Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Which one is it? I am missing something.
- Location
- Germany
Eh, this is more joking about it from her perspective I guess.
As good a coping mechanism as any.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's inherent in the charm that creates our realm, although I can't remember if it's in the charm text itself or the FAQ. Any charm that says "send target to X hell" can instead retarget to ours.
Shitstorm is a rank 4 Conjuration ritual, which automatically deals typical Attribute+Skill in bashing damage, except it is automatic in the vicinity of the caster.
Then you activate excellency and other dice-adding/difficulty adjusting charms, activate the charm to transform bashing into aggravated and things start getting very, very silly.
Oh, amazing. That does make essence management a lot easier once we get Murder is Meat and our own hell.
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- Location
- Germany
Transcendent Anathema only converts Lethal Damage to Aggravated, not Bashing.
Simmering Simmer Resentment converts all damage to Agg for the chosen target.
Unless this is an occasional of mechanical weirdness where only certain kind of specifically defined "attack" counts.
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My reasoning is that if the prison has been destroyed, damaged, or has other exits, that question covers it.
Sorcery Paths of Power works just fine.
Strongly disagree.
Cleveland is a city of around a third of a million, with around 10x that in its metro area. Even if it was only able to feed on people of Finnish descent, there's thousands and tens of thousands in the Cleveland area. Millions in Finland itself.
There would be literally no reason to hang around a nursing home with a couple hundred people.
Not when it could prey on an order of magnitude more, trivially.
All the evidence suggests its not free, and what we saw was the cultists wedging open the prison door with technosorcery in order to drip feed nourishment through it to the entity on the other side, in a way that gave it localized freedom of action.
Which is why it was so desperate as to attempt to attack a party armed with a spiritkiller.
Strongly disagree.
The Raksha charged a Celestial Exalt with an Agg weapon(and its a spirit, so it can see our minidarkhallow spirit signature) and a Knight bearing Amoracchius, which basically screams the power of the White God when wielded and is a demonstrated spiritkiller. Thats not considered, thats either blind hate or desperation.
If it was free, it would have simply bailed and moved somewhere with fewer life hazards rather than take the risk.
Which is what predators do.
Especially if you're right and its weakened.
They were in nightmares, and probably drugged as well, given the reports of needlemarks.
Im betting they dont wake up before we get them out.
And even if they do, they're gonna have to suck it up because we might need the Essence to keep them and us alive.
I'd rather not go below 25% Essence tank in an active combat zone.
Im not convinced that combat encounters in this building are over, and we're operating solo until our party members return.
We chose this sort of complication unprompted when picking our shintai form to look the way it does.
Them's the breaks. If the QM is generous, we might get an option to update our esthetics next time we go up in Essence tiers.
Might be directly relevant right now while we have Michael and Lydia rounding up the cultists and other staff.
So I'll edit to burn a WP instead.
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- Location
- Germany
I'd say that Hunters Hunted II Numina are much easier to use by the way.
True. Fewer Paths though. And those are deliberately weaker than anything you'll find in a Sorcerer book though.
Its scaled to scenarios where groups of covert hunters are hunting vampires, not one where there's a magical community.
Poor fit for modelling non-White Council sorcery imo
Current tally:
This assumes it's possible for it to directly convert people into personal power, with no limitations on how quickly it can do so. People's souls are food. If I was a starved prisoner, putting me in an all you can eat buffet wouldn't make me healthy and strong quickly.
Basically, you are assuming that, if given access to an unresisting population it would essentially start scaling exponentially or nearly so. I am assuming that it functions a bit more linearly. Ie yes, it can eat people for power, but no more than X people per day, until it regains enough health / power to eat more.
This assumes the raksha recognized any of those. We don't know what kind of senses it has. It also had a chance of winning. It has armor that stops agg, it has attacks that directly target willpower. It didn't get to use its best stuff either. It could have taken us on, especially if reinforcements kept coming. It didn't win, but it had a shot at winning.
And as far as I can tell, it did so when it figured out it wasn't winning.
Ah, I see. You are only considering these six prisoners. I considered all the elderly in the facility.
And a combat encounter amidst a panicking civilian population is much worse than among a non-panicking one.
That the issue exists is not a reason not to deal with it.
??? What book is this from?
Sorcerer: Paths of Power. Conjuration Path. I think this is our primary Path book, alongside with Sorcerer's Companion.
It doesn't normally deal anywhere near this much damage, but huge dicepools and difficulty-adjusting charms do silly things to Paths system.
A lot of spells are also capped to [Path Rating] in terms of maximum effect potency/duration/area, but, sometimes, that doesn't apply for certain rituals and paths.
Still doesn't compare to Space Monster's Scream, tho. I have great trouble figuring out what 120+ points of damage would even look like.
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If you were an escaped prisoner, you would put distance between yourself and your prison as quickly as possible.
No Im not.
Im assuming that it can feed a lot more safely away from a known portal to the site of its confinement.
And it wouldnt need cultist help to feed if it was free. Not if its perky enough to attack Infernals and use Shaping attacks.
Its a Raksha in the Dresden Files.
I guarantee it recognized Amoracchius. No spirit misses an active Sword for what it is: an empowered instrument of the White God.
That would be like not recognizing the sun.
Sure it had a chance of winning against Molly alone. But at best it would take injury doing so.
Meanwhile, Michael and Amoracchius hadnt even entered the conversation yet, and Michael had a bloody Dragon on his kill list.
Furthermore, the Swords level the playing ground against all its tricks, and True Faith is an additional force multiplier.
Tigers dont attack elephants. Lions dont attack hippos.
If it had any other option, good odds it would have run away rather than risk true death at the edge of Amoracchius.
Thats not my reading. Look at the update again:
We cut its flesh. We cut its armor. We cut its Essence. We cut its Name.
We crippled it so badly that it couldnt maintain its presence in the mortal world anymore.
So it fell back into its prison cell and the door slammed shut behind it.
Not a major concern of ours. At worst, Michael can pinch hit.
Furthermore, its a huge facility, and we're in one corner of it, and the seniors and cultists are people we are move to somewhere we already had the civilians barricade themselves in a safe location.
There isnt likely to be a situation where we are dealing with all the seniors here while in Shintai.
We cant deal with it under these circumstances. And we cant mitigate it without reducing our combat preparedness.
I'd rather keep the Essence for combat preparedness under these circumstances; burning Essence to keep seniors calm is not going to help if some cultist panic fires into a crowd. A Melee Excellency will.
Any combat while attempting exfiltration is going to trigger CCC. Add to that a scene-long excellency, and I don't think we have to worry about combat too much.
Yes we can. With excellency we should be rolling 14 dice (12 + 2 stunt ones). We should be comfortably in legendary success range.
It's prison is back in old country, and in the NeverNever, not in Cleveland.
Known portal? What? Where are you getting this from? The closest we have to a known portal is a failed attempt by a cult 50 years back, which apparently went mostly unnoticed by anyone, judged by how the cult wasn't squashed by movers and shakers. It had a good thing going here. Why would it leave?
1) It was perky enough that it had a decent chance of taking us. And the cultists had a decent chance of taking Lydia and Michael. Lydia is at 0 essence. Two or three more cultists with guns, and both she and Michael would be dead.
2) There are many things one doesn't need, but enjoys. It's a raksha with a story of being a god. Having cultists is a part of the core of its story.
3) Shaping, apparently, isn't hard for it.
So, no, you are making a ton of assumptions here, and then following those assumptions with more shaky logic.
You're just asking if it needs it, not sure if this falls under the "not an evil genie" clause or not but a yes/no to that wouldn't tell us much about how it actually works.
If it turns out the thing opens under obscure circumstances that only occur every five decades or something then it might not need alterations, but we could easily want to set something up to screw with it anyway.
It's important information to know, but awareness of if it's in prison or not isn't the same as knowing how the prison works.
If we ask how it's imprisoned when it isn't then we'd get back a "no" but if it's in a flaky or subverted cell then getting the details on how it works could be crucial to flipping the script on it.
Edit:
It's the god body of an ascending demon empress; it should be something of glory and terror, not the fantasy equivalent of a rubber forehead alien.
As far as I'm concerned at least it's functioning as intended even if it's at times inconvenient.
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Murder is Meat has been GM stated to destroy thing forever.
- Location
- Brazil
@DragonParadox you said that beings like vampires who are under MiF won't feel the effects of hunger/torments, but they will need something to fuel their supernatural feats.
My question is can Maggot Mana Plague substitute these sources for their abilities or does it only work for normal hunger and thirst?
My question is can Maggot Mana Plague substitute these sources for their abilities or does it only work for normal hunger and thirst?
The charm would work, though it should be noted that much like the wish charm if you do that too many times you will permanently alter the person who takes the meal. That is a thing for Molly to consider on a moral level.
- Location
- Brazil
Consequences of the Maggot Mana Plague (in the case of the Wampires we are planning to get):
1) Increased loyalty to the Infernal - They are already under MiS, which either forces them to be loyal or started to suffer again.
2) Decreased difficulty of Infernal's social actions on them - MiS (must already obey Molly's orders), Demonic Primacy (decreases dc against CoD even more), max increase in social areas we are planning for our encounter with Mab ( they're already fucked if Molly really tries hard in this case)
3) Transformation into Creatures of Darkness - They are already CoD.
In that case at least, I don't see too many problems.
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1)No it wont. CCC is triggered by physical confinement .
This would not qualify; its not a prison, and we werent being held in it, nor is it a goal of any cultists we fight here to capture us or to hold us here. Too many attempts to One Weird Trick that particular charm.
2)Our Excellency lasts for Essence + 1 combat turns during combat and Essence+1 minutes outside combat.
At Essence 2, thats a duration of 3 combat turns/9 seconds before we have to spend more Essence to keep an Excellency going.
Expenditure is very much an issue.
3)Molly is not the only one at risk during combat. All the civilians around us are also an issue.
Especially in a home full of seniors.
Their wellbeing and survival is very much a mission goal, one thats arguably of higher priority than killimg a Raksha.
1)No we cant.
Our current Essence reserves are 6/12, 50% of maximum; burning 2 Essence in the next update on essential Crown questions drops us to 4/12, 33%. Burning 1 more on Leadership, of all things would drop us to 3/12 or 25% in a combat zone.
There is a time and place where that might be appropriate. An active combat zone is not one of them.
Its the same reason why emergency workers are mandated to secure their own security first before trying to help someone in distress, else you just create more victims.
2)No, its prison is at the bottom of the sea.
Thats why it can be accessed from Cleveland, seven thousand kilometers from Finland, where the only common relationship is that it also has a coastline to a major body of water and some people of historical Finnish descent.
1)Do you not remember the robot arm retrieving gossamer from the tank? How do you think that was accomplished?
2)This is not the only concentration of Finnish Americans in the US.
Its not even the only concentration in the Great Lakes. See Minnesota, for example, on Lake Superior:
3)Why wouldnt it leave if it was free?
Instead of grazing the dreams of half a dozen people at a time, it would have a victim population orders of magnitude greater.
Not having to worry about whether its victims lived or died or suffered injury, the way the cultists have to about nursing home residents, would make its feeding and activities that much easier.
1)The Raksha was perky enough to have a chance of taking Molly 1v1, not our entire party. Noone said it was a decent chance.
2)The cultists had fuckall chance of taking Michael and Lydia. Both were armored, they were holding a chokepoint and the cultists were armed with handguns. Adding more cultists wouldnt have helped because its not a white room affair and they get in their own way and line of fire.
I mean, Michael has canonically duelled the roughly two thousand year old master swordsman Nicodemus Archleone at least twice and both times, Nicky couldnt win on skill. He's solo'd Black Court vampires and their retinue.
Cultists? Lol.
Iku Turso? Michael killed the Great Dragon Siriothrax. Behold the Fist of God.
3)The Pathfinders are an organization that originated in Finland and are involved in African conflict diamonds. They're transnational. Cultists are replaceable. Not quite attritable, but expendable for a Raksha.
It might value cultists in general, but there's no current indication it had a personal attachment to these ones.
4)Shaping is a basic capability of every Raksha of power. That does not mean its not a significant hazard for anyone without defenses. Especially since we forgot to bring cold iron with us, something Im still kicking myself for; Molly could have made some in their hotel room from scrap steel, and it would have made this so much easier.
So no, I strongly disagree with most everything you have said here.
My reasoning is: If it doesnt need reinforcement, we dont need further information at this time.
If it does, then then we can make time to follow up with detailed questions about fixing/reinforcing its jail, or calling in other people to do so. After all, the fact they're doing this in the US instead of Finland suggests that if they tried to do it in the Old Country, there are local supernaturals who would recognize what they were doing and kill them for it.
We dont need to know how it works, just that its working fine.
And OOC, it means the QM does not have to make up a mechanical justification if its not necessary.
We have had this argument before, I think; I dont see a reason to relitigate it.
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Cultists attacking us and preventing us from leaving is exactly what CCC is about. It's not about locks. It's about physical confinement. If our monk teacher made a promise to fight us to prevent us from leaving until we finish learning our lesson, it would have triggered - that's explicitly canon.
Beause they already tried it here, and it nearly worked. No more reason is needed.2)This is not the only concentration of Finnish Americans in the US.
Its not even the only concentration in the Great Lakes. See Minnesota, for example, on Lake Superior:
Yet they came back here. Consider why that was.
And it would have been smacked down very quickly. You assume that its power would easily scale with a number of victims. That it could process larger quantities of victims easily. That it wanted larger quantities of victims in the first place, instead of getting enjoyment out of being a god of the cult.
Molly is pretty damn combat specialized E2 exalt. It stood a decent chance against us. If two or more cultists were in the room, we would likely have lost .
Michael has been taken out by mortal gunfire before. he's specialized against monsters, not human waves. A cultist with an improvised grenade (a fire extinguisher) would have finished us off. Two or more cultists with automatic firearms would have finished us off. We were very close to dying here.
When did I say this?
We have a very different reading on what transpired. And on what is happening in general. I feel that your reading of the situation is based on a number of assumptions that are, at best, arguable. What you are saying isn't swaying my opinion at all. I think it's safe to say that we won't convince each other.
No it isnt.
You cant rules lawyer someone, or a group of someones, trying to kill us in a battle we initiated as an attempt to keep us confined, just because it happened indoors. There are limits to how far you can reasonably expect to cheese that charm.
You mean they tried here and failed. Close only counts with handgrenades and nuclear weappns, not magic rituals.
There are lots of places where they havent tried and havent failed.
Places with Finns. Places with less government scrutiny. Fewer records. They could have gone elsewhere.
Returning here suggests there's an advantage to either this location specifically or this population specifically.
Which suggests portal/weak spot/loophole that can be accessed here.
The Nightmare operated for at least a month, possibly more without issue in Grave Peril. Evil Bob was up and about for seven years in canon without anyone noticing. Corpsetaker's ghost operated for seven years years between Dead Beat and Ghost Story, eating its way back to full power. The baka baku was eating patients in a Chicago hospital in Day One.
The Grendelkin was eating people right in Chicago's Undertown in Heorot, and noone noticed until he stole a barrel of mead at a competition. Dresden isnt even sure he killed him, he just ran and didnt go back to check.
Even this operation has been going on for at least half a decade, counting construction time and regulatory review.
Nobody noticed or did shit until the White God's people sent the Fist of God along. You have a distinctly rosy picture of the setting if you think what amounts to a magical serial killer with global reach wont just skip jurisdictions.
See the skinwalkers.
Wizards have good reason to dislike them. Everyone has a good idea where to find them. Noone willingly picks that fight.
1)This is not true.
To my recollection, Michael has been disabled by gunfire only twice, and both of those were by Denarians. The first time was Nicodemus pulling an Indiana in the middle of a swordfight in Death Masks. The second was Tessa shooting him with an AK in Small Favor as he was getting on the evac helicopter.
Seriously. The Denarians have hereditary cultists. Entire villages and bloodlines of mortals whose entire lives are built around serving Nicky et al as minions. They're so devoted, they have their tongues cut out. They take suicide pills iirc. You think the Denarians wont have tried that by now if it had any chance of success?
Knights are not immortal, but you are gravely underestimating the risk they pose to groups of hostile mortals.
===
2)Your assessment is inaccurate. The moment Molly popped shintai cultists stopped being a factor for her.
Let me explain.
Shintai!Molly had 12x -0 HLs, not counting her Ox-Body HLs, and was rolling Soak 14 (Stamina 4 + Ebon Scales 1 + VLE 5 + Demon Armor 4 ) at DC5. Her base Parry dice pool was 15 dice at DC4, before Excellency.
Heavy pistols, the type the cultists were carrying, deal 5L damage. Assault rifles are 7L.
There's good odds she could have stood still in front of a firing squad with standard AR assault rifles on automatic, and taken no damage. Not scratch damage, no damage. Pistols wont do anything.
And that assumes they could have hit her in the first place, because hitting a flying target thats moving x2 human speed in close combat with your patron monster-god who you dont want to hit is NOT a standard DC6 difficulty roll.
Frankly, they would have been an impediment rather than a benefit.
If they had had a miniboss around, or someone with Ex2-style War Charms instead of just a squishy sorcerer, then maybe they might have been other than scenery in a fight between an Infernal in shintai and a Raksha throwing around AoE attacks.
1)You said that having cultists were a core part of its story. I pointed out that Pathfinders have transnational funding, and ergo have transnational members. If it was free, it could have left Cleveland to where some of its other cultists are. If it valued this particular set, it could have ordered them to join it at it destination. Or recruited new ones.
Cultists have never been a good reason for its staying here, within a couple hundred miles of a Sword bearer.
2)Also worth noting that cultists are not a part of the story of Iku Turso's mythology, nor are they a constant with all Raksha.
Its entirely possible for Iku Turso to break out of its prison and its first actions being to eat the cultists that helped break it out.
Fair enough.
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Good night guys
Update will be tomorrow, probably not in the morning since I'll be a little busy, but definitely sometime tomorrow.
Update will be tomorrow, probably not in the morning since I'll be a little busy, but definitely sometime tomorrow.
Random factoid one:
Harry Dresden is six foot eight inches, give or take an inch. For a real life example of what that means:
Senator-elect John Fetterman is six foot eight inches tall and weighed about 415 pounds before his stroke.
For reference, the lady beside him is his wife.
She's five foot nine inches, and barely comes up to his shoulder while wearing heels.
EDIT
Hell, Michael Carpenter is only around two inches shorter, as is Sanya
These are very big men.
Harry Dresden is six foot eight inches, give or take an inch. For a real life example of what that means:
For reference, the lady beside him is his wife.
She's five foot nine inches, and barely comes up to his shoulder while wearing heels.
EDIT
Hell, Michael Carpenter is only around two inches shorter, as is Sanya
These are very big men.
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@Yog
You will find citations for things like improved initiative, aimpoint dodging, combat precog, wound penalty negation, and enhanced durability, as well as feats like duelling Black Court vampires and winning(Shiro), keeping pace with a White Court vampire while suffering a broken rib(Michael), kicking a Red Court half vampire in the back so hard their neck breaks from the whiplash(Sanya), and carving your way through a Red Court army of vampires, half-vampires and mortals all the way to decapitating a Lord of Outer Night(Murphy).
Even feats like throwing a dogpile of Reds off you in a visible shockwave, and breaking the collective psychic attack of the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night with a slash are included, with citations.
Specifically for this scenario about mortals working for a baddie, its worth noting the scene where Shiro went through three Denarian goons and then took Denarian Deirdre Archleone hostage in less than four seconds.
Its just that Sword wielders have a preference for showing mercy.
Thats not a cant, thats a dont want to. Make it necessary and the Sword will julienne them as fast as their boss.
Also worth noting Dresden's opinion here; he can be wrong, but its worth seeing what he thinks:
I think you'll find this useful.
You will find citations for things like improved initiative, aimpoint dodging, combat precog, wound penalty negation, and enhanced durability, as well as feats like duelling Black Court vampires and winning(Shiro), keeping pace with a White Court vampire while suffering a broken rib(Michael), kicking a Red Court half vampire in the back so hard their neck breaks from the whiplash(Sanya), and carving your way through a Red Court army of vampires, half-vampires and mortals all the way to decapitating a Lord of Outer Night(Murphy).
Even feats like throwing a dogpile of Reds off you in a visible shockwave, and breaking the collective psychic attack of the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night with a slash are included, with citations.
Specifically for this scenario about mortals working for a baddie, its worth noting the scene where Shiro went through three Denarian goons and then took Denarian Deirdre Archleone hostage in less than four seconds.
A Sword is just as lethal against mortals working for supernatural baddies as it is against supernatural baddies themselves.Death Masks c22 said:
Its just that Sword wielders have a preference for showing mercy.
Thats not a cant, thats a dont want to. Make it necessary and the Sword will julienne them as fast as their boss.
Also worth noting Dresden's opinion here; he can be wrong, but its worth seeing what he thinks:
Dude is on the clock now.Blood Rites c6 said: