True. There's also MAD to consider - we need to demonstrate that we have strategic deterrence. I would very much consider detonating a nuke at some red court controlled area of nevernever, to show that we have them.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Ok, changes things so that voting only for Yog is viable then:
[X] Plan Stargate Command
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
@Nyarky This is what I was alluding to earlier. The main difference between all variations of the current vote and crux of the debate for the last few pages has been to open a portal or to not open a portal. You'd win with Yog's or just the base vote no approval voting or mass tagging needed. You have a preference but it being served would not change the main course of action.
Edit: Ninja'ed
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I don't think we can march a legion out right now even if we wanted to. After some time to get ready sure, but they still have to move around Sanctuary and won't have had reason to put a whole army in whatever random corner it gets stuck. They should be preparing for incursions and expeditions because any competent government would in these circumstances, but that would be a new system just being tested.
Even then I'd rather not have our people die a true death if we can help it.
The red court attacks I was worried about were ones targeted at other people. They're a nation and can act in a lot of places at once. Even if they're cautious here they might still attack other places. I think it depends on the impact of the wheel on Mallko and his land body. We don't know how big an area will be affected or what that impact will be like*.
That also still leaves the problem of the other traitors taking action as we go for Peabody. I'd like to do something before they cause any harm, but I'm not sure if we really have the leverage to do so. They're a cell structure infiltration operation, they won't just freeze if we kill the most important member of the conspiracy.
* What I'm really hoping for is that it becomes holy land for Molly and that if her worshippers die on it they go home instead of onwards to the existing DF afterlife. That's just wild speculation though.
Speaking of this, @DragonParadox do we have any idea how much land he's actually bound to? If this is a specific holy place in the jungle it has a different impact than if he covers most of the places he was worshipped. Which would be rather large. The Incas got around.
… On a related note, I'm suddenly curious about how this guy will interact with the people of the FCF. It's unlikely but distantly possible that he may get added to the pantheon as a subordinate to Molly, but more plausible he'll get treated like any big regional spirit.
Thing is, our people actually do practice blood sacrifice. It came up with the wyrms guarding their trade routes. Well, they deal in life force instead of full deaths but still. It just matters way less because physical infirmity is temporary.
So he might be able to strike very lucrative deals if he can offer the right benefits. He could end up stronger than he ever has been eventually.
- Location
- Japan, The Big Town
[X] Plan Stargate Command
[X] Plan Fighting Fit
[X] Plan Fighting Fit
At a guess, and keep in mind this is Molly guessing in a matter of seconds, it is more the second than the former. It does not look like this patch of jungle is itself special beyond being part of the lands where his worshipers once lived.
Vote closed.
Im reasonably sure that SCE would work on Bane as well.
The spell is explicitly calibrated to work on Earthbound, and Earthbound are Fallen Angels from the Demon cosmology who bind themselves into either objects or the land from pre-history.
Remember that plenty of Banes used to be natural spirits before their corruption according to WoD cosmology.
Unnatural is in the eye of the beholder.
Celestial Exaltation shards are as natural to the human body as Banes, but you dont expect SCE to unplug an Exaltation shard.
Or for that matter, to unbind a Fallen from its Coin. Or a kuejin from its body.
This specific spell's restrictions appear to be written with this in mind.
Kupala the demon possesses the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania in WoD, as in the entire region.
So do really old vampires for that matter in V20.
Also worth noting:
Gods, and other true immortals, CANT DIE outside of Halloween. Thats a rule of the Dresdenverse.
Molly can kill them, but thats by virtue of being Exalted.
Whatever is happening here breaks all sorts of regular rules of the setting.
Respectfully? No he does not. The setting recognizes no such claim for a god.
The White God banished all gods with authority from this side of the Gauntlet a thousand years ago or so.
Its not natural for him to be here, its not natural for him to be joined to the earth that way.
It is for a spirit like Alfred; its not for a god.
Odin isnt bound to Norway despite his Donnar Vadderung domicile being there and his historic ties to the region.
Hades isnt bound to Greece either.
Talvi Inverno wasnt bound to Finland.
Gods arent bound to the Earth naturally in the Dresden Files.
It certainly doesnt appear to be natural for a god of law, the son of a sun-god to be bound to the earth.
And duration doesnt change that. Loup garou demons can be bound to a bloodline for hundreds or thousands of years. Naagloshii have been bound to follow the Native American tribes for millenia. The Sin-Eater has been bound to the area of land around the Hellgate for thousands of years now.
It doesnt make their presence natural.
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I don't think the problem is in being bound, but in being intertwined. The god is land, the land is god, one and the same entity. For this kind of being "one with the earth" is the natural state. At least that's how I interpret the ruling by QM.
This one is for reasons that would be pretty serious spoilers to explain
Gods arent one with the earth in the Dresden Files. OR in WoD for that matter.
Its not a natural state of affairs for them. We've seen several of them in the setting, enough to draw some conclusions; Odin and Thor were Norse, Hades and the Bassarid are Greek, and Talvi Inverno was Finnish.
Hell, see the example of Arawn King in this quest, who was a Welsh/Celtic god.
Furthermore, magic on this scale doesnt really care.
Like I said, this spell would work on Kupala, and Kupala the demon was literally possessing the entire Carpathian Mountain range in the World of Darkness, a space of some >73,000 sq miles.
*shrug*
Cant really argue that if there's information thats missing. And its your quest, your rules.
But I cant possibly see how this works under the rules of the cosmology as we know them.
Okay I'm trying to think of what I could be missing here because tactically speaking this is a 3 m wide hole nowhere near anything the closest Village is Miles Away in the middle of the Amazon.
We wouldn't need to be at the portal ourselves because we have agents that have Electro guns, soldiers that have auto guns, spirits that are willing to help us possibly dragons if we feel the need to go that far. The denarians are humans. Their angel can only help them so far even Nicodemus needs a 2000 year old Relic not to die when he gets his neck snapped.
Nothing I've seen from Dresden Files seems to suggest that them trying to rush people that either are pre-warned about them or have magic of their own is likely a good idea for them there's only 30 of them in total and they can just be killed by people shooting them.
They're Magic even enforced by Hellfire is more destructive but not particularly better for hiding them nor does it increase the range of magic they can truly do most of them do not have innate magic anyways so it's just Hellfire for them. Our soldiers aren't like us where they need to rush off to defend some other point this portal is the portal to their home to leave it undefenities to leave everyone behind it undefended and they have no reason to particularly care about a Village 12 miles away being set on fire.
It's just having soldiers that have supernatural abilities that might even let them just look past Illusions and veils because they have implanted spirits and cameras in their head is something that's completely possible. Our soldiers have Rage characteristics like Werewolves that both allow them to ignore pain and take multiple actions per turn and I'm pretty sure rage helps you throw off Mental effects as well but I would need to recheck Werewolf to be sure.
That's kind of what I mean by fixed point our men don't need to leave we don't need to defend anything else in South America we don't need them to defend anything else in South America this is a 3 m wide hole in the middle of the Amazon rainforest four people linking arms could surround that area never mind just building things around it so it's not accessible at all. Then putting guards with superpowers and cameras with Spirits in them around to help protect that thing anyway.
I just don't believe that the denarians can do something that wouldn't call immediate attention from God on them in that situation because they are just humans and using Angelic power which they would need to so because being a denarian doesn't make you immune to being shot, doesn't make you immune from people just looking through your illusion magic with thermal vision to see you, doesn't make you immune to a variety of things that we could fairly easily set up like mines on both sides of the world just a variety of things a denarian does not make you immune to that defending a fixed position allows you to take advantage of in comparison to needing to react to them.
In the end through the defenses is the only way to get to the portal it's a doorway it's literally the size of a big door the only way in is through and baring literal Angelic interference I'm unsure of how they can make the way through. Then they need to be willing to eat the possible intervention of Big G and Uriel in that operation to get through anyway.
Maybe I'm being unimaginative but the squishy human host and everything we see in Dresden Files seems to suggest they are not immune from people who just have the ability to shoot them. Whether that be Dresden just literally out muscling Nicodemus or throwing down with Thorned Namsheiel. The coins are Immortal the people that hold them are very much not.
Well, this one somehow is.
A lot of things have already happened in this quest that contradict the metaphysics of DF and/or WoD. However, the explaination is usually simple: this is not DF and/or WoD. This is very deep-level fusion DF and Exalted rendered mechanically through Exalted/WoD system. Things are very likely to not work the way we think they do.
Arc 14 Post 18: At the Gate of Gold
At the Gate of Gold
18th of February 2007 A.D.
There are good sensible reasons to step back not to allow your reach to overcome your grasp, in magic especially in politics, knowing next to nothing about this place, about the Red Court and their machinations.
Yet the choice must be made now. Heavy is the head that wears the Crown, and never before had it felt heavier. To take a risk, expose those under your aegis to new dangers - Reds attacking, Nemesis infiltration, nuclear weapon strikes, all for the sake of your conflict, and to save one life? You almost turn away...
One thing you know for sure, pain. The pain of immortal and mortal alike being made puppets in the games of the Red Court, of knowing that freedom can only be brief and slavery would be eternal. Not like this, not if you can help it, no.
"Take my hand," you reach out, the gesture almost casual, a strange pairing to the clay hand that bursts from the soil as you watch, hardening to stone in defiance of sense and geology.
It feels warm and calloused, not stone at all, maybe the hand of a farmer or a fisherman, maybe even an artisan.
The world around you responds to your inner turmoil, the chill of the wastes permeating the air, causing condensation to gather on your armored shoulders, as it almost starts to rain. And yet, embraced as you are by the touch of the world of your soul, you remember - your subjects are not weak. From the first time you met, they have been eager to test themselves against the challenge of the wider cosmos. To boldly stride forward. And with that reminder, you cast out your sight, mystic senses and that which in mortal tongues is called Intellectus combining to select the best possible emergency point.
Fully sensory snapshots pass before your mind's eye:
A sleepy village on stilts above a lake of red with swirling iron dust...
It has to be alive, you realize, alive as he knows it. The one you bear with you does not recognize the crystalline striders or the alien riders of the storm as akin.
....a trade post raised from mid-sized village to a town of thousands bounded by the circle of an extinct volcano. Scores of hanging lanterns shaded by the wings of sweeping pterosaurs shake to an oddly melodic din as wings uncounted take flight. This is where the shamans of the Deep Jungle so inclined commune with the sorcerer-technicians of the Seeker Cult, under the mediation of elemental powers. Close enough.
Inwards and through the fabric of spacetime bends and the wind flows through it, not cold, but warm and filled with the promise of alien smells. At the heart of a fortress Regina is already waiting, summoned by some call or premonition together with a company of her power-armored guard.
Molten metal, not steel, not even silver but gold shines half in the light of fading earthly day half by the light of the Ring of Fire and like an eye of gold its aperture five feet across floats in place, giving shape to indefinable transition.
"Hello me!" the voice you hear across is Regina. "I'm assuming from the feel of this that it's not an invasion, but what... who is it?"
"Former prisoner of the Red Court. I guess you could say he's looking for political asylum." As the presence of the once-bound god suffuses across the vampires, though some of them hardly look like vampires at all at this point start to follow across.
Carlos had already drawn his sword.
"Let them... just let them, we'll sort it out later, there's security on the other side." There are also a bunch of sorcerer-scholars who are going to need to be rehoused, but that's for later.
Connection Secured to Concord Carldera: Sorcerous Research facility in the Jungles of Sanctuary
What kind of Security do you want to enforce on the two sides of the gate?
[] Leave it to Regina, that is what she does best (Newborn Regent of Sanctuary)
[] Actually you have something pretty specific in mind
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: Not quite a perfect response, but you also didn't crash the gate into a sleepy fishing village or something which a low enough roll would have done. It worked on sympathy after all.
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Rolls
Aiming the Gate
Aiming the Gate
So, this whole situation brings up a lot of questions. @DragonParadox if you don't mind - If we make a god of Chicago and take them to Sanctuary, would this create a portal between Chicago and Sanctuary?
[X] Leave it to Regina, that is what she does best (Newborn Regent of Sanctuary)
Unless someone has some great specific plans, she is us that is specialized for this. We'll probably do an AP next turn reinforcing the location with exalted large scale craft.
Just checking - we are in shintai, correct? Does this account for -1 DC for using Sanctuary thematics? Also, this is 12 successes, correct? So, quite good actually.
[X] Leave it to Regina, that is what she does best (Newborn Regent of Sanctuary)
Unless someone has some great specific plans, she is us that is specialized for this. We'll probably do an AP next turn reinforcing the location with exalted large scale craft.
Yes it does and that was 12 successes so you did not get the perfect that would have been 15, but you also did not get to land on a sleepy village that would have been 5.
You already have vampire prisoners, this is just more of those and weirder. The plan is not to let them go free.
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… Oh my
That's the inner edge I'd estimate for his worship since cultural spread wouldn't necessarily stop at national borders. Maybe he doesn't have all of that, but a lot of it.
I bet giving him a splendor that triggers on people in his presence set to do awful things to reds would have interesting effects. If we were a meaner infernal I think we could organize something to murder any that do not surrender and feed Mallko (or Molly) their souls.
Because I have a vice for this:
This curious blessing takes the form of a coating of rich soil dusted across its master and their immediate possessions, as if they'd been working in some fertile field for hours. This sacred soil provides some basic ability to shape that which resonates with it, allowing its master to change the details of their immediate surroundings.
When a creature that feeds on mortals comes in contact with them or the dirt falling off their body it burrows in like the roots of an alien plant, spreading inside their body and rotting away what it touches into more soil.
If this kills the target then they fully decompose into rich fertilizer and their soul is drawn away to the earth that took them.
System:
Each time a creature who feeds mortals that comes into contact with the owner of this splendor or the dirt coating their form while in their immediate presence they are subject to the Hunger of the Earth, a murderous magical poison.
Each turn they must make a stamina roll against difficulty 9 or suffer a level of unsoakable lethal damage. This will continue until they die or manage to succeed three turns in a row. If they die while subject to this effect their souls will be drawn into the splendor.
To avoid this fate they must either flee the presence of the splendor's master, surrender to them, or endure the damage.
When a creature that feeds on mortals comes in contact with them or the dirt falling off their body it burrows in like the roots of an alien plant, spreading inside their body and rotting away what it touches into more soil.
If this kills the target then they fully decompose into rich fertilizer and their soul is drawn away to the earth that took them.
System:
Each time a creature who feeds mortals that comes into contact with the owner of this splendor or the dirt coating their form while in their immediate presence they are subject to the Hunger of the Earth, a murderous magical poison.
Each turn they must make a stamina roll against difficulty 9 or suffer a level of unsoakable lethal damage. This will continue until they die or manage to succeed three turns in a row. If they die while subject to this effect their souls will be drawn into the splendor.
To avoid this fate they must either flee the presence of the splendor's master, surrender to them, or endure the damage.
The trick here being that the land is the god and the god is the land. To keep things somewhat balanced I'm modeling this as literally the earth of that range while it's inside Mallko's borders. A vamp in a sky rise is fine, but if they touch the land itself (directly, blown by the wind, carried by an angry local ect) they get into trouble.
Basically making a regional addition to the sun weakness for vamps. Older ones will be able to deal with it one way or another, but the younger generations will have a serious problem. Which seriously affects their ability to use their mook spam techniques.
It just feels like a really flavorful way to screw with vampires all around.
Obviously stealing souls to feed our new divine friend is pretty screwed up, though it'd be useful for scaring off the sort that don't stay dead when you kill them, but we could do this with another root effect to curse them.
I distinctly recall those being the young vampires that the god took steps towards making not-exactly-vampires-anymore.
And if not, then we can just eat them. Still in shintai, after all.
It only 3 meters wide, just encase the entire portal in solid element 98, good luck getting thou 20 meters of solid radioactive material.