There's no guarantee he's not already bogged down in combat with the Reds anyway many hands make light work that's true in real life as well as in games where action economy is a thing.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Spirits noticed the gate being opened, not the Hell being instantiated.
So I think its safe to suspect that at least some of them can still do this, though I dont think most of them have Demonreach's range.
Also, Molly has been opening gates in Chicago, Vegas and most recently Boston.
Vegas conspicuously had a significant Red Court presence.
The conservative bet is that they noticed something.
==
Also, powerful entities dont have to use Ways.
Or they can outright make their own. We've seen both Mab and Titania teleport, Mab create a new Way gate from scratch, and we've seen Mavra do what was an apparent teleport.
I would not assume the Red Court are unfamiliar with the concept of unconventional means of supernatural transport.
Especially since, according to Brother Dev, they have been courting Thrashing Dragon elders.
1)I dont know if Molly can be carried in a bottle during RVD.
However, she can be carried in a bottle once she is in South America, which was what I had in mind as a backup.
===
2) Im not counting the Council out, but the Reds have home ground advantage here, and Morgan's team dont have surprise.
A prepared ambush against the second in command of the Wardens and his handpicked squad of old school hardcases is going to be led by a Duke of the Court at a minimum, if not a Lord of Outer Night.
Expect the deployment of hundreds of Reds and half-Reds, of Ick demons and possibly Outsiders like we saw used against Ebenezar at the quest's beginning. Even potentially mercenary Thrashing Dragons from Asia are on the table; we've been told that the Reds were courting them.
And the lack of government troops is not the drawback it might seem. It means no official questions to be buried.
It doesnt prevent the use of mercenaries and mortal house troops like we saw at Chitchen Itza and in Central Africa.
Or criminals like already operate in the area IRL. It doesnt even prevent a Red Court noble with Presence 5: Majesty walking into a village and dragooning a bunch of mortals as meatshields.
This might as well be their backyard and they had enough preptime and resources to even spare troops to intercept messengers.
Manpower and resources wont be a problem for them, and I think you both overestimate our ability to operate airpower on the border of a threshold nuclear state like Brazil, and underestimate the Red Court's ability to do shit about it.
We arent clobbering a complacent Arianna; we're going into an active warzone.
===
3) Our clones have Attunement and Secret of Gaia for scouting the area of operations, locating concentrations of supernaturals and talking to the local spirits. And Pulse of the Prey will help us find the wizards; we've met Morgan, so we can literally just run him down even if he is constantly moving.
We arent operating in a vacuum here.
=
This is a war, but this is not our war. Not yet.
The targets and critical enemy infrastructure are embedded in the middle of major human population centers and critical human infrastructure for a significant chunk of the global human population, and oopsies easily involve hundreds or thousands of people in the first order blast radius. Its not something you want to wing.
The White Council hasnt been exercising restraint because they lack firepower, after all.
Furthermore, on our side?
We have a bunch of targets at risk of retaliation, none of whom are currently hardened against even the equivalent of a mortal hit team with AKs. Something that Broken Seeker pointedly made a point of.
Not to mention that there's the additional issue of uncontrolled escalation playing into the hands of the Nemesis conspiracy, whose goal is specifically chaos and the uncontrolled breakdown of order.
And there's the final OOC point that I dont want this quest to become the Red Court Quest.
There's other parts of the setting I would like to explore than get bogged down in Latin America dealing with this war and its aftermath. Thats not really plausible if we kick off a major unplanned conflagration just because.
When spirits in the vicinity of Chicago, a major travel nexus describe a gate into the deep NeverNever, I think its safe to assume they think they know what they are talking about.
Furthermore, its not like Molly is the only person capable of opening a Hellgate; akuma can do it with Hellweaving.
And we know the Denarians can do something similar, because it was a plot point in Small Favor.
So I think you underestimate how recognizable these things are. Even if I dont know what range they can be detected at.
Besides, Brother Dev has told us that the White Council has been sniffing around.
And its safe to assume whatever they figured out, Peabody has.
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1)We dont need perfect stealth for the entire duration. We just need stealth to find and make contact with the wizard team.
Once we have secured them, we can sneak or smash our way out, whatever is faster.
2)We dont need to drop BMI for him to recognize us.
We can simply share a detail of his several day visit to the Brass Courts that wasnt public.
OK looks like we are going with a note, assuming you can make the social roll (which will be with no excellency since Molly would want to preserve Essence)
Molly is rolling Charisma 4 + Empathy 5/Etiquette 5 + Stunt 2 = 11 dice, which is in the superhuman dice tier.
Spend 1 WP for an autosuccess.
She's good.
And her clones can match that or do better.
Worst case, she can make a phone call to Last Station; she does have Clippy with her, and can simply bring a dedicated Sanctuarytech transmitter. (Keep forgetting that phone upgrade)
=====
Hope you are feeling better.
Or are at least medicating and staying hydrated.
Arc 14 Post 11: Into the Green
Into the Green
18th of February 2007 A.D.
You consider the proposals for a moment, then shake your head firmly. "Sanctuary gates appear to be magically detectable to some, and we don't know who else is down there. I'd prefer to keep the element of surprise as long as possible." You check to see your phone is secured, then meet Harry in the eye, then Carlos, then Olivia. "Better to sweettalk some old fossils" a smile tugs at the corner of Lydia's mouth at your words "Than to cut our way through the human mercs and thralls the Red Court will put in the way of an obvious force. Just write me a note."
Harry looks... not happy, definitely not happy, but like he is coming around to your way of seeing things. After all he had seen how you sweettalk when you have to and he had seen you fight an ancient horror in dragon skin in the tunnels below Las Vegas, among the many, many things you had put in the ground. It's regular people with guns you are most worried about and not just because you do not want to kill some unlucky son of a gun with a family to mourn him just because he ended up a Red Court peon, but because enough bullets down range would be hard for even you to parry.
Carlos shakes his head mulishly. "It won't matter how well or how fast you can talk if someone shoots first and asks questions never. What if you don't find Morgan first, but one of the others? What if they have their Sight open on watch. I know they tell us to never do that kind of shit, but I also know for a fact that Lady Marguerite does it on the regular, people don't call her Mad Marge behind her back for nothing..." He stops himself and looks around as though expecting the lady in question to pop up from behind one of the service doors. "Don't mention I called her that OK?"
"Sure," you snort. "Out of curiosity, what is she a lady of?"
"No one I know's had the courage to ask. She was a noble heir during the French Revolution. They say her talent's the only reason she survived the... you know the noble killings, there's a name for them but..."
"The Terror," Tiffany interjectes. "I wonder if that is another Warden who passed under the Doom of Damocles and lived." At Harry's dubious look she tsks. "The sharpest steel is forged in the hottest flame and a willingness to kill with magic can easily become an aptitude to killing without."
"You have a very dark view of people, do you know that?" Olivia asks, without much heat causing Lydia to hide a smile behind her hand.
"Good luck Molly, Warden Ramirez, I'm sure the two of you will work great together..."
Did she just... no... still smiling, yes she did. Damn it Lydia this is not the time.
The passage is a kaleidoscope of waters from muddy unmentionable brown to the blueish-grey of the lake—Can Demonreach sense this?— to rivers rushing clear into the boundless wave cresting ocean and from there into a river green ever-flourishing, its banks echoing with the calls of birds uncounted and unknown, heaving with fishes and, waterbirds and even dolphins as well as other smaller stranger life, up and up. There is less life here, but all the more tenacious for it, fish gobbling up flowers and seeds snapping up insects where they can. That's where you come to stand, soaking wet in an atmosphere that is only marginally less so. Almost enough to make one gasp for breath and yet you smile —It reminds you of the jungles of Sanctuary, the jungles-that-are-you. One brief passage back and forth, unfamiliar music launching a flurry of wings into the air with Sophia and Carlos at your side.
"Alright so how are you planning to find them?" other you asks, curiously to which he taps the Warden's sword at his side. Those would have a strong sympathetic link between them, right? But then why haven't they been used like that by less benign hands?
He seems to get what you're thinking. As he draws a circle in the muddy soil by the river and plants the sword in the center he explains: "Wardens swords are bounded to their bearer, anyone else tries to pull this trick with a sword they stole or... you know," Took from the dead, you substitute grimly, "They'll get nothing but a backlash, a loud one that will hopefully warn other Wardens nearby that there's someone messing with a sword."
Sophia and you watch in silence as he pours iron dust around the sword in a spiral, the black particles falling a lot slower than they should, as though moving though honey not air. "Fraternitas Gladius," comes the invocation, 'brotherhood of the sword.'
Carlos' eyes drift down then open all at once. "Got it, distance and direction, sixteen and a half miles that away!" he points into the jungle.
"Do you know how to navigate in that?" Sophia asks archly.
"We use magic..." he offers a little weakly. "We can cut our way though."
"I could try to converse with the spirits of this place, they would have little reason to love the Red Court," she counters blandly as they come, though Carlos still winces at the implied criticism. "They would probably be happy to make a way for us."
"Or we could just fly," you look to your other self. "You could turn into something big enough right."
Her answering smile is almost... draconic. "Oh yeah."
How do you travel?
[] Just try to walk through the jungle
[] Try to converse with the spirits to get them to open a way
[] Fly, let speed serve in the place of stealth
[] Write in
OOC: Turns out that intimacy you instilled in Carlos on your first meeting had consequences.
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Goddammit Carlos. There goes all chance of stealth, clomping through jungle with a city boy.
Without him Molly and Sophia would have been able to simply dip into the water and teleport.
Now we have to drag his ass around and worry about mortal constraints.
AND bringing him to Sanctuary has cost us 2m of Essence.
We are currently down to 10/18 Essence, almost half.
It would have literally been cheaper to spend Essence on an Excellency during the argument.
Man had better earn his keep.
:shakes fist:
===
Molly can largely ignore average mortal bulletspam if she's aware of it; a mortal with a Damage 7 AK is averaging 2.8 sux on a successful hit with no threshold sux. While Molly with Stamina 3, +1 Armor from Ebon Scales, -1DC from Scar-Writ Saga Shield and -1DC from BSM also averages 2.8 sux on her soak roll. Without any buffs, and without any stat increases from Tiffany.
Its the collateral thats the issue.
===
It will take us roughly 15 minutes to cross ~17 miles at top speed in a straight line.
If we had bought Rage Recast Swift Stride, it would have taken us ~8 minutes.
Conclusion: Speed is always an important tactical consideration. Sometimes when you dont expect it.
Making this point so that we remember the next time we get to spend XP and people bring up this argument again.
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
What time of day or night is it, local time?
Without him Molly and Sophia would have been able to simply dip into the water and teleport.
Now we have to drag his ass around and worry about mortal constraints.
AND bringing him to Sanctuary has cost us 2m of Essence.
We are currently down to 10/18 Essence, almost half.
It would have literally been cheaper to spend Essence on an Excellency during the argument.
Man had better earn his keep.
:shakes fist:
===
Nope.
Molly can largely ignore average mortal bulletspam if she's aware of it; a mortal with a Damage 7 AK is averaging 2.8 sux on a successful hit with no threshold sux. While Molly with Stamina 3, +1 Armor from Ebon Scales, -1DC from Scar-Writ Saga Shield and -1DC from BSM also averages 2.8 sux on her soak roll. Without any buffs, and without any stat increases from Tiffany.
Its the collateral thats the issue.
===
With Windborn Stride providing x3 speed, Molly's sustained sprint is 32 yards/second.
It will take us roughly 15 minutes to cross ~17 miles at top speed in a straight line.
If we had bought Rage Recast Swift Stride, it would have taken us ~8 minutes.
Conclusion: Speed is always an important tactical consideration. Sometimes when you dont expect it.
Making this point so that we remember the next time we get to spend XP and people bring up this argument again.
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
What time of day or night is it, local time?
We cannot ignore Bullet spam simply because guns don't have a melee restriction on how many people can shoot you at once and ambush of Reds and their mortal servants can be anywhere from 10 to 20 and that is more than enough to actually drown us In lead. Luck like everything else fluctuates in its usefulness and dependability. Your example also assumes that the Reds and their Mortal help don't have Celerity or above average skill or both. Which considering they were chosen for an ambush feels like an incorrect assumption right off the bat.
Nope, you can dump your entire clip for extra damage.
A mortal doesnt double 10s, an Exalt does.
While that remains true, we can largely ignore regular bulletspam from mortals in our normal gear, and when we're actually rocking proper combat buffs, we can do that thing that Harry and Ebenezar did at Chitchen Itza when entire companies of trained mercenaries opened automatic fire on them and were ignored, without even trying to parry or put up shields.
Mortals do not have Celerity. You need to give them magic to compensate.
Or heavy weapons.
Or Molly wont even bother to parry them unless its going to hit someone else.
====
Reds Court vampires are not mortals.
Celerity makes them significantly more dangerous, but that depends on whether Molly is rocking full buffs or not.
And she still has 19HLs at base outside shintai.
You're mistaken.
Strafing increases your dice pool to-hit by +10 but also increases your DC by +2.
So instead of, say, rolling 4 attack dice at DC6, you are rolling 14 attack dice at DC8.
It is 6: 30 PM.
No we cannot because we don't invest in any magic Charm or sorcery) that allow us to do that. No one doubles ten on a Soak roll. I was very explicitly talking about Reds having Celerity which grants extra dice of dexterity on actions where they don't use multiple actions on a turn which can bump up the dice pool for their shooting by up to five if they don't have a discipline that affects it in the first place or The Mortals having greater than normal skill which considering they were chosen for an ambush seems like a pretty easy thing to understand which can bump up their dice Pools by anywhere past the average for dice anywhere from 5 to 10 dice total if they have world class or otherwise modified equipment/ Mortals. I was also referencing the Reds could also have a high firearm skill on top of having celerity which could mean they could throw anywhere from 5 to 15 dice on a Firearms roll so no we literally can't ignore arbitrary numbers of people with guns simply because even if you take a dead average spread of skill luck doesn't favor us enough for that to be a thing we could do.
Edit: before we get into the supposition around a 10 dice mortal that is an extreme example but 9, 8 or 7 dice is completely attainable for a trained soldier who is living off red cash and spit that trains specifically so they can send them out. They're not disimilar to ghouls in that manner.
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*checks times for Fronteras area *
February 18 sunset in Tabatinga was at 6PM. Civil twilight ended at 6.21PM, nautical twilight ends at 6.46PM, and astronomical twilight at 7.11PM.
New moon was the 17th, so its a moonless night as well.
====
VOTE
[X]Plan Be The Dragon
-[X] Fly, let speed serve in the place of stealth
-[X]Molly: All Things Betray: 1WP
-[X]Sophia: Thousand Forms(dragon) + Secret of Gaia: 2WP
RATIONALE
The sun dropped below the horizon at 6PM, it will be too dark to see anything other than the sky by around 6.50PM, and all light will be gone by around 7.10PM.
By the time we get to our destination, it will be 6.45PM, and too dark for unassisted mortal sight.
As far as Im concerned, we've already rung the dinner bell.
Element of surprise is probably gone with the Sanctuary gate potentially tripping alarms, and we have maybe 20 minutes before its too dark for mortals like Carlos to see without artificial help of some sort.
Speed. And Malfean stealth. So have Sophia go dragon to carry Carlos, and let Molly Prime conserve Essence instead of using telekinesis. That increases the risk of friendly fire from a wizard, or hostile encounters with Brazilian/Colombian air patrols, but thats why Molly is supposed to have countermagic and the ability to parry/dodge.
On the flip side, its dark enough that Molly can be just as overt as she chooses without freaking out the normals in a way that can be proven. After all, who's gonna believe that someone saw a dragon?
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- Pronouns
- ImBuda
[X]Plan Be The Dragon
-[X] Fly, let speed serve in the place of stealth
-[X]Molly: All Things Betray: 1WP
-[X]Sophia: Thousand Forms(dragon) + Secret of Gaia: 2WP
Ed One thing, I trust you in this but are you sure that we can do the thousand forms difficulty roll?
-[X] Fly, let speed serve in the place of stealth
-[X]Molly: All Things Betray: 1WP
-[X]Sophia: Thousand Forms(dragon) + Secret of Gaia: 2WP
Ed One thing, I trust you in this but are you sure that we can do the thousand forms difficulty roll?
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Are we assuming (since she has a per scene Willpower regen and it's a per day buff) that Sophia is already running Harmonious Unity of the Emerald Mother?
Probably worth the extra turn of concentration for her to activate Coyote's Mask after transforming, too.
Edit: autocorrupt
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In Vegas it was RVD and not the hellgate that was noticed. We just got everyone and went to go mess with Mutt after taking in a run down building for a bit. We opened the gate across the street from the guys they sent to investigate magical phenomena in the area and got zero response.
I think there's an argument to be made that opening the FCF for the first time was much louder than it normally is and that while they mistook it for just a regular opening at the time we haven't actually been sending global signals out with every use.
Ways are safe routes, what counts as safe changes based on who's walking it. There aren't many places in Faerie that are going to deny Mab or Titania on legitimate business. Molly is tough enough to theoretically try some more hazardous ways, but that would be somewhat obvious and tiring.
They're familiar with unusual transport, which is why they'd be prepping for us to use the water instead of forcing our way through.
2) I took the implication of "they can't get government troops out here" to be that getting large numbers of personnel out here is a huge pain in the ass and would be noticeable to people doing something like setting up an assault. The black council can share information, but if they could blind them to this degree the council would already be dead.
I don't doubt that their facilities are well guarded, but the troops necessary to cover that jungle if someone wants to get lost in it is something else.
I think we would have been fine bringing our drones there. Their Air Force isn't that impressive and the reds have almost certainly been encouraging a profound lack of curiosity about the area. By the time they got their shit together and decided to come over here we'd be gone.
3) Not a patch on knowing our enemy's plans, but that's something.
=====
In general yes it pays to be careful, but this is about as clean an area of operations as we're going to get. It's not completely out of the way, but that's not really an option.
On our side we have the Jade dogs in their bunker and Porter as an escape hatch for anyone who needs to give a hit squad the slip. We can trivially increase those protections faster than they can slip something in if this goes hot.
Nemesis is going to do that anyway, our involvement gives us a handle on the situation. Not a perfect one, but we can act to counter it too.
On an OOC level I actually do want to get into this. The vampire war is a huge piece of DF history that nearly reaches world war levels of influence on how things play out for the setting. It stretches from the street level all the way up to the plots of gods and faerie queens, exploring a lot of the interesting and unique flavor of this type of setting.
If you wanted to explore all levels of the Dresden Files setting all around the globe the vampire war is probably the best single way to do so.
Haven't we spent most of the last 45 minutes sitting in a dragon's nest since our second to last essence spend?
Also, we can do the bottle of bleach thing here so that Molly can get another point of essence back. Have the clone hold Carlos and Carlos hold the bottle. If something goes wrong he dumps Molly into the air and she gets to work.
- Location
- Norway
Having the same average on a dicepool sounds like another way of saying "Half the bullets do damage and half don't". Oversoaked shots don't roll over to average out with undersoaked shots.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
@DragonParadox On that note how much essence do we have?
[X]Plan Be The Dragon
Always be the dragon. Percy Jackson flashbacks here.
There are some things we can do to close the gap, especially as a craft heavy exalt. Just making ourselves immune to bullets with a splendor would make it much more expensive to attack us. Still doable even with mortal weapons, but you've got to bring in special stuff instead of guys with AKs.
The most immediate thing we could get other than that is this:
That's an immediate 2 dot jump with a +1 bonus when/if stamina catches up, since Molly can't be surprised. The melee stuff is sweet too, and applicable to a lot of supernatural fights.
I also think there's an argument to be made that since it says soak with X Attribute/Ability instead of use it as stamina that it makes soak a roll of that ability's type and therefore subject to excellency. As a permanent passive ability it's very nice.
If we're going to have dragon!Molly fly around why not have prime!Molly ride in a bleach bottle? We voted to bring one to this event and I don't see why we'd leave our supplies behind when doing something more dangerous. If it's going to take more than 15 minutes anyway we might as well take the essence back.
Depending on our total essence count it might be worth doing the reverse too. MHM with willpower and spend essence on AtP. Most minions won't be able to acknowledge us at all even if they know we're here until we actually poke them and that extends to what we're doing at the time. They shouldn't be able to notice Carlos or clone!Molly any more than they would pick up on a backpack she was wearing.
The big guys will probably shrug it off if we don't get really lucky on the baseline activation roll or they know to have mental defenses up, but being able to defend others in this way is a rarer gift.