- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Tell Lydia, it's her life and her father that's in danger
Changing my mind and my vote after seeing the tally.
Changing my mind and my vote after seeing the tally.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Welp since discussions are still ongoing I am going to leave this until tomorrow.
[X] We still need more information. Talk to Bob about how mantles can be transferred without killing their holders.
[X] Talk to everyone present, to work out what options exist that don't end with with Lydia suffering in eternal slavery to the person who has all reasons to make her life miserable as a tool of misplaced revenge against her father
-[x] Ask Gard if her employer would be willing to intervene in the situation, provided we deliver Katrina to him.
[X] Talk to everyone present, to work out what options exist that don't end with with Lydia suffering in eternal slavery to the person who has all reasons to make her life miserable as a tool of misplaced revenge against her father
-[x] Ask Gard if her employer would be willing to intervene in the situation, provided we deliver Katrina to him.
We've been running scared from Holt for a while now. Why are we suddenly confident that we can not only fight her, but subdue her without lethal force?
For that matter, what would Marcone do with a pissed off Valkyrie anyway? We'd functionally be asking Gard to sit on her for a few days alone until he managed to negotiate her repatriation to Odin, since she's his magic specialist. Which is a pretty big ask, especially since containment isn't exactly her focus magically speaking.
If we could feasibly get to that point we'd hardly need Marcone.
For that matter, what would Marcone do with a pissed off Valkyrie anyway? We'd functionally be asking Gard to sit on her for a few days alone until he managed to negotiate her repatriation to Odin, since she's his magic specialist. Which is a pretty big ask, especially since containment isn't exactly her focus magically speaking.
If we could feasibly get to that point we'd hardly need Marcone.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Ouch. Dunno anymore
[x]Null
[x]Null
[X] uju32
Last edited:
Molly alone was at worse even odds against her, with Dresden, and Gard. She has no chance action Economy, tips odds strongly in the favor larger number.
Also, that vote has a lot packed into it that isn't strictly true.
Mab is not precisely kind, but she isn't stupid either. She understands the general idea of good management. It's part of why she didn't shatter Harry or Molly in canon when both of them end up working for her.
What she manages her employees with isn't always good for them, or the people around them but they keep the employee themselves relatively content and productive.
Mab isn't dumb enough to give a teenager godly power and then spend the next few decades of their life making them hate her.
Not that it makes the magically binding oaths of service less unpleasant on their own, but Mab isn't a demon and the winter court isn't a hell.
Taking someone alive is a lot harder than killing them, and keeping a powerful supernatural entity contained is harder still. Color me skeptical on our ability to do so with a group of unprepared non specialists.
Even if we could, some random mortals would barely matter to the actual conflict.
Mab is not precisely kind, but she isn't stupid either. She understands the general idea of good management. It's part of why she didn't shatter Harry or Molly in canon when both of them end up working for her.
What she manages her employees with isn't always good for them, or the people around them but they keep the employee themselves relatively content and productive.
Mab isn't dumb enough to give a teenager godly power and then spend the next few decades of their life making them hate her.
Not that it makes the magically binding oaths of service less unpleasant on their own, but Mab isn't a demon and the winter court isn't a hell.
Taking someone alive is a lot harder than killing them, and keeping a powerful supernatural entity contained is harder still. Color me skeptical on our ability to do so with a group of unprepared non specialists.
Even if we could, some random mortals would barely matter to the actual conflict.
- Location
- Earth
With what we now know, Molly can spend a bit of time making something to bypass Katrin's timestop.
Hard disagree. Being Exalted means being a Hero, for better or for worse. And heroes are greedy, they do not have a concept of "acceptable losses," they do not allow evil today to let them build up the power to do something about it tomorrow.
Heroes save everyone. That's the ideal. If Molly lets evil do as it pleases to people she cares about out of fear, then is she really worthy of calling herself Exalted? Cowardice is unbecoming of one of the Princes of the Earth. Maybe it would be different if we were playing a consequentialist character, but in Christian philosophy how you do things is more important than the results of your actions.
Also the digital dead drop is hardly a bluff. I don't recall Winter having a great IT department even if it would technically be within their power to get one. Maybe because of the iron allergy. I just focused on the "my death will just give you enemies ammunition" because Usum thought displaying a willingness to die to spite her would rattle Mab emotionally.
That description of the exalted sounds like it came from a solar's diary more than any accurate description of what they were for our how they behaved. Considering that Molly is specifically an infernal I'm not sure you want to be arguing thematics like this anyway.
That aside, this sort of reckless abandon sounds cool but rarely does it lead anywhere good for people without plot armor. More often than not when you chose a hill to die on like this you end up buried there, and the more times you play this game the more likely you are to fail.
Even if you're completely selfless, which I don't think is a good idea for anyone mortal adjacent, that still means writing off everyone and thing else you could have saved in the future.
Sometimes you need to pull that trigger, but eagerly jumping for it isn't being heroic. At best it's larping as one to chase the rush of getting to feel righteous.
Last edited:
Exaltations will not go to people that won't use them.
Thing is we have had 1 good chance, and 1 sure chance of killing her, and passed on both. You can never win if you don't even try to win at all.
Using an exaltation doesn't necessarily mean following one particular route with it, and exercising some wisdom and discretion isn't the same as being a coward.
I think you're confusing Holt and Mab here; we've never even been in the same room as Mab, let alone been in a position to kill her.
To the bit after that, I'm all for pressing for what we can get, and taking calculated risks to make progress. However, there's a difference between doing that and setting ourselves up for significant game ending failure if the opposition doesn't do the exact thing we want them to do and nothing else. Then go home and graciously accept defeat without further action until it's their turn to be antagonist again.
That is always a bad bet to make because our opponents aren't going to cooperate any more than they physically have to, and people like Mab have a lot of leverage and angles to play with in regards to most forms of conflict.
Edit: autocorrect error
Last edited:
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Let's not be Lord Hunger(Protagonist of A Simple Transaction) or Ishida Koji(Protagonist of Immersion). Seriously. We don't have their benefits, which in Lord Hunger's case included in-universe plot armor in the form of his Astral Rank's passive fate manipulation among other things.
- Location
- Taken by the hand to a land that they understand
[X] We still need more information. Talk to Bob about how mantles can be transferred without killing their holders.
I wonder, would people be taking the same stances if this was instead an encounter with Raksi?
"Its JUST an elemental dragon! I can take them"
"Its the freakin Kukla, do not disturb"
The Kukla doesn't give a shit about you, and isn't sapient enough to be evil or even not-evil.
But fine then, have it your way, it's Desus instead.
On phone so I'll keep this brief, this is OOC information. What Molly knows IC is that Mab rules a Court of evil monsters and keep employees that displeased her around to torture. How will deciding to let Mab take one of her friends because she was afraid affect her future characterization?
People are paying too much attention to random flavor text in charms, and not enough to voted on actions.
Ya really gonna say infernals are less greedy than solars?
I'm not suggesting we completely give up, but that your approach is bad. The foundation is shaky at best, and if anything unexpected happens it fails completely screwing both of us.
It's a basically throwing a tantrum and daring Mab to spank Molly for it.
Knowing how to lose without self destructing is an important lesson for everyone, and certainly a better characterization step to take than one towards being a self destructive failure.
Personally, I'm hoping that Anawn has something cooking that isn't hilariously evil, and that we can just delay Harry till it cooks off. Though I'm not sure how much stock to put in the sketchy death god's morality.
All that said, it's important to remember this isn't just our choice. If Lydia wants to take a deal to get some guarantees then that's entirely fair.
Greed? I'm talking about the whole heroic virtues thing you were going on about. You can take that in a greedy for victory sense, but that seems more like an after the fact modification than anything you actually implied in that post.
Edit:
To be more specific in my criticism, the biggest problem in your plan is that you're banking on emotionally unsettling Mab and getting a specific reaction out of her. Any reaction other than backing down could go very poorly for us, and we have no particular reason to believe she would solely do that. In fact see have reason to believe she'd go out of her way not to, because displaying weakness is a political problem for her in winter.
You're also basically looking her in the eye and saying we can't do shit right now, but our successor's revenge will be great. Which yeah is kind of freaky to hear as an immortal, but if she stops to think about the fact that we're threatening to bleed all over her and hand off our super weapon to the thousand hells while claiming to be on the side of the angels she might get a little suspicious about Molly's sincerity.
Setting that aside for moment, there's also the nature of her reaction to consider. We've just told her we can't win a fight and that killing Molly has consequences. What can she do that doesn't trigger that condition?
Right off the bat, she could go around us to drag Lydia into the nevernever and force us to play super Mario in a nation of millions of monsters. She could decide that beating Molly unconscious or throwing around exotic curses before doing the above would be fun too.
Or she could back off, then call up some of the white council guys currently depending on her allowing them access to the Ways running through her territory and tell some technical truths about the little warlock girl that's been troubling some of her servants. Our cover is contingent on a lack of reporting by Ebenezer remember, and we have no rep to lean on with the council yet.
If that doesn't suit her purposes there are plenty of others to manipulate into place among her other contacts.
I'm not saying it'd necessarily all go Mab's way, but she's good at this stuff and stronger than a baby exalted in a flat confrontation. Telling a winter fey we can't stop her short of whispering spite into the ear of our successor is telling them where it's safe to press the attack.
Last edited:
OK, looks like we are just narrowly talking to Bob
Arc 2 Post 45: From Darkness Dredged
From Darkness Dredged
22st of July 2006 A.D.
The witch-fire eyes flicker on in the orbits of the skull and the voice echoes forth: "Heya boss, brought the girl to see you wizard pad already. You know it could really use some tidying up if you wanna impress her..." he glances at you. "Unless you are into that kind of thing that is. I'm not judging."
"Yeah, arcane paraphernalia stuffed in to the rafters is my thing," you quip back. You would have said 'turn on', but you are pretty sure that would move Harry from 'blink and you'll miss it blush' to actually disapproving aloud. It's kind of fun to walk the line, you're not going to lie in side your own head at least.
"Why would you lie about what entertains you Magnificence of the Burning Dark?" Usum asks instantly.
"Well you know by some definitions I count as..."
"Bob!" Harry snaps. "We are not here for chitchat, we found out what Mab is planning..."
"What you think Mab is planning," the spirit cuts in with a weary sigh. "You never know what Mab is planning for sure until she does it and sometimes not even then. No offense to your detective chops boss, but she has been doing this a whole lot longer than you have."
"No, what she is actually planning," you say. "I have a form of intelectus that is only limited to asking one question about any one thing and that includes 'what did the person you witnessed on such and such date intend to do'. Used it on Mister." A part of you is really entertained at the notion of telling the Winter Queen that she had been unveiled by the presence of a sleeping cat, not that you are crazy enough to give the game away.
Bob is quiet for a long moment then, the lights of his eyes flaring then falling to am ember and it is only when he finally speaks in a fearful hush that you realize why: "Don't give that away, not to anyone, not to anything! You shouldn't even have told me. You'll be on the lit of every immortal with secrets to keep, which is to say every immortal not to mention that Council's going to scrutinize you with a fine toothed comb and then they will pull out the microscope. Keep it secret, keep it safe."
It's good advice, but you can't help it, you giggle. "Did you mean to quote Lord of the Rings?"
"No, what's that?" Curiosity comes back to the forefront of his mind as quickly as the fear had.
"Fantasy novel series..." you start to reply.
"Ooh.. does it have...?"
"Bob!" Harry snaps again, even as you answer. "No," guessing the gist of what he was about to ask."There's always fanfic though, or at least so I've heard."
By this point poor Harry looks lost so you have mercy and get the conversation back on track. Gard and Lydia are probably getting antsy anyway. You explain what he who was Eldest Ankou had done and why he hunted Kemmlerities even as Mab hunted him. Harry goes on to explain his suspicions that Mab had waited until Lydia was grown before she sprung her trap to give her a more reliable and less resentful pawn.
"So we were wondering how does one transfer a Mantle? Is there a way that does not involve death and Queen Mab bringing him back in exchange for service?" you ask, voice lowering without really meaning to. This sounds like a big sort of secret... is what you have some kind of mantle as well? A really old one? The thought of giving it up is horrific, but you would like to know if someone can take it from you.
"Easier to cleave the mountains from their roots than the Crown from the head of a living Chosen," Usum replies.
Meanwhile Bob had gone silent again, though this time the light on his eyes is steady, looking at a point on the wall somewhere between you and Harry, searching perhaps through his own memories... which is really odd for a spirit of intersect come to think of it, like a wind spirit struggling to fly. The only way there could be something missing or flawed about his memory is if it had been willfully walled off or severed.
Just as that disturbing thought passes through your mind Bob speaks up again.
"Death is the key and the lock, it is the Door of wisdom and of oblivion, open it thee with care, open it with boldness. The river damned shall find a new path..." A chill grows in the room that even you can feel, one that owes nothing to simple temperature, but to a power darker and more terrible. Bob shakes himself, literally shifting on the shelf as his teeth clatter as if with the sudden cold. "If you let someone, like this Katrina try to take Ankou's power with the Black Feast and then kill her in the midst of the ritual life will more readily snap back than the flayed... er pealed off power so if seone else with an affinity for death was in the room they could claim the mantle and leave Arwan alive. Does Gard want to work for Mab?"
"If it can happen by accident because you killed the vampire wannabe can't you just whip up a ritual to do it on purpose?" Harry asks, giving you a worried look for some reason. Maybe he doesn't want you to know so much about forbidden magic, if so he is way too late.
"It's necromancy Harry, someone has to die in the transition, piper's got to be paid," Bob replies.
"You know I'm not opposed to Katrina being dead," you say with intentional understatement. If anyone deserves to die over this it's the Nazi Valkyrie. "Do you think Gard would want the job?"
"That sounds like setting ourselves up for disaster, complicated plans don't survive contact with the enemy they say."
"Well do 'they' have any better ideas to give Mab what she wants without giving her Lydia?" you counter. The plans for not giving her what she wants still swirl in your head.
"Capricorpus, she should to be dead, but isn't..." he speaks slowly, reluctantly. "She would be easier to bind in place than Kastrina because she is a ghost and does not have power over time."
"So what we intentionally design a ritual that uses her as the sacrifice?" you muse. "That would take time, time we don't know if we have and we would still need someone to offer themselves to be Mab's errand runner. She probably has people she trusts with that though right? We could just call her, put our cards on the table and say 'OK give us one of your lakeys and we'll make them then Ankpu.' Would she go for that."
"Molly you can't just whistle up Mab and talk to her like that..." he starts, but you cut him off.
"Yeah, yeah bowing and courtesy, all that flowery stuff. I can do it. No offense, but I can probably do it better than you when it comes to lying through my teeth about how much respect I have for this and what an honor that is. Comes with the spirit guide in my head."
Harry's eyes suddenly twitch to the side. Lasciel had probably said something, from the sour look on his face something he does not like, but can't really dispute. Then he looks back at you: "What have I gotten you into?"
Aww... he sounds so sincere you can't even be mad about it. "Nothing I did not choose to be involved in, now come on we need to settle on a plan."
What do you do next?
[] Talk to Gard, see if she is interested in a mid-ritual promotion
[] Call Mab, cards on the table, ask her to provide a host for the new Ankou and you will try to get Arwan to transfer his power
[] Write in
OOC: Just to be clear while sending Capricorpus into true death would count as 'a death' for the purposes of necromancy she is not alive for the purposes of the First Law so Harry would be clear to use magic in the process.
Last edited: