Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

so dp I know I've asked twice but there any chance we can get a military info page like I asked before last update on our hell? After the council stuff.

I'll see what I can do, I need to update the character sheets with info from the last level up first. Between the holiday and getting sick it's been rather hectic

Anyway good night guys, see you tomorrow as we deal with a warlock down under.
 
I'll see what I can do, I need to update the character sheets with info from the last level up first. Between the holiday and getting sick it's been rather hectic

Anyway good night guys, see you tomorrow as we deal with a warlock down under.
I mean we can wait a couple months its just would be useful and its been over a year since we got our hell so knowing more about our military resources would be nice. Like percentages for races in the military, population numbers, type of cybernetics, military weapons the big ones, transportation methods, percentage of magic users based on how many dots they have, military installations, super weapons, available resources like potions, and hero units way later. This can be done over months if we're being honest and even started after council stuff.
 
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Honestly trying to stat out the military capacity of an entire industrial world seems like tons of work for not much payoff. Even if we tried to cram military hardware through that 3 meter wide gate as fast as possible I don't think that we would even be really scratching the surface.

So maybe just stat our military capacity in terms of gate throughput?
 
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Honestly trying to stat out the military capacity of an entire industrial world seems like tons of work for not much payoff. Even if we tried to cram military hardware through that 3 meter wide gate as fast as possible I don't think that we would even be really scratching the surface.

So maybe just stat our military capacity in terms of gate throughput?
I never asked for stats I asked for percentages and capabilities. You know like how many of certain races, general abilities, spheres of magic available to parts of the military up to certain ranks. There's a very big difference it allows us to know what we can call on. Also what we can aim through the gate doesn't matter we could technically get the entire military out of it given like a year millions of soldiers even. But it's not like we would but it's still good to know what we have. We've had our hell for more than a real life year and we barely know what is available to us or even hero units.

It really only amounts to what percentage of the army is certain races
What spheres of magic are available to magic users in our army and at what level of those spheres do we have a certain percentage of the army
What is some general gear
Super weapons
General resources
Types of units.
Total population


No stats are needed here. Also why are people making this sound like a greater undertaking than a sword without a hilts armies? just upscale the numbers.
 
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I mean I'm basically asking for percentages and in fairness he basically did it in a sword without a hilt.
I enjoyed ASWaH, but I think some of the regular posters are still in therapy for what the spreadsheets did to them. :V

More seriously, that was the result of a lot of build up year over year with different bookkeeping elements getting handled by different people.

The most reasonable way to handle this is to handle the necessary elements as they become relevant. That way it doesn't generate huge amount of overhead or pin the quest down on a bunch of details set in a vacuum.

There's enough room in the scale of the FCF for us to do stuff like build task forces in ways that make sense for what we're doing at the moment without straining credulity. Doing that is dramatically less painful for everyone. Global force distributions and formats are bridges we can burn when we get to them.

Edit: error
 
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I enjoyed ASWoH, but I think some of the regular posters are still in therapy for what the spreadsheets did to them. :V

More seriously, that was the result of a lot of build up year over year with different bookkeeping elements getting handled by different people.

The most reasonable way to handle this is to handle the necessary elements as they become relevant. That way it doesn't generate huge amount of overhead or pin the quest down on a bunch of details set in a vacuum.

There's enough room in the scale of the FCF for us to do stuff like build task forces in ways that make sense for what we're doing at the moment without straining credulity. Doing that is dramatically less painful for everyone. Global force distributions and formats are bridges we can burn when we get to them.
I mean look he doesn't need to get into too much detail just some population numbers, what magics we can call on up to what spheres, whatever super weapons the military has, and the type of units that exist. Like if we're gonna have thousands at least in the inside portion we should know what we have to call on. The inside portion should at least have 10-20k soldiers guarding it like a military base.

Asides who doesn't want the thousandth and first hell of spreadsheets?
 
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Here is an idea. We give Molly a background called "Military force: God Queen of the 5 fold court"10 dots. Then whenever we want a military force we roll those dice to see if we have that force available adjusting the DC depending on how exotic, numerous and how quickly we are calling them up.

To give context say that the hypothetical supreme military dictator of the U.S. would have 5 dots in a similar background.

Seems a lot simpler.

Botch: For whatever reason our kingdom just doesn't have that capability and gaining that capacity will take some sort of effort.
Zero success: Our kingdom can do that in theory. We just don't have anything like that available right now, they are busy, sick or something.
1 success: we have such a force and they are ready to be deployed given a few hours notice.
2 Success: we have such a force and they are ready to be deployed as soon as we give the word.
3 Success: We have such a force and they are actually already on the earth side of the gate in anticipation of our need.
4 Success: We have such a force already on the earth side of the gate in anticipation of our need plus some extra things that we didn't think to ask for who have been training for this exact situation.
5 Successes: Just push this button here and watch the explosions we have everything set up. The artillery is in position and already sighted. The infiltration teams are in position already. The cyberdevils hacked in a backdoor here awhile ago.

Possible modifiers on DC
We used this exact force before -3DC
Force needs to blend in with human society +2 DC

Maybe I shouldn't be trying to make specific modifiers and success ratings off the top of my head on the phone. However this seems like the sort of roll where stunting is very helpful.
 
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[X] Best not to risk touching a poisoner, Mind Hand Manipulation to knock him out against the table

I mean, I doubt he has contact poison setup on his skin, but precautions don't harm us.
 
[X] Best not to risk touching a poisoner, Mind Hand Manipulation to knock him out against the table

I mean, I doubt he has contact poison setup on his skin, but precautions don't harm us.
Well it does cost an extra essence. When I am not sure how a poison is supposed to get us when we are hitting him with the hilt of our sword.
[X] Knock him out with the pummel of your sword

Also does MHM give him a chance to counterspell?
 
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I promised replies but its several days old, so spoilered not to bother people
We are currently at 3 to 4 ongoing simultaneous international conflicts / wars: Red Court, Kakuri/Wicked City, Denarians, Nemesis.
Not wars though.
We are just engaged in the feudal-era equivalent of proxy warfare, raid and counter-raid between unfriendly neighbors.
Nobody really wants an all-out war. Yet.



I feel you a) strongly underestimating our forces, and b) strongly overstating the importance of that 1% (actually much less) who might get through.

First, about underestimating:
1) We got into Wicked City via infiltration. This is a prepared hard point. A completely different setup. Very few, if any beings have perfect universal scene long defenses, which is basically what's needed here. Especially after we spend some AP reinforcing the entryway with exalted large scale craft

2) Our home field advantage is immense. In the same way our spirit binders are unfamiliar with earth-side spirit world, so too would the invaders be unfamiliar with the rules of our world. Just as quick examples:
2.1) no NenverNever. It's a material world, but there's no NeverNever access. Hell, potentially no hell access.
2.2) Comlletely alien spirits, spiritual landscape, overwhelming aura of hell, etc.
2.3) Lord of the Land and secondary effects. Wizards often work by calling g upon and manipulating outside forces, like Dresden gathering heat from an area around him. In Sanctuary this is probably going to be an opposed roll against Molly's something, because the energies of the world are essentially her bodily humors

3) Ours is not a mundane army hindered by Masquerade. II's an industrial magitech army the likes of which Earth has never seen, that enjoys intelligence advantage. They know (mostly) what might be coming - we (hopefully) briefed them in detail about threats. The attackers are coming in blind, and will keep coming in blind.
1) For one thing, the border of the Wicked City is defended and guarded against both invaders and escapees, as are almost all Hells. Dont underestimate what we did there.

For another, a prepared strongpoint held by minions. Very good minions, but still minions.
Our personal defenses do not apply to our Hell. Our minions do not get to rock any of the defenses that Molly does.
And Molly cannot be here 24/7.


2) Yama Kings have been murdered in their own Hells in canon by rivals.
Dresden opened a Way to the NeverNever in the middle of the Erlking's Realm in canon. Lea and McCoy both opened Ways in the middle of Chitchen Itza in the face of the Red King and his Lords.

Someone actually tried to come to conclusions with Mab herself in front of Arctis Tor last year.
Home field advantage is a Big Deal, dont get me wrong, but it doesnt provide the sort of coverage against the one percenters that you appear to think. Especially while that portal remains open.


3) We get magitech weapons and magic, and troops in the know.
But there's nothing particularly evident about their ability to deal with non-conventional attack vectors.
Like a Rampire/spirit with 19 dice of intimidation that doesnt actually botch for once :V.
(still loling at that btw)

If someone drops half a dozen deathstone-infused mistfiends on that portal, the defenders would have the same issues that the Senior Council of the wizards had when Peabody dropped one in the middle of Edinburgh.

If they ran into Sharkface, he'd shut them down the same way he shut down Thomas.
If someone throws uberghouls at them, they'll be tar-pitted until/unless they can physically block them off.
Or until Molly herself shows up.

Molly's ability to survive and ignore shit does not make her minions capable of handling that tier of threat.
Even her clones explicitly cant permakill shit; they cant use MiM last I checked.


Now, the second part, about overestimating the "1%" significance:
1) Most of those who could plausibly breach and get past the defensive lines, are those tied to a faction. If, for example, Emma-O tries to attack us personally, he risks his rivals attacking him while he's occupied in Sanctuary. Remember - travel time is not instantaneous for most parties in Dresden Files. Travel takes hours, some times days if we go with deep NeverNever.

The same issue applies to Red Court specifically - whilelords of outer night are attacking Sanctuary, they are not protecting their bases against Molly or White Council, and at least Molly has mobility superiority.

2) Denarians might not be allowed to come into our realms. Swords of the Cross generally operate on rules comparable to those that govern Denarians in regards to where they can go and how they can operate. The Swords aren't allowed to enter our realm. I expect coins aren't allowed either, unless we bring them in ourselves. Remember, Sanctuary is, very literally, our soul. Denarians cannot take entirely unwilling hosts, you can put down the coin. Forcefully taking a coin into someone's soul is very likely breaking the rules. Not to mention that, as a celestial exalt, our soul is immune from possession and would likely reject the coin vrom inside it automatically.

3) Nemesis can only operate through hosts. Yes, it can boost them, but that breaks its cover, which is a Los condition for it.
1) The Yama King Yen-Lo, First of the Fallen was killed by an alliance of Emma-O and Rangda invading his Hell.
Yama Kings are actually able to cooperate in the face of sufficient threat. Do actually prosecute invasions beyond their Hells. And greater akuma exist in numbers, as do greater servitors. Do not count on the cupidity of YKs to sideline them.

Furthermore, plenty of nominally unaligned actors. Puck, for example, is a Leanansidhe-tier free actor in the Dresdenverse. There's lesser dragons about that we've never seen. There's a Freeholding Lord in Ukraine that sounds like a Lunar.
There's shit like the Bigfoot tribes keeping a low profile, and wherever the uberghouls come from.


2)Im pretty certain Denarians can enter our realms just fine.
The mortal freewill loophole applies, so their Hosts can walk in and raise metaphorical and literal Hell, just like one or more of them did in Arctis Tor last year.

And while we can hold or kill the hosts, we cant hold the Coins, so they can simply abandon host and leave.


3) Nemesis/He Who Walks Beside is a Walker who we have only seen operate through hosts.
He is not the only Great Walker we have seen in the Dresden Files.
And none of the others have needed hosts.

We saw He Who Walks Behind when Justin DuMorne summoned and sent him after Harry in a Ghost Story flashback.
He didnt need a human host. We saw him again when he returned to Earth in Blood Rites due to a botched black magic ritual; he didnt need a body there either.

We saw Sharkface/He Who Walks Before in Cold Days when he came after Harry at McAnally's bar; he didnt need a human host there. And later we see him attacking Demonreach in the same book.
Didnt need a human body there either.


I think you're dramatically overstating how easy it is to make new high level vamps for them. The Lords of the Outer Night do hold political office, but there's not a huge bench of equally powerful guys even they can pull in second stringers to take the role if needed.

They are the senior council equivalent of the reds, hundreds of years of experience and god blood makes them what they are, a juice box of ichor alone isn't going to make some idiot their peer. Each one is a significant material loss.

The examples you used involved people taking on really awful consequences to get power quick, and even the younger of them had years to decades of effort put into molding him.

In terms of raiding strikes; that is a concern, but the world is Molly's soul and she has an anti-shaping defense. I'm sure some nasty stuff can be done, but quick and dirty curses targeted at us are much less likely to be able to stick.

This is not to say I think we have it easy here and are at no risk. I've argued against that idea myself multiple times. The top of the setting can be a serious threat to us and this may well end in disaster.

What I disagree with is the idea that the reds can pull this nonsense arbitrarily. If they had an endless bench of senior council tier guys the war would be going very differently. They can make deals**, but they've been at war for a while and they don't have an infinite war chest.

The top 1% of the setting aren't going to jump into hell for cheap, and they'd almost never do it without a damn good idea of what they're getting into. You don't get to say Drakul's age by taking unnecessary risks, and even for him this would be risky.

They could very well bottle us up and ruin our agenda or become patsies for someone who wants to take a shot at us, but you're acting like the red court's ultimate victory is inevitable.

** Frankly they're not the only ones either. If they bring the black court then we can bring the jade, to name one example.
Ramps arent wizards. Learning and experience appears to be useful, but only an adjunct to how they grow in power.
Bianca St Claire couldnt make new Reds until she was formally invested with power to do so by home base; thats why Ortega was there at the party.

They arent Blacks, mind, who can turn a noob Blampire into a Master Blampire in less than a year with sufficient kills, but they arent Whites either.


We have seen Duke Skavis get a Chimestry 9 upgrade himself.
And Im pretty sure that the late unlamented Dragon of Las Vegas didnt get to Vicissitude 9 on his own, which is literally Methuselah-tier power on a not-Methuselah tier vampire.

Its not going to be free or cheap, and the new candidate is going to have strings on him and debts that will need to be paid off, but a faction with imprisoned gods they are tapping like beer kegs and the resources of an entire continent to play with can absolutely try for that sort of thing.

There's canon precedent, not just in Dead Beat's Darkhallow, but also in the ritual in Welcome To The Jungle the hag was trying to use.

Not that I think they have to. Kukulkan, the Red King is four thousand years old in canon, which gives a time frame for how long they have been kicking around. The Red Court has a lot of old vampires in South America; its a deep bench to draw on.
Not a bottomless one, mind, but a deep bench. Lots of gerontocracies in the Dresdenverse


Furthermore, just go give you one option on the table. Take a feral Rampire, the blood slaves(esclavos de sangre) that we saw at Chitchen Itza,. Summon a couple lesser Walkers like the one we killed at the Raith Deeps, or the one that Vito Malvora canonically carries, cut a deal and invest them, and throw them at the portal right behind a dozen mistfiends. They're not Lords of Outer Night, more disposable weapons. But thats a non-trivial threat.


In a conventional war against conventional attackers, even conventional supernatural attackers, I'd be right there with you in betting on Sanctuary's ability to hold a 3-metre wide portal against all comers.
But it isnt a conventional war, and the one percenters have access to nonconventional attackers.

Which is why my new priority is throwing as much effort at closing that thing ASAP.


POSTSCRIPT
Our antishaping defense is scenelong.

It wont stop something trying to feed on us, for example. It wont stop something trying to directly deal damage to us, or to cripple us. It wont stop someone trying to infect us with a spiritual/supernatural disease. It wont stop someone trying to poison us. It certainly wont stop an attack on the population in Sanctuary.

There's a significant range of attack vectors on an immobile section of real estate thats supposed to be part of our biology.


POSTSCRIPT 2
Worth remembering we dont have any relationship with the Jades, just a single Jade elder.
If anything, the Reds are the ones actually likely to bring some Jades; we have been told that they have been courting the Thrashing Dragons for a while now.


Creap and Creak​
18th of February 2007 A.D.
Rolls
Navigating the pipes
Perception Awareness vs Cyril Dex Stealth
Getting him to not move
Dex+Stealth vs Shaw Perception Awareness
A tie would mean you roll initiative, but there is just no way he can beat Molly's so you go first
COMMENTARY
Gonna note that taking away a wizard's foci will not completely disarm them, but will make them much less of a combat threat.
So Molly is incentivized to take away the chain.
And his clothes, leaving him in his underwear. Give him a vanilla bathrobe instead so that

I wonder whats under Sydney thats extending into Botany Bay. Might be worth exploring in our copious free time.
Either way, figuring out that there's something there, extending into Botany Bay in the first place probably counts as a supernatural secret for Essence regen.

Chained slaves in the basement are a classic.
Hilariously, I dont think that actually breaks any of the Laws, assuming he didnt use magic to do it :V
But I bet he did.

We have Clippy recording as well while we walk through the basement.
Maybe the wizards(or Lash, or Bob, for that matter) can tell us something about what we're looking at in the basement of Shaw's house, because I doubt that its wholesome to see script in layers of saprophytes


Cyril rolled 8 dice on Dex + Stealth; that makes him Dexterity 3-5, Stealth 3-5.
He's a mortal. An emaciated mortal chained in the basement.
Something about that boy aint right.



========
VOTE
[X] Best not to risk touching a poisoner, Mind Hand Manipulation to knock him out against the table


No reason not to use MHM here. And no incentive to cut corners and take unnecessary risks.
1m to activate MHM, 1m for Occult Excellency, and one-hit KO this dude before he can act or do anything.
Then step over to Sanctuary with our prisoner, using TK to carry him.

Then strip his over clothes and foci, leaving him in underwear, just in case he has anything on him he can use.
Bag the clothes and other effects separately.
Then move him without touching him to Last Station.

Then return and grab Cyril separately as well.
He might be worth interrogating as well, and its probably not worth leaving him here.


Well it does cost an extra essence. When I am not sure how a poison is supposed to get us when we are hitting him with the hilt of our sword.
[X] Knock him out with the pummel of your sword

Also does MHM give him a chance to counterspell?
Contact poisons are a thing, as are contact spells, and we know very little about this guy's paradigm besides his knowledge of alchemy and other types of crafting. Better not to touch him at all, if we can avoid it. Knock him out, move him, strip him of clothes and effects, put him in a cotton bathrobe and his effects separately for the Council dudes to examine.

MHM is reflexive. And we are acting first.
 
@DragonParadox
Doesnt the thing under Sydney count as a supernatural secret for Essence regen?
Given as we werent warned about it I assume its not particularly widely known?
+2m Essence, I think.
 
I mean look he doesn't need to get into too much detail just some population numbers, what magics we can call on up to what spheres, whatever super weapons the military has, and the type of units that exist. Like if we're gonna have thousands at least in the inside portion we should know what we have to call on. The inside portion should at least have 10-20k soldiers guarding it like a military base.

Asides who doesn't want the thousandth and first hell of spreadsheets?
That still requires inventing all that stuff, and thereafter if we think of something that makes more sense being unable to use it easily.


Here is an idea. We give Molly a background called "Military force: God Queen of the 5 fold court"10 dots. Then whenever we want a military force we roll those dice to see if we have that force available adjusting the DC depending on how exotic, numerous and how quickly we are calling them up.
This isn't the sort of thing that should be rolled in my opinion. Not by default anyway.
 
Ramps arent wizards. Learning and experience appears to be useful, but only an adjunct to how they grow in power.
Bianca St Claire couldnt make new Reds until she was formally invested with power to do so by home base; thats why Ortega was there at the party.

They arent Blacks, mind, who can turn a noob Blampire into a Master Blampire in less than a year with sufficient kills, but they arent Whites either.
I strongly disagree with the concept that they just have untold numbers of ancient tier vampires kicking around. The guys at the top couldn't remain in control the way they do unless there's a power limiter better than base food. Generation limits like WoD vamps, infighting, artificial pruning of their children to avoid competition, stuff like that.

The red court doesn't do the stuff you're suggesting in canon or act like they have a functionally endless supply of high level elders. Which strongly suggests they don't and can't just make them. The circumstances where the outsiders just came in and did this sort of thing are always unusual. A vampire duke giving everything to a desperate lesser walker doesn't suggest anyone can or will give the same boosts to a fledge without them exploding or something.

The reds have always had ultimate coercive power over their underlings. If they could just do stuff like that they wouldn't have worked with the necromancers in the first place.

You're acting like the reds have hundreds or thousands of Methuselahs which on its face is ridiculous.

For the FCF this is a conventional conflict; they're a mixed supernatural power like the DF might one day be after several global wars and political reformations. If we can't win this narrow a defensive conflict against powers abroad on earth then Sanctuary is freely exploitable by essentially everyone.

Not that we can stomp all over the rest of the world, but nobody who matters would lose a fight like this to ghouls with AKs or something.
 
For another, a prepared strongpoint held by minions. Very good minions, but still minions.
Our personal defenses do not apply to our Hell. Our minions do not get to rock any of the defenses that Molly does.
And Molly cannot be here 24/7.
I'll reply in more detail later, but you are again underestimating our forces to a ridiculous degree. A reminder - this is the path of civilization. We can reasonably expect at least a thousand gurvel in power armor and each of them at path of civilization 3 on guard duty. We can reasonably expect each of them to be boosted with Path of Fortune 2 (Outcome Altering Subrutines) and wielding weapons that inflict aggravated damage and can hit immaterial beings. Elemental dragons, spirits lesser and greater will also be present, as would heavy machine spirit controlled weapons, including guided missiles, suicide drones and such, all immune to techbane. The chokepoint is 3 meters in diameter.

Our armies have experience of fighting large scale magical wars that only Winter might have equivalent of, and even that's unlikely. We cannot easily deploy them to Earth and roll over other factions, but at the home front with a prepared strongpoint I fully expect us to kick in anyone's teeth barring a Fallen saying "screw it" and operating alone and completely in the open.

Hell, even Outsiders would be very hesitant to come in, because there's an argument to be made that large percentage of our population count as Starborn, as their souls are likely from Age of Legends, or might be, and that can only be disproven via testing.
 
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I'll reply in more detail later, but you are again underestimating our forces to a ridiculous degree. A reminder - this is the path of civilization. We can reasonably expect at least a thousand gurvel in power armor and each of them at path of civilization 3 on guard duty. We can reasonably expect each of them to be boosted with Path of Fortune 2 (Outcome Altering Subrutines) and wielding weapons that inflict aggravated damage and can hit immaterial beings. Elemental dragons, spirits lesser and greater will also be present, as would heavy machine spirit controlled weapons, including guided missiles, suicide drones and such, all immune to techbane. The chokepoint is 3 meters in diameter.

Our armies have experience of fighting large scale magical wars that only Winter might have equivalent of, and even that's unlikely. We cannot easily deploy them to Earth and roll over other factions, but at the home front with a prepared strongpoint I fully expect us to kick in anyone's teeth barring a Fallen saying "screw it" and operating alone and completely in the open.

Hell, even Outsiders would be very hesitant to come in, because there's an argument to be made that large percentage of our population count as Starborn, as their souls are likely from Age of Legends, or might be, and that can only be disproven via testing.

We're also likely to have things like pre-sighted tube artillery firing very large calibre enchanted shells.

Heavy artillery doing aggravated damage is likely to ruin anyone's day.

And if they're immune/shielded from that, there's also likely to be things like alchemical poison gas, exotic energy attacks, and other higher end weapons designed to kill nasty spirits.

A bigger problem may actually be enemies not dying when they're killed, and instead being reincarnated by the Wheel and becoming legitimate parts or Molly's mythos, meaning we want to kill them on the Earth-side of the portal.
 
I'll reply in more detail later, but you are again underestimating our forces to a ridiculous degree. A reminder - this is the path of civilization. We can reasonably expect at least a thousand gurvel in power armor and each of them at path of civilization 3 on guard duty. We can reasonably expect each of them to be boosted with Path of Fortune 2 (Outcome Altering Subrutines) and wielding weapons that inflict aggravated damage and can hit immaterial beings. Elemental dragons, spirits lesser and greater will also be present, as would heavy machine spirit controlled weapons, including guided missiles, suicide drones and such, all immune to techbane. The chokepoint is 3 meters in diameter.

Our armies have experience of fighting large scale magical wars that only Winter might have equivalent of, and even that's unlikely. We cannot easily deploy them to Earth and roll over other factions, but at the home front with a prepared strongpoint I fully expect us to kick in anyone's teeth barring a Fallen saying "screw it" and operating alone and completely in the open.

Hell, even Outsiders would be very hesitant to come in, because there's an argument to be made that large percentage of our population count as Starborn, as their souls are likely from Age of Legends, or might be, and that can only be disproven via testing.
I am pretty sure they still take damage from stuff, just massively reduced. So enough
 
I strongly disagree with the concept that they just have untold numbers of ancient tier vampires kicking around. The guys at the top couldn't remain in control the way they do unless there's a power limiter better than base food. Generation limits like WoD vamps, infighting, artificial pruning of their children to avoid competition, stuff like that.

The red court doesn't do the stuff you're suggesting in canon or act like they have a functionally endless supply of high level elders. Which strongly suggests they don't and can't just make them. The circumstances where the outsiders just came in and did this sort of thing are always unusual. A vampire duke giving everything to a desperate lesser walker doesn't suggest anyone can or will give the same boosts to a fledge without them exploding or something.

The reds have always had ultimate coercive power over their underlings. If they could just do stuff like that they wouldn't have worked with the necromancers in the first place.

You're acting like the reds have hundreds or thousands of Methuselahs which on its face is ridiculous.

For the FCF this is a conventional conflict; they're a mixed supernatural power like the DF might one day be after several global wars and political reformations. If we can't win this narrow a defensive conflict against powers abroad on earth then Sanctuary is freely exploitable by essentially everyone.

Not that we can stomp all over the rest of the world, but nobody who matters would lose a fight like this to ghouls with AKs or something.
They dont have untold numbers of ancients.
They dont even have untold numbers of commoners; they can make them fast and easy, but they are not limitless, if only because they must be fed, and there's a limit to how many vampires they can support at a time.


However.
They do have a significant number of multi-century old elders who can be promoted/upgraded into roles in the nobility.
Not unlimited numbers, but enough that they appear to be loss-insensitive in canon. Even at pretty high levels.



Despite almost never leaving home, Dresden alone was personally involved in killing at least 3x Barons in the Chicago/Midwest area alone: Baroness Bianca St Claire in Grave Peril, Baron Bravosa in War Cry, and Baroness LeBlanc in Love Hurts.
That didnt even materially affected their combat power.

We also know of the deaths of two Dukes(by Morgan and McCoy) and two Counts(McCoy) and that didnt affect their conduct of the war either. Hell, Luccio explicitly complains about swarm tactics in Dead Beat, though she never specifies about power levels.


The very fact that Arianna Ortega was able to pose a sufficiently legitimate threat to her father's rule that he conspired to have her assassinated by Dresden, and the fact that no one thought removing the Red King and elevating a Lord in his place would be crippling in a time of war speaks to the fact that the Red Court does appear to have a deep enough bench to sustain those kinds of changes.

Whether its an existing pool of elders, or an ability to empower new candidates to the power level of elders.


The Red Court nobility is made up of Barons, Counts, Dukes and Lords.

It is canon that the Eebs stated that nobility and the power thereof is conferred; they said this in Changes, and explicitly mntion that politics is the determining factor.

It is a major plot point that Bianca St Claire went from a commoner Rampire of pedigree running a vampire business in the middle of Chicago to a Baron of her own local court between Storm Front and Grave Peril.

Storm Front was March 2000. Grave Peril was October 2001. Approximately 19 months.




=====
Now the following section, specifically is speculation on my part.

But I remember me that kuejin can get enlightenment/increase in Dharma from consuming yugen chi from hsien. And that there is a Saint of the Godbody Soul Treatment from Thousand Hells, where the Yama Kings use synthetic yugen from a human boddhisattva to give a power boost to their akuma.

And then I look at the fact that the Red Court here have been keeping gods captive for centuries instead of murdering them all one Halloween and eliminating the threat of their escaping.
And I notice how similar it is.
 
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I'll reply in more detail later, but you are again underestimating our forces to a ridiculous degree. A reminder - this is the path of civilization. We can reasonably expect at least a thousand gurvel in power armor and each of them at path of civilization 3 on guard duty. We can reasonably expect each of them to be boosted with Path of Fortune 2 (Outcome Altering Subrutines) and wielding weapons that inflict aggravated damage and can hit immaterial beings. Elemental dragons, spirits lesser and greater will also be present, as would heavy machine spirit controlled weapons, including guided missiles, suicide drones and such, all immune to techbane. The chokepoint is 3 meters in diameter.

Our armies have experience of fighting large scale magical wars that only Winter might have equivalent of, and even that's unlikely. We cannot easily deploy them to Earth and roll over other factions, but at the home front with a prepared strongpoint I fully expect us to kick in anyone's teeth barring a Fallen saying "screw it" and operating alone and completely in the open.

Hell, even Outsiders would be very hesitant to come in, because there's an argument to be made that large percentage of our population count as Starborn, as their souls are likely from Age of Legends, or might be, and that can only be disproven via testing.
As I see it?
The Senior Council has access to all this and more, in firepower mundane and exotic, yet when Peabody threw a mistwraith at them, it took the assembled Senior Council to bind and banish it. Not kill it, banish it.

I expect the exact same thing would happen if someone threw a couple of the same thing at the portal; that sort of threat is Molly business, not minion business.


We're likely to beat (almost) any conventional supernatural force in open-field conflict. That plays to our strengths.
But for all their puissance, the armed forces of Sanctuary dont really have a defence against, say, an Outsider mental attack locking down a battlefield, the way Malvora did in White Night.

Or even to just supernatural levels of Intimidate; remember the Dragon of Las Vegas?
••••• •••• The Last Dracul

The most fearsome of the Tzimisce's monstrous forms, this power allows the Dragons to assume the shape from which their ancient nickname is derived.

System: By expending six blood points, the Tzimisce grows in size and girth, its flesh sloughs off reveal gleaming scales, wings sprout from its back, and its head becomes crocodilian. Its Strength and Stamina doubles, its scaly hide becomes the equivalent of 4 Armor, it gains five additional "Bruised" health levels, and difficulties to hit it are decreased by one because of its huge size. Its enormous wings function in the same way as the Chiropteran Marauder's. The dragon uses Strength with the Intimidation Ability and its mere presence triggers an Intimidation check each turn; this is a free action that happens automatically unless the Tzimisce deliberately suppresses it. While in dragon form, the vampire's blood immediately bursts into flame when exposed to open air, doing damage as described for Blood of the Earth. Those who manage to damage the dragon must take a dodge action to avoid being splashed with one blood point's worth of dragon's blood; those who have never fought a dragon before will not likely know to save actions for this eventuality. Even worse for its opponents, the dragon can spit any amount of its blood at its foes as a one-round action, even splitting blood points up among closely clustered opponents. This fiery vitae does damage as described for Blood of the Earth. The dragon cannot consume blood in the normal fashion due to its size, but can supplement its diet by consuming fresh human corpses. Consuming a corpse requires an entire turn's action and grants the Tzimisce blood points equal to however many blood points remain in the corpse's veins.
If the motherfucker hadnt botched and the QM cut us a break, all our forces would have been rolling that Intimidation check every turn.


And the idea that our population counts as Starborn seems patently ridiculous to me.
Nevermind the fact that Outsiders have never been hesitant to fight Starborn in canon; no Outsider thats ever run into Dresden has ever hesitated about getting into a fight.

You are vastly overestimating the capability of our force against nonconventional threat vectors.
Conventional, sure. Even uberghouls can be physically stalled, because while they regenerate Agg damage in combat time, they still need to attack you in melee.

But unfortunately, physical threat is not the only threat there is.
Which is why we wanted our Hell sealed off in the first place.
And why this is such a threat.


Thats my two cents.Take it as you will.
 
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@DragonParadox Errors.
"have stopped. Being. Funny."
Capitalization.
You wipe your face with a mailed fist, even as your opponents pupils dilate to the size of marbles."Bored now. Time to end."
Apostrophe for possession on "opponents".
The newly chilled air air fractures
The chant is in places in English in places, mostly in Spanish,
Comer! Comer! Mikuy! Mikuy"
Missing exclamation point.
"Idiot child, do you think the wizards will thank you.
Question mark needed.
the crops an water supply of tens of thousands, but you can move tens of thousands if need be, feed them and shelter then
it's not a question, but s statement acressed to the now steaming ground as the vampires comtinue along their transformations.



Of Sky and Earth
Carlos punches a rock to focus Morgan grips his sword so tight you could swear you hear his fingers creak as the illusionist staggers back almost a though from a physical blow.
Need a comma after focus.
Zadock the blood-shrouded sinks slowly to hie knees and starts to babble.



At the Gate of Gold
You almost turn away. .
Missing a dot for the three dots.
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
Need period at the end.
village to to a town of thousands bounded by the circle of an extinct volcano.
"Hello me!" the voice you hear across if Regina.
"Former prisoner of the Red Court. I guess you could say he'd 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.
Also need a comma after "point".
There are also a bunch of sorcerer-scholars who are going to need to be rehoused, but that's for later
Missing period at the end.
 
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