Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[fictionfan]

8th of August 2006 A.D.

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Not as much any longer.
De Beers lost its grip on the diamond market years ago.

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This is years ago. Although the European Commission happened in February 2006.

In 2014, the Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, based at the University of Manchester, published a report authored by Sarah Bracking and Khadija Sharife, identifying over US$3.3 billion in price fixing within the South African rough diamond trade from 2004 to 2012, leading to an estimated deficit in tax paid of ZAR 1 billion per year. The report found significant evidence of profit shifting through volume and value manipulation.[109] Sharife simultaneously published an article[110] disclosing the political system that cultivated revenue leakage, including the donation of De Beers staff to the State Diamond Trader (SDT). The report, like the article, utilised aggregated data produced by the Kimberley Process (KP) certificates of import-exports, relying on figures listed by the diamond companies themselves, in which De Beers was the dominant player. The South African Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) disclosed that De Beers did not authorise them to publish figures involving values, sales, pricing and other data, preventing transparency of the industry.

So if that report is correct De Beers was still going strong until 2012.

Also

Industrial diamonds[edit]

In 2004, De Beers pled guilty and paid a US$10 million fine to the United States Department of Justice to settle a 1994 charge that De Beers had colluded with General Electric to fix the price of industrial diamonds.[104][105] In 2008, De Beers agreed to pay US$295 million class-action settlement after accusations of price fixing.[106] The company appealed the decision but ended up paying the settlement in 2013.[107]

So in 2006 De Beers is at least still battling things out. However trying to do that sort of action on American soil would likely hurt them much more then it would help them.

 

[uju32]

I mean, we know that Kravos was under Nemesis' influence and that he possessed Justine. This is conjecture, but it doesn't seem far away from the truth.

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Yes, but if you believe Nemesis Justine wasnt infected until sometime after Blood Masks.
And frankly Grave Peril-era Justine wasnt valuable enough to infect.

This is years ago. Although the European Commission happened in February 2006.

In 2014, the Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, based at the University of Manchester, published a report authored by Sarah Bracking and Khadija Sharife, identifying over US$3.3 billion in price fixing within the South African rough diamond trade from 2004 to 2012, leading to an estimated deficit in tax paid of ZAR 1 billion per year. The report found significant evidence of profit shifting through volume and value manipulation.[109] Sharife simultaneously published an article[110] disclosing the political system that cultivated revenue leakage, including the donation of De Beers staff to the State Diamond Trader (SDT). The report, like the article, utilised aggregated data produced by the Kimberley Process (KP) certificates of import-exports, relying on figures listed by the diamond companies themselves, in which De Beers was the dominant player. The South African Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) disclosed that De Beers did not authorise them to publish figures involving values, sales, pricing and other data, preventing transparency of the industry.

So if that report is correct De Beers was still going strong until 2012.

Also

Industrial diamonds[edit]

In 2004, De Beers pled guilty and paid a US$10 million fine to the United States Department of Justice to settle a 1994 charge that De Beers had colluded with General Electric to fix the price of industrial diamonds.[104][105] In 2008, De Beers agreed to pay US$295 million class-action settlement after accusations of price fixing.[106] The company appealed the decision but ended up paying the settlement in 2013.[107]

So in 2006 De Beers is at least still battling things out. However trying to do that sort of action on American soil would likely hurt them much more then it would help them.

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In South Africa. In the South African mining industry.
Makes sense that a company formed in and with strong links in its home country would be best capable of chicanery there.
As opposed to trying stuff abroad.


Working on a stunt.
Gimme half an hour; I need to look up some raw material costs.

EDIT

So... we are angling to become the best drug dealer in the city, Walter White as Faust's devil, exploiting the pre-existing addictions of those around us. Once we have someone within our shadow we can start the business of leveraging money and favors to get those under us into a position where they can both get their own lives together and begin supporting those around them. This is also pretty much how successful cults are formed and function.... which isn't exactly damning by itself even if it could go wrong.

Huh. I don't disapprove. We'll be stretched rather thin because of our draconic obligation though.

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Building a Drug Gang Cult Empire NGO: How I Spent My Summer by Molly Carpenter

 

[Luca Nox]

[X] You can't think of any single action that would draw the dwellers here to you without scaring most of them away, so you simply start fixing up the old station for Porter. In time those with some curiosity in them would come of their own free will, making for a more receptive audience.
-[x]Bring some extra food and cash. If any onlookers come offer it for help on the project.

Actually this is likely the best way to go about things.

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I would like this choice however I would like to add.
[x] use powers to craft facilities for bathing and washing up or repair existing facilities if there are any.
Never underestimate the feeling and offer of a good bath.
If I understand our crafting abilities correctly building a portable shower should be within our range and abilities.
edit decided to add a stunt for the above because why not.
(You got work constructing the Shower, you started off with simple piping and a curtain you had picked up from a junkyard and a second-hand store respectively. From there you got to work on the flooring making sure it wouldn't flood the area and ruin all the other work you would put into the area, but the ground wasn't even and you couldn't get it to settle to you broke up the ground and became to smooth out the floor, the ground broke easily underneath your construction efforts until the portable shower was not so portable. it grew and grew in shape and complexity until you going from a small personal shower to an ornate bath.
when you were done with the set up it was looking closer to something you would see in one of those catalogs, one would find in a waiting room or on store rack at the check out offering a modern sleek beautiful Bathroom all for the low low price of fifty thousand dollars.
but still there was more work to be done, you needed water that was easy to find down here but not clean, you purified that water with a simple filter. but you quickly realized it would not be enough and began to work on improving the filter until it was solid brass and was good enough to purify even the filthy water that existed down here.)

 

[DragonParadox]

@uju32 just because a White Court can add a feeding method does not mean it is easy to do so. I would liken it to learning a cross-Clan discipline in Vampire the Masquerade, you can do it but a) someone has to teach you and b) it takes considerable time and effort

 

[Azais]

[X]uju32

 

[fictionfan]

[X]uju32

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I am tempted to do that as well. I am already up too late.

 

[AltF4152]

If we are going to have them spend time and effort doing our will it might as well be something we care about. Right now that would be fixing up this dragon nest.

Giving them busy work doesn't really help anyone.

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I will point out that it is usually a terrible idea to start building something without planning it first, and to plan how we will remodel the Dragon's Nest we would need a map of the place.

As for financially viable. The easiest thing would be for them to tithe a percentage of their income to us. Then they can do whatever. We can invest the tithe money into minion support programs.

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Had a reason to not do this before but i just realized that it was a stupid one, i mixed them up with Red Court Vampires and forgot about the flesh masks.

 

[fictionfan]

I will point out that it is usually a terrible idea to start building something without planning it first, and to plan how we will remodel the Dragon's Nest we would need a map of the place.

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It would seem like we had different ideas by what you meant by the word underground.

I wonder how Mom is going to react to the fact that we heard her concerns about money paper trails and decided to address them by getting a white court vampire minion?

 

[uju32]

• 1 AP would be enough to get the supplies there and ensure the general security of the area (white court dregs, ghouls etc...), Porter will see Molly starting to fulfill the job she has taken on
• 2 AP is where you start work in earnest cleaning the place up and doing structural repairs
• 3-4 AP is where you start to work in actually replacing the physical infrastructure in the tunnels
• 5-6 AP is when you improve the infrastructure, things like ensuring internet and cell connectivity
• 7-8 AP is when you deal with tapping the Dragon Nest and start building fully magical infrastructure like the alchemy laboratory

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VOTE
[X]Plan Fishing
-[X]Go grocery shopping with a thousand dollars
-[X]Do some cooking at home in the outdoor workshop with Tool Constructs and a Craft Excellency
-[X]Bring Lydia and borrow Mouse's services. Borrow Michael's truck. Bring a batterypowered cassette/CD player with speakers
-[X]Move the products of your work to the Last Station
-[X]Empty a bottle of water on your head to cool yourself down, and activate BSM
--[X]STUNT: "You owe me," Lydia grumbles for the umpteenth time as she helps you move the contents of your dad's truckbed. Mouse makes no comment, but you can almost hear his amusement as he listens to the two of you haul the last few containers of food towards the borders of the Last Station, but his eyes remain fixed on the darkness beyond. Finally you're done and she collapses into a camping chair with a theatrical sigh. You open one cooler slightly ajar, letting its smells waft down into the tunnels beyond. Then you turn on the boombox you brought with you, turn up the volume so it echoes down the tunnels, and settle down to wait.


RATIONALE

Survival 0, Streetwise 0. We have no skill at navigating through underground tunnels without getting lost.
TLF will keep us from dying or getting injured, but it wont aid navigation IIRC. Or finding residents.
Make them come to you.

Treat them like the homeless. And with the homeless, the first things to get their attention are basic needs.

300-pound whole pig(before dressing) is three to seven hundred dollars if you buy from a farm. Assume five hundred dollars.
Fifty pound bag of rice is roughly fifty dollars. Fifty pound bag of Idaho potatoes is thirty dollars or so.
Fifty pound bag of cowpeas is fifty to eighty dollars.

So using 2022 prices:
~200 pounds of pig after dressing: $500
2x 50 pound bags of rice: $100
3x 50 pound bags of potatoes: ~$100
1x 50 pound bag of beans/cowpeas: $50
1x 50 pound bag yellow corn: $50
1x 50 pound bag green peas: $45
Condiments(onions/tomatoes/pepper/salt et cetera): $200
Paper plates, towels and cutlery as needed: $50
Total cost: ~$1100

Potatoes lose ~25% weight when baked, and stay roughly the same cooked.
Beans doubles in weight when cooked. Rice triples in volume and weight when cooked.
No idea for corn or green peas.

So that translates to roughly 300 pounds of boiled rice, 120 pounds of baked potatoes and 100 pounds of cowpeas to complement 200 pounds of pork. Assuming the corn and green peas only keep their weight, thats roughly 820 pounds of food. More if the corn and green peas add weight from boiling.

Which would average 8.2 pounds each for a hundred people, or 16.4 pounds for fifty people.
Average normal human eats 3-5 pounds in a day.
Molly can make camping coolers for transporting food fairly easily out of waste plastic. Ditto for water containers.

This means:
Drop eleven hundred dollars on some judicious grocery shopping, spend an hour in the workshop with Tool Constructs and a Craft Excellency and she can handily feed a hundred people with superhuman appetites at least twice.

Borrow Michael's truck for hauling everything in the truckbed.
Bring Lydia to help you move everything with her Earth travel trick, and borrow Mouse because he has better senses than you or Lydia for early warning.

 

[Artemis1992]

Do Whampires even need normal food?

Because those are a lot more interesting to me than any ghouls we might catch with this.

 

[DragonParadox]

Do Whampires even need normal food?

Because those are a lot more interesting to me than any ghouls we might catch with this.

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Yes, they are still human enough to need normal food per the RPG

 

[uju32]

Do Whampires even need normal food?
Because those are a lot more interesting to me than any ghouls we might catch with this.

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Yes they do.
They are biological after all.
I think the only vampires that dont require regular nutrition at all are Blampires.

And there's probably significantly more ghouls than Whampires down here.

 

[Yog]

[X] You will inspect the area around the Last Station, checking the volume of your work and looking for possible squatters
-[X] Use Tool Transcending Constructs to inspect and mark the area of repairs, putting up notices of work - both the danger indicating ones, and the job offering ones
-[X] Dump a water bottle filled with olive oil over Molly's head before descending to activate BSM
-[X] Use Transcendent Lord of Flies to lower the difficulty of finding those in potential danger from their environment, starting from those who will be affected by your future repairs
-[X] Use leadership, empathy and intimidation excellencies as needed, with the first two preferred
-[X] Stunt: You move through the dark underground corridors, alien-looking equipment whirling and buzzing as it sees through broken concrete, tracing power, water and other supply lines, looking for and marking potential faults and sources of danger. Before you, your ever-present aura of cold spreads, not as a biting touch of winter, but as an inviting blanket of freshness after a long hard day at work. To those you encounter, you speak of a new job opportunity opened to them by your presence here. For those you miss, you leave recruitment posters on the walls.

Something like this. TLF to find those in danger from their environments.

 

[Artemis1992]

[X] Yog

A good start on the work, the potential minions may show up or not.

 

[uju32]

To those you encounter, you speak of a new job opportunity opened to them by your presence here. For those you miss, you leave recruitment posters on the walls.

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1)We arent offering jobs. Our primary is to establish contact, then negotiate, with primary goal being to prevent interference

2)Why do you assume most people down here can read?

3)Streetwise 0. Survival 0.
We are in no condition to go spelunking through strange tunnels. We'll just get lost.

 

[bengalqueen]

A thing to remember here is that our primary goal for this action is fulfilling our promise with the station repairs, and our secondary goal is recruiting the local riff-raff. Just to remind everyone what our goal for this is.

 

[Yog]

Actually, now that I read a bit more about it... Yeah, I like @uju32 's idea. However, I think we should be cooking in the Underground. It's easier to trigger TLF this way. Area of Urban Blight and all.

2)Why do you assume most people down here can read?

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Ghouls might or might not. Whamps definitely should, unless they are like second or third generation born here.

1)We arent offering jobs. Our primary is to establish contact, then negotiate

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"I am offering jobs" is a way to establish contact and to negotiate.

[X]Plan Neighborly cookout
-[X]Go grocery shopping with a thousand dollars
-[X]Bring Lydia and borrow Mouse's services. Borrow Michael's truck. Bring a batterypowered cassette/CD player with speakers
-[X]Move the groceries to the Last Station
-[X]Periodically dump water on your head to keep BSM active
-[X]Cook with Tool Constructs and a Craft Excellency, aiming to feed the inhabitants of the area (trigger TLF)
-[X] Use leadership and empathy excellency to prevent those attracted by the food from running away when noticing you
--[X]STUNT: "You owe me," Lydia grumbles for the umpteenth time as she helps you move the contents of your dad's truckbed. Mouse makes no comment, but you can almost hear his amusement as he listens to the two of you haul the last few containers of food towards the borders of the Last Station, but his eyes remain fixed on the darkness beyond. "Yeah, I do. Still, you'll get a show out of this at least?" you reply, as green flame unfurls from around you, manifesting something in between laboratory and cooking equipment. The sounds and smells of the grand feast being prepared start to permeate through the underground, spread by industrial-scale fans clearing the air around the cooking area. Soon, you'll be greeting your new temporary neighbors. And when they are nice and mellow you'll be establishing the rules.

 

[Yog]

So... 16 dice (14 excellency + 2 stunt), at difficulty 3 at most (7 - 1 BSM - 3 TLF), and cooking is done at 5 times accelerated rate. I am fairly sure that this feast has a chance of having 15 successes. Ie "this goes way beyond legendary" success.

A thing to remember here is that our primary goal for this action is fulfilling our promise with the station repairs, and our secondary goal is recruiting the local riff-raff. Just to remind everyone what our goal for this is.

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This is absolutely valid. But we need to accomplish the secondary goal (if we are not using the intimidation route) in order to be able to accomplish the primary one.

 

[uju32]

A thing to remember here is that our primary goal for this action is fulfilling our promise with the station repairs, and our secondary goal is recruiting the local riff-raff. Just to remind everyone what our goal for this is.

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^^^^^

Actually, now that I read a bit more about it... Yeah, I like @uju32 's idea. However, I think we should be cooking in the Underground. It's easier to trigger TLF this way. Area of Urban Blight and all.

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God no.
There is no clean water here. No easily accessible water here.
No waste disposal, so if you find water you dont know what got into it upstream or where.

Until we get everything set up to our satisfaction, I would not consume anything here or make stuff for ther people to consume.
And we cant afford to have our back turned in Undertown.
You cant simultaneously focus on cooking and watch the walls, and the noise and smell will mask approaching people.

Also? TLF triggers for survival rolls, not cooking/crafting rolls.

Ghouls might or might not. Whamps definitely should, unless they are like second or third generation born here.

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Ghouls and others are going to be the primary population down here.

"I am offering jobs" is a way to establish contact and to negotiate.

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No it isnt.
Its recruitment. You are making an explicit employment offer that we would have to then meet.
What we want, what we are looking for is a meet and greet.

Furthermore?
This is Undertown. Its not free real estate. Lots of places are already claimed, or are hunting areas for random inhabitants.
We had to roll not to get attacked by Porter when we stumbled into Last Station.

 

[uju32]

So... 16 dice (14 excellency + 2 stunt), at difficulty 3 at most (7 - 1 BSM - 3 TLF), and cooking is done at 5 times accelerated rate. I am fairly sure that this feast has a chance of having 15 successes. Ie "this goes way beyond legendary" success.

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From the front page:

Wheresoever there is neither hope nor respite, there the Infernal marks herself at home.
System: The Infernal needs never make a Survival roll to remain safe, comfortable, and fed in hostile, barren environments such as deserts, tundra, or areas of urban blight. The difficulty to feed and protect others in such environments is reduced by three (minimum of 3). By spending 1 Essence, she becomes completely immune to environmental damage for the rest of the scene.

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I doubt this is going to proc down here for people we havent even met.
Could be wrong of course.
Anyway, going to bed.

 

[恐Drake]

[X]Plan Fishing
-[X]Go grocery shopping with a thousand dollars
-[X]Do some cooking at home in the outdoor workshop with Tool Constructs and a Craft Excellency
-[X]Bring Lydia and borrow Mouse's services. Borrow Michael's truck. Bring a batterypowered cassette/CD player with speakers
-[X]Move the products of your work to the Last Station
-[X]Empty a bottle of water on your head to cool yourself down, and activate BSM
--[X]STUNT: "You owe me," Lydia grumbles for the umpteenth time as she helps you move the contents of your dad's truckbed. Mouse makes no comment, but you can almost hear his amusement as he listens to the two of you haul the last few containers of food towards the borders of the Last Station, but his eyes remain fixed on the darkness beyond. Finally you're done and she collapses into a camping chair with a theatrical sigh. You open one cooler slightly ajar, letting its smells waft down into the tunnels beyond. Then you turn on the boombox you brought with you, turn up the volume so it echoes down the tunnels, and settle down to wait.

 

[Yzarc]

Alright. Convinced.

[X]uju32

 

[Yog]

God no.
There is no clean water here. No easily accessible water here.
No waste disposal, so if you find water you dont know what got into it upstream or where.

Until we get everything set up to our satisfaction, I would not consume anything here or make stuff for ther people to consume.
And we cant afford to have our back turned in Undertown.
You cant simultaneously focus on cooking and watch the walls, and the noise and smell will mask approaching people.

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Water is a non-issue. Either buy bottled water, or use ttc to purify it.

We have Mouse and Lydia for a lookout.

Also? TLF triggers for survival rolls, not cooking/crafting rolls.

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TLF triggers on rolls to feed someone in places of urban blight. That has to include cooking. In fact, logically, as long as we are cooking with the intent of feeding people in the underground, it should trigger even in your variant of the vote, but it's more iffy.

 

[Qazplm]

[X]Plan Fishing

 

[Goldfish]

[X] uju32