Essentially? Access to all or most paths at 1, maybe 2 dots at most, for which we'll have to provide the power for major workings. Access to mundane contacts among minor practitioners.
Last edited:
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
- Location
- Earth
Given the living Ward we just made for them, they seem to think otherwise.
It wouldn't have been possible at all without the Cauldron.
Or the ritual knowledge of the members.
Those 5 succs were important.
Last edited:
Thats not actually true.
We always care a lot more about people we know than random people out on the street. Molly isnt currently out there on Skid Row worrying about all the addicts there, just Rosie. Her recruitment underground is deliberatly limited. Hell, you havent seen her worrying about Nelson's mental health since she got back from Arctis Tor, and he was her ex.
Molls is a good kid. She isnt a saint though. Or a martyr.
The Ordo Lebes do not have access to all paths.
Some Paths are more common than others, and most workings arent just "pump in more power". Furthermore, if we need their services, we can pay them. With money. Mundane contacts are a trust thing, not a membership thing.
And frankly we have Bob for teaching.
Other people dont get the OOC overview we get before making our decisions. This is not a scenario where agency is equal.
Furthermore, we havent told them anything about the breadth of our rogues gallery or our intentions going forward.
These people dont even know the Denarians are a thing, and we cant tell them without putting them in danger. They know of the Pathfinders, but they dont know the Fomor are a thing. They know of Winter. They dont know Molly has Mab's personal attention.
There's fuckall expectation they can make informed decisions here.
So its on us.
Pardon my French.
Last edited:
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Yes, join the Order of the Cauldron
Ok, "many paths", is that better?
Also, the chances that they'll teach us what they know, or help us magically for just money are... not that great, I would wager. You yourself pointed out how they keep their secrets.
We didnt need it. They did.
We could literally bargain with spirits for the same thing. Or just outright buy Emerald Spirit Binding.
Remember, Celestial Exalt, not minor sorcerer.
We are engaging with these people not because we need to, but because it is the right thing to do, and has social benefits.
We have options the average talent does not.
White Council wizard Harry Dresden does magic jobs for other people all the time. For money.
Ectomancer Mortimer Lindquist summons ghosts for other people. For money.
Gard built a set of wards around Marcone's estate. Because Odin asked her to. And for money.
Victor Sells was mass producing alchemical potions for sale. For money.
You dont need to be willing to teach what you know to do magical contracting.
It just happens that most minor talents dont have directly marketable talents. Or worry about being abused for them, and so hide them. If they already trust you, not an issue.
Last edited:
Even with the potential targeting I think they're still better off.
We'd eventually end up in a leadership position, but we probably won't be using the average member for poking winter or whatever. Their value as a target is in pissing us off.
Which they already have, because if these guys start going missing word will eventually get back to us one way or another and we'll end up involved anyway.
They'd get some heat from us, but my bet is that it'd be dramatically less common than the constant low level hunting they're currently operating under. They lose pretty much any confrontation they get in already; they might as well be surrounded by black court vampires for all the difference it makes when they encounter even something as relatively weak as a ghoul.
In terms of utility they're better than the Jade dogs are, if in a noncombat sense, and have the potential to defuse the bomb that is our introduction to the rest of the city to some extent.
Having verifiable connect makes us a member of the community rather than a complete unknown, and it also demonstrates that we aren't going to eat the souls of people in random fits of violence or something.
Access to ordo members and the greater community is useful, because being weaker than us doesn't make them stupid or ignorant.
Bob isn't all knowing, and as nice as Harry is we don't really want him gatekeeping what Molly is allowed to learn.
Access to specific bits of lore, specializations from people who've spent their lives focused on individual skills, ears on the ground to hear when the warning signs of something bad going down are echoing around the city; all of that would be easier to do with membership.
We'd eventually end up in a leadership position, but we probably won't be using the average member for poking winter or whatever. Their value as a target is in pissing us off.
Which they already have, because if these guys start going missing word will eventually get back to us one way or another and we'll end up involved anyway.
They'd get some heat from us, but my bet is that it'd be dramatically less common than the constant low level hunting they're currently operating under. They lose pretty much any confrontation they get in already; they might as well be surrounded by black court vampires for all the difference it makes when they encounter even something as relatively weak as a ghoul.
In terms of utility they're better than the Jade dogs are, if in a noncombat sense, and have the potential to defuse the bomb that is our introduction to the rest of the city to some extent.
Having verifiable connect makes us a member of the community rather than a complete unknown, and it also demonstrates that we aren't going to eat the souls of people in random fits of violence or something.
Access to ordo members and the greater community is useful, because being weaker than us doesn't make them stupid or ignorant.
Bob isn't all knowing, and as nice as Harry is we don't really want him gatekeeping what Molly is allowed to learn.
Access to specific bits of lore, specializations from people who've spent their lives focused on individual skills, ears on the ground to hear when the warning signs of something bad going down are echoing around the city; all of that would be easier to do with membership.
It's a mutual defense pact, not a blood oath. I don't think it will, since these guys are basically nothing from the perspective of the real nations of the Accorded Powers, but if it did we could always leave and no one involved could stop us.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
They also provided the path access. I don't think we are ever going to have enough XP to buy all the paths.
There is no potential about it.
Susan Rodriguez is currently walking around as a half-Red specifically because in Grave Peril, Bianca wanted to strike back at Dresden via someone he knew, and was obsessed with it to beyond any good sense.
Not to mention Death Masks, when Ortega came to town and threatened essentially everyone Harry was known to be publicly friendly with:
This is the sort of thing we need to worry about until we can make it clear that such attempts will end messily.Death Masks c29 said:
The Jade Dogs roll together, live and are physically superhuman. And any Whampires would be even more blatantly superhuman.
Dictionary definition of a hard target. Not impossible, but a significant investment of effort; you must be this tall to ride.
And critically, they will take orders from us. If we think it will save their lives, they will listen.
The Ordo are very human, exclusively female, and scattered all over the city. None are superhuman, very few have defensive abilities, and they do not have self-supporting defenses, and many have families.
The threats they worry about start ao druggies with stolen Glocks, a couple hundred dollars and a promise to hook them up.
Worse, they are under no obligation to listen to us.
We dont lead them, we're just putatively another coven member.
They are a soft target. Their being a soft target was a plot point in White Night.
1)Enchantment specifically allows you to duplicate the powers of most other Paths with some effort.
2)Spirits do sorcery too.
3)We get a Hell at E3. With a human population.
I'm not worried about Path availability.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I believe I've said it before: a solaroid Exalt with infinite XP is an unstoppable E5 monster that can chew up most of the setting and spit it back out. XP is the only limiting factor in how powerful we get. Every bit that we don't have to spend is something that can be spent on something else.
Eventually, we'll be at the point where they're less useful to us, but that's not for a long while. And they'll never be completely useless: Molly needs friends and peers psychologically, and even the primordials at their peak had enough use for servants to consider them worth making.
And at any rate, this is about as low-commitment as membership to an organization can get, and we always have the option to leave and they always have the option to kick us out if the arrangement doesn't work out.
[X] No, do not join the Order of the Cauldron
Not worth the time and AP without bureaucracy enhancers. Once we pick up a things happen at 10x speed a minor coven will be quite useful.
Not worth the time and AP without bureaucracy enhancers. Once we pick up a things happen at 10x speed a minor coven will be quite useful.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Even Solars don't get that in WoD. Spin the wheels in the book reduces DCs of an organization and is resolved narratively.
This is not something you undo.
Its like weed; you cant unsmoke it. People will always consider the affiliation relevant, and they'll always be on the target list.
They arent Molly's peers.
They are all way older than she is in years and life experience, and way weaker than she is in power.
If she was looking for peers, the Alphas at least come close to the same general age group, even if they dont have the power.
And like I said earlier, the Ordo Lebes were the seed/mother organization for the Paranet, which saved hundreds of not thousands of lives after it was founded.
Molly getting inside it will essentially smother that in the grave.
Because the Paranet depended on buyin from a critical mass of minor talents, and that runs into issues when you have whats to all intents and purposes a hell lord in human skin running the show.
Last edited:
There's also the Daedalus Group to consider, when they finally get done with the Museum case
And how their presence and official policy affects the Ordo Lebes
Molly Carpenter definitely already exists in their files given that they actually tried to bug the Beige Wagon
And if we draw attention to these people, they can make their lives a whole lot more miserable to get them to cooperate
Or just mike and bug their homes everywhere.
It wont even be a stretch; after all, Beckitt works for Marcone, who's a major organized crime figure.
Which would normally be FBI business
The FBI investigating Marcone was a plot point back in Fool Moon.
And how their presence and official policy affects the Ordo Lebes
Molly Carpenter definitely already exists in their files given that they actually tried to bug the Beige Wagon
And if we draw attention to these people, they can make their lives a whole lot more miserable to get them to cooperate
Or just mike and bug their homes everywhere.
It wont even be a stretch; after all, Beckitt works for Marcone, who's a major organized crime figure.
Which would normally be FBI business
The FBI investigating Marcone was a plot point back in Fool Moon.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
And if someone goes around killing Molly's schoolmates to get to her that's alright? What about neighbors? Or people we bump into a the store? We can't avoid relationships and trying would be stupid.
This is the first time this quest that I have so vigorous disagreed with a vote.
This is the first time this quest that I have so vigorous disagreed with a vote.
Last edited:
It is not an example of super-clear charmwriting, but it looks to me that as long as Exalt actually personally works on something, they do get a vague super-bureaucrat speed buff going on. -2 is additional additional effect bundled in, as it sometimes happen in ExWoD.
Not that -2 is anything to overlook, btw. That's a huge buff mechanically, for a competent worker with a dice pool of 6-7 ish, that's two-ish additional sux average. Semi-common legendary sux.
Susan was dramatically closer to Dresden than we will be with the ordo. Not being in the ordo wouldn't stop someone like Ortega from doing what he did in canon; they're already know to be friendly to us, and since we won't leave them in a lurch if they're attacked it will eventually be known we give a shit.
I still stand by the idea that they'll be killed or worse less often if doing so means involving us than if it doesn't.
We aren't under constant siege, they are.
Edit:
If Daedalus doesn't already know who they are they're even more laughably incompetent than we thought.
We can't let them scare us out of associating with people on hypotheticals alone or we'll never associate with anyone.
Molly's peer group isn't exactly think on the ground.
Last edited:
Not in the public eye. They were very lowkey actually.
And there is a difference between someone murderimg people for their own reasoms and getting our attention, and specifically murdering our associates to hurt us.
They arent under constant siege. They have a lower per capita attrition rate than the general population, because they actually know there's a threat, and have some idea of basic defenses. Vampires and fae dont specifically target talents, any more than sharks target people. There isnt enough payoff to warrant the risk.
Plus the White Council officially considers them a population they are responsible for and police.
Thats why the murders of talents in White Night was a big deal.
Im honestly not sure where this idea of constant siege came from.
Yes, they feel insecure.
So does anyone who knows that vampires exist. Not the same thing as being under constant attack.
See post-Changes, pre-Cold Days Chicago. THAT's what under siege looks like.
Much harder to get her attention with those. Much harder to apply the guilt whammy by targeting and killing strangers that she's never met and whose decisions she has no way of affecting.
Molls is a good kid. She's not a saint. She wont hold herself responsible for opps doing randomass crazy things.
I will repeat this one more time, and hopefully never again:
The winning vote is biting off more than we can currently chew, and spreading us too thin in a misplaced, mistimed attempt at empire building. Not every option should be taken immediately.
Much the same reason why we didnt have the Jade Dogs evangelizing.
The fun part for me is the fact that, as far as I can tell, Tool Constructs speedup function applies to stuff like pencils and pens for writing essays and tests. Computers for compiling programs.
That should be fun when school starts again.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
So classmates from school are strangers? Teachers? Neighbors? There is no end of people that can be targeted if the objective is to hurt us who are closer to us and don't have any defenses. But unless you are proposing that we become a hermit from fear the only thing to do is the best we can. Which in most cases means taking revenge.
Well I disagreed with that vote as well, but I could at least understand the rational. In this case though deciding not to make friends because of what enemies might do seems like doing the work of our enemies for them.
- Location
- Canada
I really like the way this working turned out. I think creatures with alien moralities are just neat! I had some thoughts I had about how Bane's responses might not match conventional human ethics. In most cases it's obvious who is trespassing, but there are some edge cases. Say that the landlord is attempting to lawfully evict a tenant. The tenant has the metaphysical weight of living in the apartment, but the landlord has the force of law supporting their ownership of the property. It would be awkward if Bane's existence made evictions impossible.
Another interesting thought is: how flexible is the definition of "trespasser?" For example, say Helen is living with a boyfriend for a few years, and then they go through a messy breakup and can no longer stand the sight of each other. When one of them says "get out of my house," can Bane choose to interpret who is "trespassing" based on which mortal it likes more?
Finally, there is the obligation that the Order of the Cauldron has to Bane. They've basically created a child that, while powerful in some ways, is quite vulnerable in others. For example, if the city condemns the apartment and tries to demolish it, either Bane will die, or it will defend itself and kill a bunch of innocent construction workers. Likewise, if Helen moves out without telling the new tenant about their secret guard dog, the new owner might hire a certain wizard to exorcise the "evil spirit," which would be very sad.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
The Infernal offers comfort to guilty souls tormented by the specter of judgment. The fraud worried his schemes will be uncovered and his riches seized, the politician concerned old dealings of hers will come to light and ruin her reputation, the murderer paranoid of vengeful knives, all can rest easily knowing that they've escaped human judgment — by submitting instead to the verdict of the Hells.
System: This charm targets a character who has committed a crime but not yet received a sentencing. They must confess to the Infernal and submit themselves to the Hells' mercy, after which the Infernal lays their hands on the character and spends 3 Essence. This painfully transforms the criminal into a bakemono of a variety commensurate (by the Hells' evaluation) with their crime.
Hellish law considers this transformation full punishment for the confessed crimes, and subtly influences the world to prevent double jeopardy. Evidence implicating the criminal will be overlooked and officials investigating them will be reassigned. This in no way disguises any physical transformations bakemonohood may have inflicted upon them, and this effect ends immediately should the character recover their humanity by any means.
System: This charm targets a character who has committed a crime but not yet received a sentencing. They must confess to the Infernal and submit themselves to the Hells' mercy, after which the Infernal lays their hands on the character and spends 3 Essence. This painfully transforms the criminal into a bakemono of a variety commensurate (by the Hells' evaluation) with their crime.
Hellish law considers this transformation full punishment for the confessed crimes, and subtly influences the world to prevent double jeopardy. Evidence implicating the criminal will be overlooked and officials investigating them will be reassigned. This in no way disguises any physical transformations bakemonohood may have inflicted upon them, and this effect ends immediately should the character recover their humanity by any means.
This would be such a perfect spell to deal with Warlocks. But even if it wasn't homebrew I don't think that we could justify 16 Xp for such a niche use case.
Last edited: