I'm actually unable to see any documents outside of the activity log, myself, despite being logged into my Google account on which I use Drive pretty frequently.
So, yeah, that's kinda troublesome. Dunno what's going on with that.
Not a clue. I'll add the full set of links to the index post instead; look for that in a few minutes.
What sort of Occult rating would we need to have, or what sort of Threshold would we need to beat, to cast SMT spells? Could Amu learn a first-tier spell by having Maya demonstrate it? Actually, has Amu seen anyone cast an SMT spell yet? (Dubhe, maybe?)
In order: Direct spellcasting is a highly esoteric (and extremely dangerous) activity for local humanity, barring crutches like the Harmonizer. I already explained why, but Fumi has never cast a single spell in her life, although she has the theoretical knowledge to do so. Ritual magic and magitech suits her better anyway. As such, since that's the knowledge-base for Occult, it'd require fairly high ratings; 3 to do anything at all, 4 or 5 for reasonable safety. (Excellencies apply.) In Amu's particular case, a botch would merely cause a dot of limit rather than immediate mental damage.
She couldn't learn spells simply by watching them, without first grabbing Essence-Dissecting Stare or an equivalent. Skill cracking is a thing, but it works differently; there's a reason you need to
kill the demon, and Maya has provided some hints as to what that reason is. That's not to say that EDS is an absolute requirement, but it'd fall under medium-length research rather than immediate comprehension.
And lastly, what Dubhe does is somewhat different from anything a human would call spellcasting, but it achieves the same result. However, Amu has never seen any spells whatsoever with her own eyes, only through video. Which doesn't make it useless, but EDS doesn't work through video links, and getting useful information out of a video--or any at all, really, beyond "this looks dangerous"--requires a high enough roll that you'd really need an occult excellency. Good news! You already have one.
But we don't necessarily need archery to get through hell week in the first place. Assuming it's still on that is, Merek just up and left after all. I'm pretty sure that's not part of Hell week, when the Sepentrion engages the Angels and then leaves.
Don't forget Phecda.
Do we roll Wits or Intelligence with War?
Depends on what you're doing. Wits is for immediate action, Intelligence for when you have time to plan.
Lore note: In DeSu2, the Septentriones are not in fact demons. Amu is vaguely aware of this, but doesn't know what that means. (And neither do you, though I'm sure you can make some guesses.)
She's still likely to call them 'demons', especially when other people are involved.
You would think there'd be a charm that lets you temporarily equip an army under the Solar's leadership (or at least remove penalties for not being properly equipped); it's certainly very much in theme... but short of Craftsman Needs No Tools or Wyld-Shaping Technique, I'm not seeing anything useful for that. It'd be a plausible custom War charm, though.
@Baughn?
Something on the order of decent spear, yes; I'd allow that, at Essence 4, for reasonably small armies. At Essence 5 she could conceivably do so for the entire group she's commanding.
Before you complain, realise this: The Japanese army is extremely scary by the standards of Creation. Just for starters, their military as a whole is
magnitude 14, and they're perfectly capable of bringing all of that to bear on a single spot if given some time. The JGSDF has five standing armies, totaling 170,000 people—that is, five magnitude twelve mass-combat units, when a first age legion is magnitude nine—although of course said armies are made up of smaller components, which can seamlessly detach or combine forces.
It's the kind of force that would make a first-age Solar proud, and that's before you get into their equipment and drill. Most of a Solar's excessiveness derives from the Third Age societies simply being not very good; Drill provides a direct bonus to dice rolls, but the average Third Age army has a drill of 2. The JSGDF averages 3-and-a-bit, with several medium-size units hitting 4 and some smaller groups 5. This means there's less room for improvement through training, because they're already well-trained.
Equipment-wise, they'd have a Might of 2.5--with, again, some smaller units going higher (nukes, anyone?)—if it wasn't for the little problem that conventional weapons can barely hurt demons at all. This rating is all equipment; the soldiers, as you'd expect, are all mortal. Against another conventional army, though...
All of this is to say that you have a higher threshold for
usefully helping out than might be assumed from a standard game of Exalted. Spears work fine in medieval society, but aren't so useful here—although, to be fair, a charm-produced spear would at least be able to hurt demons, doing conventional 'physical' damage by SMT rules. (Conventional weapons don't do physical damage; to the degree they work at all, they do Almighty damage, because you're really tricking Kagutsuchi into doing the job.)
@Baughn, are the charms in Shards available? Because if so, God-Mind Algorithms is hilariously perfect in its applicability to our situation. Computers we use have infinite battery life and a perfect internet connection, at no cost to us. Also, stunts and dice from equipment are converted to automatic successes. And we can use stunts to access the internet from completely inappropriate devices, like a GPS.
In general yes, but I'll rule on individual charms. Some make sense, others are unbalanced or assume a society that doesn't exist, though as seen above Japan is far closer to the First Age than the Shogunate or Third Age societies.
