Remove ads

Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Reader mode
Yog said:
She is talking about dropping out of everything, basically, to do this, and focusing exclusively on her combat abilities. That's not healthy, or very good long term. Unless we are expecting to deal with Red Court in the next several months or so, this is a large long term commitment. I am ready to reduce my plan as needed, but I am against just letting her do this without some discussion with her and offering alternatives.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...She has the 'Higher Purpose' merit and the 'Obsession: Vengeful' flaw.

And yes, her powers are pretty much ideal for and centered around espionage and combat.

The idea she'd just go to college and make YouTube videos and volunteer at hospitals seems a bit naive. I get where you're coming from, but I think this isn't as rash or surprising as you seem to think it is. It's not just that her abilities are good for this, it's that when people have abilities like that which they know can make a huge difference it's hard to ignore that.

Imagine you're telling someone who had magically gained the abilities of a top flight doctor and surgeon - and who had friends or relatives die to lack of competent medical care - to just ignore that and go into a career in advertising or something less stressful because you think a medical career is too taxing for them.
 
Last edited:
Yog said:
She is talking about dropping out of everything, basically, to do this, and focusing exclusively on her combat abilities. That's not healthy, or very good long term. Unless we are expecting to deal with Red Court in the next several months or so, this is a large long term commitment. I am ready to reduce my plan as needed, but I am against just letting her do this without some discussion with her and offering alternatives.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think the only thing that needs to be discussed is the timing of the task and that's it. Olivia is perfectly reasonable to drop out of college. You don't need college when you have a skill of 5, frankly. For what, a useless piece of paper and a mountain of debt? As for alternatives, again, she can do that later. The key is rotation, not trying to force her to stop when we don't plan to. You'd be better off telling her to talk to Molly's parents than trying to preach to her.
 
[X] Plan Therapy

I'm always down for being more than a beat stick. Not to mention she has a focus on performance (Dance I think) as her reason for going to college dropping out dooms her career before it begins nevermind making the debt she is in for nothing.

All of this together with the fact the war with the Reds is occurring on the Tactical level for the most part which she does not need to drop out to participate in. The Fellowship is a near afterthought to our personal power and that is before the presence of our forces and Sutra, the most useful thing they can do is give us info and we don't need a full-time liason for that.
 
[X] Agree with Olivia's idea that she should liaise with the Fellowship in efforts to fight the Red Court,the first of a new kind of agent, taking advantage of your ability to awaken the Po

I don't care about olivia. She isn't a real person, its more intresting if she hunts vampire for us.

Like she was promised a giga sniper, can't think of a single thing she has sniped.

She should be our mailed fist, sniping vampire lords in a snigle shot. They should dread to exist in the open for the fear of her.

Whats the point of her character if is in collge being boring.
 
Ok, let me make a shorter, less verbose plan.

[X] Argue against it, she can do more good helping set up organizations like the Order of the Cauldron, getting minor talents the information and connections they need to stay safe

[X] Plan Therapy

[X] Plan Therapy 2.0
-[X] Empathy excellency
-[X] Argue against it, she can do other things to help
--[X} Use her performance talents to influence the masses. Use Dracula the novel and practices of White Court as examples.
--[X] Help set up organizations like the Order of the Cauldron, getting minor talents the information and connections they need to stay safe
---[X] Use her mana manipulation to set up protections and blessings for minor practitioners and mortals.
--[X] Fight, but without dropping out of her life
-[X] STUNT: "there are plenty of sorcerers in Sanctuary who can do this stuff?" - you repeat, quirking a brow: "Ancient Luk, and your sniper academy instructors would like to remind you that I have whole legions ready to make war in my name too".
--[X] "You are very good with a gun, yes. You are so much more. Let me pull up an evaluation by the supervisor of your construction section" you say, taking out a Sanctuary datapad, Clippy already having put relevant report on the screen. "Here, see? Brilliant, comparable with the best the guilds are capable of providing, highly encouraged to take further formal eduction".
---[X] "And I saw you perform, you know. Bram Stocker broke Black Council with a book. You, on stage, and through a million screens can usher a new Age".

drake_azathoth said:
...She has the 'Higher Purpose' merit and the 'Obsession: Vengeful' flaw.

And yes, her powers are pretty much ideal for and centered around espionage and combat.

The idea she'd just go to college and make YouTube videos and volunteer at hospitals seems a bit naive. I get where you're coming from, but I think this isn't as rash or surprising as you seem to think it is. It's not just that her abilities are good for this, it's that when people have abilities like that which they know can make a huge difference it's hard to ignore that.

Imagine you're telling someone who had magically gained the abilities of a top flight doctor and surgeon to just ignore that and go into a career in advertising because medicine is very stressful.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She is very good at combat, yes. But Obsession: Vengeful is a flaw for a reason. I see no need to encourage it. Ideally, she'll be doing all three types of stuff synergetically. Set up safe houses for Order of Cauldron and St. Giles Fellowship, gain fame to be used later / to apply soft power to Red Court, and fight on the frontlines.
Ivar said:
I think the only thing that needs to be discussed is the timing of the task and that's it. Olivia is perfectly reasonable to drop out of college. You don't need college when you have a skill of 5, frankly. For what, a useless piece of paper and a mountain of debt? As for alternatives, again, she can do that later. The key is rotation, not trying to force her to stop when we don't plan to. You'd be better off telling her to talk to Molly's parents than trying to preach to her.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think dropping out of college is a bit of red herring, really. College by itself is not really important - Olivia is socially connected enough that it doesn't matter. One call from us to Lara and she could get an audition basically for any role at any place. We have our own studio. Etc. It's the "I am good at fighting, and it doesn't matter that I am good at other things too" that I find problematic. Olivia brings it up herself:
DragonParadox said:
That's why I wanted to help set up the gate, it's a chance to help, but there are plenty of sorcerers in Sanctuary who can do this stuff. I am a very, very good shot."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This part here specifically. She is working herself up. She acknowledges that "Yes, I am good at using my powers constructively" only to immediately dismiss it with "there are others who are good at it too". Which is blatantly false. It's easier for Molly to use a gurvel fireteam in place of Olivia than it is to use an enginseer team in her place. Because Order of Cauldron members and other similar folk will not accept cybernetic mushrooms erecting wards around their house, and, unlike the targets of the gurvel fireteam, we can't just bulldoze past them.

I object and worry about her trying to devalue her skills except for the gun ones.

She can drop out of college whenever, we can pay her debts easily. That's not an issue. The other parts are.
 
Last edited:
As a reminder for prayer eating, if you aren't an infernal with a soul world then it's extremely localized and time consuming to use.

The 1st dot is just to hear prayers, and only works on genuinely heartfelt worshippers within 5 miles X essence level. Considering the conversion from Jade rank to essence level for charm use here she'd need the equivalent of 2 dharma ranks per dot of essence rating.

The 2nd only evaluates your worshipers and is mostly useless to her.

The 3rd dot allows answering prayers, but assuming her current conversion of essence for hell weaving holds she'll need to spend 2 chi to make a roll against the gauntlet and it still has the range of hear prayer because you have to be answering the active invocation of a worshipper.

The 4th dot is what gives her the ability to get energy out of it, but it requires an hour long ritual with 10 people per desired point of essence and spending 1 temp will to make the roll to collect it.

Everyone must buy all the dots in order, and assuming she had celestial exalt privilege here that's still 3x dot rating on each charm*.

There are very few conditions where this makes any sense to do for her even if we got over all the other reasons this is a bad idea.

ExWoD even explicitly states that the powers suck and are there for flavor.

The only reason they're better for Molly is because of her soul-world tricks letting her cheat the range requirements under certain circumstances.

* We're effectively talking 30 exp and building a very OOC cult so that she can have a ritual she can barely use.

Yog said:
When we built her, I was specifically asked to shy away from maximum min-maxing, and I also put in Performance 5 in her stats then. Since then, Mana Manipulation and the invisibility rituals allowed her to expand her repertoire.

I can remove therapy from the list of suggestions, if that's critical, though she is seeing more combat than Harry or Murphy do (and Murphy might actually be obligated to go to therapy after certain events), and from a perspective of a soldier at the end of a gun.

I am not asking her to step back. I am asking her not to drop everything in her life in favor of this. She can be more. She is more. If we wanted just a gun, we could damn well have built a golem or something. This is youthful maximalism at its worst, aided by plethora of trauma. I am against encouraging it. She wants to help? Sure, she could and should help, but not by destroying her own life. If nothing else, she s going to serve as an example of what her species is in centuries to come. That's also a responsibility.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She had performance 5, but she has even more invested in being a shooter.

I'm not saying she should drop everything, but your plan doesn't read like being more so much as being something else.

Olivia isn't going to live a normal college student life, not with her ideals and abilities. I think we should respect the conviction necessary to see the war raging around her and choosing to pick up a gun instead of turning away.
 
[X] Agree with Olivia's idea that she should liaise with the Fellowship in efforts to fight the Red Court,the first of a new kind of agent, taking advantage of your ability to awaken the Po
 
BronzeTongue said:
The intent of the original build was to make a reliable multi-role infantry platform, but the basic concept could be specialized in any number of ways.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The intent of the original build was for a teleporting sniper that would be good at ambushing people I'm pretty sure. Olivia still blew threw about half of her mote pool in Boston after one combat encounter. Something to keep in mind.

Acolyte said:
Like she was promised a giga sniper, can't think of a single thing she has sniped.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ivar said:
Spies of Mikaboshi, a warlock who tried to kill himself to power a curse. She's pretty good, she just doesn't get to show it very often.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was about to point this out. Her first kill onscreen IIRC was the "Spider", the sniper motorcycle Akuma that we tried to kill but managed to escape us. Then she stopped someone that we talked to earlier from being kidnapped when Mika's people were driving away with him. Then she stopped a Death Curse like you said.
 
BoredMan said:
No one in our Circle has killed a final boss antagonist other than Molly, the strongest person in her circle, so that isn't saying anything at all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, because one boss was killed by our soldiers, who completely chopped him up, and they fried half HP from the second boss. I'm talking about the super fighter of Mikaboshi during the battle at the pole and the Dragon. Otherwise, Lydia worked well when splitting the party, and in my opinion, it was Lydia who killed that super soldier already in Wicked City.

Edit: yeaaa Lydia did kill the boss here
 
Last edited:
BronzeTongue said:
She had performance 5, but she has even more invested in being a shooter.

I'm not saying she should drop everything, but your plan doesn't read like being more so much as being something else.

Olivia isn't going to live a normal college student life, not with her ideals and abilities. I think we should respect the conviction necessary to see the war raging around her and choosing to pick up a gun instead of turning away.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I can respect that. I do respect that, honestly. If that was the only thing she said, I'd be much more ok with this. It's everything else that she is saying, and the additional explanation provided that are making mental health alarm sirens go off in my brain.

She specifically says that she chose to help with portal defenses construction as a way to provide help with her abilities. Then she says "but you have a lot of others who can do that, so I better shoot people". This is wrong in a number of ways that she herself should be perfectly aware of:
1) We have other people who can shoot people. Some of those trained her to shoot. If all we needed was armies, red legions would be marching through the breach already. And they might march yet. Olivia knows that we employ tacticaly support from Sanctuary in the form of hand agents, gurvel fireteams, and antiair drones often. She saw them. She knows that she is better than most of them thanks to her enchantments. I am not disputing them. A court sniper, outside of some super elite master with a lot of fortune path backing wouldn't be able to perform on Olivia's level at all. But we do have other people. And she doesn't actually have a lot of advantage in terms of blending in. Does she even speak local languages? @DragonParadox what languages does Olivia speak and how well? Will she stand out in the areas where Fellowship of St. Giles operate?

2) Olivia's enchantments, specifically, mechanically, Higher Purpose, Hellweaving 3, should apply to mana manipulation rituals. Making a safehouse for Order of Cauldron is fulfilling her higher purpose and following our will. She should be substantially better than most Sanctuary enchanters, barring grandmasters with thousands of years of experience. @DragonParadox how did Olivia measure up to other minions involved in the project? We should almost certainly have those reports and evaluations available.

Her reaction to college (and, frankly, Molly mentioning it is likely a botch) is also telling. You cannot, should not devote 100% of your time to a neverending war. The person doing the rescue should first take care they themselves are in a state to do it, and ensure their own safety. We, the players, chose, and keep choosing, to do stuff like go to school, maintain connection to Rosie and help her. Olivia is choosing to cut ties. That's not healthy.
 
Yog said:
Her reaction to college (and, frankly, Molly mentioning it is likely a botch) is also telling. You cannot, should not devote 100% of your time to a neverending war. The person doing the rescue should first take care they themselves are in a state to do it, and ensure their own safety. We, the players, chose, and keep choosing, to do stuff like go to school, maintain connection to Rosie and help her. Olivia is choosing to cut ties. That's not healthy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Give her a time limit on missions in combat. Pair her with the best fighter for the Good Cause aka god's paladin aka Molly's Father. He will teach her balance. For now Olivia needs to actually do something and not sit around making movies while a horrific war is going on. I also agree with Boredman that the war is coming to an end. Even without the bloodline killing ritual, Red will most likely be killed by a combination of our actions and the White Council.
 
Yog said:
Does she even speak local languages? @DragonParadox what languages does Olivia speak and how well? Will she stand out in the areas where Fellowship of St. Giles operate?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

She speaks decent Spanish but no Portuguese

Yog said:
2) Olivia's enchantments, specifically, mechanically, Higher Purpose, Hellweaving 3, should apply to mana manipulation rituals. Making a safehouse for Order of Cauldron is fulfilling her higher purpose and following our will. She should be substantially better than most Sanctuary enchanters, barring grandmasters with thousands of years of experience. @DragonParadox how did Olivia measure up to other minions involved in the project? We should almost certainly have those reports and evaluations available.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hellweaving means she cheats when it comes to ritual casting, but it's a matter of degree, for most things it just means she can do the job faster and cleaner than just someone who has her level of mana manipulation.
 
Yog said:
I can respect that. I do respect that, honestly. If that was the only thing she said, I'd be much more ok with this. It's everything else that she is saying, and the additional explanation provided that are making mental health alarm sirens go off in my brain.

She specifically says that she chose to help with portal defenses construction as a way to provide help with her abilities. Then she says "but you have a lot of others who can do that, so I better shoot people". This is wrong in a number of ways that she herself should be perfectly aware of:
1) We have other people who can shoot people. Some of those trained her to shoot. If all we needed was armies, red legions would be marching through the breach already. And they might march yet. Olivia knows that we employ tacticaly support from Sanctuary in the form of hand agents, gurvel fireteams, and antiair drones often. She saw them. She knows that she is better than most of them thanks to her enchantments. I am not disputing them. A court sniper, outside of some super elite master with a lot of fortune path backing wouldn't be able to perform on Olivia's level at all. But we do have other people. And she doesn't actually have a lot of advantage in terms of blending in. Does she even speak local languages? @DragonParadox what languages does Olivia speak and how well? Will she stand out in the areas where Fellowship of St. Giles operate?

2) Olivia's enchantments, specifically, mechanically, Higher Purpose, Hellweaving 3, should apply to mana manipulation rituals. Making a safehouse for Order of Cauldron is fulfilling her higher purpose and following our will. She should be substantially better than most Sanctuary enchanters, barring grandmasters with thousands of years of experience. @DragonParadox how did Olivia measure up to other minions involved in the project? We should almost certainly have those reports and evaluations available.

Her reaction to college (and, frankly, Molly mentioning it is likely a botch) is also telling. You cannot, should not devote 100% of your time to a neverending war. The person doing the rescue should first take care they themselves are in a state to do it, and ensure their own safety. We, the players, chose, and keep choosing, to do stuff like go to school, maintain connection to Rosie and help her. Olivia is choosing to cut ties. That's not healthy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Its not never ending, we will end this shit within the year.
 
I'll be honest, I think we'll be halfway to Elder Essence by the end of game year two given the current situation. Aka we'll already have 5 and then halfway to 6 in exp.
 
BoredMan said:
The Red War is not neverending. Far from it. I expect it to be taken care of for the most part by the end of one in story year from us getting involved in it after our actions in South America.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Red War isn't. Olivia is very unlikely to limit herself to Red War.
Ivar said:
Give her a time limit on missions in combat. Pair her with the best fighter for the Good Cause aka god's paladin aka Molly's Father. He will teach her balance. For now Olivia needs to actually do something and not sit around making movies while a horrific war is going on. I also agree with Boredman that the war is coming to an end. Even without the bloodline killing ritual, Red will most likely be killed by a combination of our actions and the White Council.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Do that then. You aren't voting for that. You are voting for, as I understand it "yeah, sure, go have fun" option.
 
[X] Agree with Olivia's idea that she should liaise with the Fellowship in efforts to fight the Red Court,the first of a new kind of agent, taking advantage of your ability to awaken the Po
-[X] Set clear time frames and objectives for her assignment. Namely, provide a certain number of personnel trained and set mission deadlines.
-[X] Suggest that Olivia talk to other more experienced fighters for the Righteous Cause such as the Knights of the Cross who can advise her on how to properly balance fighting and life so as not to burn out and not become a victim of the enemy's manipulation.
 
BoredMan said:
The intent of the original build was for a teleporting sniper that would be good at ambushing people I'm pretty sure. Olivia still blew threw about half of her mote pool in Boston after one combat encounter. Something to keep in mind
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She's very good, even without those chi boosts. She is however still not an exalt so her max performance does endurance issues. She's essentially an ambush predator.

Her sorcery/psychic powers don't cost chi, so she doesn't need to push that hard unless she's fighting something serious. If you put her and some Olivianoids in a city that would be the level of effort she puts in to kill a noble, her basic kit would be for killing everyone else.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top