The Dresden Files

Other highlights include warlocks, warlocks everywhere, White Court vampires acting as club bouncers in order to gather up the most suicidally depressed people and throwing them into one environment, and a guy who can create illusions and dreams so potent you believe yourself to death.

Also another confirmed pre-Christian deity (in this case, Ishtar) running around.

edited 31st Oct '14 4:11:33 PM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

And given its reaction to writing G-o-d...I assume The Demon also comes with an upper case D.

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So the short version is that Vegas is about to explode, and it's Harry's fault. Also, Billy better hope nobody ever tells the angry Summerfae that he statted her like a D&D Arcanos ranger.

I am in-jokely amused at the official statement contained therein that European-accented bibliomancers operating in Vegas are shit at magic.

I counted two women and one male warlock, and the man has carved himself a power base.

Okay people, it's time to have this conversation again.

So I just started Changes.

Goddamn, that escalated quickly.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Hehehehehe.

Hehehehehehehehhe.

MWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

...*ahem*

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You ain't seen nothing yet.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

It's fun watching the entire thread spontaneously become whampires whenever someone starts reading Changes. Yes, shed delicious tears.

@GOA: The conversation about how the guy squatting in flood tunnels with the rest of the people Vegas spat out has more of a powerbase than the ringmaster of a supernatural circus or the owner of a neutral-groundy club? I don't know if anyone's had that particular conversation before.

Hum, good point. Perhaps I have interpretational bias.

Might still be worth asking why it was the male character who was put in the better position to establish a power base. (I won't say more until I actually read the pdf.)

Because his circumstances allowed it?

Watson versus Doyle.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Can we not have, either, discussion again? I think we have fairly established that no one here can be swayed in his opinion

edited 1st Nov '14 3:13:21 PM by 3of4

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Indeed.

So here's a question. The method for turning into wolves the Alphas employ wasn't anything specifically tied to werewolves as a concept, right? I mean, they could've just as easily have picked up werebear or werejaguar spells?

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

They got taught by a Wolfwere. I assume that means werewolves where the only option ;)

edited 1st Nov '14 3:40:44 PM by 3of4

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Yup, just that for most of western civilization's rise, wolves where the most badass local predators and ones best suited for the environment, so they were the ones people that could do it choose, and it just kind of stuck.

Bob said it could be anything, even listing some other popular shifts from other cultures, like were-bison for some Native American tribes.

Also this. So while the idea and the ability itself could be used for any animal, for the Alphas, wasn't really much choice given who they learned it from.... then again, was it ever said that she taught them how to shift in the first place? I always thought they worked that out on their own, she simply found them afterwards and taught them how to act like real wolves and make the most of their new forms.

edited 1st Nov '14 3:43:13 PM by Seraphem

That would certainly explain why she even gave a shit about a bunch of random college kids. "Oh no. You are wolfing so badly it hurts. I have to fix this."

That sounds more plausible, yes. I do wonder how a wolf learned to shift in the first place.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

When a werewolf and a wolf like each other very very much...

Nah, I assume its something related to spirits of nature or so.

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That totally happened in the backstory to The Belgariad.

The way Billy describes wolfing out in the RPG, he doesn't really view it in the same terms Harry does, as essentially being a single-purpose spell. I suspect that the way it works is that he (and the rest of the Alphas) was essentially taught to shift into a Wolf and a Wolf only, and that Tera probably couched the lessons in that form. I think that you could probably be taught to shift into anything you wanted, but to achieve the same level of precision and reliability, it'd have to be only the one form.

Well, Kirby and Andy did get jiggy in wolf form. They got spiritual lice, but still.

Another shifter doubt. Do they store the extra mass in the Nevernever when shifting to a smaller form? Also, why was Harry surprised at Gray's shifting again? It seemed largely the same as LTW's, in most ways.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

I think that you could probably be taught to shift into anything you wanted, but to achieve the same level of precision and reliability, it'd have to be only the one form.

That's more or less how Bob described it.

Likely the extra mass is shifted somehow. As to Grey, it was more about how quick, and some of the forms he could shift into. And maybe the way he did it was different looking. Plus, you know LTW was one of the seven most powerful wizards on the planet, and we've never seen or heard of anyone being as skilled at shapeshifting as him, so someone else being able to do it that isn't even a wizard is pretty freaky, and pretty clear that he's not all human.

edited 1st Nov '14 4:04:33 PM by Seraphem

Full blown shapeshifting is very rare, apparently.

And the RP pretty much states that "stored in the nevernever" and "get extra mass from the nevernever" is the explaination for shifts in mass.

edited 1st Nov '14 4:03:19 PM by 3of4

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