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
.
(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.