A Skulker Solution

By Anthony Damiani

**Flaming
Feather**

This bothered me for a long, long time. There really isn't a good mechanical reason for prohibiting Hell from producing more Grigori shy of ruling that unlike normal celestials, the Grigori only reproduce sexually, and even that has problems. One could say Hell has no Grigori, but it seems rather unlikely that, once outcast from Heaven, no Demon Prince could offer a Grigori enough Forces, attunements and Distinctions to sign up -- if Hell wanted to breed 'em, the first breeder'd be almost as valuable to them as a Malakite.

But I think I have a decent solution.

The Demon Princes don't reproduce Skulkers because it keeps the Grigori out of Heaven. Sure, having the variety would be nice, but Lucifer, Baal and Asmodeus are ultimately very, very well aware that if Hell kept right along producing Skulkers, or produced more to take advantage of the Grigori's status, eventually one of them would try to redeem.

Novalis is already on record as thinking a permanent banishment is too severe. Yves isn't about to stand idly by if a hellborn Skulker walks into Heaven, repents his evil deeds, renounces his masters and begs to be redeemed: it'd be pretty farking dissonant. Michael isn't about to stand idly by while Hell produces hordes of Servitors that Heaven can't redeem, either-- it's militarily unacceptable (plus he's kinda cheesed at Dominic's judgement anyhow)-- and the pragmatic Elohim would undoubtedly stand by him. David's got an oath which binds him to "never abandon faith, even in the lowest of the fallen, until I have no choice" -- turning a Skulker away would be dissonant. Even Dominic, who outcast the Choir in the first place, would be hard pressed to justify keeping the permanent ban on Grigori in place when faced with a blameless Hellborn Skulker attempting to enter Heaven.

Heaven will simply not allow Hell to breed a race of unredeemable anti-Malakite Servitors if it can prevent it.

So, by choosing to put an edict into place banning the reproduction of Skulkers, Hell trades off a useful tool, but Heaven has to do the same and they lose access to however many hundreds, thousands or millions of Forces are occupied in the exiled Grigori -- an entire eighth of the Host! Perhaps when there are sufficiently few Outcast-Grigori remaining (like, say, now), Lucifer will review this policy and consider revoking it, and letting the political turmoil in Heaven turn out as it may...

Which is not to say one of the more rebellious princes -- Malphas, Saminga and Valefor spring to mind -- might not have a private squad stashed away. Heck, Kronos proves it's difficult to know what band a Superior belongs to if he tries to conceal it -- any of the post-Fall DPs could secretly be Grigori... waiting... watching... skulking from the shadows...

**Flaming
Feather**

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