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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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[X] Ask Bob if what he severed became its own spirit
-[X] Tell Lydia the given options and let her decide. You will try to realise the decision to the best of your results, while arguing against anything possibly suicidal.
--[X] When telling her about the Cold Queen's plans frame it as your best guess instead of intellectus. (use excellency)
---[X][Stunt] I hung from an ice tree inside Arctis Tor once. I know her mind better than most.
--[X] Then there are the options where the Cold Queen doesn't get what she wants, but if we want to discuss those we should do it without Harry. It will be slightly better for him if he can say he had nothing to do with it.
---[X] Not sure if Gard wants to be involved with that either. The Cold Queen is not lightly defied.
--[X] Also tell Lydia about Loyd Slate, so she'll know to ask for more than life if she wants to deal with the Cold Queen


DragonParadox said:
The only way there could be something missing or flawed about his memory is if it had been willfully walled off or severed.
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Does Molly know enough to ask if what he severed off became its own spirit?
 
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Artemis1992 said:
He has been activly hunting Necromancers over the last century, as I understood things.

Also his odds of escaping Mab are propably getting better if he leaves Lydia behind under our protection.
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Hunting necromancers was part of his old job, but that doesn't mean he couldn't keep doing it for his own benefit without that mantle. We don't have confirmation, but since being Ankou also means being oath bound to Mab I think he effectively had to stop using it completely to sto her from just yanking him back to Arctis Tor.
Alratan said:
He might want to transfer the mantle, but doing so in a moment of danger and crisis seems sub-optimal compared to him getting away and doing so later.
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Except that this requires setting up a necromantic ritual we have no knowledge of and sacrificing someone during it. For Harry to be able to magically engage with this we also need the sacrifice to fall into a particular edge case like corpsetaker does. Arranging such circumstances again later would be very difficult, and might not be possible. Regardless, getting Mab to agree to the delay seems unlikely when she can just force the issue now if she wants to.

The value proposition we're offering here is that her problem goes away without further effort on her part, and gets resolved in a fashion that makes a repeat unlikely. Missing her shot without some guarantees beyond our word just extends the time table of this problem and requires more of her attention to keep making progress.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Hunting necromancers was part of his old job, but that doesn't mean he couldn't keep doing it for his own benefit without that mantle. We don't have confirmation, but since being Ankou also means being oath bound to Mab I think he effectively had to stop using it completely to sto her from just yanking him back to Arctis Tor.
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We know at the least that he was here to hunt the Capricorpus.
 
Goldfish said:
@DragonParadox, can a Mantle be rejected by someone it tries to bind to?
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The Mantles of the Ladies couldn't be.
BronzeTongue said:
Except that this requires setting up a necromantic ritual we have no knowledge of and sacrificing someone during it. For Harry to be able to magically engage with this we also need the sacrifice to fall into a particular edge case like corpsetaker does. Arranging such circumstances again later would be very difficult, and might not be possible. Regardless, getting Mab to agree to the delay seems unlikely when she can just force the issue now if she wants to.

The value proposition we're offering here is that her problem goes away without further effort on her part, and gets resolved in a fashion that makes a repeat unlikely. Missing her shot without some guarantees beyond our word just extends the time table of this problem and requires more of her attention to keep making progress.
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Mab's cooperation is probably un-needed and quite possibly undesired. I can see good reason for Awarn to not stick around if Mab is involved.

I see no reason to let Mab gain anything here. Giving her an additional minion doesn't seem like something Molly has any incentive to do work towards, quite the opposite, she has good reason to want to reduce the Winter Court/Mab's influence over the world, given what they've recently been up to in Chicago. Molly has no reason to believe that the Fetches weren't operating under Mab's orders, particularly given she was kidnapped by them to Mab's home rather than anywhere else.

Mab losing here is bad for Mab but no one else, as long as Harry can technically do the letter of what he agreed to, which should be quite possible.
 
Alratan said:
Mab's cooperation is probably un-needed and quite possibly undesired. I can see good reason for Awarn to not stick around if Mab is involved.

I see no reason to let Mab gain anything here. Giving her an additional minion doesn't seem like something Molly has any incentive to do work towards, quite the opposite, she has good reason to want to reduce the Winter Court/Mab's influence over the world, given what they've recently been up to in Chicago. Molly has no reason to believe that the Fetches weren't operating under Mab's orders, particularly given she was kidnapped by them to Mab's home rather than anywhere else.

Mab losing here is bad for Mab but no one else, as long as Harry can technically do the letter of what he agreed to, which should be quite possible.
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Mab's cooperation isn't necessarily required, but it is a good idea. Because she's going to be working to get that mantle back from whoever we give it to, and will probably still pursue her grudge against Anawn in addition to marking down a new one for whoever was playing with her toys.

Getting Mab on board saves all of us a lot of trouble in the long run. Keeping her out is petty spite with significant potential consequences.

As to wanting Mab to lose, remember that this particular minion is the anti necromancy one. Reducing her ability to defend against that is the same thing as empowering other bad actors.

I get that you don't like Mab and want to screw her over, but she isn't going to just take that. This being the case, we need to evaluate consequences and pick the most reasonable option.

Being spiteful isn't worth the negative impacts it'd have on everyone involved.
 
Alratan said:
The Mantles of the Ladies couldn't be.

Mab's cooperation is probably un-needed and quite possibly undesired. I can see good reason for Awarn to not stick around if Mab is involved.

I see no reason to let Mab gain anything here. Giving her an additional minion doesn't seem like something Molly has any incentive to do work towards, quite the opposite, she has good reason to want to reduce the Winter Court/Mab's influence over the world, given what they've recently been up to in Chicago. Molly has no reason to believe that the Fetches weren't operating under Mab's orders, particularly given she was kidnapped by them to Mab's home rather than anywhere else.

Mab losing here is bad for Mab but no one else, as long as Harry can technically do the letter of what he agreed to, which should be quite possible.
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The fetch explained that it saw drawn to Molly's use of terror to power her magic and she has no reason to think it was lying given the condition she was in at the time. So Molly thinks of Mab more as a general enabler of the fetches rather than responsible for them, that is why she is not vengeful against the Queen of Air and Darkness or Winter more generally.

So while Molly has no reasons to do Mab any favors she is not inherently invested in making her lose, it would not be out of character to give Mab what she wants in some way so long as no Molly cares about gets hurt.
 
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[X] LightLan

IMO, calling Mab is an admissible option, but let's ask opinions of others first.
 
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While I'm not eager to condemn winter as a whole and make enemies of them right now, it's hard to deny that they get up to some nasty stuff. Which they largely get away with because of how necessary they are.

Replacing them with something better isn't necessarily a bad idea if done well, the same way they replaced the Norse gods.

That said, I think we'd need to pick a heavily populated planet sized hell if we want to do it ourselves, since replacing them requires holding the outer gates. Which is something that needs a significant population to do properly.

I wouldn't want to take an adversarial posture against winter as a whole, or their top leadership in particular, until after we've reached that point.

If we want to fist fight an extradimensional super power then we need to be one ourselves first.

As a bonus, the look on Harry's face if we told him that we were taking our planet sized fortress and attendant army of hundreds of millions of demons for a spin past the outer gates in an effort to get an interview with the white god for Mab's job would be amazing. We might permanently blow a fuse in his brain.
 
Offtop question.

@DragonParadox , is it useful for understanding of the quest to read "Dresden Files" further than book 8? Or is it enough to find some spoiler-heavy synopsis? Or this is not very necessary? I ask because the stile of "Dresden Files" is not favorite.
(I definitely like this quest (and worldbuilding in this quest) more than "Dresden Files").
 
Asking Gard if she might be willing to assume the Mantle doesn't actually sound like a bad idea, IMO. She has some experience in the field, after all, but more importantly, she's loyal to Odin, who also happens to bear the Mantle(s) of Winter King.

If Gard did take on the Mantle of Ankou, she would almost certainly remain loyal to Odin, and thereby Winter in a round about way. She might not be quite the necromancer hunting lackey Mab would prefer, but it would be hard to find a better candidate than Gard, given her experience and expertise.

[X] Talk to Gard, see if she is interested in a mid-ritual promotion
 
Arhin said:
Offtop question.

@DragonParadox , is it useful for understanding of the quest to read "Dresden Files" further than book 8? Or is it enough to find some spoiler-heavy synopsis? Or this is not very necessary? I ask because the stile of "Dresden Files" is not favorite.
(I definitely like this quest (and worldbuilding in this quest) more than "Dresden Files").
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It is not really necessary, if something that shows up in a later book appears in the quest I will explain it from Molly's PoV since she will not know what it is.
 
[X] Talk to Gard, see if she is interested in a mid-ritual promotion

I still think bringing Mab in on this might be a good idea, but we should have our ducks in a row first. If Gard is willing to take it up pushing for that would be better for us.

If she's willing to do that without getting Mab's permission first then I'd be willing to accept her assessment that Mab would take a fait accompli solution without retribution.
 
BronzeTongue said:
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.
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Hadn't finished replying to this, but my break was over and I ended up hitting reply without thinking.

I'm all for thinking our response through, and trying for less extreme options first. Knocking Harry out and blaming one of Holt's minions for instance, or trying to get the spell outlined this update together. But the nuclear option should remain on the table for if all else fails. Last ditch, hopefully it will never come to this, but in consideration.

Also to note, as I said before, Molly is not a Utilitarian, so theoretical future beings saved are not a consideration for her IC. Try justifying holding back in Kantian or some other form of deontological ethics. Molly probably hasn't read Kant, but he does hew rather closely to the ethics practiced by Michael and Harry, her role models.

edit. Or better yet, the via the Tao of Peter Parker, as Harry likes to reference as his own ethical touchstone.
BronzeTongue said:
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.
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Certainly it should not be the first option, and not something Molly goes into without input from others. I should probably have been more clear about that.
BronzeTongue said:
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.
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I literally said "heroes are greedy" in the post you originally replied to. That's not an edit.

And again, E-mailed blackmail that goes off regardless of how Molly dies. A lot of these responses sound like great XP sources anyway.

Anyway, want to know what Lydia wants to get out of this first before getting into anything else.

[X] Discuss the situation and possible options with everyone present, including Lydia and Gard. Do not explain how you got Mab's plans.
-[X] Talk to Gard, see if she is interested in a mid-ritual promotion
-[X] Propose going after Capriocorpus for the ritual - you or Dresden could use Lydia to scry for them, as she was possessed by them
 
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Odysseus2099 said:
Hadn't finished replying to this, but my break was over and I ended up hitting reply without thinking.

I'm all for thinking our response through, and trying for less extreme options first. Knocking Harry out and blaming one of Holt's minions for instance, or trying to get the spell outlined this update together. But the nuclear option should remain on the table for if all else fails. Last ditch, hopefully it will never come to this, but in consideration.

Also to note, as I said before, Molly is not a Utilitarian, so theoretical future beings saved are not a consideration for her IC. Try justifying holding back in Kantian or some other form of deontological ethics. Molly probably hasn't read Kant, but he does hew rather closely to the ethics practiced by Michael and Harry, her role models.

edit. Or better yet, the via the Tao of Peter Parker, as Harry likes to reference as his own ethical touchstone
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You don't have to be a strict utilitarian to do risk assessment and pick realistic plans instead of grand but pointless gestures. Ethical philosophy that doesn't account for what can actually reasonably be accomplished isn't useful for anything.

In this case, your nuclear option doesn't do anything useful for anyone. She can work around us without killing us if she has to, and threatening her with blackmail isn't an effective threat since this whole situation isn't that hidden and as long as she resolves it in a politically acceptable fashion not a threat if it becomes more widely known. We'd have to use the crown to dig, and that immediately escalates this conflict considerably.

More broadly, blackmail is a bad tool because once you bow to it once the person who's doing so knows they have your number. Mab knows this, which means she'll immediately begin working on solving us as a significant problem. The worse the secret we use is, the faster and harder this gets. How convenient for Mab that we've just told her that we can't physically stop her from doing what she wants, and cares about the fates of two people she's allowed to use her power on.

I don't agree with the idea that the great responsibility that comes with power necessarily entails giving up your entire life for the benefit of others, or that having a role model means you should take on their every trait. If anything the lesson Harry's life teaches is to practice some moderation and context awareness.

I would day power does come with a responsibility to think through the consequences of its use though. To my eye your plan is grandstanding. It doesn't appreciably account for the fact that other people have agency and resources, and sacrifices making reasonable achievable gains for the sake of being righteous.

Odysseus2099 said:
I literally said "heroes are greedy" in the post you originally replied to. That's not an edit.

And again, E-mailed blackmail that goes off regardless of how Molly dies. A lot of these responses sound like great XP sources anyway.

Anyway, want to know what Lydia wants to get out of this first before getting into anything else.
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Fair enough, not sure how I missed that bit. I still fundamentally disagree with your assessment of exalted, what they cared about, and how much that should inform our actions.

Ignoring what's in front of you isn't a virtue, it actively hinders your ability to do things that matter. Doing so is sacrificing real progress for the sake of personal satisfaction.

Edit:

To be more clear on the heroics stuff; exalted are more like Classical Greek heroes than anything else. You could make Jason and the Argonauts into an exalted warband without changing much besides the power scale.

Comic book style heroes could fit into the solar paradigm, but that's not who they were at their core.
 
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Alratan said:
The Mantles of the Ladies couldn't be.
Mab's cooperation is probably un-needed and quite possibly undesired. I can see good reason for Awarn to not stick around if Mab is involved.

I see no reason to let Mab gain anything here. Giving her an additional minion doesn't seem like something Molly has any incentive to do work towards, quite the opposite, she has good reason to want to reduce the Winter Court/Mab's influence over the world, given what they've recently been up to in Chicago. Molly has no reason to believe that the Fetches weren't operating under Mab's orders, particularly given she was kidnapped by them to Mab's home rather than anywhere else.

Mab losing here is bad for Mab but no one else, as long as Harry can technically do the letter of what he agreed to, which should be quite possible.
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My brother in Christ. Please stop trying to make an enemy of the local supernatural hyperpower.
Especially when we currently have zero in the way of corporate or personal power that would make a difference if Queen Mab, as opposed to low level small fry, got seriously irritated with us.

And reconsider suggestions about weakening the primary defenders of reality's borders.

Molly has talked to Dresden about the Winter Court.
She knows that the closest political model for how the Winter Court works is something like feudal human society, which translates to limited day to day control over those who bear Winter allegiance.

And frankly, Molly is not quite so much of a narcissist to believe that Mab specificically sent fetches to kidnap her, personally.
Pre-Exaltation, she was just a baby wizard.
BronzeTongue said:
While I'm not eager to condemn winter as a whole and make enemies of them right now, it's hard to deny that they get up to some nasty stuff. Which they largely get away with because of how necessary they are. Replacing them with something better isn't necessarily a bad idea if done well, the same way they replaced the Norse gods.
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I dont believe they do. Members of the Winter Court(and the Summer Court for that matter) get up to shenanigans on their own time; Lea ended up as Dresden's godmother based on personal interactions with Margaret LeFay, not any sort of corporate policy. Ditto with Aurora ending up as Elaine's patron over in Summer.

But Winter as a corporate entity doesnt really seem to bring their business very much into the mortal world.

BronzeTongue said:
[X] Talk to Gard, see if she is interested in a mid-ritual promotion

I still think bringing Mab in on this might be a good idea, but we should have our ducks in a row first. If Gard is willing to take it up pushing for that would be better for us. If she's willing to do that without getting Mab's permission first then I'd be willing to accept her assessment that Mab would take a fait accompli solution without retribution.
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Problem with this vote, as I see it, is that if Molly doesnt think its a position thats' suitable for Lydia?
She's going to be hard pressed to internally justify offering it to Gard.
Especially as Gard is already a Valkyrie with a boss, and sisters, that she seems well content with.

On the other hand, it makes internal sense to bring the details before everyone present before moving forward.
Odysseus option is the best write-in I've seen; it just needs a question about Bob and his injury.
Because Evil Bob was relevant in the Corpsetaker's backstory in canon, and might be relevant here.
 
VOTE
[X]Ask Bob if what he severed became its own spirit
[X]Discuss the situation and possible options with everyone present, including Lydia and Gard. Keep Crown secret.


REASONS
Ask Bob if he created his evil twin.
Evil Bob was the Bob personality that worked with Kemmler, and in canon,after Bob got rid of it, it chose to work with the Corpsetaker's Ghost. Knowing that it might be around might be relevant.

Now discuss the situation and options(transferring Mantles, possible candidates, if Gard is interested) with everyone present.
Everyone here has a stake, and some might have suggestions.
 
uju32 said:
VOTE
[X]Ask Bob if what he severed became its own spirit
[X]Discuss the situation and possible options with everyone present, including Lydia and Gard. Keep Crown secret.


REASONS
Ask Bob if he created his evil twin.
Evil Bob was the Bob personality that worked with Kemmler, and in canon,after Bob got rid of it, it chose to work with the Corpsetaker's Ghost. Knowing that it might be around might be relevant.

Now discuss the situation and options(transferring Mantles, possible candidates, if Gard is interested) with everyone present.
Everyone here has a stake, and some might have suggestions.
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Can you make this into a single vote rather than two separate ones?
 
uju32 said:
REASONS
Ask Bob if he created his evil twin.
Evil Bob was the Bob personality that worked with Kemmler, and in canon,after Bob got rid of it, it chose to work with the Corpsetaker's Ghost. Knowing that it might be around might be relevant.
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Not sure why we would want to talk to Bob about it now, unless we are planning on sacrificing said twin (and all of its knowledge) to power the ritual. Which I don't think Molly would consider doing.
[X]Discuss the situation and possible options with everyone present, including Lydia and Gard. Keep Crown secret.
 
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