Most wizards are not talented enough for that, their spheres and arete just top up, mechanically they can no longer spend XP to get more. The rare few who both are that talented and that psychotic... destroy cities unless they are stopped.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Most wizards are not talented enough for that, their spheres and arete just top up, mechanically they can no longer spend XP to get more. The rare few who both are that talented and that psychotic... destroy cities unless they are stopped.
Notice I didn't say they don't grow on strength at all I said not at an appreciable rate. A very least not for this Quest the granularity of the minor increases of strength they get from training is measured in centuries. Dresden he may be started when he started when he was a child at stronger than most of the Wizards of the white Council and he's a grown man now and he's maybe one mechanical Arete higher.
No amount of training allows them to grow in strength in an appreciable time frame. The Merlin and Ebenezer are powerful wizards they are multiple Century Dresden senior and they are essentially three mechanical Pips ahead of him.
No they wouldn't because every major wizard Talent OR Warlock we've ever fought that has been in a place that did some crazy shit has been in a place that would be a Chantry (Hidden Halls, Dragon's Den) or literally a horizon realm (Hollow man) where they would suffer no Paradox anyway. I get that's not what you mean but it is literally the truth so take of that what you will.
None of which is applying new laws of reality Sandra had very specific Outsider Investments That granted her an ability to use some of their shit the same with the hollow man same with Peabody so what are you saying they're not enforcing a new law of reality even the replication of splenders isn't enforcing a new all reality it's copying someone else's enforcement of old laws not even making their own usage of the old laws copying.
You do realize shooting heat beams or flinging werewolves the buildings is it a thing that Mages can do at Arete 3 (Forces 3) you aren't describing a new phenomenon you're describing the technocrats because they were also magic and they could also do those things in public without suffering Paradox.
If we're talking narrative role then Dresden is literally the only wizard who matters. In Dresden Files we see that Dresden is a capable ward master, Force mage, thamaturgist and necromancer. If that's the bar a wizard has to clear then he's the only one who's ever going to fucking clear it on top of being stronger than 90% of wizards.
Hell even in Dresden files proper we are told he is stronger than some of the members of the senior Council so unless you're just expecting there to be Mages that are both capable of Enlightenment stronger than Dresden will be taught by him capable of learnings ancient sorcery from us and capable of studying the book of laws and then copying it you are not really saying anything.
So again what are you talking about if they aren't as strong as Dresden then they literally aren't capable of doing most Mage crazy things ( no Spheres above 3 or 4) Period do not pass go do not collect $200 and we know very explicitly from both source and this Quest that the vast majority of wizards are weaker than he is.
Everything we see every other warlock including Sandra she very specifically didn't have a wizard magic investment she had a actual old style Mage investment of a non paradoxical power that isn't the hollow man or Peabody are completely with in line of what warlocks in Dresden Files were capable of or that we see them doing.
This is before we get into the fact that The Binding of Ethnui and the Dark Hollow are at minimum Spirit 5 effects that Wizards in Dresden Files came up with that Dresden does on the spot when he's fighting her.
You are inventing limitations where the Canon doesn't agree with you time travel is just a thing Wizards in Dresden files can just straight up do. Dresden resurrects himself from Death using Magic.
What possible limits are you talking about for wizards from Dresden Files I'm sorry to say they are fucking bullshit even if none of them really reach the Heights and expanses a wizard from Mage can.
Because Horizon realms are just a thing we know from either word of God or in Dresden Files Canon that old Wizards just have Horizons realms. They are capable of binding literal deific Titans to their will they are capable of binding ancient demons to their will they are capable of outright time travel they are capable of launching icbms from space out of random satellite debris they are capable of infiltrating the minds of hundreds of people at once they are capable of so many things that are just exactly in line with Mage what limitations could you possibly be talking about.
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- Location
- Brazil
[X] Gun Running: Coordinate giving Saint Giles some real backing in a mix of material transfers and operational support. For example:
-[X] High explosives and similar materials
-[X] Medical equipment
-[X] Export grade weapons of the types they already have samples of.
-[X] Permission to flee into our territory
-[X] Sutra cyber attack squads stealing everything they can get their hands on from the red court and funneling it their way.
[X] Mallko's Munchies: Build the Rich Earth's Hunger Splendor and give it to Mallko to make existing in his territory dangerous for vampires.
-[X] V1: soul devouring original flavor
-[X] V2: luck devouring politically palatable flavor
-[X] High explosives and similar materials
-[X] Medical equipment
-[X] Export grade weapons of the types they already have samples of.
-[X] Permission to flee into our territory
-[X] Sutra cyber attack squads stealing everything they can get their hands on from the red court and funneling it their way.
[X] Mallko's Munchies: Build the Rich Earth's Hunger Splendor and give it to Mallko to make existing in his territory dangerous for vampires.
-[X] V1: soul devouring original flavor
-[X] V2: luck devouring politically palatable flavor
Vote closed. Now lets see about Evil Bob.
Arc 15 Post 10: Of Ghosts and Gods
New
Of Ghosts and Gods
26st of February 2007 A.D.
Two weeks ago or just about Sophia had informed you that anti-Bob had been running around Government servers with an undead antenna before someone or something pulled him out when he tried to tango with IRIS. In the meantime you had eliminated one plot and thwarted another, if one is to count Thorned Namshiel and thankfully the Library of Congress had also been working overtime exorcising the remains, literally they had called in a Catholic priest to make sure the spirit stayed out, and figure out how the, potentially literal, hell it got in there as well as what it was doing. The former question unfortunately hit a dead end, thankfully not the kind that involved dead diviners, but their analysts had a lot more luck piecing together a motive from the files they had on hand. A very grave sounding agent 'Leo' who is probably going to need all the courage of his namesake explains that the files they extracted painted a picture of Monoc's involvement in black market arms trade, connection to various 'unfriendly powers' and even the illegal antiquity trade.
'The entity', as he puts it, had been attempting to get Gard tangled in a murder at the ward line as a means of tracing Mococ's extracton procedures. The Library assumes it was attempting to provoke a reaction from one of the company's other patrons abroad, theorizing that the NSAs were not the only systems breached, but instead part of a wider attempt to manufacture an international incident.
"Hypothetically if that was what he was attempting what's the worst case scenario?"
"Monoc gets painted as a Russain of Chinese asses that insinuated itself into contracts with DoD that gave it access to secret briefings and plans. If this ends up in Senate Comitees. It's not just that there are still people on the Homeland Security Comitee who shouldn't know about magic there's a senior figure who's a... believing man."
"And Donar Vadderung is Odin," you interupt, bluntly. "Which is I imagine a good part of the reason why it's not a good idea to poke the bear, but that would be hard to explain and harder to prove."
"Were there any other people in those files, ones not involved with Monoc?"
"Some seemingly not involved, but that would be just us not having all the pieces. We do not at this time believe that the information was meant to be used outside the US informational space, we are treating this as an attempt at damaging an important magical asset while also entangling the gouvernment in a ghost hunt at a time when we should be paying attention to what's going on in Latin America or even just in Vegas. Bloody leeches. Sorry ma'm."
"And the vampire, any idea how that got in there?"
You can hear the grimace on the other side of the phone. "Contractors, didn't remember a thing about the corpse, when we tracked them down. It was a very neat job, nothing short of a wizard's Sight was able to percieve the traces."
What do you do?
[] Ask to see the servess yourself
[] Go look at the contractors
[] Ask a Crown Question with Iris as the focus, she was the one to chase anti-Bob all the way out of the system
[] Write in
OOC: Sorry this is so late, elections are tomorrow and I'm distracted. Once this is over things should be back to some semblance of normal one way or another. Rolls hidden for now.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
It was said earlier that the Library of Congress kept the body for Molly to use later as a Crown focus.
Can we use that instead of burning IRIS as a focus?
Yeah, they still have that.
Good night guys, see you tomorrow.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
So there could be more systems infiltrated by EvilBob? Also can't help but notice that the Library didn't say anything about Molly having access to government systems, which is the only way we could've found Evil Bob.
Sweet. What we should figure out is what his plans are, how he got and stayed there undetected, where he is now, who else is involved (someone pulled EvilBob out when IRIS found him) and what other locations are compromised if any. So far the Library has a theory as to what their plans were though nothing concrete.
The corpse piece is a Crown foci and so should the servers be, so we should ask two questions then go from there.
[X] Plan: Ghostbusters
-[X] Ask to meet with the Library as discussed earlier, near the infiltrated servers with the corpse piece in hand. If not viable due to travel time, water travel to another agreed upon retrieval spot then head to the server room
--[X] Crown question- Focus Corpse: What are the plans of the those that benefited from this corpse being used to infiltrate government systems
--[X] Crown Question- Focus Servers: What other locations have been infiltrated by the party responsible for the compromising of these severs
After that we should get several leads, some info on plans and a list of similarly compromised places to hand over along with at least one more Crown foci to get Evil Bob's location from. If anyone thinks the questions should be worded a different way I'm open to suggestions.
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Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Parliamentary elections after you just had the favorite to the Presidential elections paper couped? And the vote recount is supposed to end on this same Sunday?
Bummer man. Take your time. Today is going to be hell in Romania.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[X] Plan: Ghostbusters
I don't understand the point of this line of discussion.
The problem as I see it is that the scope creep of wizards has given them more power than they were set up to have in a way that the more powerful half of the cross is not designed to support. It doesn't make sense from a lore standpoint and in the cases where it does come up there are numerous mechanical problems as the basic assumption on the constraints a mage operates under don't apply.
Only some people being able to do it doesn't actually mean anything to either parts of this.
From a lore perspective they're doing things in a way that doesn't fit their story, and as you pointed out the story focuses on the people who will actually present a problem in this fashion.
A paradox free archmage is so broken even White Wolf doesn't allow that to happen unless you've left reality behind first and there are at least ten of them active in the quest right now.
A mechanical flaw is not important if it's not encountered, but this whole arc has been a series of encounters in which the limits of wizards are critically important but not meaningfully set on the characters actually engaging with us.
A very simple example of this is the matter sphere.
DF wizards very specifically cannot make new matter, not really. One of the first things the books talk about when introducing the spirit world is to comment on how any mortal magic which appears to add or take away mass is actually partially shifting stuff to and from the nevernever. Ectoplasm can be made to act like real matter for a time, but fundamentally isn't the same thing.
A matter 5 WoD mage on the other hand can just make entirely novel substances out of nothing with their own custom properties as a standard power.
This is what I meant by the difference between strength and scope from earlier.
A Dresden Files wizard could become so strong they can build a mountain with their mind, but they can't make real stone any more than you can flap your arms to fly if you exercise enough.
When trying to kill each other the difference is probably academic, but the details matter when we start doing esoteric and exotic stuff.
On the stuff with training times and growth rate, I again have to say I don't understand the point.
Suppose we were talking about plumbing instead for a moment. If I was making the claim that some pipes had burst and were flooding the basement utility room would you focus on all the pipes that aren't spraying water on the floor?
Mages don't do this either they turn Prime energy into matter which is essentially energy to matter Transfiguration that's in every Edition. It's why creating Fireballs from nothing requires Prime. Which in Dresden Files term is turning pure magic into physical matter which I don't know if they can or can't but it's still not creating something for nothing.
Mage the ascension very specifically goes out of its way too essentially make the claim that prime or quintessence is the only real thing every other solid, liquid, gas, energy, Spirit, Soul is just quintessence pretending to be something else for a Time and you can break all of those things to get quintessence so take it however you will.
As for the matter five effects that is partially covered by what I said and also partially just true they can create novel materials there is slight evidence to the idea that Wizards created Mordite by moving outside and collecting essence of anti life and then congealing it into a physical material considering the materials sensitivity to concentrated Will, the Archives on the spot shaping of the material with magic the lacing of the material into other beings by Wizards using Magic and so on but that's a complete supposition.
I do have to insist that that isn't true Dresden which certainly pretty decent starting point for this analysis is stronger than some of the senior Council as far as raw grunt goes the vast majority of wizards are just incapable of the thing you just said no amount of growth would ever allow them to reach that point because Wizards aren't actually immortal. Dresden would be lucky if he lives long enough to get to the point of doing that.
You are putting the mechanical truth of the modeling of wizards as the story truth of the Wizards when in actuality. There is no amount of growth the vast majority of wizards could undergo to even possibly get to the point where they are capable of the feats that you were saying Wizards will be capable or even insinuating Wizards will be capable of, this is before we get into the extra special conditions that go into it.
You are making the statement that using the template of Mages increases the flexibility of wizards when inherently this isn't true the vast majority of wizards will never ever pass sphere three effects never mind four or five. The training times are in addition to these obvious internal boundaries.
Yes you're making the claim that the pipes have burst and are flooding the apartment when someone just laid down an electric cable. Dresden for all intents and purposes is still a completely unique entity you are saying that the basement is flooding when an electrical cable was added to the floor plan.
You are making the claim that Dresden Files Wizards are overriding reality when Dragon Paradox and the story so far goes out of its way at pretty much every level to suggest that ancient sorcery is the only real law everything else is a reboot of a reboot of a reboot this latest reboot done by the white God.
You're making the claim that they have more flexibility more power more everything than what they have in Canon when this is just not the case. Dragon Paradox is gone out of their way to only have wizards that are either outright warlocks or people who are cleared by the white Council have time effects there is no one with life sphere effects that we've seen so far the only character with Mind Sphere is actually ever seen applied internally to themselves is Arthur.
They've done a lot of story management to go along with modeling management to reinforce the paradigm that is pushed by Dresden Files Canon while not stripping them of the fact that Wizards are supposed to be able to study the magic of other people. The reason I'm kind of focused on the nuts and bolts is because inherently you can't rely on the system to do all of the work Dragon Paradox has at least in my opinion done a lot to keep that through line with life magic being rare with mind magic being rare with the time magic being rare.
In an extended Arc where we were fighting warlocks we only saw time effects from two Arch Mages one of which was a partner of the Angel and the black staff of the white Council. The only life effect adjacent thing that we even saw was Tiffany trapping Peabody in his own bones.
Dragon Paradox has given a lot of story reasons to address your point but I'm focused on the mechanics. The mechanical reality is that 99% of wizards aren't capable of thing you're saying they are capable of and of the 1% of wizards that are need to be trained by us personally and even then it's still not a guarantee you are at least from my perspective considerably overstating the issue.
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The update may be delayed until tomorrow because I am very distracted by elections, sorry guys 
The update may be delayed until tomorrow because I am very distracted by elections, sorry guys
Given the level of things happening from what I know, it is more important that you take care of yourself than anything else.
Before anyone worries too much, we aren't exactly going to usher in a bunch of goose stepping fuckers into power. It's more like that happened in France 1/3 split, only in our case it's
- The 'left' is a post communist kleptocracy at 25% (with another 5% genuine left progressive party).
- The center right split between a slightly softer kleptocracy and genuine reformers pretty much down the middle .
- The lunatic fringe split in three ways themselves: the ones who hated vaccines/the ones who hate Jews/the Orthodox mystics who have entirely lost the plot of reality. The former have had their lists infiltrated by the HappyFunKleptoctrats in position 1.
There is a reason I find it so easy to write corruption and political intrigue
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Vote closed.
Arc 15 Post 11: That Bone Might Whisper
New
That Bone Might Whisper
26st of February 2007 A.D.
"Do you still have the body?" you ask quietly. "I think I can get something out of it."
"It's... inanimate," the agent sounds off carefully. Well duh, you don't keep a Black Court vampire around even a fledgling, certainly not one that has the eye of something worse. I wonder if they think I'm some kind of necromancer? you think caught between amusement and concerned. Aloud you say: "That's alright, I don't even need all of it."
"We'll send a package."
That is how you end up meeting a very serious looking lady in an unmarked car in back in a Wendy's parking lot not two hours later. She hands you a phone with Leo on the other side. Part of you is disappointment that you didn't use a code words or something, but this does makes more sense. Still it's a little surreal that package in question comes wrapped in brown paper, a human leg bone cleaned of flesh during some kind of autopsy or maybe a dissection. It wasn't exactly human when the Library got to it after all, though you do hope they gave the rest of this poor person a proper burial.
For effect you close your eyes, feigning a light trance. "What are the plans of the those that benefited from this corpse being used to infiltrate government system"
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 17/18
Blue is the ocean and blue and white the ship upon it, save for the towers and the cranes and nets that sift though sands like fingers, seeking a treasure brighter and older than the stars above:"To deny the Father of Victories the prize the Kingfisher seeks in in icy northern waters, to claim it in their turn."
There's no need to feign the start as you wake from your trance. What did you find Old Man, what do you seek? And why do They know you seek it?
The agent who had delivered the bone, they must have flown it in you realize, holds on the the air of cool professionalism that the Library seems to hand out with the white socks pressed pants and polished shoes. "Pass on any information you may have by the usual channels, it is best that we do not spread certain information around."
"Thank you agent..." you trail off realizing you did not have her name. It kind of feels like when someone hands you a human bone you should be on at least a first name basis.
"Hale." She doesn't agree
Either way you part with a smile and turn back to the phone, asking for access to the server this time. Unfortunately this is where things get complicated.
"The servers were situated in Fort George Mead in Marryland at NSA headquarters, physical access to them requires security clearance that you do not posess Ms Carpenter." He stops for a moment to think than explains his boss will call you back.
That is when you get back to Von Trier who is a good bit less tentative about the whole thing. "I can either make up a paper trail that says you are some sort of young computational expert... ah, programmer, still don't like that word, or I can just tell you where the servers are. If you take the latter option I cannot guarantee extraction, but I do not imagine that will be much of a problem."
On the one hand you appreciate the trust, on the other hand you're not sure how much of it you can reciprocate, how much to tell them about Monoc's interest in 'antiquities'? Do I trust the Library not just with magic but with old magic? For all they sometimes do things their own way to keep politicians from overturning the proverbial apple cart they still answer to the government.
How do you visit the NSA?
[] Go openly
[] Sneak in
How much do you tell Von Trier of what you learned
[] Nothing, obfuscate (Manipulation Subterfuge, Opposed)
[] Tell them their guess was wrong, the entity wasn't trying to cause a diplomatic incident, it was wroking against Monoc Securities who are themselves seeking an ancient magical treasure. Where poking Gard comes in you are not yet sure
[] Write in
OOC: No rolls for this one yet.
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