Vote closed.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
- Location
- washington
Yay time to beat up an old man in his home!
Ivar
Dark Reaper
- Location
- Russia Moscow
Well, they are enough to deal with 99% of threats. That's more than cool. Yes, there are OCP, but where aren't they. Your argument just seems overblown because you're presenting a meteor strike as an insurance case when no one is insuring against them. Any other force besides the angels and Winter would probably get their asses kicked in the scenarios you're presenting.
I understand your warnings. But that's like saying that the Technocracy's regular resources are useless just because 3rd generation vampires and Cain exist. Yes, we may only have one equivalent in Molly, but some factions don't have many of those figures either and they're still alive.
Oh no, Butcher can say what he wants. It's his canon, I just don't think it makes sense. But I still want to understand the logic behind Odin's creation and stuff... Honestly, Molly is going to have to figure this out anyway. Because I feel like we're going to get baited or even literally broken by older parties if they think this is important lol. We promised not to look into the nature of a god. No one said the Outsiders couldn't do that.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
He'll be getting worse than beat up after Tiffany gets her hands on him.
- Location
- washington
You mean the nature of God right? Not the nature of a god cause I don't think the angels asked that of us. I doubt God directly created Odin so much as created the things that created the things that created Odin. But if your talking gods in general well who knows but a guess could be that God is as much the jade emperor or shit like the Mayan deity of heart of heaven and heart of earth. As he is the Christian idea also maybe he reused remnants of stuff pre earth to make shit to hole up realities glitches. In canon we have a wog they were meant to guide humanity so that's probably at least one part of things also maybe gods are what humans are able to see since gods clearly change appearances and personality based on mantles so who knows how they started.
The privileged role in WoD that Big G possessed seems to by dead guy with lots of fragments running about. It is alluded to in Hunter the Reckoning, Mage the Ascension and Demon the fallen that god has taken an indeterminate absence from creation and a seemingly infinite supply of reality altering soul fragments inhabit humanity and Lucifer while heavily diminished in strength still walks the earth having never been sealed in the Abyss.
Ivar
Dark Reaper
- Location
- Russia Moscow
Yes, I mean the nature of God with a capital letter who sometimes has no O in the middle. If anyone can know who he really is, it's the Neverborns. Or he's a really great creator who just let all this shit happen and we go into the arguments of the nature of evil and so on.
Either way, I have no doubt that this is one of the things we'll have to deal with sooner or later if we live to see the Wild's outer space battle arc.
- Location
- washington
Maybe part of the limiting power the more powerful things are in canon meant he made lesser and lesser gods to be able to affect reality. Given I don't necessarily think that's true simply because I think the stronger deities used to have more leeway. I also highly doubt any given mythology is strictly 100% correct seeing as lots of gods probably predate humanity and their knowledge or shit gets mangled over time.
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Arc 14 Post 21: Clearing the Air
Clearing the Air
18th of February 2007 A.D.
Before Shaw even realizes what's happening he's been lifted bodily and slammed against the table hard enough to knock him out cold. Or so at least you'd hoped. Cross eyed and bruised the warlock manages to cling to consciousness and spit through a mouth full of blood: Germinare spiritum!
The air turns the color of pond scum, it bubbles in your nostrils and sticks like tar on your teeth. A distraction you realize, not meant to kill, but to make make his foes wretchedly ill and easy pickings. But as they say the dose makes the poison, instead of trying to clean up this mess you push it further, feeding it your essence until enhanced metabolic processes are overwhelmed, reduced to chemistry, to fire.
"Nice try," you allow politely before you slam his head into the table again, careful not to snap his neck in the process and the sprinklers go off.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 9/18 (MHM)
You try not to dwell too hard on the fact that 'unconscious' counts as 'willing' as far as passing people into your domain is concerned... and then a thought comes to you.
"Cryrl, come here, we are going on a trip to deal with an imposter!" you call down to the poor guy. Surprisingly it works a treat, he even stands watch over you as you focus your mind on opening the way straight into decontamination and lock up.
Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 7/18
"Be careful he's... well I'm not sure what he is, but he's pretty good at sneaking and loyal to an enemy," you inform the medics even as you refocus your mind on the remembered sights and sounds of the Last Station.
"Understood Majesty!" Sometimes it feels like you'll never get used to people snapping to attention when they talk to you, but now's not the time to wonder at that. "What of this enemy? Shall we deal with him also or will you be taking him back Beyond?"
Huh... you hadn't considered that. The Amethyst Hand has over the years gained the loyalty of spirits able to scan unwilling minds with reasonable fidelity, but speed comes as a cost to the subject. It might be that in the process of extracting answers Shaw would lose all value as a credible witness to the actions of the Black Council. On the other side of things you could hand him over to Morgan and company who have their own ways of getting warlocks to talk, no doubt efficient ones and by the very nature of the Fourth and Fifth laws ones that do not damage the mind, but would they be fast enough. Already this had escalated from finding a spy to kidnapping a warlock in his own home. The enemy is likely to move with all the more urgency now.
What do you do?
[] Have the Amethyst Hand interrogate the prisoner
[] Bring the prisoner to the wardens
[] Write in
OOC: Shorter than I would have liked this is the natural break point. On the other hand you guys got to test out counter-magic and it worked great. Incidentally if you had failed that and the base DC 9 Stamina roll afterwards he would have spent the rounds in which Molly was sick to her stomach to heal and attack.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[x] Bring the prisoner to the wardens
We don't actually need his information. We just need authention.
We don't actually need his information. We just need authention.
[x] Bring the prisoner to the wardens
If we need info, we can just ASK.
We could ask now, to give their interrogators something to work with:
What is his biggest fear?(Maybe use the guy from the basement as a focus. We should check up on him later, anyway)
What does he value most?(Probably his focus. Could probably use his focus to ask)
Where does he hide info on his coconspirators?( we could use a picture of his house for that one)
Who of his coconspirators would he betray the easiest?
( maybe use this scene, where we contemplate who will interrogate him)
What is something a coconspirator would have on him?( to make it seem like he has been betrayed first)
If we need info, we can just ASK.
We could ask now, to give their interrogators something to work with:
What is his biggest fear?(Maybe use the guy from the basement as a focus. We should check up on him later, anyway)
What does he value most?(Probably his focus. Could probably use his focus to ask)
Where does he hide info on his coconspirators?( we could use a picture of his house for that one)
Who of his coconspirators would he betray the easiest?
( maybe use this scene, where we contemplate who will interrogate him)
What is something a coconspirator would have on him?( to make it seem like he has been betrayed first)
- Location
- washington
guys guys try if possible to get some essence regen in whatever way possible ask for a secret from someone, maybe get some bleach, we're running relatively low and its not like the traitors are gonna just let themselves be arrested.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I figure that we just leave it to Morgan and Tiffany. They know how to do this and we could use the time to recover essence. Of course we also listen in, in case they drop any essence recharging secrets.
We can just ask 2-3 questions to help,deliver him, recover in our soul,and be back shortly. Wait, how fast do we get essence in our soul again? I remember it being fast. They also certainly have poison to speed it up.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
The same 1 essence per 15 minutes that we do in last station which doesn't stack with being submerged in poison.
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- Location
- washington
or we could you know ask tiffany to tell us a magical secret for regen.
Ok, so I promised a more detailed rebuttal.
1) total number of active military personnel in the world is estimated to be ~ 27 million.
2) Total world population is estimated to be 7.9 billion people.
3) Assuming that, on average, Fivefold courts are five times more peaceful than Earth, and their population is ~ 5 billion, out total active military is ~ 3.4 million strong
4) Tooth to tail ratio increases with technological level. Magic should decrease the value because of its innate nature, but let's say that our guys are at 20:1. This gives us roughly 170 thousand combat troops to command.
Those are magical troops from an army with a long tradition of fighting other magical armies in the open with full integration of magic and industry, spirits, elemental dragons, and esoteric abilities. Now, how much is that? Let's say that one trained combat wizard is worth, on average, ten our soldiers. This means that we command a fighting force equivalent of ~ 17000 wardens. @uju32 previously indicated that the Wardens number ~ 300. So, our total military might can be estimated as ~ 60 times that of White Council. This is a lower boundary estimation. We likely have at least ten times as many veterans with lifetimes of experience of magical combat that we can muster as needed thanks to the nature of our kingdom granting infinite lifespans. We also certainly have a far more robust economy, and far better staying power in an active war.
By dedicating ~ 3% of our active troops to manning the portal fortress we would have the equivalent of the full White Council Military power roughly speaking, in a prepared magical fortress that is almost certainly as well protected as White Council Headquarters. Likely better. If we spend an AP next turn improving fortifications with large scale exalted craft, I would move that estimation to "as well fortified as Arctis Tor, likely better".
I am not buying the 'but 1%" argument. If Red King or a plausible alliance of Yama Kings or even a walker could solo the whole White Council (not senior council, full White Council Warden contingent) who were defending their headquarters without benefit of saboteurs or treachery, the White Council would already be a memory.
Note, that this is a lower boundary estimation. If we assume the same level of militarization as Earth, and the same tooth to tail ratio as modern USA army, then we are likely to wield ~600 times the military might of White Council. That's the active military, not counting any retirees or shifting the economy to war footing.
Putting the argument in a different way, this is the section where Dresden is introduced to Outer Gates:
Approximately 80 thousand Winter troops are defending at least approximately 1 kilometer long stretch of reality's border. These are Winter's mooks. This doesn't require Mab's intervention. This is an ongoing stable situation against Outsiders. Assumnig that our troops are as militarily effective (they are likely more effective, because technomagical advancement), and scaling to a 3 meter portal, we get an estimation of ~ 3000 troops required to successfully defend our equivalent of Outer Gates. Which actually agrees fairly well with my estimation above about dedicating a combat force equivalent to full White Council military might to the defense.
Also, incidentally, the portal is Outer Gates. It leads to different Outside, but Molly's soul is not Creation.
To summarize - the argument of "but 1% of players will just walk through our defenses to wreck havoc in the Courts" is wrong. They won't. We have too overwhelming of a military advantage, without involving hero units.
Same as Usurpation could break the Deliberative, Red King and the like would break upon our numbers and industrial might. White Council is right to be freaking out. Scale is a thing.
EDIT: Note, I am not saying we can roll over the setting. Out troops are not prepared or suited to operate in NeverNever - it's an OCP. Most factions have WMDs and superweapons. But defensively we should be more than ok. In the same we would suffer unfamiliarity maluses when trying to execute an offensive invasion of reality, we benefit from bonuses when defending our own realm.
1) total number of active military personnel in the world is estimated to be ~ 27 million.
2) Total world population is estimated to be 7.9 billion people.
3) Assuming that, on average, Fivefold courts are five times more peaceful than Earth, and their population is ~ 5 billion, out total active military is ~ 3.4 million strong
4) Tooth to tail ratio increases with technological level. Magic should decrease the value because of its innate nature, but let's say that our guys are at 20:1. This gives us roughly 170 thousand combat troops to command.
Those are magical troops from an army with a long tradition of fighting other magical armies in the open with full integration of magic and industry, spirits, elemental dragons, and esoteric abilities. Now, how much is that? Let's say that one trained combat wizard is worth, on average, ten our soldiers. This means that we command a fighting force equivalent of ~ 17000 wardens. @uju32 previously indicated that the Wardens number ~ 300. So, our total military might can be estimated as ~ 60 times that of White Council. This is a lower boundary estimation. We likely have at least ten times as many veterans with lifetimes of experience of magical combat that we can muster as needed thanks to the nature of our kingdom granting infinite lifespans. We also certainly have a far more robust economy, and far better staying power in an active war.
By dedicating ~ 3% of our active troops to manning the portal fortress we would have the equivalent of the full White Council Military power roughly speaking, in a prepared magical fortress that is almost certainly as well protected as White Council Headquarters. Likely better. If we spend an AP next turn improving fortifications with large scale exalted craft, I would move that estimation to "as well fortified as Arctis Tor, likely better".
I am not buying the 'but 1%" argument. If Red King or a plausible alliance of Yama Kings or even a walker could solo the whole White Council (not senior council, full White Council Warden contingent) who were defending their headquarters without benefit of saboteurs or treachery, the White Council would already be a memory.
Note, that this is a lower boundary estimation. If we assume the same level of militarization as Earth, and the same tooth to tail ratio as modern USA army, then we are likely to wield ~600 times the military might of White Council. That's the active military, not counting any retirees or shifting the economy to war footing.
Putting the argument in a different way, this is the section where Dresden is introduced to Outer Gates:
We stood atop a small, barren mountain, looking down. Near us, only a few hundred yards away, was an immense wall, the kind you'd use to hold out the Mongols if they were the size of King Kong. It was built entirely from ice or some kind of translucent crystal. Even from here, I could see that there were chambers and rooms in the wall, rooms containing barracks, hospitals, kitchens, you name it. There were dim and indistinct forms moving around in them.
The walls were lined with what had to be tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers. I peered, trying to get a better look, and then realized that they were armored Sidhe.
All of them.
They all wore armor similar to mine, its highlights throwing back the cool, muted shades of Winter.
Out beyond the wall was a land made of dust and mud and loose shale. It was covered in hillocks and steep gullies, and the only plants that grew there looked like they were certain to poke, scratch, or sting you. Though the land was somehow lit, the sky was as black as Cat Sith's conscience, without a single star or speck of light to be seen—and it was an overwhelming sky, enormous, like in the open, rolling lands of Montana and Wyoming.
There were more bodies of troops moving out there. Some of them looked like they might have been giants, or maybe trolls. Larger groups containing smaller individuals were likely Winter's gnomes. Things flew in the air. Bands of what appeared to be mounted cavalry rode back and forth. Some of the soldiers looked suspiciously like animated snowmen.
From this vantage point, I could see two major engagements happening, each containing maybe forty thousand Winter troops. And they were fighting. . . .
I couldn't make out the enemy. There didn't seem to be any unity of form. They were creatures—creatures whose physiologies made no sense, were utterly without order. I saw what appeared to be tentacles, enormous mandibles, claws, fangs, clublike limbs and tails. They weren't bipedal. They weren't quadrupeds. In fact, they seemed to have no regard for bilateral symmetry at all.
I peered a little closer and felt a sudden, horrible pressure inside my head. I felt dizzy for a second, nauseated, and at the same time part of me was screaming that I needed to ditch my escort and go look at these things for myself, that there was something there, something I wanted to see, something I wanted to stare at for a while. A cold, somehow greasy tendril of energy slithered around inside my head, something I had felt before when . . .
I jerked my eyes away with a short grunt of effort, closed them, and left them closed. "Holy . . . Outsiders? Mab's fighting Outsiders?"
Mother Summer said nothing.
"I don't . . . I don't understand," I said finally. "White Council intelligence always estimated Mab's troop count at around fifty thousand. There are freaking formations out there with more troops in them than that."
Mother Summer said nothing. But she did lift a finger and point off to the left. I looked, and saw a pair of towers the size of the Chrysler Building rising up over the wall. Between them was a pair of gates.
The gates were something amazing to look at. They were huge, bigger than most Chicago apartment buildings. They were made of a darker shade of the same ice or crystal, and there were designs and sigils carved into them, layer after layer after layer. I recognized a couple of the ones I could see clearly. They were wards, protective enchantments.
There was a sudden sound, a rising moan, like the wind shaking trees or surf striking a cliff wall—and the horizon outside the walls was suddenly lined with dark, grotesque figures, all of them charging forward, toward the Winter troops.
Faint horn calls sounded, clear and valiant. Winter's troops began to retreat back toward the gates, gathering into a great arch on the ground outside them, locking their formation into place while cavalry harassed the oncoming Outsiders, slowing their advance. Then the cavalry streaked from their engagement, passing safely through the lines of infantry to come riding back through the gates.
The Outsiders came on and crashed against the Winter lines. Battle ensued. From this far away, it just looked like a big, confusing mess, with everyone jostling for a better position, but I could see a few things. I saw an ogre go down when an Outsider spit acid that started eating through his eyes into his skull. I saw the Winter lines falter, and the Outsiders began pouring reinforcements into the weakness.
The walls were lined with what had to be tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers. I peered, trying to get a better look, and then realized that they were armored Sidhe.
All of them.
They all wore armor similar to mine, its highlights throwing back the cool, muted shades of Winter.
Out beyond the wall was a land made of dust and mud and loose shale. It was covered in hillocks and steep gullies, and the only plants that grew there looked like they were certain to poke, scratch, or sting you. Though the land was somehow lit, the sky was as black as Cat Sith's conscience, without a single star or speck of light to be seen—and it was an overwhelming sky, enormous, like in the open, rolling lands of Montana and Wyoming.
There were more bodies of troops moving out there. Some of them looked like they might have been giants, or maybe trolls. Larger groups containing smaller individuals were likely Winter's gnomes. Things flew in the air. Bands of what appeared to be mounted cavalry rode back and forth. Some of the soldiers looked suspiciously like animated snowmen.
From this vantage point, I could see two major engagements happening, each containing maybe forty thousand Winter troops. And they were fighting. . . .
I couldn't make out the enemy. There didn't seem to be any unity of form. They were creatures—creatures whose physiologies made no sense, were utterly without order. I saw what appeared to be tentacles, enormous mandibles, claws, fangs, clublike limbs and tails. They weren't bipedal. They weren't quadrupeds. In fact, they seemed to have no regard for bilateral symmetry at all.
I peered a little closer and felt a sudden, horrible pressure inside my head. I felt dizzy for a second, nauseated, and at the same time part of me was screaming that I needed to ditch my escort and go look at these things for myself, that there was something there, something I wanted to see, something I wanted to stare at for a while. A cold, somehow greasy tendril of energy slithered around inside my head, something I had felt before when . . .
I jerked my eyes away with a short grunt of effort, closed them, and left them closed. "Holy . . . Outsiders? Mab's fighting Outsiders?"
Mother Summer said nothing.
"I don't . . . I don't understand," I said finally. "White Council intelligence always estimated Mab's troop count at around fifty thousand. There are freaking formations out there with more troops in them than that."
Mother Summer said nothing. But she did lift a finger and point off to the left. I looked, and saw a pair of towers the size of the Chrysler Building rising up over the wall. Between them was a pair of gates.
The gates were something amazing to look at. They were huge, bigger than most Chicago apartment buildings. They were made of a darker shade of the same ice or crystal, and there were designs and sigils carved into them, layer after layer after layer. I recognized a couple of the ones I could see clearly. They were wards, protective enchantments.
There was a sudden sound, a rising moan, like the wind shaking trees or surf striking a cliff wall—and the horizon outside the walls was suddenly lined with dark, grotesque figures, all of them charging forward, toward the Winter troops.
Faint horn calls sounded, clear and valiant. Winter's troops began to retreat back toward the gates, gathering into a great arch on the ground outside them, locking their formation into place while cavalry harassed the oncoming Outsiders, slowing their advance. Then the cavalry streaked from their engagement, passing safely through the lines of infantry to come riding back through the gates.
The Outsiders came on and crashed against the Winter lines. Battle ensued. From this far away, it just looked like a big, confusing mess, with everyone jostling for a better position, but I could see a few things. I saw an ogre go down when an Outsider spit acid that started eating through his eyes into his skull. I saw the Winter lines falter, and the Outsiders began pouring reinforcements into the weakness.
Also, incidentally, the portal is Outer Gates. It leads to different Outside, but Molly's soul is not Creation.
To summarize - the argument of "but 1% of players will just walk through our defenses to wreck havoc in the Courts" is wrong. They won't. We have too overwhelming of a military advantage, without involving hero units.
Same as Usurpation could break the Deliberative, Red King and the like would break upon our numbers and industrial might. White Council is right to be freaking out. Scale is a thing.
EDIT: Note, I am not saying we can roll over the setting. Out troops are not prepared or suited to operate in NeverNever - it's an OCP. Most factions have WMDs and superweapons. But defensively we should be more than ok. In the same we would suffer unfamiliarity maluses when trying to execute an offensive invasion of reality, we benefit from bonuses when defending our own realm.
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And worst case scenario, we can probably change the gates' location to somewhere like the deep wastes.
- Location
- washington
You should probably up the military a bit on the justification that there's an entire martial focused city and warrior culture is a bit of a thing there. I mean not by a lot but considering people go to said city for military, martial practices, more violent sports than are allowed in real life, and there is a religious element for serving the future queen in said city as part of her soldiers. Not to mention the various warrior orders there for martial arts and magic and such.
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- Location
- washington
I wonder if there is a police/military/guard/warrior order divide in the brass court.