Thanks Dina. It's been a dense few weeks. I can never sell an autobiography. No one would believe it. It's too absurd.

To summarize:

Enlightenment is possible.
Enlightenment is *dangerous.*
Do it wrong one way, and you go crazy.
Do it wrong the other way, you become blissed out and compliant, like a zombie addicted to a cross between communal love and heroin.

The way I did it, and many artistic types do it, is the way that risks insanity. I didn't go insane, obviously. Now, Jim Butcher on the other hand...

(Kidding, kidding. He's overly stablized, if anything.)

I can help someone do it in the way that risks blissful, stable, choiceless happiness. I figured out how by paying attention to my own process, and using myself as my own test subject. Because, you know, I had to. Still have to, tbh, I'm not finished.

There *is* some utility there in doing it a little bit and stopping before it finishes, for treating anxiety. I'm running that experiment now with a volunteer now to collect data. No preliminary results yet. We had to reset from incorrect methodology, and are waiting on them now.

(It's low risk, informed, consensual human experimentation, and I'm not part of an institution with an (inaptly named) ethics board.)

Going 100% with it? Where it moves from turning their reactions down enough for them to get a handle on them, and turns into total non-reactiveness? It's the equivalent of them erasing themselves and their personality. Everything that wasn't okay with the way the world works gets "deleted" from their consciousness.

Which I think is bad, and an evil thing to do to someone.

The weird part that I *don't* understand is how I'm living out a story that I've never read. The Sun Wukong stuff. How is it that I came to follow a plot structure that I never learned?

Like, we all act out mini-pieces of the stories we read. Fiction and mythology is like voluntary human self-programming. We "see" other people do things, we see how, and we copy them if we want to do that thing.

We do it with real humans too. That's pretty much how modern education works, in an overly simplistic nutshell.

So living out a plot structure isn't weird. You guys probably live out at least a little bit of Dresden every day. Or, if you're wise, you live out Michael Carpenter.

Becoming aware of it is pretty weird. That sends people insane if they can't cope with "seeing their own code." It's one thing to say you know that psychological conditioning works on you, or that you have bias. It's another thing to see happen in real time, including the parts happening in your head.

I have no idea how you live out a plot you haven't read. That leaves the broad overlap of "magical seeming things that are perfectly explainable (and extremely cool)" that I can personally explain.

The Jungian collective unconcious is my current best bet for a cause. Maybe yes, maybe no, inconclusive data.

I hope that clears things up a little. It's been a weird couple of months. At least I'm in good company.

Hey weird. Boy, have I got something weird.

I did an Enlightment.

But wait, it gets better: You guys went through a similar process. Probably multiple times. "Awakening," the process of kicking off a potential enlightment, is actually super, super common. It's also called Positive Disintegration in modern society. Most major Empires figured out a way to weaponize or utilize it. Name a seer, tbh.

Oh my. I feel you.
I've been there.
...
I kind of woke up...

Yeah you have. Recently, too. That's how you're at one with the friggin universe right now. Don't suppose you happened to make a couple new friends along the way? Or maybe hooked up with a couple of old ones?

Making those people mad obviously wasn't the most skillful way a hypothetical person could have handled a hypothetical situation. But it was the beat way you could have and did. Jesus man, we're exchanging text and I can see the glitter farts trailing behind you

Anyways, I hated those periods but we (hubby had to supported me) endured it because we know they were temporal.

You went through one a long time ago, and remember what it's like to remember it. But the lessons you've learned have started to decay, the world changed, or your place in it changed. You're fighting through it like a champ.

It's not working. You're overdue for another one, a big one. This staycation you're taking is like holding a chainsmoking convention in a fireworks factory. You're one creative endeavor of a spark from an extended staycation.

And that brings us to the the weirdest part of it: Jim Butcher had an awakening as well. He cribbed the Dresden Files from mythology during a time when his self image was breaking down in a time of extreme stress.

That's enough to do it, it turns out. That's what happened to me. I was cribbing from Dresden. That's not enough on its own, but I was also a built up forest fire waiting to happen. A huge one actually, super weird personal circumstances.

Reading a bunch of fiction is what's required to prime you. Actually trying to create something good based off it, while under extreme stress, is what's required to initiate the process. Or at least it's one way to do so. Remember: If youre going through hell, keep going. Just take it slow and steady, the only way you can get hurt is by pushing too hard.

If you get lost, Remember: Faith, hope, and love. Love is the greatest of the three. That's 1 Corinthians 13 (1 cor 13:13). I'm deeply grateful to Jim for including that in the series. "Mantling" is also your friend. The three Rational Enlightment values are better for navigating your way back to conversational ability, and the Buddhist Three Jewels kind of maximize your long term gains. That's all I've worked out.

There's all sorts of wacky shenanigans I could get into. But that's the brass tacks, and there actually is a "people talk themselves out of believing" effect. So I'll keep it brief so that the part of you that listens and makes memories has an easier time.

Man, what couple of weeks it's been. Oh, and 12 months is finished too. Nice!

Marcone has none of those advantages, however I think it will take a while before he realizes he isn't calling the shots.

I think he actually has a pretty decent analogue for both.

1] Right off Butters points out to Harry that Sheila was a delusion, thus he needs to be questioning everything.

Marcone has Gard exactly for situations like this. As a consultant her role tends to be very fluid as needs arise, but she's most valuable as an information source and force multiplier. There, she's relaying information to Marcone about how to use all of his other resources most effectively.

Like if picking up this coin that the Devil's Carnival has been yelling "do it, do it, do it" about all night might have some potential negative side effects. Or sending her to her home office to make some inquiries (and perhaps do a bit more), if that would be beneficial.

2] His experience with the soul gaze of a Denarian, he understands from the get go about who is really calling the shots if he accepts a coin.

To be honest, between Dresden and Marcone, I think Marcone got the better lesson here (even if he was a slower learner).

He got full-on Clockwork Orange'd on demonreach. I don't think even Jim knows exactly what happened to Ivy, but getting her the hell out of there was basically the only thing Marcone could focus on while he bled all over Sanya's cloak. That's partially character building, partially how compressed and hectic that scene is, but I think it's also a hint that whatever happened was authentically Hellish.

We'll probably find out. Flipping through Small Favor, and there's even a bit of foreshadowing about the risks of breaking The Archive with friendship at the end. We're definitely starting to see that happen. This is definitely gonna come up again, the only question is if Marcone's choice and Ivy's end up linked in that way.

I don't think taking up the coin was long term planning on Marcone's part. More like a "short term" (a decade, two at most) loan he's hoping he can skate on, before the angel in his brain puts him in a mindlock. I imagine he's very aware it's only a matter of time. It would be a weird gap in the savvy that we saw in Even Hand for him to think otherwise.

The hubris of trying to lead The Fallen is Nicodemus' thing, and Marcone got front row seats to Suffering Engine Inc's maximum intensity of fucked up clownshow being executed on Ivy. That's probably not the kind of attempted initiation that builds delusions of security. I imagine it does impress the reality of the game Marcone was playing into him, and made him confront the power dynamics at hand.

Marcone is very cunning, willful, resourceful, and at this point, the accumulation of power was basically happening automatically for him (not that he was lax in cultivating it, ofc). He was seriously not someone to be screwed with. Harry may have eliminated a bloodline in a moment of pique later on in the story, but Marcone murdered his way to the top of an industry where there are a standard number of generations for particular transgressions (interestingly enough, Marcone's bloodline related wrath probably only went upwards in the family tree as well).

He could always be more powerful, but John was just about topped out on what could be meaningfully expressed as a vanilla mortal in supernatural contexts. I don't think he skimped out on a single Monoc package, and probably earned a discount or two by inventing a few. At least it was as much as he could bring to bear without getting bogged down in more obligations than it was worth in mortal politics (although Lara Raith seemed to have found a loophole or two).

He then got ripped out of a saferoom in the heart of his power, every advantage at hand. By someone with the same personality type, assorted magic powers, an omniscient spy demon, and as salt in the wound, ~2000 years of compounding interest completely obviating any structural power of Marcone's. Since criminals take bribes if they're big enough. All as a test run/bait for a real player.

Oh, and Nic's gang literally worships him instead of being a traitorous backstabbing pack of criminals that require constant managing. Just on a professional level, being out-disciplined by the eunuch guy. Ouch.

Marcone isn't a hero getting by on moral-gumption-made-physical-power and regular abuses of free will at a breathtaking scale. He's a ruthless strategist who tries to win in every possible outcome (and who regularly games free will). He was helpless before powers greater than himself, so he got better leverage. He's not just aware that things are coming to a head, he's playing an unclear role in helping them get there. Therefore gaining more specific leverage over who knows what apocalypse-y shenanigans.

The blast crater formerly known as Chicago, to start with. Now that there has been one blast crater, there will be polite inquiries into if there will be a second blast crater by the mortal powers that be. The taboo on large (read: torch and pitchfork risking) scale politics is probably on it's last legs. Now that there's power to be made in brokering, it's gonna get made. How convenient for Marcone, ever a man of lucky placement and timing.

In his ideal scenario he probably saves Amanda Beckitt, saves His People and the world from whatever's coming, comes out alive himself, becomes King of Greater America (whatever the hell that means), dunks Thorned Namshiel in a Vatican vending machine for a pop, and skips off into the sunset with his ill gotten magical powers as Harry Dresden, new loyal employee, admits how wrong he was the entire time. Which John will magnanimously wave away to begin a fruitful and long partnership.

More likely, he will begin sacrificing those items in reverse order and with rapidly increasing frequency as the nemfected Fallen cheats somehow, and the brainlock goes faster than expected. And we get to watch! He just lost the closest thing to his conscience, which I'm sure was also totally unrelated to the similarly habitually fortunate Fallen Angel whispering sweet nothings to his subconscious.

Or at least that's my read. I'm not sure if the story is actually Freudian, or if I'm just slipping.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to walk to Edmonton to give $85 to a snail charity.

Yay!

I'm probably reading too much (or not enough) into things, but I hope that the pause right before the last 10% of the book means the climax had extra time to cook.

It ties in super well with the white court archfrenemy, too. Nefarious Peace is their shtick, so if your Knight is all about finding the use/purpose in conflict/war (What Is It Good For? The aspects write themselves), you can have a lot of tension between two fairly easy to justify viewpoints. It also hooks in perfectly with going from historical set piece to historical set piece. If one of the viewpoints starts getting a little too dominant, you can always just throw them into the reminder of atrocities past from being either too eager for or too avoidant of internal or external conflict. Make the setting itself a mediator in their dialogue. As for the opposites of fire and earth:

If fire is about change, intensity, and growth, and earth is about instinct, intuition, and primal impulse, then the opposite of both of those could be civilized corruption and orderly cultural stasis.

A lack of liveliness, not just of war. A total denial of life unsanctioned by authority, a cultivated perversion of the wild strength borne by those who have proven themselves through Winter to be worthy of partaking in the fruitfulness of Summer. A sort of metaphysical necromancy extending to the meta-entities that humans make up. Social groups, towns, societies, those group entities that gain their own traits and identities, and are often drawn to a narcissistic fascination with preserving themselves eternally. White Court Vampires tie into that nicely. Its also a super novel opportunity to explore the white court's vampiric traits outside of anthropophagy. I might actually use that myself, tbh. It sets up a really neat back and forth.

I come from the future. I got to writing a bit of backstory for them to get a sense of where their stats might be, and it just kept coming. I'll tuck all that into a spoiler, since it's only adjacent to the actual stats, but you picked a few really strong themes to link together. It's got so many parallels, and I barely scratched the surface of wikipedia. All of the parallels. All of them.


Use all, some, or none of that as you like. It's just what I'm building this around.


I prefer to start at the absolute minimum stats I can thematically get away with, since it's never difficult to figure out how to add refresh if you need to. Mid-fight, if need be. Tactical dings are always crowd pleaser. If the PCs are struggling enough that it's necessary, it'll be easy enough to justify and feel earned. If they need too much of a power boost to justify with DBZ logic... what happened? What did you do? What did they do?

Besides, you'll have a better idea of what you even want with some time in character, anyhow. Starting out with more refresh is just robbing yourself of a phase of growth and a chance to make powerups meanful in the context of the game. At least that's just how I feel

For William that's 6 refresh, to cover Marked by Power and Sponsored Magic. He'll gain Inhuman Recovery for free thanks to the Catch he's been stuck with. I mean, it's almost free immortality, mostly in exchange for the fact that he's incapable of being stagnant and passive. If it wasn't for the fact that just being around a person who's Withering makes him viscerally uncomfortable, there really wouldn't be any downside at all.

His centuries of experience could be conveyed with 30 skill points and a single skill at the Superb skill cap. You can mix and match the priority depending on the build you go with. This one is focused on up close physical combat with Earth magic "grapples" in the form of enhanced swordsmanship, forcing the enemy to struggle to fend him off and generally aiming for the feel of swashbuckling. It has lots of maneuvers available, and blocks can fend off groups simultaneously while controlling where people move on the battlefield (very important when playing stab-or-swim in the middle of Fuckoff Nowhere, The Ocean). A strong use of the cutlass would be making it a +2 focus to defensive power for Earth evocations. That boosts both a defense and opens up blocks and grapples for aforementioned shenanigans. Just make sure to brush up the grapple rules. They make perfect sense and work super well, but almost everyone misremembers them, which sometimes causes issues.

Probably save Fire magic for times when you just need to blast something, or at least occasions where fallout is probably more of an asset than a liability. You could also go with a folk hero social leader who rouses passion with sponsored Thaumaturgy, a glass cannon blaster caster, or a few other varieties that are workable with only a few swaps/rotations of skills.

Note that Resources is missing because Marked By Power provides a Contact that can roll it for him. The points in Resources that Y Ddraig Goch rolls for him are more about how cheap he's being about the request than an actual restriction of buying power, so consider bonuses for requests along his agenda. Alternatively, take on a point of sponsor debt to make a declaration for anything covered by the Buying Things table on YS322, and seriously consider a roll for more absurd requests. Frugality is one thing, but favors carry significantly more weight than gold to creatures that are probably capable of casual transmutation. Also, being Dragons, their sense of proportion is totally obliterated. They really are just that cheap about his requests, and Intellectus prevents them from being taken for fools in such amusingly petty bargains as physical property.

Superb: Discipline
Great: Weapons, Athletics
Good: Empathy, Conviction,
Fair: Endurance, Driving (Ships), Alertness
Average: Presence, Rapport, Contacts, Might, Lore

Marked by Power [-1]
Sponsored Magic (Y Ddraig Goch) (Earth/Fire Evocations and Thaumaturgy) [-4]
Inhuman Recovery [-2]
The Catch (all above): Stagnacy [+2]
Basically no one knows about this hidden weakness of the Dragons of Wales, but it's a hazard they have to constantly fend off. An active lifestyle, strong habits, living with presence and intentionality, and strong connections to worldly matters of power. The strength of natural rulers is literally what keeps them powerful. Artifacts of listlessness and passivity, such as tranquilizers or a social media feed, range from mild discomfort to compels. It can become outright mental attacks against their Discipline if the area is saturated with the aimless and controlled. Likewise, their magic withers to an equal proportion it attempts to wither or ensnare another to their detriment (For example, True Leadership would not fall under this limitation).

I sure hope no archfrenemies he's in constant close contact with ever find out about it. That would be just terrible.


The spymaster may be a bit younger and a lot less experienced, and he'll have the default -7 refresh white court powers, but miraculously his actual refresh is at 8 (to be fair, wiping out a vampire court also bought Harry a point or two). In terms of skills, he's also the type to apply the resources of his house, more than personally dealing with anything. His skill cap would be at Great, and 25 total skill points. He also used to have a few of Lore feats with Black Court Vampires as a specialty, his intense specialization explaining some of his stunted growth in other areas, but those have been refunded because everyone with a Lore of 1 knows about them now (or at least the important parts). That "noble sacrifice" didn't buy him as much political capital as he thought it would (man got played hard), so now he's starting to question things. Well, now more than ever, with the ascendancy of Lara Raith. Sometimes, quietly, to himself. It's a pretty self absorbed and undignified way to have clawed back a shred of humanity, which is probably the most upsetting part about it for him (if he's not just in outright denial).

Contacts to find someone to solve a problem, Contacts to get his yet unnamed family to pay them to do their job, Deceit to lie about why he needed the money. The rest is either basic survival or a hobby. Trying to catch him in information leaks is the name of the game, so they approve the requests to buy more lies from him, hopefully to piece together blackmail material. The fact that mother dearest still makes sure he's sharp after centuries shows how sentimental she is, which is a terrible weakness that he only occasionally exploits.

At least until he got thrown into a series of ditches with the Dragon Whelp. He's more of a talker than a fighter, but that's still crazy dangerous. Particularly if he can get close enough to touch. Admittedly, less useful against... is that? Oh, good, he previoualy thought that type of Golem was mythical. Adventure.

Great: Deceit, Contacts
Good: Discipline, Presence
Fair: Alertness, Conviction, Lore
Average: Endurance, Rapport, Empathy, Intimidation, Scholarship (18th century Classical Education)

Human Guise [-0]
Emotional Vampire [-1]
Incite Emotion (Touch) (Lassitude, a subtype of despair) [-1]
Feeding Dependency [+1]:
Inhuman Recovery [-2]
Catch is True Engagement (Intentional, acceptable growth/loss from risk. A subtype of Hope) [+0]
Inhuman Speed [-2]
Inhuman Strength [-2]

Thanks for what turned into an unexpectedly fun writing project. 


EDIT: Fixed the spymaster's Catch so that it's a precise mirror of William's. Dueling Lifestyles, with one angrily jogging in place while the other inhales a bag of potato chips, both while making unflinching eye contact, is on the table. On an RP level, it's a bit that starts off with punch and has room to evolve as they hit milestones in their partnership. The mutual bullying and resulting character growth can gradually escalate in stages, keeping it fresh but familiar.

On a practical level, the GM has a built in mechanism to bribe the PCs onto the railroad tracks. I mean that's normally the case with aspects and compels, but one of the characters is an accelerator and one is a brake. This is railroad tracks with power steering, but done through excessive bribery so that everyone's happy. The PCs can negotiate about how badly they want a thing to happen/not happen. In exchange the PCs either gain loads of fate points and can exercise very narrow but significant slices of control over specific points in the narrative, or they're driven to actualize the hell out of themselves/their preferred aspects, so they can spend those tiny morsels of free will to deny their nature (and perhaps start to justify an aspect change down the road). Player's preference, both are fun and keep the momentum going.

Merry Christmas to you both (and Happy Holidays to all)! And a safe and happy new year as well.

The couch produced a small stocking while I was sitting and flipping through old RPG discussions. Very festive.