Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

We can do that at the Carpenter's place so I don't think we need to worry about it too much.

We can just have Molly sleep in her bleach bath like she did at the last level up, and wake up early enough to clean up the mess before leaving.

That said, we should probably scram as soon as we have the details on this job so that Charity doesn't get her mace and shotgun out to come looking for Molly.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Can't do that if we spend all night gossiping with Bob.
 
[X] Just what case Mab gave Harry
-[X] [Stunt] You are tempted, oh so tempted to ask this being for knowledge. To lean ever so forward, adjust your clothes just so, making best use of your beauty to lure lore old, obscure and perhaps forbidden from it. But no. That would be crossing the line from helping to betrayal. To do this would be to take advantage of his situation for your own profit. You won't do this. And when Harry learns of it, maybe you'll be able to ask your questions in the open.
 
On the topic of getting the most out of HMP. Most of the really good stuff is gated behind actions to build a spy network across the city. Figure 15 weekly actions to get spy 5 rank in the city. And Resources 3 expenditure to buy/build a supercomputer to handle stuff.
 
On the topic of getting the most out of HMP. Most of the really good stuff is gated behind actions to build a spy network across the city. Figure 15 weekly actions to get spy 5 rank in the city. And Resources 3 expenditure to buy/build a supercomputer to handle stuff.
I think what we get matters more than how many devices we take control of.

Server farms, ISPs, major corporate networks, and city government infrastructure are worth more than random cameras, branch office systems, and other small time public facilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if we can't get past the first 2-3 dots just wandering the city.

Once we've got it running there are some fun games we could play resource wise.

Solar panels should be a thing around now right? Which means selling power back to the grid at a small money level is probably a thing.

We get into the electric company's systems and we could use fake accounts, or fictitious additions to existing ones, to generate lots of tiny income streams that we can divert to our own ends via shell companies.
 
I think what we get matters more than how many devices we take control of.

Server farms, ISPs, major corporate networks, and city government infrastructure are worth more than random cameras, branch office systems, and other small time public facilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if we can't get past the first 2-3 dots just wandering the city.
I want the whole city under our control not just some bits of it.
Solar panels should be a thing around now right? Which means selling power back to the grid at a small money level is probably a thing.

We get into the electric company's systems and we could use fake accounts, or fictitious additions to existing ones, to generate lots of tiny income streams that we can divert to our own ends via shell companies.
Live in the city of Chicago just take a tour of the Chicago exchange put a demon in it, all the money we could ever need.
 
Spirits Dark and Spirits Strange
COMMENTARY
-Secret Discoveries: Stumbling over the Fallen Angel Lasciel's current resting place in Dresden's sub-basement.
+2 Essence.

-Brass circle?
Harry hasnt updated his ward scheme around her yet, I see. Molly must be catnip for supernaturals if she decided to demonstrate that the containment circle there is grossly inadequate.

-Here's hoping Molly wasnt actually dumb enough to express her opinion of Lasciel out loud.
Etiquette 2 has to be worth something.

-Going to note that Bob is a potential Sorcery Path tutor.
Just based on what he claims to know here, he qualifies especially strongly for Enchantment, Alchemy, Summoning,Binding and Warding, and for general Occult knowledge.

-French accent calls back to some of his origins wth Etienne in Paris. Molly's really knocked him for a loop here.
It does say interesting things that he's not actually discomfited by Molly's occult presence; we might have a better time with random spirits than I feared.

-Going to note that Bob doesnt actually know what Molly is.
He's making educated guesses based on what he can see and what Dresden has told him, but this is not a situation where he has seen or heard of anything quite like Molly's Infernal Exaltation before.
We certainly rolled over all our social argets here. Sheesh.
And we botched that Why on Lasciel. Key abilities to the rescue.

No, at least not without knowing more about why he has to be secret. Any of the stuff he can tell you would classify though.
Finding the Fallen Angel Lasciel's current resting place definitely qualifies as well.
As does presumably noticing that she can attempt to reach beyond her current containment circle.
Not sure if the swarm would be smart enough to do something like that
The charm says they follow our instructions, so presumably yes.

VOTE
[X] Just what case Mab gave Harry

We're here for the Mab-Harry stuff. That is time-sensitive, the other stuff is not. Stay on target, dont be distracted.
From a purely pragmatic PoV, if we want future access to the dude, its a good idea to demonstrate the ability and judgement to handle access to him wisely.

Also, Mouse is trusting us here.I'd hate to disappoint him.
 
@uju32 Molly does not like the Fallen, she really does not like the Fallen and she likes beings trying to mess with her head even less. Just because she has Etiquette does not mean it is always IC to use it

Also Bob is a magic nerd and rather amoral he does not care if you look like an arch-devil on a day trip out of Hell so long as you are interesting and/or hot.
 
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We knew Dresden was keeping her in his cellar, we even joked about it.
Citation please?
AFAIR we knew this OOC, not IC.
And we certainly didnt know she could make herself felt outside her containment circle.

We get into the electric company's systems and we could use fake accounts, or fictitious additions to existing ones, to generate lots of tiny income streams that we can divert to our own ends via shell companies.
Cant imagine why you'd want to do this.
Make diamonds. Make gold. Sell it; Harry's been paid in gold nuggets that we know of OOC, so he can give us a pointer towards reliable buyers.

Or just wait till November and do the lottery draw for sometime between November and January.

200 mill lottery. Go to a reputable bigname law firm with estate planning services to help with financial planning and anonymity.
Taking your payout in cash instead of annuity means a ~50% cut in payout.
100 million cash.

~40% federal and state taxes leaves you with 60 million.
2 million trust funds on six siblings and two parents is 16 million, and 10% charity is 6 million, leaving 38 million.
1 mill on Dresden, Rosie, and Rosie's kid is 3 mill, leaving 35 million.

Invest 30 million in trusts and index funds, keep 5 million liquid.
Resources 4ish Background.
@uju32 Molly does not like the Fallen, she really does not like the Fallen and she likes beings trying to mess with her head even less. Just because she has Etiquette does not mean it is always IC to use it

Also Bob is a magic nerd and rather amoral he does not care if you look like an arch-devil on a day trip out of Hell so long as you are interesting and/or hot.
Not liking the Fallen is sensible. Going out of your way to antagonize them is not.
There's a difference between not liking someone and openly insulting the person to their face. Or coin face, in this case :V

Especially since Molly has better reason than most to know how much power a Denarian potentially has at hand given her own nature and her father's job, and how long they can hold a grudge. She doesnt have Dresden's compulsion to shit talk everyone either, which is good because she doesnt have Dresden's Protagonist Protection Powers.

Dumb teenager will dumb teenager, I guess.


Loling at Bob looking at the magical archdevil signature and instead of running screaming like any sensible spirit, pulling out his glasses and essentially going "Fascinating" :V
Its amazing that Bob has lived this long

And now Im suddenly wondering what his original name is.
Or if he even had a name before Dresden named him.
 
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Citation please?
AFAIR we knew this OOC, not IC.
And we certainly didnt know she could make herself felt outside her containment circle.
Sorry, we joked about keeping her in the cellar of his soul, not the physical coint.
Remembered wrongly.
Not liking the Fallen is sensible. Going out of your way to antagonize them is not.
There's a difference between not liking someone and openly insulting the person to their face. Or coin face, in this case :V

Especially since Molly has better reason than most to know how much power a Denarian potentially has at hand given her own nature and her father's job, and how long they can hold a grudge. She doesnt have Dresden's compulsion to shit talk everyone either, which is good because she doesnt have Dresden's Protagonist Protection Powers.

Dumb teenager will dumb teenager, I guess.
I suspect Lasciel would already try to kill everyone Dresden likes on principle for keeping her captive if she ever got out.
Antagonizing her is barely going to make things worse.
 
Cant imagine why you'd want to do this.
Make diamonds. Make gold. Sell it; Harry's been paid in gold nuggets that we know of OOC, so he can give us a pointer towards reliable buyers.
It is far faster and more profitable to have a demon in the exchange. Setup a few dozen dummy account with brokerages and you can make millions just form knowing the markets direction.

And if we want gold we wait until a flood, then go to a river and use TTC to turn the thousands of pounds of dirt being displaced into a giant gold extraction operation. Probably clear millions of $ worth of gold of micro gold for a day's work.
 
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@DragonParadox

Is seeing the brass containment circle enough to start asking questions about the coin/Lasciel directly? I would be so fucking tempted and have the feeling the crown would very much enjoy these questions. Tempted to be an asshole as ask stuff like "how to un-fall" or "what current active harmful plots are in play" or even background stuff about the fall in general.

You've said since they're fallen, the White God wouldn't give a fuck.
 
Cant imagine why you'd want to do this.
Make diamonds. Make gold. Sell it; Harry's been paid in gold nuggets that we know of OOC, so he can give us a pointer towards reliable buyers.

Or just wait till November and do the lottery draw for sometime between November and January.

200 mill lottery. Go to a reputable bigname law firm with estate planning services to help with financial planning and anonymity.
Taking your payout in cash instead of annuity means a ~50% cut in payout.
100 million cash.

~40% federal and state taxes leaves you with 60 million.
2 million trust funds on six siblings and two parents is 16 million, and 10% charity is 6 million, leaving 38 million.
1 mill on Dresden, Rosie, and Rosie's kid is 3 mill, leaving 35 million.

Invest 30 million in trusts and index funds, keep 5 million liquid.
Because the lottery is a lot of money all at once that makes us visible to interested parties.

It also makes it easier to trace what we're doing financially speaking in a lot of ways. Smaller amounts moving through a lot of systems without direct connection to us are easier to hide.
We've exhaustively covered why gold and gems are difficult to use long term as sources of wealth.

The stock market is tempting, but starting there might be a mistake, due to how much navel gazing is involved in their operations.


I did probably get ahead of myself though; this is likely a little too parasitic for Molly's comfort.
 
I suspect Lasciel would already try to kill everyone Dresden likes on principle for keeping her captive if she ever got out.
Antagonizing her is barely going to make things worse.
1)Lasciel the Temptress was infamous for wanting partners not dupes.
Thats the norm for most of the Fallen actually, because partners allow you to project a lot more power than dupes do.
Only brutes like Ursiel attempt to dominate their mounts and it generally resulted in much weaker Denarians.

Furthermore, its worth remembering that its often the norm for Fallen to spend years between hosts after their previous hosts get killed, as either the Church holds the coin, or another Denarian holds it until they find someone they think is suitable.
Its 7 years between Harry turning in Lasciel's coin in White Night and Lasciel showing up with Hannah in Skin Game.

Lasciel used to be an angel. Her sense of time is not likely to be calibrated to mortal sensibilities.

2) There's still a difference between being a target of opportunity and a priority.
It is far faster and more profitable to have a demon in the exchange. Setup a few dozen dummy account with brokerages and you can make millions just form knowing the markets direction.

And if we want gold we wait until a flood, then go to a river and use TTC to turn the thousands of pounds of dirt being displaced into a giant gold extraction operation. Probably clear millions of $ worth of gold of micro gold for day's work.
No its not.
We do not have the infrastructure to do high frequency trading, and without that, a cyberdevil is not going to provide you information faster than simply watching the Dow/S&P ticker.

Furthermore, the SEC does watch for, and launch investigations of, people whose trading gives signs of insider knowledge. And they have decades of experience at it. Nor does Molly have the Finance or Larceny dots necessary to do financial crimes and get away undetected; she wouldnt even know how to open a brokerage account without going through a tutorial.

Its not in our PC's technical expertise, let alone her moral comfort zone.

========
Why would we do any of that?
If we can do nuclear transmutation, we do it at our timing using raw materials we buy at a store.
A ton of gold is easily twenty million at 2006 prices, and is readily fungible.

Because the lottery is a lot of money all at once that makes us visible to interested parties.
It also makes it easier to trace what we're doing financially speaking in a lot of ways. Smaller amounts moving through a lot of systems without direct connection to us are easier to hide.
The United States Treasury tracks and logs all financial transactions above ten thousand dollars in the US banking system, and law enforcement tracks even more financial flows via FINCEN. Plus there is your legal declarations to the IRS.
There is no situation in which we can achieve financial stability without coming to the notice of interested parties.

The point is not to be untrackable or unnoticeable. Its to not show any obvious signs of criminal or otherwise activity that draws sustained scrutiny. Anonymity is to raise the threshold of competency for such actors, so we dont have burglars following us home from the bank to break into our apartment or scammers falling on our car hood and then suing us for hitting them.

Molly walks around with the magic signature of a miniDarkhallow.
We arent subtle to interested parties who have the eyes(or other sensors) to see, and we wont be unless we bother to invest in the charms and abilities to help with it.

Clued-in people will suspect we did something. Doesnt matter. We're not repeating the same trick.
We've exhaustively covered why gold and gems are difficult to use long term as sources of wealth.
The stock market is tempting, but starting there might be a mistake, due to how much navel gazing is involved in their operations.
I did probably get ahead of myself though; this is likely a little too parasitic for Molly's comfort.
We really havent.
They work fine. They work even better as mediums of exchange outside of the financial system; at least, gold does. We know Dresden has collected his wages at least twice in gold when he did work for Strength of a River In His Shoulders, and Marcone paid weregild to the Fomor in gold.

The stock and bonds market is where you park money that you've already made elsewhere for a steady return.
Its not where you make money.
Not unless this is your career. And its not Molly's career.
 
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Because the lottery is a lot of money all at once that makes us visible to interested parties.

It also makes it easier to trace what we're doing financially speaking in a lot of ways. Smaller amounts moving through a lot of systems without direct connection to us are easier to hide.
We've exhaustively covered why gold and gems are difficult to use long term as sources of wealth.

The stock market is tempting, but starting there might be a mistake, due to how much navel gazing is involved in their operations.


I did probably get ahead of myself though; this is likely a little too parasitic for Molly's comfort.
I don't know if it works in Illinois, but in many states you can anonymize a lottery win by assigning a trust fund or a similar business entity as the winner, even if winners must be public by law.
 
I don't know if it works in Illinois, but in many states you can anonymize a lottery win by assigning a trust fund or a similar business entity as the winner, even if winners must be public by law.
Doesnt work in 2006 Illnois; that law was only passed in 2017.
Which is why if we're doing the Lottery we're driving to Ohio to buy a ticket there.
 
If we can do nuclear transmutation, we do it at our timing using raw materials we buy at a store.
Mercury in industrial quantities is not easily available, and nuclear transmutation, even with magic, is too impractical and time consuming. Finding lost art, or selling our AI services for stuff that requires sapience (like tech support, if nothing else) would be more profitable per unit of time and essence.
 
Mercury in industrial quantities is not easily available, and nuclear transmutation, even with magic, is too impractical and time consuming. Finding lost art, or selling our AI services for stuff that requires sapience (like tech support, if nothing else) would be more profitable per unit of time and essence.
Tech support.

"Have you tried summoning a demon into your computer?"
 
OK, looks like we are only asking one question, still it's going to be enough to give you the essence for the scene given the contents.

@uju32 to answer your earlier question, the binding circle was iffy since you already knew half the secret, but this is not
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Aug 28, 2022 at 3:29 PM, finished with 47 posts and 19 votes.
 
Mercury in industrial quantities is not easily available, and nuclear transmutation, even with magic, is too impractical and time consuming. Finding lost art, or selling our AI services for stuff that requires sapience (like tech support, if nothing else) would be more profitable per unit of time and essence.
1)Not really how Exalted works.
Transmutation is at the border of magic and physics, and with Exalted charm fuckery fiating the energy requirements, there is no real reason we're stuck with mercury as a substrate, or that we are necessarily fissioning nuclei instead of fusion.

And frankly, its in theme for Exalted, given how they make orichalcum in Ex2.

2)Lost art is a hard no IMO.

A lot of the stuff that hasnt been destroyed is not lost, just in the hands of unscrupulous collectors with connections, and we do not have the Larceny dots or charms to steal it back, or the time to fend off attempts at retaliation. Much more important things in our life. Nor can we afford the profile at this point in time anyway.

3)Tech support runs into the hard physical limits of using HMP, and the difficulty of even getting a business contract; no, businesses dont give contracts to every 17-18 year old high school graduate off the street.
Nor, again, do we have the charms for business, and we arent likely to switch priorities to buying those.

Nevermind the potential ethical issues that Molly might have to resolve: How does she pay them? Does she pay them?
Do they get working hours?
Its not really the sort of game most of us signed up to play.
 
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1)Lasciel the Temptress was infamous for wanting partners not dupes.
Thats the norm for most of the Fallen actually, because partners allow you to project a lot more power than dupes do.
Only brutes like Ursiel attempt to dominate their mounts and it generally resulted in much weaker Denarians.

Furthermore, its worth remembering that its often the norm for Fallen to spend years between hosts after their previous hosts get killed, as either the Church holds the coin, or another Denarian holds it until they find someone they think is suitable.
Its 7 years between Harry turning in Lasciel's coin in White Night and Lasciel showing up with Hannah in Skin Game.

Lasciel used to be an angel. Her sense of time is not likely to be calibrated to mortal sensibilities.
I am aware that most Fallen want to work with their hosts, instead of dominating them.

Doesn't change the fact that they can propably be quite spiteful against people who reject them, as Harry will almost certainly continue to do until Lasciel finds another host.
Even though the years mean little, vengance can be a matter of principle.
And besides she has practical reasons to go after Harry, Lash is a potential weakness as long as she exists seperate from Lasciel.

And even at best, if Lasciel held no personal grudge against Harry at all, she would still be our enemy.
I hope by then we'll be a hard target.
 
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