You can pull a charm up for almost anything, the question is always about side effects and cost.
Convincing him to work for us willingly is more efficient than stealing from or mind controlling porter.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Convincing him to work for us willingly is more efficient than stealing from or mind controlling porter.
Vote closed.
Arc 4 Post 15: A Feast for the Soul
A Feast for the Soul
9th of August 2006 A.D.
It takes a lot longer than you had thought it would for the denizens of the Last Station to shuffle in, caution ingrained into them even deeper than hunger, but in the end the savory smells wafting through the corridors work their own culinary magic. This ghoul... yeah you are pretty sure this one is familiar, though you had only seen her once by the light of your own flaming anima, the blue and red of a Chicago Cubs baseball cap still brighter than any of the other colors under the grime. She looks young, though it is hard to see her face under the mop of tangled hair. You'd have more luck counting her ribs
"It's..." You are about to say something reassuring, offer the food outright , but Usum stops you. "They would mark that as a sign of weakness my lady and then you would likely have to kill one of them to show strength."
"Simimma hemeen," the words come to your lips unbidden and yet you know they are Sumerian, part of the same language which has been written on clay tablets dried on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates six thousand years ago. Not just a greeting, but well wishing. May you have health. More you say in that tongue of old: "Offspring of a god, daughter of Anu, singular and uncanny by thine father cast down from heaven be welcome at my table. Thine tormentor's eye is not upon this place, lay down the skin of the lion for the skin of the lamb."
"I... I don't speak the Old Tongue well, my lady. Which clan... what are you?"
"I'm someone with a lot of food on her hands, someone who means you no ill and asks only that you listen to an offer while you eat. That is all."
Hunger pulls at the girl's features, stretching what might have been a shy smile into something far more predatory and disconcerting.
As your mother raises her weapon a little, from instinct born of a thousand generations you raise instead a hand for peace. "It's alright. she's just hungry, they all are."
"What the fuck are you doing Sarah? Tell'em to leave our shit be or we'll fuck their shit up!" Another harsher voice calls out from back in the tunnel behind the first ghoul.
"She knows the Old Tongue, offered us hospitality..." Sarah, as you now know her name to be answers.
"Oh is she now? In our own place. Stealing from our meat is she?" With each question you hear the snap of heavy jaws and the scrambling of claws on concrete. "I don't care if she's Nergal's own favorite whore! Or maybe I do, maybe her flesh will taste sweeter for his touch. Yeah, I'lll cook her in her own pot."
Three things happen then in the span of maybe there seconds, first Sarah turns and starts to call back an answer to her kin, you catch out a pair of other names: 'Lena' and 'Jim', second Mouse starts to bark, not the deep soul-ringing sound that is meant to ward off evil, just a deep, loud warning bark that might have come from a mortal dog and third a ghoul with the physique halfway between a quarterback and a gorilla leaps over Sarah's head and into the faded orange light of the station lights.
He's wearing a mishmash of police issue body armor and what looks like hockey equipment complete with Jason mask that you refuse to believe was not intentional, though this one has a crude image of a hound's head spray-painted on red on it.
"If he would be a dog, bid him heel!" Usum hisses in your mind
So you do, rising from your seat and from the chains of gravity in one smooth motion, a crown of verdant eyes like dreadful embers burning upon your brow. "I did not come here to spill blood and no blood will be spilled. If you make me fight I will strangle you with my bare hands and cast your corpse into deep water where none but blind fish shall eat it so that your kin do not grow sick with your stupidity."
There is silence then, broken only by the sound of dozens if racing hearts and ragged breathing. Huh... ghoul hearts beat faster than mortals. Interesting.
"Well?" You snap, sharp like the crack of thunder that comes unbidden. "I did not hear an answer, do you want to be fed or do you want to be meat for the fish?"
You would not expect such a looming figure could make itself small but the ghoul leader sure does try, lowering his head and tilting his shoulders forward. "Feed."
With a soft sigh you allow yourself to descend to the ground again once more and motion to the table. "OK then there is enough for everyone, dig in."
You very carefully do not look at mom as you consider what you might say, what you might offer. The ghouls slip in one after the other, half skulking, half-running, half man, half-demon by their makers accursed. In them you see now just that which is human, the unease, the shame in their shifting bodies, but also that which is demonic, eyes that pierce the darkness, legs that can run without end so long as their prey is before them. Well did you speak with the tongue of ancient wisdom, it is as if the lion were part lamb, all of it suffering.
The seven remaining ghouls follow your advice with the savagery of the ever-hungry, tearing into it with claws and fangs, gulping down sauce and pressing whole loaves of bread into dissented jaws, but the leader, Adam eats with one fearful eye on you and the youngest of them Sarah tries to use the cutlery at least though she is clumsy with it, as if she had lost the habit of it.
"S'god, really good, thank you my lady."
There is something about the way she says the word that makes you feel uneasy, or maybe it is better to say it makes you feel as though you should be uneasy, but you are not. This feels... right.
"I can seal the hunger away. Serve me and it shall gnaw at you no more, the curse bound in chains of ice."
"We have to..." An older ghoul, old enough that his hair had gone grey, his face a spiderweb of lines left over from countless transformations.
Once more cold formality floats to the surface of your thoughts, but you push it down and speak like normal "Swear that you will serve me, mean it and you won't be hungry anymore, it's that simple. I do not want you be hungry, that is why I brought the food, I do not want you to eat people, I just don't like it when people are suffering. Swear yourselves to me and we can make everyone suffer less, even if just a little."
"So do we have to say a ritual or...?" Sarah starts.
"How about you help me serve for a bit?" you say motioning to the bug steel pot you had been guarding just to make sure no one pushes in their eagerness.
"Sure I can..." Sarah cuts herself off, her features shifting wholly to human with a clank of moving bone. A look of sheer wonder of relief steals over her features unlike anything you had ever seen before. "I'm not hungry anymore," the words are barely a whisper.
With that it as as if a dam had broken, all nine of the ghouls were now eager to do your bidding, even the former leader seems now more than simply cowed, in awe of you really. But what on earth are you going to bid them do?
[] Help with security, keep other factions away from the Last Station
[] Spread the word, the powers that be are going to react to your message of succor soon so you need to get it out there as fast as possible
[] Return to the daylight world and serve as your helpers there
[] Write in
OOC: Welp this went well, you did not even have to get into combat, just apply maximum intimidation. The bit with fish food is because the act of eating their dead fellows is a sacrament for ghouls, it gives them some of the skills and even, in rare cases the memories of the deceased so threatening to throw away his corpse was what made the prospect of death even worse.
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Rolls
Charisma introduction+Occult Ghoul Lore
Leader pays his willpower to ignore you...
...but it still takes him more than one turn to join battle because he did not go ahead so intimidate
Closing the deal
Charisma introduction+Occult Ghoul Lore
Leader pays his willpower to ignore you...
...but it still takes him more than one turn to join battle because he did not go ahead so intimidate
Closing the deal
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Always a fun autocorrupt
To be
I think you forgot to put the word expect after would.
BTW I used part of an actual Akadian description of the demon-goddess Lamashtu in that bit after the Sumerian greeting. She seemed to be a fitting primordial ghoul.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
We have the attention of Mab, Odin and the Red court. We are in the mouth right now we need to grow too big for the throat.
[X] Spread the word, the powers that be are going to react to your message of succor soon so you need to get it out there as fast as possible
[X] Spread the word, the powers that be are going to react to your message of succor soon so you need to get it out there as fast as possible
Minion's get the more the better.
Minion's get the more the better.
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taovkool
Forever Gone
- Location
- The Library, Department of General Works
Wait a second.
Just to confirm, we can cure ghouls of their hunger? As in, they don't have to eat human flesh and other fleshy bits anymore?
one the
a well wishing
no the
issued ? unsure here
hockey
no on
dog, bid
loaves of bread
grey, his
lose one be
With that it is as if a dam had broken, I assume
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
No we can't cure them. Or at least not right now. However so long as they serve us their hunger will not trouble them. It's a treatment not a cure.
It is any meat, and a lot of it. An avarage Ghoul wants to eat 40-50 pounds a day.
Any meat will do, it's just that they have a supernatural compulsion to eat humans, that is now not an issue, though if they use their powers often they will need their calories.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
I think u mean were eager? Or do they not want to serve us?
Now they can get by with cheap high calorie food, integrating them into the mortal economy will be something of a challenge.
That may be something worth going to Marcone for, although Molly may want to have something ready to offer as payment as I doubt he'd be interested in simple money.
Harry may know someone who knows someone that could help, but I don't really want to keep worrying him.
Of course there's also the route of infesting local government with cyber-devils and have them create identities for fellow servants of Molly.
That may be something worth going to Marcone for, although Molly may want to have something ready to offer as payment as I doubt he'd be interested in simple money.
Harry may know someone who knows someone that could help, but I don't really want to keep worrying him.
Of course there's also the route of infesting local government with cyber-devils and have them create identities for fellow servants of Molly.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
@DragonParadox : Is our essence restored?
The next step would be to get them all cyberdevils haunted smartphones. We might have to accelerate our satellite capture/repair plans to get a discount on phone subscriptions.
The next step would be to get them all cyberdevils haunted smartphones. We might have to accelerate our satellite capture/repair plans to get a discount on phone subscriptions.
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- Location
- Georgia
[X] Spread the word, the powers that be are going to react to your message of succor soon so you need to get it out there as fast as possible
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Although I do really want to get VEE there are cheaper charms for empowering our minions.
Maggot Mana Plague (••) will keep them fed allowing them to use their powers as much as they want. Might also give them a extra creature of darkness template if they keep eating.
Spawning Pit Sanctification (••••) definitely lets us add another creature of darkness template to them.
Chirality Prohibition Index (•••) would allow us to train them to be much more powerful.
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Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Cheaper isn't always better, though, and VEE can accomplish a lot more than simple minion empowerment.
I know there's no hurry on getting it, though. Too many more important XP expenditures to take care of first.