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Messages - wyltok

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1
DF Spoilers / Re: Rebalancing the Faerie Courts
« on: August 27, 2018, 04:25:29 PM »
Don't underestimate Sarissa's value: compared to any other alternative,  the odds of Mab being willing to allow her harmed are slim to none. She's as much a hostage as an enemy combatant.

2
DF Spoilers / Re: To the cops of Chicago do the Alpha's seem like a gang?
« on: December 15, 2017, 06:14:37 PM »
I wonder how the general perception of the Alphas has changed in the post-Changes world? In Ghost Story, we see that Murphy seems to be using Will and his friends in a "Brute Squad" fashion, as it were, up to and including using them to scare people.

Between that, the fact that Marcone is funding the Justice League, and Murphy being out of the force, I imagine it's possible Will and Co. have picked up an... interesting reputation among the cops.

3
DF Spoilers / Re: The nature of ways and intent
« on: July 27, 2017, 10:21:53 PM »
I believe the last time this was discussed was saved in this Reference Collection post: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,32830.msg1894720.html#msg1894720

4
DF Spoilers / Re: Harry should Dark Hallow Demonreach.
« on: July 21, 2017, 01:52:56 PM »
Those who have read Day One (the Butters short story) know why this is a phenomenally bad idea.

(click to show/hide)

5
DF Spoilers / Re: New short story in process
« on: July 18, 2017, 02:29:54 PM »
Day One Spoilers:



(click to show/hide)

6
DF Spoilers / Re: Standard Warden Equipment?
« on: July 13, 2017, 02:51:19 PM »
Quote from: Turn Coat
Veteran Wardens sat on either side of Ancient Mai, dour in their grey cloaks, and three more were sitting or crouching elsewhere in the boat—all of them from the hard-bitten squad that had been on standby back in Edinburgh. They were all armed to the teeth, and their expressions meant business.

[...]

Each individual wizard has his own particular quirks when it comes to how he uses his power. There is no industrial standard for how fire is evoked into use in battle. One of the Wardens coming up behind me sent forth a stream of tiny stars that slewed through the night like machine-gun fire, effortlessly burning holes through trees, rocks, and grey men with equal disdain. Another sent a stream of fire up in a high arc, and it crashed down among several grey men, splashing and clinging to any moving thing it struck like napalm. Lances of scarlet and blue and green fire burned through the air, reminding me for a mad
moment of a scene from a Star Wars movie. Steam hissed and snarled everywhere, as a swath of woodland forty yards across and half as deep vanished into light and fury.

Hell’s bells. I mean, I’d seen Wardens at work before, but it had all been fairly precise, controlled work. This was pure destruction, wholesale, industrial-strength, and the heat of it was so intense that it sucked the air out of my lungs.

Dresden doesn't go into details, but it does appear as though Wardens do have their equivalent to SWAT gear. We just don't know what it is, and from the passages above, it does appear as though the Council favors customization.

7
DF Spoilers / Re: Wizard Academy
« on: July 12, 2017, 10:09:33 PM »
A while ago, there used to be a topic in this forum about ways to make money through magic. I wonder what happened to it?

We know the Council also has moneymancers (so called by Jim) who keep their finances going. But I don't think most wizards make a living through magic directly. I find that extremely unlikely that most people in the Council use their magic for financial gain, yet Eb would refuse to teach Dresden during his apprentice days.

8
DF Spoilers / Re: Standard Warden Equipment?
« on: July 12, 2017, 10:05:55 PM »
However, some needs are very standard.  Every warden will be attacked by physical weapons (bullets, blades, claws).  Issuing each warden a standard form of protection vs this very common risk makes sense.

I'm not sure I agree with this statement. The main purpose of the wardens isn't to fight wars against other Accord nations: it's to police against warlocks who break the 7 Laws. From what we've seen, most often warlocks are equipped with magic and little else. From that perspective, the Council already used to issue wardens the ideal tool for their job: spell-breaking swords. Shame that the artisan who fashioned them is currently indisposed.

Kevlar is a tool against guns, and the swords were tools against warlocks. Presumably, the Brute Squad at Archangel had superior equipment, since they were the actual equivalent to the military for the Council, before their untimely demise.

9
DF Spoilers / Re: Wizard Academy
« on: July 12, 2017, 01:37:42 PM »
In White Night, Dresden does say that the reason the wards around his house are stronger is because he makes Molly reinforce them. We know she also works on potions quite a bit, and that she was in charge of making tracking spells for him to use in a story or 2. But yeah, overall, magic doesn't pay, but there's not a lot of gruntwork involved in it.

10
DF Spoilers / Re: Wizard Academy
« on: July 11, 2017, 10:57:36 PM »
I agree with your assessment, though I'd submit that only the Venatori have played that role so far but that the much, MUCH wider and more well-attended Net of the Paranet will go a long way to mitigating the scale issues you see.  They are just too new at this point, and as of I think it was TC where Harry and Luccio mention it, the paranet hadnt yet developed a huge amount of support in the Council beyond Harry himself.

Back before Backup, I had assumed the Venatori and the Paranet were just 2 iterations of the same idea, just developed in different centuries: low power practitioners banding together to share knowledge with each other, and where possible, defend the people around them. It's just that the ways of sharing knowledge have evolved, while the Venatori have not (being part of an ancient secret society is way more fun than being part of an effective secret society). Of course, Backup added an extra dimension to the Venatori, but I imagine as far as most of them are concerned (not Venators, though), my point still stands.

11
DF Spoilers / Re: Wizard Academy
« on: July 11, 2017, 08:43:10 PM »
Do not get me wrong, these classes might be only five students in size.  I doubt any wizard class beyond general education lectures would have more than ten students.  but that still means a given group of wizards can turn out 5X the apprentices of a single master.

We know two topics in which wizard tradition has been firmly entrenched: wards and defensive mental magic. In Summer Knight, an "old dame Warden" showed the whole council a list of newly-developed warding theories meant to incorporate additional protection against vampires. Similarly, the wards set up by corpsetaker in Ghost Story were identifiable by Harry as previous generations of the same principles he knows. Speaking of Corpsetaker, in Dead Beat, she recognize Harry's mental defenses as being part of the Council's standard doctrine, and she mentions they've been using it for a century.

I've always thought of the White Council as a Certification and Continuing Professional Education system more than anything else. Once the Council recognizes you as having the potential to be an apprentice, you are assigned a coach to help you develop your own style as well as make it compatible enough with the Council's generally accepted theories of magic until you are recognized as a Wizard. Once a Wizard, it is your responsibility to go to the Council Meetings to keep yourself up to date with whatever new theories they present to you.

[...]I thought, well if the wizards are going to exist on this world then they are going to have some kind of organization of one kind or another, and the White Council ends up being kind of the Bar organization for the wizards you know.  If you want to be someone who's taken seriously you have to show up, you have to pass their tests, you gota put in your time helping out, and then you are recognized as a full wizard.

Unfortunately, that's not good enough anymore. Wizards of the White Council are still too rare to catch everyone with the potential to hurt others before they go Sith. Which is why they have relied on their allies, organizations like the Venatori and the Paranet to do the flagging for them. But that's not going to be enough in the future, I don't think.

12
DF Spoilers / Re: Standard Warden Equipment?
« on: July 11, 2017, 04:41:48 PM »
The fact that Luccio is the only person in the Council making warden swords suggests an explanation for why there's no standard equipment: there just aren't enough enchanters out there to make the stuff.

That said, apparently wardens do get discretionary funding as part of their stipends meant to help them acquire good materials for enchanting their equipment themselves... Harry spent all of his on Little Chicago.

13
DF Spoilers / Re: Wizard Academy
« on: July 11, 2017, 04:27:59 PM »
My main argument against wizard school would have to be Harry Potter.

By the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione graduated from Hogwarts, they were completely incapable of holding down a job in the real world. In the case of Ron, I wouldn't even trust him to go to the corner store to buy my groceries. What they were, is perfectly set up to have a life inside the wizard community, and nowhere else.

The reason a warden boot camp makes sense is because wardens get a stipend, that is, they get paid at the end. Most wizards don't appear to make a living out of performing magic. What benefit would they get out of going to wizard school?

That said, the White Council does have a big problem in their hands, due to the population explosion increasing the number of people with wizard class potential out there. They're definitely gonna have to figure out some way of dealing with that in the future, but unless they can offer people a way of making a living out of performing magic, I don't see full-time wizard school as an option, specially as a good non-magical education becomes more and more important for people to make a living.

14
DF Spoilers / Re: Weapons that can kill Immortals?
« on: July 10, 2017, 09:54:07 PM »
So, I wonder if our modern day nukes are our Legendary weapons.  They are pretty badass.

Some have argued that nuclear waste are our cursed weapons.

Quote
You should not have come here.

This is not a place of honor. No great deed is commemorated here. Nothing of value is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive.

We considered ourselves a powerful culture. We harnessed the hidden fire, and used it for our own purposes.
Then we saw the fire could burn within living things, unnoticed until it destroyed them.

And we were afraid.

We built great tombs to hold the fire for one hundred thousand years, after which it would no longer kill.
If this place is opened, the fire will not be isolated from the world, and we will have failed to protect you.
Leave this place and never come back.

From, of all things, a My Little Pony fanfiction story. A more nuanced real world article is here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/04/17/talking-to-the-future-hey-theres-nuclear-waste-buried-here/#48216e172fef

15
DF Spoilers / Re: Turn Coat Re Read Questions.
« on: July 10, 2017, 09:36:18 PM »
Well Listen to Winds implied the Dine was a way of magic in this context. The full quote was "The boy almost took you and he doesn't even know the Dine much less the Old Ways." I thought this implied that the Blessing Way was separate or another form of the Old Ways whatever that is.

I think this is an example of first mentioning a general thing, then a specific thing about the general thing. Like others said, "Diné" is the Navajo name for themselves, and the Blessing Way is one of their religious practices. Using the same phrase for a different context: "He doesn't even know baking, much less how to make an upside down pineapple pie."

A more clunky way of saying it would be "Harry doesn't know the correct Navajo rituals. He's never met a Navajo in the first place."

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