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Topics - vultur

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DF Spoilers / Total WAG: Cowl's Real Plan
« on: June 24, 2021, 04:28:26 AM »
[inspired by the Darkhallow Cowl vs Ethniu thread]

In GP, Cowl gave Nemesis to Lea, weakening Winter at a critical time.

In DB, Cowl never intended to successfully complete a Darkhallow - DB turned out pretty much exactly as Cowl intended. That's why he was able to escape the collapsing Darkhallow; he'd planned it out ahead of time.

The result? The White Council was very severely weakened, but the Red Court also overextended itself, expecting Edinburgh to fall ... setting things up for Changes.

WN also went mostly as Cowl intended -- that plan seems precisely designed to get Harry to stop it. Harry's chivalrous streak is pretty well known, as is his working outside the Council's traditional scope and with mortal authorities; if they really intended a plan based on attacking non-Council-member magical women to succeed, Chicago would be the absolute last place on the planet to try it.

But at the very end, Harry did something Cowl didn't plan for - working with Lara to get out. I think he probably expected Harry to escape through the NN. Lara wasn't meant to survive - the White Court leadership was intended to be totally destroyed, ending it as a relevant political force. (Instead, it's actually probably stronger in practice since now united under Lara).

Cowl's long-term goal is to weaken all the existing supernatural power structures, break the Accords, call in the Outsiders - and then betray them. Per WOJ, the highest levels of magic can rewrite reality. With the Outsiders weakening the fabric of reality, Cowl will do that: end death, give himself godlike powers, and then kick the Outsiders back Outside.

IMO Cowl has very intentionally not killed Harry. To Cowl, Harry is kind of an "ace in the hole" to ensure that the "betray the Outsiders" part of the plan doesn't go wrong - without ever being consciously helping Cowl, he'll fight to get the Outsiders out of reality.

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DF Spoilers / WOW... BG First thoughts [Really major Battle Ground Spoilers]
« on: September 29, 2020, 06:21:04 PM »

Edited to change the subject spoiler tag to be BG rather than PT
 - Griff

1. I can't believe Murphy actually died  :( :( :(. I was so sure all the hints in that direction were misdirections, since I was sure the series needed her.

2. I'm almost as surprised that Eb survived this book.

3. Drakul on stage  - finally. And confirmation that some of the Elders of the Black Court did survive the Stokerlypse. And Drakul is starborn???

3. Marcone has Thorned Namshiel's coin. And seems to actually be "in control". Wow.

4. What the heck is Mab doing, expecting Harry to marry Lara??? Isn't that going to give Lara the ability to control him? Why would she take that risk of 'losing' her Starborn Winter Knight?

3. A lot of theories confirmed or practically so:
- Nemesis is He Who Walks Beside
- Michael and Charity already knew about Molly being Winter Lady
- Harry calls Mac an "ex-angel". He's absolutely one of the Grigorim/Watchers.
- Lacuna is definitely a tooth faerie
- The Blackstaff has to be MW's walking stick. Eb's shadow becomes "a hideously twisted old woman, complete with the classic witch nose and chin, looking somehow darkly amused".

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DF Spoilers / [PT Spoilers] Harry's Shield Color
« on: September 11, 2020, 02:52:36 AM »
Something interesting in PT that might have major implications in BG:

When Harry is startled by Mab and Lara appearing in the car, he calls up his shield, and it's yellow-green. Lara comments on the color change, and Mab says, "He made an alliance with a powerful guardian entity. [...] It does not interfere with his duties."

So is Harry somehow drawing power from Demonreach while off the island? If so, isn't that a really major deal?

Or is this a Faerie trickery thing, where what Mab said is technically true but not actually an answer to Lara's question?

4
Luccio was significantly weakened by the body swap in DB, and Morgan took over battlefield command. Apparently the majority of the Wardens were also killed by the Red Court/gas attack during DB.

Then Morgan died in TC.

Harry is still technically a Warden for now, but he hasn't really been active as one in a while, with being dead and then stuck on Demonreach, plus Winter Knight stuff.

And now the Council is considering kicking him out...

So, who's left? Harry has said that there are more Wardens than before the war, but they're mostly new.

Ramirez is awesome, but I don't think he's anything like Morgan/Luccio level. He has more precision than Harry, and good magical endurance, but I don't think he has Harry/Morgan level raw power or Luccio-level skill.

I hope we'll see what the Wardens can do in BG...

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DFRPG / Cost to ignore Armor?
« on: August 28, 2020, 09:14:57 PM »
What would a power cost that makes attacks ignore Armor?

Ignoring 2 points of armor would presumably be a stunt (2-shift effect, limited applicability because it doesn't do anything against foes without Armor).

But what about a power that ignores any amount? I *would* say -1 since even Armor:3 is pretty rare and powers can be a bit stronger than stunts... except that Enchanted Items can give really high Armor values.

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Inspired by PT and by conversations on a couple of other threads:

Reality, or at least Harry's particular universe, has a "threshold" similar to a home. Mortals can summon Outsiders (but supernatural beings can't) for the same reason that mortals get thresholds and supernaturals don't: the "magic mechanics" is the same as the threshold/invitation principle.

(In this analogy, Winter's job is to keep the Outsiders from just "burning the house down".)

Certain things can weaken the "threshold" of reality, in the same way that Sells' rituals wrecked the threshold of his lake house.

And it waxes and wanes on a cycle, similar to how the Nevernever-mortal world boundary is weakest on Halloween (as seen in GP and DB). The weakest point is coming, and this is what will cause the BAT.

The "starborn cycle" of every 666 years is a "defense mechanism" for reality that's part of the same cycle; the starborn conjunction occurs maybe 40 years before the weakest point, in order for that cycle's starborn to be trained up and ready to fight when the Outsiders are strongest.

-

I think the actions Harry attributes to the "Black Council" come from two different groups with different goals: Nemesis and the Nemfected on one hand (who want the Outsiders to win), and the Circle and the Fomor, who want to profit off the chaos (so they want the Outsiders to almost win, but ultimately lose) on the other hand.

Due to the "mildew" descriptions of Cowl's Nevernever gates, I think the Circle is working with the Fomor. Ethniu is attacking Chicago in sync with an Outsider assault on the Gates, so they are clearly working together at some level, but I doubt Ethniu wants reality destroyed. Both sides (the Circle/Fomor/Ethniu and the Outsiders/Nemesis) probably believe they are using the other for their own ends.

-

Further WAG: The specific goal of the Circle/Fomor alliance is to let the Outsiders weaken reality enough that they can rewrite it to their own ends via magic, gaining essentially absolute power, and then kick out the Outsiders. Lord Raith and Maggie Sr (before her redemption) were members, and Harry was originally intended to be the Starborn that implemented the "kick out the Outsiders" part of the plan.

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DF Spoilers / [PT Spoilers] Why Wait?
« on: August 01, 2020, 10:07:43 AM »
I'm really surprised by how powerful Ethniu is.

If she was there all along, why did the Fomor have to wait for the power vacuum after the fall of the Red Court? I had kind of figured that meant they were weaker than the Red Court, White Council, etc.

But if Ethniu is significantly stronger than Mab, she could have just killed off the Red Court personally anytime she felt like it, if she wanted the Fomor to have more territory/power.

It also seems odd that the rest of the major god-like beings are 'retired' in some way or constrained from acting in the mortal world (by their natures?), but Ethniu can just come in and declare war on Chicago.

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DF Spoilers / [PT Spoilers] Why does Ferrovax care?
« on: August 01, 2020, 04:31:28 AM »
After Ethniu kicks Mab through the wall, LaChaise says the Accords are broken, and Vadderung and Ferrovax argue that they have to stop Ethniu because otherwise mortals will retaliate against all supernaturals.

But why do they care? OK, there's a WOJ that Odin likes hanging out in the mortal world even though it makes him more vulnerable, so him I can see. Plus he probably wants to keep collecting Einherjar.

But Ferrovax? Implicitly he's geologically old; he's not going to have a human sense of time. And per WOJ he's too powerful to really do much in the mortal world anyway, without messing things up.

Why doesn't he just pop into the Nevernever for 500 or 1,000 years? Probably by then no one would believe the stories about what happened in Chicago way back then... (I mean, in the DV at one time magic was widely believed in, but now it's not. So why wouldn't it be "forgotten" again in the same way?)

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DF Spoilers / What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« on: July 21, 2020, 05:59:55 AM »
So - Lara just outright charges Harry with a knife?

Yeah, I know, "people are irrational about family" is one of the themes of the book. But Lara's White Court. She's been surviving in a really deadly society for a long time. She really ought to be more controlled than that.

Even without Demonreach, there wasn't much chance of that working out for her.

She was there in WN. She's seen what happens when a White Court vampire goes up against a combat-capable wizard; it ain't good for the vampire. Sure, she had Valkyrie backup, but Harry could have fried or frozen her just as quickly as he told the island to grab her - before Freydis could have done anything.

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DF Spoilers / The Eye [Peace Talks Spoilers!]
« on: July 16, 2020, 04:28:37 PM »
So Ethniu is the daughter of Balor and has the Eye of Balor.

That's interesting...

I guess it could just mean that she inherited his power, the way Harry inherited magic from his mother, but the Eye of Balor seems to be implied to be a singular, unique thing.

So is the Eye of Balor a magical object of great power, equivalent to the Blackstaff, Swords, Noose, etc.? The description of Ethniu's face sounded like her eye might have been replaced.

An artificial eye with magical powers... kind of reminiscent of the Gatekeeper...

If the Fomor are linked to the Outsiders in some way (their attack seems coordinated with the Outsiders' renewed/increased attack on the Gates) maybe the Eye is some kind of "anti-reality weapon"?

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DFRPG / A new power: Ranged Vampirism
« on: July 23, 2018, 01:50:38 PM »
There's a recent WoJ about the Jade Court being able to feed on someone's Chi/Breath at a distance. I was thinking about how that would be modeled game-wise...

Ranged Vampirism [-1]
You can use your vampiric powers to feed on someone without the need for physical combat. The Jade Court is known and feared for their ability to draw the Chi (emotional energy/life force) from humans at great distances.
Musts: A vampiric feeding power: Blood Drinker, Emotional Vampire, or another power with "The Taste of Death" trapping
Distance Feeding. You can feed on mortal blood or emotions (as defined by the feeding power you possess) from a distance - this is an attack with a range of one zone, using the same skill and targeting the same stress track as your existing feeding power (Deceit or Intimidation and mental stress for Emotional Vampire, Fists or Weapons and physical stress for Blood Drinker). The Taste of Death works with this attack.
Long-Distance Feeding [-1] Your Distance Feeding has a range of three zones.
Weaponized Feeding [-1] Your attacks with Distance Feeding are weapon 2.
Deadly Feeding (Requires Weaponized Feeding) [-1] Your attacks with Distance Feeding are weapon 4.

---

What do you think?

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DF Spoilers / Ghost Vulnerabilities - GP vs. GS Inconsistency
« on: July 10, 2018, 04:46:03 AM »
In GP, Harry goes on about how ghosts are really hard to harm or affect at all - you have to get them to acknowledge you (at least if you're not in the Nevernever?) and Harry makes ghost dust out of weird, exotic, hard to get ingredients like depleted uranium to fight ghosts with.

But in GS, ghosts seem way more vulnerable. Sir Stu is nearly destroyed by fire, and Harry as a ghost talks about how running water could destroy him.

But if plain old fire could destroy ghosts, why bother with ghost dust? Just use a torch or something...

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DF Spoilers / Could the Blackstaff Cure a Warlock of Corruption?
« on: July 07, 2018, 05:15:00 AM »
Molly used mind magic to break drug addiction. The side effects were pretty terrible, but Molly was also totally untrained (and with Rosie, who Molly wasn't angry at, I think it was still a net gain in the long run). I'd think that an experienced mind-mage could at least do somewhat better ... certainly get a result that was better than having your head chopped off.

I always figured the reason the White Council didn't do this to remove black-magic addiction/corruption was because it would corrupt the person trying it (and because the Third and Fourth Laws mean that Council members don't develop the skills needed anyway).

But... with the Blackstaff, breaking the Laws doesn't corrupt you...

Now, Eb himself might not have the right talents for this sort of thing (his magic seems more oriented toward "really big explosions... although, Harry's is too, and from Ghost Story it seems he was able to get some basic competence in mind magic in like a year or two of practice...). But is it possible?

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DF Spoilers / What's Odin's stake in things?
« on: June 30, 2018, 04:54:52 AM »
I noticed something re-reading Changes. Odin demonstrates the "crushing will" power on Harry, and tells Harry that "in the Lords of Outer Night, even the remnants of that power are more than you can face as you are". With the very strong implication that Harry needs to get an external power boost to resist the LoON's will.

But, in the actual confrontation, Harry's Winter Knight powers don't really seem to be involved in resisting the will of the Red King and LoON. In the first confrontation, after Harry kills Arianna, it's Bob's spiritual defense and then Murphy drawing the Sword (or maybe the archangel's pronouncement that happens then). And in the second confrontation at the very end, Harry is starting to push back - but what actually frees him is Lea killing a couple of them and distracting the others.

Also, Odin strongly hints that he can't help Harry - he says that he's no longer strong enough, and that this has to be handled by mortals. But then he shows up and fights anyway.

I mean, Harry ends up needing the Winter Knight Mantle anyway to fix his broken back. But Odin's big on foresight... if Odin had instead told Harry that Bob and the Swords could protect him from the Lords of Outer Night's will, would events have played out differently? Maybe Harry wouldn't have ended up breaking his back...

But, why does Odin want Harry to be Winter Knight? He's tied to Winter as Kringle, but that doesn't seem like enough by itself.

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Author Craft / Smashwords
« on: August 05, 2014, 04:57:58 AM »
Has anyone here published on Smashwords? How "reputable" is it?

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