Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[Degorium]

[X] Plan: Sprint through
-[X] Try to take them alive
--[X] By Rage Recast no cost
--[X] Melee Excellency 1 Essence
--[X]Tiffany: Attack: Light 1 on thrall wizards
--[X]Olivia: Called shot to staff hand of Thrall Wizard 2
--[X]Wizards: As appropriate
---[X] Stunt: Signing, planting your hand in the water on the ground. You launch sprinting around the jets of boiling water and slam the flat of your blade into the head of one of them already set in your defense physical with shield readied and magical with essence twisting against the other.

While there's not an insignificant chance that the Excellency is unnecessary, dealing with this in as quickly a manner as possible with the least amount of fuckery available the better.

With the minus one difficulty counter spelling is just optimal if they try to attack us with a spell if they try to physically attack us whether they have enhancement that help with that or not having a melee Excellency up defends us.

 

[fictionfan]

Fighting Molly with water? Bold move, lads, let's see how well that turns out for you.

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We haven't gotten the immune to anything liquid charm yet so it's still a valid tactic.

 

[Anaja]

[X] Plan: Sprint through
-[X] Try to take them alive
--[X] Melee Excellency 1 Essence
---[X] Stunt: Signing, planting your hand in the water on the ground. You launch sprinting around the jets of boiling water and slam the flat of your blade into the head of one of them already set in your defense physical with shield readied and magical with essence twisting against the other.

Works well enough for me.

 

[BoredMan]

Can I PLEASE get a citation?

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This is the discourse we had back then. There you'll find that you did exactly as I said. Acting as if lack of evidence is somehow evidence to be used for whatever agenda your pushing.


Rashid has the incentive to look into incidents regarding the Red Court, even ones that don't involve the WC directly, though we don't know how much time Rashid actually has on his hands and the limits of his pre/postcog abilities were never indicated... but of course he has the time and or ability needed to do postcog or whatever else (which by the way we now know doesn't work well whenever Molly is involved anyway) on the incident to cause issues for us if we had killed BS after killing Arianna and "went against our word" as you saw it.



Rashid has all the incentive to check the most trusted and senior of the White Council for Outsider tampering and the like (as I said back then the spy/traitor issue is a known one) with his Outsider graded ability that originates from the false eye in his skull, and it would only take an hour or so a year to go over them... but of course he doesn't actually have the time and or ability to help them even in that meager but effective way, for an organization that he's a member of, concerning it's security directly, because we don't know how much time Rashid actually has on his hands and the limits of his false eye were never indicated.

Then you use the fact that he was worried about paradoxes or something during Molly's trial to say that he is incapable of doing what I'm suggesting during any of the senior council meetings. Even though we've no idea how that even works or when or where it applies to begin with.

---

We know fuckall about the constraints he's acting under.

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Yep. Therefore he can cause problems for us but not help his own people out even in such a meager way. A copout you use, to wield ignorance as if it were evidence and it makes your arguments indigestible.

 

[uju32]

Hunting the Damned​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

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COMMENTARY
What senior wizard is dead?
As far as I can recall, we still dont know what happened to LaFortier. And noone has asked, not even his colleagues
Seriously though, what happened to Aleron LaFortier?

I wanted Harry to go to Paris, but it looks like he's here.
Im going to need clarification on who went where.

Going to note that Ancient Mai is canonically rather young-looking for her age, according to Summer Knight

Spoiler: Summer Knight c5

My eyes flickered to the podium to the Merlin's left, where stood another of the Senior Council members, apparently the Ancient Mai. She was a tiny woman of Oriental extraction, her skin fine and pale, her granite-colored hair worn in a long braid curled up at the back of her head and held with a pair of jade combs. She had delicate features only lightly touched by the passage of years, though her dark eyes were rheumy. She unfolded a letter written upon parchment and addressed the Council in a creaky but firm voice. "From Summer, we received this answer. 'Queen Titania does not now, nor will she ever choose sides in the disputes of mortal and anthrophage. She bids both Council and Court alike to keep their war well away from the realms of Summer. She will remain neutral. »

So the question is: Was she just playing old here, or playing old there?
Either way, thats either Time or Life.


So Namshiel's looting artifacts. Or destroying them.
We might be able to repair damage;
Good thing we didnt ignore this; Divination that might work on an Exalt


@DragonParadox
QUESTIONS
1) Can I assume all 8x Sanctuary fire team members(5x Weavers, 3x Sorcerers) went with Lydia/Sophia?
2) Did Carlos go to Paris?
3) What of Morgan's backup team? Are they with Morgan, or did they go with McCoy?
4) Can you give us rolls for Tiffany's buffs on Olivia? Lore of Flesh 3 allows her to boost Mental and Physical Attributes, and she had the time to do so prior to this fight, and to heal any damage if necessary.
No reason I can see why Tiffany would not be rolling Intelligence 10, Perception 10, Stamina 10 before the fight starts; I just need to know what Olivia might be rolling so I can plan accordingly.

EDIT
It would be nice if she had buffed Molly's Stamina as well, but we can do without it if necessary

 

[Aria the Mage]

Bloom of Youth 3 links to the wrong thing.

 

[DragonParadox]

COMMENTARY
What senior wizard is dead?
As far as I can recall, we still dont know what happened to LaFortier. And noone has asked, not even his colleagues
Seriously though, what happened to Aleron LaFortier?

I wanted Harry to go to Paris, but it looks like he's here.
Im going to need clarification on who went where.

Going to note that Ancient Mai is canonically rather young-looking for her age, according to Summer Knight

Spoiler: Summer Knight c5

My eyes flickered to the podium to the Merlin's left, where stood another of the Senior Council members, apparently the Ancient Mai. She was a tiny woman of Oriental extraction, her skin fine and pale, her granite-colored hair worn in a long braid curled up at the back of her head and held with a pair of jade combs. She had delicate features only lightly touched by the passage of years, though her dark eyes were rheumy. She unfolded a letter written upon parchment and addressed the Council in a creaky but firm voice. "From Summer, we received this answer. 'Queen Titania does not now, nor will she ever choose sides in the disputes of mortal and anthrophage. She bids both Council and Court alike to keep their war well away from the realms of Summer. She will remain neutral. »

So the question is: Was she just playing old here, or playing old there?
Either way, thats either Time or Life.


So Namshiel's looting artifacts. Or destroying them.
We might be able to repair damage;
Good thing we didnt ignore this; Divination that might work on an Exalt


@DragonParadox
QUESTIONS
1) Can I assume all 8x Sanctuary fire team members(5x Weavers, 3x Sorcerers) went with Lydia/Sophia?
2) Did Carlos go to Paris?
3) What of Morgan's backup team? Are they with Morgan, or did they go with McCoy?
4) Can you give us rolls for Tiffany's buffs on Olivia? Lore of Flesh 3 allows her to boost Mental and Physical Attributes, and she had the time to do so prior to this fight, and to heal any damage if necessary.
No reason I can see why Tiffany would not be rolling Intelligence 10, Perception 10, Stamina 10 before the fight starts; I just need to know what Olivia might be rolling so I can plan accordingly.

EDIT
It would be nice if she had buffed Molly's Stamina as well, but we can do without it if necessary

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1. No, they ran off to Paris you to deal with Namshiel, that is what the vote was about, if you wanted to take those 10 minutes if takes you to make a gate (OOC it's a good thing you did not or the Fallen would be gone right now)
2. Carlos is with you as voted
3. As is Morgan and company
4. Will do

 

[BronzeTongue]

One senior wizard dead another missing, the Captain of the Wardens enchanted and hunting the Merlin... "Lydia, can you make your way to Paris?"

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Wait, who died? I thought one was linked to Peabody and the other was fighting in France.

Morgan and company were hunting elder vampires. When the balloon dropped and the traitors panicked they sold him out to his intended target, but they were not planning to do that previously since they had judged it too noticeable

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Not sure that's better. The reds got maybe an hour or two of warning and parked a significant amount of resources on top of them. Which implies everything was already there or could be acquired at a moment's notice.

Meanwhile the white council wasn't even able to tell if there was going to be a problem until after all of them were dead.

New help does not grow on trees.
It takes decades to train new wizards to basic competence. A century plus to get a mature one in the flower of his or her power and knowledge.The losses of Dead Beat are going to reverberate for decades to come.

They have actively recruited and trained a lot of kids as replacements, including uncomfortably young ones (the Trailman Twins were 16 when they died in canon); many if not most of the new recruits that brought the Wardens back from the 60+ survivors of Dead Beat to the almost 300 of Turn Coat were new kids. But those kids are still decades off growing into their power.

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The reason they don't have sorcerers or mortals helping them is entirely political. They work with allies like St. Giles and a few others so they know about the value of non-wizards in this environment.

If they can make it work with only wizards then they can go right ahead, but they self evidently can't. Even in the scope of what they do have the ability to handle I'm not seeing significant effort being put into bedrock infrastructure. The lack of communications has consistently been a lethal problem for them that has gone unaddressed.

A lot of the basic prep stuff falls into the category of things they should have invested in decades ago. Competent state level actors are held to this standard all the time, if they want to act like one then they have to meet it. Otherwise your country club with pretensions of sovereignty will get murdered. Like it is right now.

At minimum I'd expect the guys who exist to check black magic in the wild and among their own members to have put some thought into how they might deal with someone going bad. Especially since all of their leaders were in power when Kemmler became necromatic Jesus.

What they've done with the resources and knowledge they have has consistently been abysmal even setting aside not being prepared for something like this.

 

[DragonParadox]

Not sure that's better. The reds got maybe an hour or two of warning and parked a significant amount of resources on top of them. Which implies everything was already there or could be acquired at a moment's notice.

Meanwhile the white council wasn't even able to tell if there was going to be a problem until after all of them were dead.

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The Reds were on their home ground which means they had an easier time moving through the local Nevernever. Same thing would have happened if a Red strike team was caught by surprise somewhere in the British isles, parts of Europe and most of Asia.

Even with that happening all they managed to do was to make the wizards go to ground.

That said yeah, things did not work out that well for Morgan and company, that is what it looks like in the narrative when you roll low. McCoy rolled better, and he also at a base was harder to deal with so he was only slowed down an hour or so as he found another Way after dealing with the warlocks who ambushed him.

 

[DragonParadox]

Good night guys.

 

[BronzeTongue]

The Reds were on their home ground which means they had an easier time moving through the local Nevernever. Same thing would have happened if a Red strike team was caught by surprise somewhere in the British isles, parts of Europe and most of Asia.

Even with that happening all they managed to do was to make the wizards go to ground.

That said yeah, things did not work out that well for Morgan and company, that is what it looks like in the narrative when you roll low. McCoy rolled better, and he also at a base was harder to deal with so he was only slowed down an hour or so as he found another Way after dealing with the warlocks who ambushed him.

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The difficulty I have with envisioning this is the lack any hallmark of organizational logistics in the council's operations. I keep harping on communications, but it's an important one to get right.

The council's response to this crisis, even in the smallest ways, doesn't show any of the stuff you'd need to deal with something like that.

Suppose the reds did have a strike force in Wales. From how they reacted to this crisis it seems like the response would be to send some guys over there to deal with it, but actually finding anyone important who isn't sitting around to hear reports takes at least an hour.

Then they've got to make a plan and leave, but if they're out of shouting distance nobody has any idea what their status is. Hell, they can be in the same building and not be able to keep in contact. Would they even get there in time to do anything, or be able to perform an operation that required more than two concurrent activities?

When left to their own devices nobody seems trained to cooperate with each other and there are no fallbacks for dealing with disruptions in the chain of command. The Wardens knew that they had illusionists playing some sort of game and bad juju making the sight unusable, but were being dragged off into the halls to be killed by other wizards anyway despite pretend wizards assassins being what they were looking for.

Sometimes you get unlucky. Shit happens. But do you see what I mean about the bedrock issues here?

In this scenario you had the reds rapidly move resources, coordinate across groups, and cut the council's communications lines with pinpoint accuracy. They could have failed at those things, but they were coordinated enough to try it. The wizards to all appearances don't even have that level of collaboration as a standard operating procedure in the first place.

I'm probably getting too salty about this, but my point is not that they shouldn't have failed. It's that they're not failing in the way competent people fail.

The black council is the perfect example of this, for all my other issues with the power ups. Using the same resources they had some level of dynamic communications going and people actively trying stuff. Faced with an unprecedented crisis they hauled ass across continents and dimensions to kitbash a plan together that successfully accounted for most of their opponents.

With a little more time or a little more luck they could have actually achieved their goals around Molly's interference. Even in losing they've still done serious damage and may kill or capture functionally irreplaceable elder wizards.

 

[uju32]

Okay.

---

VOTE
[X]Plan Thrall Takedown
-[X] Try to take them alive
-[X]Tiffany: Attack: Light 1 on thrall wizards
-[X]Molly: Activate Aspects: Flight, Sword, Transcendent Anathema + Surprise Negator
-[X]Molly: Defend Action + Melee Excellency: Parry water attack with Dark Sun
-[X]Molly: Move Action: To/behind enemy wizards
-[X]Molly: Attack Action: Sword hilt to solar plexus of Thrall Wizard 1
-[X]Molly: Charms: Melee Excellency + ATB(if expired)
-[X]Olivia: Called shot to staff hand of Thrall Wizard 2
-[X]Wizards: As appropriate
-[X]STUNT: As Dark Sun parries both water lances, light, revealing and blinding at once, erupts from Tiffany's pointing finger, blossoming soundlessly in the face of your enthralled attackers as a single shot rings out. You lunge forward as they both flinch, aerosolized water settling on you arm as you drive your sword hilt into the solar plexus of one of your attackers. You make an involuntary face of disgust as your victim abruptly pukes over you, then you viciously shield check them into their fellow, driving both of them into the wall.


DICE ROLLS
Molly Defend: Dexterity 4 + Melee 5 + Excellency 9 + Stunt 2 = 20 dice at DC4(Dark Sun) and -1DC BSM. Multi-action penalty: -1 dice, +1DC,
Molly Attack: Dexterity 4 + Melee 5 + Excellency 9 + Stunt 2 = 20 dice at -1DC BSM. Multi-action penalty: -2 dice, +2DC

Tiffany Attack: Light 1: Stamina 10 + Science 4 at DC6
Olivia Attack: Dexterity ? + Firearms 4 at -1DC Graceful Merit


RATIONALE
Pre-game:
Tiffany buffs herself, especially her Stamina, so she can soak damage better, and use her primary attack properly.
Molly gets Stamina buff from Tiffany, so no need to activate VLE+ Steelskin yet.
And Olivia, but QM determines how much she gets.


Fight start. Molly pulls her shield, parries water attacks, gets wet, activates Excellency all in same action.
So Tiffany flashbangs the thralls to put them down; Stamina 10 + Science 4 for levels(not dice) of bashing damage, which they now both get to soak with stamina.

Spoiler: Lore of Light 1

LIGHT
This simple evocation allows a demon to fill an area with pale silvery light, akin to moonlight. The light seems to emanate from the area's surroundings, allowing individuals to move and act in the illuminated area without penalty. This evocation also has a more tactical application, permitting the demon to stun or disorient opponents with intense, blinding flashes.

System: Roll Stamina + Science, The evocation illuminates one cubic yard per success rolled, centered on the character. The light persists for a number of turns equal to the demon's Faith score.
When used tactically, the intense flashes of light can be focused in a single direction. Any individuals, friend or foe, who look in that direction at the time of the flash suffer a number of levels of bashing damage equal to the successes rolled. Flashes of light appear for only a turn.

Torment: Monstrous demons fill their surroundings with inky, suffocating darkness, affecting an area as above. They can move unhindered though this darkness. Other individuals within the area of effect are effectively blind.

Assuming 14 dice at DC6 averages 6 successes/Bashing Levels, and the thralls have 4 Bashing Soak from stamina and gear, thats -2HP for each attacker, which puts them in the -1 wound penalty zone.

Then Molly moves into them and punches one of them in the solar plexus with her sword hilt for bashing damage.
Her base speed at Dexterity 4 is 32 yards/second, so in one combat turn she can move 96 yards.
Comfortably enough to reach these guys. Unless they are running serious Better Body rotes, that one hit KOs whoever she hits.

Olivia shoots the other in the staff hand if they are still conscious, for a disarm.
Then the wizards get to act.

 

[TheGrape]

[X] uju32

 

[Goldfish]

[X] uju32

 

[firefrog600]

god we're getting so much shit done this arc ngl I've gotta say finally. Clear white council of traitors, trying to free thralls, fucked up an elder of the red court, sorta kinda revived a god and made a portal to our hell(I know there's controversy there), I'm fairly sure we're fucking up some outsider infected beings here and ruining at least several long term different plots here, hopefully fuck up a denarian. Given there's gonna be a lot of fallout here for the council, for our hell, and so on. Probably gonna see some red court reprisal next arc or maybe they'll wait after all the red court are immortal vampires they might take their damn time retaliating and risking themselves outside their place of power.

 

[TAMStudios]

[X]Plan Thrall Takedown

 

[Dmol8]

@BronzeTongue it's a combination of arrogance and being too ossified in their ways to actually use their means. Remember this attack targeted intentionally the leadership by first cutting their lines of communication to each other and then immediately firing a multi-prong attack to hit every important institution of the council.

It's not that they've not prepared, it's that their preparations were known due to infiltrators and sabotaged at the start of this fight.

 

[Yog]

I will dissent on this one:

[X] Leave them to Morgan, you have a Fallen to deal with

We need to conserve strength to deal with the Fallen, and I'd rather not have mortals nearby when we do - too much high speed high power combat expected for my tastes. So, ablate wizards to deal with wizards, and duel the Fallen with a(n Eschaton) Shintai.

 

[Artemis1992]

[X] Leave them to Morgan, you have a Fallen to deal with

 

[firefrog600]

isn't leaving them to morgan basically giving up on them?

 

[Yog]

isn't leaving them to morgan basically giving up on them?

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You know what? I wrote a long ass text defending my position, but I really can't defend it. The only argument I have is that this piles on stuff on Molly both short and long term, because it's almost guaranteed that she'll have to be the one doing rehabilitation.

[X]Plan Thrall Takedown

 

[Azais]

I will dissent on this one:

[X] Leave them to Morgan, you have a Fallen to deal with

We need to conserve strength to deal with the Fallen, and I'd rather not have mortals nearby when we do - too much high speed high power combat expected for my tastes. So, ablate wizards to deal with wizards, and duel the Fallen with a(n Eschaton) Shintai.

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isn't leaving them to morgan basically giving up on them?

Click to shrink...

You know what? I wrote a long ass text defending my position, but I really can't defend it. The only argument I have is that this piles on stuff on Molly both short and long term, because it's almost guaranteed that she'll have to be the one doing rehabilitation.

[X]Plan Thrall Takedown

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Yes, that's exactly why I didn't want to save the first ones, now in every damn fight there will be votes to save all the possible warlocks, which Molly will have to spend her already horribly distributed time on them or they will have their heads cut off and she will feel guilty and we will have people here called us of monsters (damn white knights of SV...).

I know it won't win but I have to at least try.

[X] Leave them to Morgan, you have a Fallen to deal with

 

[Ivar]

[X]Plan Thrall Takedown

 

[firefrog600]

You know what? I wrote a long ass text defending my position, but I really can't defend it. The only argument I have is that this piles on stuff on Molly both short and long term, because it's almost guaranteed that she'll have to be the one doing rehabilitation.

[X]Plan Thrall Takedown

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you know we have a fucking city dedicated to rehabilitation and other ventures right? This seems a job for you know trained professionals that we can just offload to someone else. Not everything needs to be just us other than the first transportation of said people.

 

[uju32]

You know what? I wrote a long ass text defending my position, but I really can't defend it. The only argument I have is that this piles on stuff on Molly both short and long term, because it's almost guaranteed that she'll have to be the one doing rehabilitation.

[X]Plan Thrall Takedown

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Like @firefrog600 said, we have people for that, and a world full of resources to draw on.
We also have 4x clones and 24 Clone AP.

Besides, when this happened in canon in Turn Coat, the White Council explicitly handled rehabilitation in-house.
Thats probably not going to change for anyone not in Molly's confidence.

Yes, that's exactly why I didn't want to save the first ones, now in every damn fight there will be votes to save all the possible warlocks, which Molly will have to spend her already horribly distributed time on them or they will have their heads cut off and she will feel guilty and we will have people here called us of monsters (damn white knights of SV...).

I know it won't win but I have to at least try.

[X] Leave them to Morgan, you have a Fallen to deal with

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For one thing, these arent warlocks, these are thralls.
These wizards have been mind-controlled, not misled,deluded or blackmailed.

For another, why wouldnt you want to? Saving thralls serves multiple purposes
1) It burnishes our IC reputation and puts people further in our debt, and wizards can live hundreds of years.
2) It leaves the White Council stronger, which saves us extra trouble in the future since we have to carry less of their weight
3) It preserves extra sources of intelligence for interrogation at the end of the incident, which means that Molly doesnt have to show her Crown as much to help the Council fill in the picture

4)It is in line with Molly's Intimacies.
If Michael was here, he would be trying to do the same thing, and What Would Michael Do is one of Molly's guiding principles.
Her other major Intimacy is Harry, and Harry would be trying to do the same thing.

4) It is also precisely the sort of thing that actually earns us extra XP at the end of the Arc.
I would not be surprised if the QM is actively tracking that as a category.
You dont get XP for easy shit.