to have a series of monuments built in the cursed chueh ming configuration that amplified and concentrated unhealthy Chi at the center. When the construction ended, Mikaboshi returned to the Yin realm to the center of the chueh ming configuration to see what he had wrought. Weeping ghosts stood around him, and he felt the Chi of their suffering flow to him (a result of the demon elixir).

    That, however, was only the beginning. Mikaboshi had larger and more complex configurations built to harness corrupt Chi until a visiting artisan of the Dalou'laoshi saw what Mikaboshi was doing and sent word back to the school. Mikaboshi's configurations were torn down, and he fled to the Yin realm where power was plentiful for him. He built configurations in the Yin world to channel torment from the mortal world directly to him, but unable to harness the power that flooded through those channels, Mikaboshi grew grossly fat.
    Source: Thousand Hells p51-52


    TLDR
    • The Wicked City is Yin-aligned
    • All the powerful Yama Kings are either Yin- or Yang-aspected, with the sole exception of Yen-Lo, who is now dead
    • Yin-aspected YKs are cruel and calculating, unlike Yang-aspected YKs, who are emotional and overstimulated
    • Mikaboshi rose to power on Yin energy harvested from torturing ghosts, and when discovered, fled to the Yin World, where he built further magical formations to empower himself. He's Yin aligned, and the city he built is Yin-aligned with him.
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    Yep, this makes sense, I think I just misread the description of the place. Thinking about it there isn't anything about what I have down that requires that the Wicked City be a Yin and Yang Chi Hell so I'm be going with it being Yin
     
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