Mmm. You have some points. But we still seem to disagree on the particulars of the risk/cost/benefit analysis. The idea that all our foes are automatically better at fleeing then we are at pursuing feels flawed. At best if something goes very wrong some may escape, but we can just choose to chase whichever is carrying the gossamer. If it is even something they can carry easily while they run, depending on how large the container is.
Even if we roll flawlessly well on the intimidate I would still not trust the vampires further then we can throw them. So just because we can throw them pretty far doesn't mean they are trustworthy. It's intimidation not mind control. They won't be loyal. And if anything goes wrong they very well could break or turn on us. Murphy has a say, as you say. And having a bunch of vampires at our back is a big multiplier on just how bad it could get.
(As an aside one of my most favorite things about exalted is the potential for epic moments of social. One of my least favorite is exalted using their massive social stats like a sledgehammer to browbeat everyone into doing things their way.)
On the other hand a well timed attack against a weakened and distracted foe could be absolutely devastating. No need for anything complicated. We have all the tools we need. No need for unsavory allies. We are powerful. We have the advantage of surprise. We will have a perfect tactical position. If they get away, we screwed something up massively.
It is almost literally a fish in a barrel.
Edit: I would also like to add that I am not nearly so sure about us being able to get the vampires to do what we want. The circumstances are significantly different from our other intimidation targets. Enough that I expect the difficulty to be much higher. Such that even with our reductions it will still be challenging. Walking up to a big dangerous and organised group and glaring at them and saying "You all work for me now" is much bigger of an ask then intimidating a lone target.
-All things being equal, someone running is always faster than someone pursuing.
He who runs for his life or liberty is always going to outrun someone running for profit of some sort.
-There is nothing to imply that anyone carrying gossamer will be clearly marked, and we dont have the occult senses to identify it from afar when its in a container.
Even worse if its in multiple containers and you have two or more people fleeing.
-Thats because we dont trust them.
Any more than Dresden trusted Nicodemus when he was told to help him break into Hades' vaults in Skin Game.
We dont expect loyalty, just obedience, and that only when we are at their backs. Dont conflate useful with trust.
-We'll be at their back, not the other way around.
-Have you read the part where Dresden got his hands on a couple of ghouls after they murdered, raped and ate two trainee Wardens, and treated them so badly that the ghouls stopped taking mercenary contracts against the White Council?
Thats exactly how I expect this to go.
There's maybe one person here in that group who might qualify as an ancient vampire equivalent. Maybe.
Im expecting a full Code Brown.
-Intimidation is one of our Key abilities.
Go do the math. Demonic Primacy of Essence will literally reduce a DC9 social task to a DC7 one when dealing with CoDs.
And will make a DC6 standard difficulty into a DC4.
And Im fully expecting an unsheathed Amoraccchius to be worth its own dice or DC reduction.
You are not listening. Leaving close to a hundred valuable personnel overseeing at most 30 less valuable personnel is terrible resource management. They are not productive here. They can't intervene if something goes wrong. They are strictly "direct from afar". The same can be done via (magical) teleconference.
I highly doubt we'll find many, if any, non-cultist personnel there. Maybe someone hastily summoned.
To the Fomor, everyone else there who isnt a Fomor is expendable.
Soldiers and slave support staff alike. The Fomor can replace them pretty quickly, because magical bioengineering and mindcontrol is one of their hats. They are a lot more like the Red Court in that way.
Whats important is the Fomor cantrev-lord and the gossamer.
Decent odds they would writeoff the entire base for the gossamer we already recovered and consider it cheap at the price.
Human value systems do not apply here.
This entire operation has already cost upwards of fifty million dollars and thousands of manhours to set up.
I dont see why you think they wont attempt to protect the products of their investment.
If they can't exercise some level of impulse control, or at minimum send subordinates who they can force to do so and trust to work somewhat independently, then I struggle to see how they ever made any progress. Increasing the logistics footprint of your secret facility by a third to a half for no operational benefit is really dumb. Especially when it's far from your center of power.
If gossamer is important enough for Cantrev lords to be involved then it should be important for them to put some actual thought into their harvesting operation.
Canon has a Fomor cantrev-lord attempt to blow up a diplomatic reception in the consulate of the svartalfar with a chemical weapon in the middle of Chicago. That he smuggled in via diplomatic pouch.
Right after they just signed a treaty with them.
Its an ongoing issue with a lot of supernaturals that rational decisionmaking only goes so far before some bright spark develops an inflated sense of their own importance.
@uju32
My issue with the whole thing is that any more forces than the local cultists are entirely your conjecture.
Just because they have an underwater-bolthole does not mean that their operation here is suddenly 5 times bigger than we know, IC and OOC so far.
You made up the hypothetical sorcerer and thralls based on a general idea of how Formor work, which might have nothing to do with the cult we are actually dealing with. They were noted to be extremly fractious though and we have absolutly no reason to think they are following the procedure of the Formor from the books.
Edit: Also for Michael the job is over, which also supports the idea that we are just cleaning up here, not diving into the much bigger bonus-dungeon.
-Yes. Its my best guess based on available data.
Mortal cultists dont have the resources to build covert underwater bases in US coastal waters, off a major city.
And the Rampires arent throwing three Blood Packs at this place because they think its manned by mortal cultists.
-Word of Bob via Dresden is that this is a Fomor op. If it is, they canonically have established patterns of behavior.
The QM can choose to deviate as he chooses.
-We ARE cleaning up.
If this is a Fomor op as Bob and Dresden have said, then there's literally only one, or a handful of persons of importance here.
Everyone else being expendable fodder by Fomor reckoning, with the cultists actually being more valuable than most servitors because they can operate covertly. The Fomor dont give a fuck.
-Also worth remembering that the Swords, and the people who give their wielders orders, operate based on a lot more information than mortals do. What they consider important enough for their intervention is not necessarily what we mortals do.
Case in point:
Amoracchius and Fidelacchius both sat out the first year and half after Changes while the Fomor were attacking coastal cities and kidnapping women and children en masse. Amoracchius was benched for the Fomor invasion of Chicago, when Ethniu killed around sixty thousand people and tried to set off a major war.
Mysterious ways.
