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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: whitelaughter on June 11, 2018, 06:07:01 AM
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Crossing Thresholds without an invitation is very bad for enchantments; and for mortal enchantments, dawn is the start of a new day, and thus a threshold - ditto midday for Winter Sidhe and midnight for Summer Sidhe. And these thresholds would be insanely powerful: *every* mortal with Bless This House in a hemisphere is backing it, so for North America, all of Europe and Africa, plus a slab of Asia.
But - suppose you're invited?
It's not that hard. A character in Chicago could just before dawn ring a friend in New York and get invited into the new day. Dawn is still a threshold, but you've been invited across it, so your spells are fine.
Or better yet, set it up with an AM radio station to have the intro "welcome to the new day!" or something equally banal as their breakfast program catch phrase. A radio is old tech, you could be woken up by the effect that protects your spells!
Don't want to do something like this every day? Well, the Russians will just put their new centre in Murmansk, and have 3 months between needing to do anything for both Summer and Winter.
One thing though - don't invite your friend in New York back into your day in Chicago! Don't know what would happen, but pretty certain it would violate the Law on Time.
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The dawn isn't a threshold. It's a dawn. Just because they have the same effect doesn't mean they're the same mechanic.
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The dawn isn't a threshold. It's a dawn. Just because they have the same effect doesn't mean they're the same mechanic.
Agreed. If anything I always considered it more of a daily Mass Fire Cleansing.
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"Thresholds can even be conceptual: the transition from night to day has a weakening effect on magic precisely because it is a sort of threshold. "(YS230)
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I agree it’s a threshold but my issue with what you are saying is no one owns the day. If I am homeowner, I can invite people into my house. My guests cannot. We are all temporary guests on this planet and none of us own the day or the planet.
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I agree it’s a threshold but my issue with what you are saying is no one owns the day. If I am homeowner, I can invite people into my house. My guests cannot. We are all temporary guests on this planet and none of us own the day or the planet.
Unless, for the sake of Argument, you have some sort of Cosmic-level authority over all Creation (and/or The Outer Gates?). Meaning, to my mind, it could arguably be a key aspect of the whole Outsider War, in that the current bearer of the Creator (mantle or just authority, who knows) might be able to Declare what is and is not allowed Inside. And by extension an Empowered Mortal that is supposed to watch that barrier (Im looking at you, Rashid) might in turn have enough of a connection to be able to manipulate such things in minor ways. As an example I remember seeing a discussion about whether The Gatekeeper might be so awesome with Wards because he can anchor them to the Gates (if defined as the Threshold of Reality)
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Unless, for the sake of Argument, you have some sort of Cosmic-level authority over all Creation (and/or The Outer Gates?). Meaning, to my mind, it could arguably be a key aspect of the whole Outsider War, in that the current bearer of the Creator (mantle or just authority, who knows) might be able to Declare what is and is not allowed Inside. And by extension an Empowered Mortal that is supposed to watch that barrier (Im looking at you, Rashid) might in turn have enough of a connection to be able to manipulate such things in minor ways. As an example I remember seeing a discussion about whether The Gatekeeper might be so awesome with Wards because he can anchor them to the Gates (if defined as the Threshold of Reality)
This was kind of assumed. There is an Entity that might be the current 'resident' or other powerful beings that have some kind of authority. But for the common person, I wouldn't say they have that kind of power.
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This was kind of assumed. There is an Entity that might be the current 'resident' or other powerful beings that have some kind of authority. But for the common person, I wouldn't say they have that kind of power.
Common Person Certainly not. The possibility of an Empowered Mortal like the Gatekeeper being able to do something along those lines that interests me
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Even if the rulebook says it's a type of threshold, it still doesn't behave like other thresholds.
Harry walking uninvited into the Carpenter's home doesn't just screw up any workings he had going on when he crossed through the door, it prevents him from working magic while inside, too. The sunrise doesn't do that.
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Even if the rulebook says it's a type of threshold, it still doesn't behave like other thresholds.
Harry walking uninvited into the Carpenter's home doesn't just screw up any workings he had going on when he crossed through the door, it prevents him from working magic while inside, too. The sunrise doesn't do that.
fwiw, there is also an equivalent and noticeable, if not as magically destructive, Change that happens at Sunset.
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OK, *lots* to deal with!
1) Sunset - yeah, I was wondering about that: sunrise, noon and midnight all covered, it made sense that this would also end certain enchantments. Given the religious 'day' in Judaism etc starts at Dusk, I was thinking that Theurgic enchantments would end then.
2) Is it specified that only the owner can let someone in? Because we are all *residents*. Further, for purposes of ownership, scripturally the planet was given to Man in Genesis, so even if some Power is needed for the invite, Bless This House should be sufficient, as the character has faith that yes, they do own the world/day. (Oh, to pre-empt a quibble, time/space used interchangably in scripture, thus the English word 'world' may be translating either 'Kosmos' or 'Eon').
3) Dawn gets tricky because it is both a threshold *and* the beginning of sunlight, and sunlight hurts enchantments. That would be why it is the most obvious.
4) Do we have info on whether crossing a threshold destroys enchantments? Because IIRC Dresden has an enchantment that he can't even take out of his house.
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2) depends on your theology.
Was it given so that we could use it however we want or were we simply made Stewards?
At least from a Christian standpoint because different sects of Christianity believe different things.
From what I can tell, the Dresdenverse doesn’t really state who/what created reality so the book of Genesis might not be an accurate source of information.
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2) depends on your theology.
Was it given so that we could use it however we want or were we simply made Stewards?
At least from a Christian standpoint because different sects of Christianity believe different things.
Only an owner can let somebody in a house. Only Mortal Magic can allow Outsiders In... There are lesser and greater thresholds and degrees of ownership in play.
I wonder if there are intermediate Thresholds based on other man-made and/or conceptual dividing lines, like National Borders? Could you anchor Nation-wide Wards?
From what I can tell, the Dresdenverse doesn’t really state who/what created reality so the book of Genesis might not be an accurate source of information.
Closest pair of WOJ datapoints on that I have is A) Angels do in fact predate time itself, B) Uriel is a "Executive VP of Creation". The meaning of B can change things wildly depending on if you consider it a Noun or a Verb.
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Only an owner can let somebody in a house. Only Mortal Magic can allow Outsiders In... There are lesser and greater thresholds and degrees of ownership in play.
Nice catch, that does indicate that Mortals own reality. (Assuming that yes, only owners can let someone in; again, is that stated somewhere?)
Hmm, implication then that Lawbreaker is partly a defence mechanism for reality; anyone who willing to let Outsiders in picks up Lawbreaker and so likely goes zero refresh...preventing them from bringing in more Outsiders.
2) depends on your theology.
Was it given so that we could use it however we want or were we simply made Stewards?
Interesting theologically but irrelevant in practice, as having stewardship rights is sufficient - note that Dresden does not need to own his home, renting is sufficient to grant a Threshold. While it might not be as strong as if he owned it, when the subject comes up, ownership is never mentioned, instead his family life gets criticised. And note that even if he owned it, that wouldn't give him the right to set fire to the building or otherwise endanger the surrounding city, so he'd still have stewardship limitations without it causing limits on his threshold.
Going on a tangent, that raises the possibility of using Scholarship to get a Threshold in weird situations. The right govt permit could create a region with a threshold, frex by having the right to pitch a circus tent in a park (perhaps to prevent monsters from breaking out from underneath). I used to work in security, and the legal rules on what can and cannot be done are stronger and weirder than in Dresdenverse magic - to the level of the police would get security to do thing they could not, but taking a step out of the region we were agents of (not employees, the legal status is again special) meant having no powers what so ever.
Burial at sea btw requires special legal authorization, so the ghost of someone buried at sea might have a *vast* graveyard - possibly an inworld reason why ghost stories are common at sea.
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So, just curious but what is the point of the discussion? Is it just a philosophical discussion or are you hoping to implement it in game?
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So, just curious but what is the point of the discussion? Is it just a philosophical discussion or are you hoping to implement it in game?
I am far more likely to be GMing than playing, so like to explore things that can be done in game for plot potential; frex a radio station that helps maintain spells and is so rewarded by spellcasters to the west would be a potential recurring location. I also like playing with what can or cannot be done to develop a world. Half a century after D&D was first developed, most game systems are still stuck in the same state they were first created in; that struck me most intently when Wonder Woman came out, as I started my first Boot Hill campaign in the 1980s - if I'd kept it running, and advanced year by year, I would have been using WWI for plot when that movie came out.