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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Arc 15 Post 34: Architect of the Spirit New
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    • Architect of the Spirit ​

    8th of March 2007 A.D.

    You look over at Olivia's fervent expression pensively for a moment, before jerking your head towards a nearby outcropping, well away from the ongoing arcane workings. "Sit with me a minute, would you?"

    "Is this an intervention?" She peers up at you half-jokingly, which is to say half not as well. "'Cause it sure sounds like it?"

    "No it's just..." a sigh comes out, not pushing, no essence carried with the breath, just normal Molly Carpenter, as normal as you can be here at least. "I'm not going to tell you no on this: I know how it feels to need to do something like this, and I'm not that sort of hypocrite." You give a short, wry laugh before your expression grows serious again as you gently, reach out to take her hands in your own. "But, Olivia I want you to consider how you do this really carefully, okay? Throwing yourself into things like this, especially if you're throwing other things away? It can..." you trail off a moment, your mind flashing to Harry in some of his darker moments; and to your dad, and the worry you've seen Mom try to hide, alone at night in a dark and quiet kitchen. And then... to ice and fear and a little bit of mind magic done with the best of intentions, honest.

    "Hey, I'm a year and a half older than you remember, you do not get to pull this Zordon shtick on me," she speaks into the silence that lingers just a little too long. "We're not going to let the Red Court just keep going, right? 'Sure there's blood drinking monsters in South America along with the deforestation and the banana-driven corporate colonialism' and everyone just kind of knew that and factored it in." The face she makes is one of very genuine disgust. "That can't go on, right?"

    "No, of course not," you answer reflexively. I might not have a plan, but one thing is for sure, the Red Court has to go, for the sake of the people they are abusing and all the ones they are putting in danger by calling out to the Old Ones and their puppets.

    "Then that's OK then. College can go on hold. I can be in the ballet later. Stage isn't going anywhere."

    Feeling a bit better about the whole thing now that you know this is less her wrenching her whole life around to be a freedom fighter against vampires and more putting it on snooze you still feel compelled to add: "It can really fuck you up, you know? Sometimes in ways you don't realize until you're a lot further down the line." Looking her dead in the eye you do your best to get across how much this means to you, how much her wellbeing means to you. "I don't want that for you, okay? I won't say no, but I want to make sure you're doing this in the right way, yeah?"

    Instead of quipping again she just nods, determined.

    There's one more task to do before you can put that determination to the test, call fourth the final defender of the gate, last line of defense... Well no, as Regina points out there is a whole world made up of more lines of defense behind the fortress, that is kind of the point, but the last thing you want is some enemy running loose in your soul. Perhaps ironically for a spirit of fire and stone The primary purpose of the keeper of this place is not to bar the way nor to burn foes with the deep fire that runs though its veins, a task for mazes and traps, for guards and turrets. No they are to...

    Watch, a thousand fractal eyes looking out from between the angles between the worlds and to.

    Warn, a myriad wave-forms of sound through the air and, through wire and arcane lineage electromagnetic elocution, a thousand thousand times more complex.​

    There's more that could be done, you think as the spirit of the fortress pulls itself together, creation akin to a dreamer waking from deep slumber.

    What splendors are you planning to include in the fortress?

    [] Write in
    (You have the time to create one Splendor of up to ●●●)

    OOC: You rolled very well for making the god so you have some extra time on your hands within the confines of the action you already choose.
     
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    • BronzeTongue said:
    Is this vote an appropriate time to add splendor stuff too? If so I think one of these would be a key addition to the defenses:

    This curious blessing takes the form of a coating of rich soil dusted across its master and their immediate possessions, as if they'd been working in some fertile field for hours. This sacred soil provides some basic ability to shape that which resonates with it, allowing its master to change the details of their immediate surroundings.

    When a creature that feeds on mortals comes in contact with them or the dirt falling off their body it burrows in like the roots of an alien plant, spreading inside their body and rotting away what it touches into more soil.

    If this kills the target then they fully decompose into rich fertilizer and their soul is drawn away to the earth that took them.

    System:
    Each time a creature who feeds mortals that comes into contact with the owner of this splendor or the dirt coating their form while in their immediate presence they are subject to the Hunger of the Earth, a murderous magical poison.

    Each turn they must make a stamina roll against difficulty 9 or suffer a level of unsoakable lethal damage. This will continue until they die or manage to succeed three turns in a row. If they die while subject to this effect their souls will be drawn into the splendor.

    To avoid this fate they must either flee the presence of the splendor's master, surrender to them, or endure the damage.

    This curious blessing takes the form of a coating of rich soil dusted across its master and their immediate possessions, as if they'd been working in some fertile field for hours. This sacred soil provides some basic ability to shape that which resonates with it, allowing its master to change the details of their immediate surroundings.

    When a creature that feeds on mortals comes in contact with them or the dirt falling off their body it burrows in like the roots of an alien plant, spreading inside their body and rotting away what it touches into more soil.

    If this kills the target then they fully decompose into rich fertilizer and crumbles across the ground.

    As they suffer from the rebuke of the earth, they also find its riches slipping from their hands. Fate will conspire to drive them into poverty for a time, a lingering act of spite for any who live long enough to regret going where they do not belong.

    System:
    Each time a creature who feeds mortals that comes into contact with the owner of this splendor or the dirt coating their form while in their immediate presence they are subject to the Hunger of the Earth, a murderous magical poison.

    Each turn they must make a stamina roll against difficulty 9 or suffer a level of unsoakable lethal damage. This will continue until they die or manage to succeed three turns in a row.

    The first turn a target takes damage from this splendor, the owner also rolls manipulation+finance against difficulty 7. The target loses that many dots of the Resources background, which return at a rate of 1 per story.

    Mallko's nature is already causing us headaches, might as well get a benefit from it too.

    There's also the benefit of giving the red court something to choke on instead of letting them send attacks like the helicopter thing at us at their leisure.
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    [X] Rich Earth's Hunger

    @DragonParadox can we get an interlude in the future about how our allies, especially WC, are taking our construction of a fortress of this size so fast? Especially since this is even worse than Morga's earlier estimate of our operational pace.
     
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    BronzeTongue said:
    There's also the benefit of giving the red court something to choke on instead of letting them send attacks like the helicopter thing at us at their leisure.
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    Depending on how far Mallko's reach/presence stretches this effect could continental in scale though I doubt it'd go quite that far. Still a bit confused on how he works exactly. We should really talk to him.
     
    BoredMan said:
    Divine retribution. The abused becomes the abuser. This war will be over within one year.
    [X] Rich Earth's Hunger
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    In my maximum estimate, six months, with this splendor, we will be using a magical strategic weapon almost on the same level as Plague of Hope on Earth (and it will make all governments and supernatural powers with any kind of eyes here very cautious with our Sanctuary because we are making a habit of releasing super weapons specially made to screw as much as possible the target against those we don't like), transforming almost a third of the South American continent into a land of death for the Reds in addition to feeding these monstrous souls to Mallko, increasing his power to help us in fights against other chained diviners or divine enemies.

    After we do this, there will not be much room left for the Reds not to use their ultimate weapons and after we deny/destroy it and kill the Red King and most of the Lords of the Outer Night, it will be more of a pest control.

    It will take longer to absorb the territories and possessions of the Red Court, even though we are already starting this process with the Society of Saint Gilles and turning the red addicts on mortal power to our side, which is winning this war for me.
     
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    It's kind of crazy that we've had a bonafide deity in our proverbial house for some days now and have barely said a word to him since. For anyone else it would demand their attention, for us our schedule is full and the god has to wait. Then again our clone could have been talking to him off-screen but I doubt it.
     
    We might want to be careful with that poison dust idea. It looks like the effects would work on the White Court and other entities. If word gets out that interacting with Molly will not only hurt you but bring magical ruin down upon you, that might be enought to get multiple vampire Courts acting against us in concert.

    Remember the golden rule in Exalted is not 'can I do this?', it is 'will I like the consequences of doing this?'
     
    Does the fortress count as the god's body since it's literally carved in the shape of its name?

    If so a fascination based immunity splendor for our guys could be good, assuming this is a distinct task from the one added for Mallko.

    Another option would be to do something else to make the maze more difficult or hostile.

    We have 7 points, 3 which can be used on mystic elements. That gives us options like entrapment and enervation:

    Entrapment (2 pt. Mystic Element)
    This Element can only be part of a Fascination.
    The Splendor bends space around itself so that paths recursively lead back to it. When someone
    wishes to leave the Splendor's presence they must succeed at a difficulty (4 + Splendor's rating)
    roll of Perception + (Survival or Streetwise, as appropriate to the environment). If this fails, they
    are lost for at least 30 minutes before they can try again. Being caught in the Splendor's web for
    one hour is a frequent activation condition for Splendors with this Element.
    If the Splendor also contains one of the location-type Form Elements, such as Form of the
    Hearth, then Entrapment may be used to rearrange the affected location's geography. Potential
    options include routing everyone who enters the afflicted area to a particular location within it,
    forcing a difficulty (4 + Splendor's rating) roll to navigate the area successfully, causing specific
    rearrangements of how space connects to itself within the area, or causing specific spatial
    anomalies that only trigger for some people who meet certain criteria.
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    Enervation (2 pt. Mystic Element)
    This Element can only be part of a Fascination.
    The Splendor scourges the hearts of those before it. Under criteria set when designing the
    Splendor, it attacks valid targets by rolling Willpower + Essence against difficulty (10 –
    Splendor's rating). Each success strips a target of one point of Willpower. Targets reduced to 0
    Willpower lose volition and simply idle near the Splendor.
    Idling in the presence of the Fascination for one hour is a frequent activation condition for
    Splendors with this Element.
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    Either of those would leave us 5 points to play with. Technically that could make it possible to attach a mental/spiritual defense and effect like this, but I'd prefer to tie the different elements of one item into each other even if it's mechanically suboptimal. The guide does say we're supposed to add thematic restrictions.

    Perhaps SP Dreams+Moonlight and Enervation: every round someone in the presence of the fascination's owner successfully bypasses that protection? So if Nemesis finds a way to edge case past the ward it has to keep a perfect defense up constantly to avoid willpower drain via shaping.

    Seems a bit wasteful in terms of active defenses though. It'd be fun to use the emptiness root to pick up another mystic point so we can take both Enervation and Entrapment. One point for the form element and then set enervation off whenever someone successfully manages to navigate the maze.

    If they bypass or succeed at the roll for entrapment you're rewarded with an immediate shaping attack.


    DragonParadox said:
    You rolled very well for making the god so you have some extra time on your hands within the confines of the action you already choose.
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    So what is the scale of this entity? It sounds like a pretty large lesser god, but I don't see the point of employing one as a glorified camera system.

    Also, is this splendor meant to be an additional option for the volcano god, or the vote line added for Mallko?

    If we're only going to get the opportunity for one then I'd want to give it to our new spiritual roommate rather than designing something for the new guy.
     
    BoredMan said:
    It's kind of crazy that we've had a bonafide deity in our proverbial house for some days now and have barely said a word to him since. For anyone else it would demand their attention, for us our schedule is full and the god has to wait. Then again our clone could have been talking to him off-screen but I doubt it.
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    Soon after, in less than a month, we will be feeding thousands of Vampire souls to him, the ones who chained him and his relatives and used them as simple blood bags.

    When we finish conquering all of South America, an oath of loyalty to the new Goddess Queen of these lands by right of conquest for a place in her court of divine spirits will be just ceremonial for all the other powers.

    But seriously, I'm sure Regina is talking to him off-screen, if only because our priests must be itching to meet a foreign deity who is as attached to the land and its inhabitants as they are to Molly. As mentioned in the update when he appeared, his similarities to Molly's features were very noticeable.
     
    frozenchicken said:
    Remember the golden rule in Exalted is not 'can I do this?', it is 'will I like the consequences of doing this?'
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    I'll be honest and say that I think this is a terrible rule. The consequences are always in the hands of the GM, and he either goes by his gut feeling or tries to justify them with historical precedent. And both don't often have to be related to what might happen.

    Unpredictable political or magical consequences are unpredictable not because they are bound to happen. They are like that because current science cannot predict socioeconomic factors and is unlikely to be able to. And the magic invented by the authors of the setting.

    Yes, there are pretty predictable consequences like "if you free a caravan of slaves and do nothing they will die in the middle of the desert". But the desire to always have drama, to always have CONSEQUENCES, honestly turns me off the setting. Although it is White Wolf, I don't expect anything from them except to make their games as tragic as possible and therefore unattractive to me personally.

    What I wanted to say with this... Yes, the consequences depend entirely on what the GM decides and they can be anything, we can only guess about possible problems before the decision is implemented.
     
    BoredMan said:
    Depending on how far Mallko's reach/presence stretches this effect could continental in scale though I doubt it'd go quite that far. Still a bit confused on how he works exactly. We should really talk to him.
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    My assumption is that it will have an impact mapping to the Incan empire's territorial boundaries since that would be the land he was worshipped as the god of.

    Which is this:


    Pretty sure a lot of major cities would suddenly become very lethal to hang out in if you're a vampire.

    On the soul thing, he doesn't even have to eat all of them. He could dump them in our hell so we can reform them.

    You know, take a page from Ammit's book and all that. :V

    I'm still somewhat uncertain about the soul stealing one as opposed to weaponizing brutal and degrading poverty on an IC level though.
     
    [X] Plan Nothing to See Here
    -[X] Form of the Keep (4 pt. Form Element), Memory-Smothering Pall (3 pt. Root Element), Fitful Malady (0 pt. Mystic Element): Memory-Smothering Pal, Ode to the Incurious (1 pt. Mystic Element)
    -[X] Description: taking the form of a population of rare, "thought to be" extinct flowers spread over the area around your portal, this insidious piece of concentrated magic makes anyone coming within direct line of sight of the flowers, whether they see them or not, forget that "anything out of the ordinary" exists, and become unable to notice anything extraordinary. This effect only lasts while within the line of sight of the flowers, but the secondary one, which makes one incurious about their altered state of mind, persists for a whole week, making certain that the experience doesn't transfer from short term memory to long term one at all. The only way to escape this is to sacrifice a drop of blood to feed the flowers, or, in the case of beings with no blood, donate a bit of their energy.

    This should be legal. I am using this canon splendor example as a basis, and fulfilling the bargain with the spirits in the process
    Haunting Light (••)
    This Fascination is an eerie blue lantern. Those illuminated by its light, both living and dead
    alike, forget that death exists and cannot tell the difference between living people and restless
    shades. This forgetfulness fades once they leave the lantern's presence.
    Form Elements: Form of Dust and Ash, Form of the Crackling Flames
    Root Elements: Memory-Smothering Pall
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    This is first line of defense. Making certain that the government and mortals and such cannot be used against us. Basically, it is a area of effect (thus Form of the Keep) splendor that ensures masquerade over the area. No saving throws, no defenses. Just "nothing unordinary here". It works on line of sight, and no, you don't need to look at it. Just it "seeing you" is enough. Hence no satellites or helicopters.

    We'll obviously add more later, but for now, this is the first step.
     
    Yog said:
    No saving throws, no defenses. Just "nothing unordinary here"
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    Honestly while I'm sure it would be useful I'm not sure to what degree? The Reds have the portal location already, and the mortals they sent weren't entirely aware of what they were looking for? What's to stop the RC from using the same kamikaze tactic with unsuspecting mortals? It sounds like it's most useful if your enemy doesn't already know of the thing in question, have its location, and can lead people to it like a dog on a leash.

    Though personally I also just massively prefer the offensive splendor, Rich Earth's Hunger, that would allow Mallko to start attacking the Red Court en-mass off-screen turning the tide of the war even moreso while we're handling other matters with our AP. Also I think it's thematically appropriate for the previously chained god kept in a near death state to fire back like this. Divine retribution enabled by another divine actor, Molly.
     
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    BoredMan said:
    Honestly while I'm sure it would be useful I'm not sure to what degree? The Reds have the portal location already, and the mortals they sent weren't entirely aware of what they were looking for? What's to stop the RC from using the same kamikaze tactic with unsuspecting mortals? It sounds like it's most useful if your enemy doesn't already know of the thing in question, have its location, and can lead people to it like a dog on a leash.

    Though personally I also just massively prefer the offensive splendor, Rich Earth's Hunger, that would allow Mallko to start attacking the Red Court en-mass off-screen turning the tide of the war even moreso while we're handling other matters with our AP. Also I think it's thematically appropriate for the previously chained god kept in a near death state to fire back like this. Divine retribution enabled by another divine actor, Molly.
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    It covers a fairly large area, and while you are in the area, you don't remember the portal or anything magical exist, and cannot identify anything magical. It is fairly used in preventing attacks, I think. They could, in principle, burn the whole area down or nuke it, I guess... I'll have to think a bit more, but that's tomorrow. Consider this the first draft for now, for the stealth layer of the defenses (because of course all defenses need to be multi-layered).
     
    Yog said:
    It covers a fairly large area, and while you are in the area, you don't remember the portal or anything magical exist, and cannot identify anything magical. It is fairly used in preventing attacks, I think. They could, in principle, burn the whole area down or nuke it, I guess... I'll have to think a bit more, but that's tomorrow. Consider this the first draft for now, for the stealth layer of the defenses (because of course all defenses need to be multi-layered).
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    That.. isn't really a response to what I said? I'm not entirely sure how this would function either. Humans don't normally see magic and come to the conclusion that it's magic in Dresden Files. Like Daedalus.
     
    Yog said:
    [X] Plan Nothing to See Here
    -[X] Form of the Keep (4 pt. Form Element), Memory-Smothering Pall (3 pt. Root Element), Fitful Malady (0 pt. Mystic Element): Memory-Smothering Pal, Ode to the Incurious (1 pt. Mystic Element)
    -[X] Description: taking the form of a population of rare, "thought to be" extinct flowers spread over the area around your portal, this insidious piece of concentrated magic makes anyone coming within direct line of sight of the flowers, whether they see them or not, forget that "anything out of the ordinary" exists, and become unable to notice anything extraordinary. This effect only lasts while within the line of sight of the flowers, but the secondary one, which makes one incurious about their altered state of mind, persists for a whole week, making certain that the experience doesn't transfer from short term memory to long term one at all. The only way to escape this is to sacrifice a drop of blood to feed the flowers, or, in the case of beings with no blood, donate a bit of their energy.

    This should be legal. I am using this canon splendor example as a basis, and fulfilling the bargain with the spirits in the process

    This is first line of defense. Making certain that the government and mortals and such cannot be used against us. Basically, it is a area of effect (thus Form of the Keep) splendor that ensures masquerade over the area. No saving throws, no defenses. Just "nothing unordinary here". It works on line of sight, and no, you don't need to look at it. Just it "seeing you" is enough. Hence no satellites or helicopters.

    We'll obviously add more later, but for now, this is the first step.
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    If it's going to be out in the mortal world it should be a fascination acting on Mallko's presence. That's a RaW legal mechanism of action for them which should turn a serious flaw into a boon.

    Even if you don't want the same effects as my hungry earth splendor it seems wasteful not to formulate it that way.

    If it's meant as an additional splendor then I think it should provide mental/spiritual defenses internally so that our most serious enemies can't use their favorite tricks on our people.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    Even if you don't want the same effects as my hungry earth splendor it seems wasteful not to formulate it that way.
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    Are you wanting us to make the Hungry Earth Splendor or are you advocating for something else to be made right now? We have time for one Splendor and you presented the HE one for Mallko earlier but presented two more recently.
     
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