by: Austin George Loomis <aloomis@whale.st.usm.edu>
[Disclaimer: The demon described below, while loosely based on an actual person, is fictional. The similarities, while not coincidental, are mostly satirical and/or homagical. No insult is intended or should be inferred. - AGL, in the hopes that by thus covering my @$$, I won't getmy heart punched out if the original ever sees this]
Strength 4, Agility 8
Intelligence 9 (Mind hits 36), Precision 7
Will 12 (Soul hits 60), Perception 8
Human/2 {Body hits 20}
Writer/4 (Status 4)
Slothful/4
Artistry (writing)/5, Dodge/5, Emote/3, Fast-Talk/4, Fighting(jeet kune do)/6
Attraction (Ethereal/4), Charm (Ethereal/4), Dreams (Corporeal/5, Ethereal/4, Celestial/4), Form (Ethereal/4, Celestial/3), Light (Ethereal/4), Acid/5, Claws/3, Feet/4, Tongue/5, Possession/4, Thunder/5, Tongues (Corporeal/5, Ethereal/4, Celestial/3)
Balseraph of Nybbas (Servant -- Human/5 [writer/4]), Baron of the Fourth Estate, Soundtrack, Subliminal, Demon of Science Fiction
As the Demon of Science Fiction, Nalrah gains a point of Essence every time he encourages people to speculate wildly about the future on the basis of inadequate evidence. The speculations can be positive or negative, as long as they're based more on the mortal's own opinions than on the Symphonic Truth.
Like his current employer, Nalrah got his start working for Vapula. In fact, he can still remember laughing up his sleeve at the boundless optimism of a certain brash young Impudite (though now, of course, he claims he always knew the kid would go places).
During the 19th century, Nalrah was one of the first to see the uses of human literature in selling mortals on the products that emerged from the workshops of Tartarus. In the later part of the century, he started encouraging certain writers to push the possibilities of technology in their stories, beginning with the Frenchman who coined the early, clunky term for that sort of yarn -- "scientific romances." When Nybbas got jumped up, he invited Nalrah on board, to help train the first Balseraphs of Media, and to act as liaison between the senior and junior Princes.
In the 1920s, the Word he would one day make his own was coined by a Swiss immigrant, now a magazine publisher in America, who devoted an entire magazine to what he called "Scientifiction." This neologism took Nalrah's fancy, and he started promoting the words of which it was made, as a bridge between his former and present Superiors. In the middle 1950s, the era of monster movies, he was officially tied to his Word.
His current Servant is a screenwriter to whom he's attached himself as writing partner. Together, they're working on a series that depicts a thinly-veiled version of the War in a future setting, in which the human race bursts out from under the thumb of extraterrestrial "angels" and "demons" to take charge of its own destiny. (It's an hour show, airing weekly, as per the perquisities of a Knight of Influence.) It's whispered that Nybbas isn't the only one pleased by the show's popularity -- elaboration on this is handwaved as an exercise for the apt pupil.
Nalrah's current vessel is about six inches shorter than the average for an adult human male in an industrial culture, but he makes up for it with a certain manic energy, alternating with bouts of blue funk when he can no longer sustain his usual pace (i.e. the occasions when his high Will can no longer overcome his high Discord, or when that Sloth [a Celestial Discord, remember] has blocked his daily Essence).