in_nomine-digest Sunday, January 12 2003 Volume 01 : Number 2929 In this digest: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) IN> Everything you know just got more wrong Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) IN> [3 Souls] So you work for a Demon Prince, part 1 IN> My first post of the year! IN> Knockout rules? IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Re: IN> Knockout rules? Re: IN> Kobal on the run (Was So you work for a Demon Prince?) Re: IN> My first post of the year! Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Re: IN> My first post of the year! Re: IN> Knockout rules? Re: IN> Knockout rules? IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) Re: IN> [3 Souls] So you work for a Demon Prince, part 1 Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 17:45:34 -0600 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) From: "Elizabeth McCoy" > > Just so long as he doesn't cosplay Sailor Moon... As I have yet to see a fat, bearded rendition of Laurence anywhere, I think we're safe. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 00:27:11 GMT From: phillip@mbaysav.org Subject: IN> Everything you know just got more wrong > From: "Elizabeth McCoy" <arcangel@io.com> > > > > Just so long as he doesn't cosplay Sailor Moon... > > As I have yet to see a fat, bearded rendition of Laurence anywhere, I think > we're safe. > > Hmm... possible article to write in the near future: Celestials and their Cosplaying. Of course, they'd have to drag Dominic in by his cloak. And the bearded fatman Sailor Moon? As if you had to ask. Kobal. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 19:46:24 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) >>You mean like Laurence's private and VERY secret Shoujo addiction? > >Just so long as he doesn't cosplay Sailor Moon... > >O;> >-- >--Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor >http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ I've already connected him with Tuxedo Kamen, so I hardly need elucidate my own choice... ;^) William ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 19:56:34 -0500 From: Michael Bruner Subject: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) At 06:10 PM 1/11/2003 -0500, you wrote: >At 11:18 PM +0000 1/10/03, phillip@mbaysav.org wrote: > >> [Here's a fun set of things to do... Figure out what twist you can > >> put on a Superior so that what Everyone Knows is... false. [...] > > > >You mean like Laurence's private and VERY secret Shoujo addiction? > >Just so long as he doesn't cosplay Sailor Moon... Why not? Given his ability to take on female form and shape it to pretty much any thing he desires, he could make himself the perfect match ;). Of course, that gives one the idea of various Superiors occasionally amusing themselves by taking on certainly famous identities and having a little fun on Earth; Janus probably has an Elvis vessel he wanders around in, and Michael's been seen looking at this little outfit with red cape and blue tights with an "S" on the front... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 22:19:38 -0800 From: "Joey's mail" Subject: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) > Why not? Given his ability to take on female form and shape it to pretty > much any thing he desires, he could make himself the perfect match ;). Of > course, that gives one the idea of various Superiors occasionally amusing > themselves by taking on certainly famous identities and having a little fun > on Earth; Janus probably has an Elvis vessel he wanders around in, and > Michael's been seen looking at this little outfit with red cape and blue > tights with an "S" on the front... > > Am I the only one who thinks that Andrea would leap at a chance to cosplay Cutie Honey? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 00:14:33 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) >Am I the only one who thinks that Andrea would leap at a chance to cosplay >Cutie Honey? Hee. He could give it a whirl(and cheapen the whole image, of course), but really I think this *is* one Laurence would do better. After all, her top weapon is the razor-sharp sword called The Silver Floret. Which she can pull out of thin air, literally... look, Scabbard Attunement! :^) Mm. Picturing Andrea prancing around in the Cutey Honey outfit, when suddenly up shows Lauren -- not that Andrea knows who it is. They duel with their own versions of the Silver Floret: very, very briefly. William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 09:30:01 -0500 From: BC Petery Subject: IN> [3 Souls] So you work for a Demon Prince, part 1 > Andrealphus his dissonance conditions > prohibit feeling or displaying > any compassion towards any humans. You might try a "Farming" attitude, fattening humans up for future consumption: "You take very good care of that pig. What did you name it?" "Bacon." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:32:42 +0800 From: Manny Nepomuceno Subject: IN> My first post of the year! Hey, Sorry for the sudden silence. RL happens. :) This didn't make sense any other way. Enjoy. ;) Manny Neps http://www.geocities.com/angeloffools The Women I At dawn, they returned, our menfolk Distraught and in tears. We have lost heaven, they said, ashamed to meet our eyes. What was heaven, we asked? A treasure, an animal, was heaven good to eat? All unknowing, our sons prepared to find this heaven and return it to us. But our menfolk were quicker. No, they replied, heaven is the place we have come from, it is paradise, and we laughed. Silly men. Paradise is wherever you are. II But that was an age ago, and we have not laughed since: for who could laugh, as the years came and stole away our youth and our beauty, while our menfolk, exiled from heaven, sat with us, unchanging and young, to look sadly on our withering? Too long they sat with us, that the sorrow etched itself into their eyes. Still, they were young and we were not. One by one we died, died like the sons we bore martyred for a cause we did not understand. What was their crime? That they were born at all, we were told, and grimly they spared us, for we had no crime. Yet one by one we died. III Now it is dusk, and one by one we wait As we have always waited, quietly, by the gates barred and warded against the coming of our menfolk. From dusk till dusk we wait as we have waited for a thousand seasons and more. And they pass, those who slew our sons, and some ask forgiveness. Where is forgiveness, we ask, for our men, whose only crime was to love? We do not understand this; we are told that angels cannot love mortals. Yet we were mortal and we loved angels, and we were spared for we had no crime. And our children pass, our children and their children and those who came after long passed, up the bright ladder that awaits our step. But our loves are not here, they are not here, they are in the homes we left behind, as loveless as dust and ash. And we think: Better far that we did not understand heaven, that we thought it was a treasure, something good to eat, than to have tasted of its bitterness. Now it is dusk. We are waiting still, joyless and undying, vagrants on the byways of paradise. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 10:45:26 -0500 From: "Chris Bergstresser" Subject: IN> Knockout rules? Hi all -- I've got a militant Cherub in my group who has a penchant for the cinematic knockout, but can't seem to find any rules to cover the situation. I suppose I've got two questions: First, how do people handle "pulled punches" -- the Cherub can easily kill a human with a single hit, but is more interested in smacking them around. Second, is there any good way to handle a "knockout" besides beating someone into unconsciousness? It feels very much in the flavor of the game to allow the Cherub to hoist a security guard up by the labels, bop him on the top of the head, and let him sleep it off with minor injuries. - -- Chris ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 10:49:03 -0500 From: "Chris Bergstresser" Subject: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Hi all -- I've been trying to understand just how some of the attunements should work. A number of them say things like "at a glance the angel can tell..." which I've been interpreting as a requiring a resonance roll. Is this not the case? And secondly, am I correct in reading that most of Gabriel's attunements don't actually help the angel much? Most seem to simply increase the chance that the angel will trigger their dissonance condition. - -- Chris ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 11:06:20 -0500 From: "S.D." Subject: Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements >Hi all -- > > I've been trying to understand just how some of the attunements should >work. A number of them say things like "at a glance the angel can tell..." >which I've been interpreting as a requiring a resonance roll. Is this not >the case? At a glance is, literally, at a glance - no rolls involved, just a line of sight. Perception roll at /most/ - you never roll resonance for an Attunement unless it literally /says/ roll resonance in there. However, you might house-rule it into, say, 'you have to actually make an effort to read this' - if X Angel glances at Y Person while passing them on the sidewalk, the Attunement doesn't kick in, but if X Angel deliberately /looks/ at Y Person for, say, one combat round or a few seconds gametime, the Attunement does. > And secondly, am I correct in reading that most of Gabriel's >attunements don't actually help the angel much? Most seem to simply >increase the chance that the angel will trigger their dissonance condition. Well, Gabriel's people /are/ intended to hunt the cruel. They have to identify the cruel before they can hunt them, and her Attunements let them do this and be /sure/ that someone's cruel before punishing them. However, I agree, it's occasionally a pain to deal with. I play a Bright Lilim of Fire with the Ofanite of Fire Attunement, and while she /loves/ the fire immunity, her nature means she occasionally has /problems/ with hunting her targets. (Recently, in fact, she wound up trading a Malakite of the Sword two day-Geases in exchange for getting her within range of a target. Sure, Laurence cut it down to one later, but still.) My GM runs the Gabrielite Attunements as "you have to actually /focus/ to ping cruelty strongly enough that your dissonance conditions are activated. Otherwise, you just get a vague sense of wrongness at the most." It's worked out pretty well so far... ~S.D. Ryukage *** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:02:52 +0100 (CET) From: Unni Solaas Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Chris Bergstresser wrote: > Second, is there any good way to handle a "knockout" besides beating someone > into unconsciousness? It feels very much in the flavor of the game to allow > the Cherub to hoist a security guard up by the labels, bop him on the top of > the head, and let him sleep it off with minor injuries. First I'd like to state for the record that a love you man! You're now asking a question I've been wanting to ask for ages, but never got around to! :) Second, here's my own thougt on how to handle it: Use the Fighting skill. Declare that you want to do a KO, or declare "subdual damage" (iow, non-fatal, body hits return much faster than normal). You roll Fighting, the opponent rolls Dodge. If you win, the opponent is out cold. Mind, if the opponent is a tough ol' celestial with lots of Corp. forces and strong and stuff, this is not a very plausible method. The above works best on humans. :) For celestials I recommend a blackjack or a nice, big crowbar. Maybe even a VW Beetle for those extra-special occations..;P The GM might also want to demand that you have a decent level (like > 3) in Fighting before letting you attempt a KO without risking to kill instead of subdue. Just a thought. Now I expect the less game-mechanically impared denizens of the list will cough up a system that'd actually /work/.. :) - -- language, n; an intangible artificial construct for obscuring one's meanings and intentions to others. -ppint. Unni Solaas ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 12:08:32 -0500 (EST) From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: Re: IN> Kobal on the run (Was So you work for a Demon Prince?) phillip@mbaysav.org wrote: > > > > Kobal's standing in Hell has been steadily slipping over the > > millenia. Once, he was the chief tempter, but he has lost that > > portfolio to Kronos. More recently, he lost his position as master > > of the infernal theater to the Media. > > You know, this is an interesting point. The part about Kronos is > canonical, but is the bit with Nybbas? I don't believe so; I got it from _Sandman_, in which there's a passing reference to a demon Kobal, who is Master of the Infernal Theater. I snagged it for my game, because I thought it was a cool little hook. One of the things I'm trying to suggest in my game is that the upper ranks of Hell are fluid and constantly changing depending on who has power at the current moment. There have been sixty Princes of Fire, with the most recent coming to power in 1945. The Demon Prince of Theft is whoever has managed to steal the Word most recently. Nybbas is a century old, and there have been four Demon Princes of Technology in the two hundred fifty years that Principality has existed. There have been almost /six thousand/ demon princes of Death; no one is sure why, but that Word tends to make its holders, well, kind of stupid. (And you wondered why zombies hunger for brains...?) The original Fallen, who have held onto their Principalities for the whole of the rebellion, are few. Baal, Kobal, and Andrealphus are about it, and I wanted Kobal to be on a downward arc to make clear that even they are not eternal. (While Asmodeus is one of the original Fallen, he has lost his crown many times over the ages. He's currently back in, but who knows how long that will last? I mean, hell, he was *elected* back into office in 1990! Likewise, Lilith is ancient, too, but she's ex-human so that doesn't really count.) > Imagine it when he realizes that he has a matter of years before he > finally becomes open game to all the Princes he's become a thorn to. > Enough to drive even a Prince renegade, perhaps? Hiding on earth and > hoping to drop off of everyone's radar? I really can't see him > Redeeming; he's too firmly entrenched in his own little variety of > evil for that. But hiding on earth is definately a possibility. It would be fairly easy for him to go Renegade on Earth imc. It would be a lot harder to do it while still a Prince. The way that Words work in 3 Souls is that they are extremely complicated pieces of metaphysical machinery that resonate to a particular theme in the Symphony, and to the holder of that Word. This means that Words can be stolen or destroyed by reattuning or smashing the machinery. Princes and archangels have that status because they have *huge* amounts of Word-machinery, so it's hard for a Prince to run without losing his or her word. A lesser word-bound might manage it, if they were able to hide their Word connection.... - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 13:31:28 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> My first post of the year! >;) Manny Neps >http://www.geocities.com/angeloffools > >The Women *applause Essence* William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 13:50:59 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements >Hi all -- > > I've been trying to understand just how some of the attunements should >work. A number of them say things like "at a glance the angel can tell..." >which I've been interpreting as a requiring a resonance roll. Is this not >the case? And secondly, am I correct in reading that most of Gabriel's >attunements don't actually help the angel much? Most seem to simply >increase the chance that the angel will trigger their dissonance condition. > >-- Chris We haven't met an angel of Fire yet in my game, but I from what I've read among the canon pronouncements is that *not only* does the angel not have to make any roll or effort, but the attunement will in fact engage *automatically*, and cannot be shut off. Done with your last target? Walk out in the street and *ping*, there's your next one. I wrote a Mercurian of Fire once who, the implication was, blinded his Vessel to stop it from happening. He took on a Role as what he really wanted to be, a sculptor. As for how much they help -- well, yeah. They basically assign targets, which is helping in a certain sense of the word. They help the angel do his job; Gabriel's bunch would be a lot greyer if, while driven to punish certain sorts of cruelty, they had to rely on their own judgment as to what constituted those cruel acts. Hellooo, Habbalah. If you'd like to provide Choir attunements with more abilities attached, there have been written up a version or two of archaic Choir attunements for Gabriel; these would be attunements she had before focusing so exclusively on punishing cruelty. For a player willing to pay the points, these might still be available. There are plenty of ways to go in writing them up: focusing on Gabriel's roles as Messenger of God, prophet, inspirer, elemental Fire, and more. (Of course, unless she strips the old one -- highly unlikely, I'd say -- it will still be there. You'll just have a new toy to help out.) William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 11:01:59 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: IN> My first post of the year! - --- Manny Nepomuceno wrote: > Hey, > > Sorry for the sudden silence. RL happens. :) > > This didn't make sense any other way. Enjoy. Thank you, I will. :) ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 09/18/02 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:19:47 -0500 From: "Eric Bertish" Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? I'm inclined to take a page from Feng Shui, which states that there are two types of characters: Named and mooks. Named characters get speaking roles and usually a challenge; mooks are extras that attack in waves. If a PC reduces a mook to 0 hits, then the PC can decide if that mook has been killed or simply knocked unconscious. This has two benefits: one, you don't have to change the rules, so the patch is transparent. Two, if you declare a knockout, there's no disturbance for killing a human. Of course, you run the risk of the mook waking up at an inconvenient time (Intervention), but that's a good trade-off. - -- Casca ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:25:57 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? >On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Chris Bergstresser wrote: > >> Second, is there any good way to handle a "knockout" besides beating someone >> into unconsciousness? It feels very much in the flavor of the game to allow >> the Cherub to hoist a security guard up by the labels, bop him on the top of >> the head, and let him sleep it off with minor injuries. [snip system] >Just a thought. Now I expect the less game-mechanically impared denizens >of the list will cough up a system that'd actually /work/.. :) It's not bad. I remember something like "subdual damage" from the old AD&D system. After you smacked someone around enough that the subdual damage equaled their HP, they would presumably realize that you could have killed them if you had been trying. >-- >Unni Solaas For my part, let me reference the GURPS rules on KOs. They're pretty straightforward -- on any blow to the head area (with penalties of -5 to -7 to attack skill), the victim must make a HT (basically one's Body Hits) roll or be knocked out. In IN, I'd say this would probably translate to an attack with a penalty of -3 for the called shot (otherwise it hits on the shoulders or torso, if it still worked), and the victim would roll against... hmm. Perhaps a target number of Strength + Agility. Very tough targets, with 3 Corporeal Forces, would of course always make their roll except in case of Interventions. If your PC would like to try it on these folks as well, GURPS has automatic stunning for the case of when someone can manage to do lots of damage in one blow. If you can make the shot, and manage to do one-eighth or more of their entire Body Hits in a single blow (I don't know how likely this is with the In Nomine battle system), they'll be knocked out automatically. Hope this makes any sense when translated. :^) William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:04:07 -0500 From: Matthew Gerber Subject: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) Manny, this is absolutely beautiful. It also raises a question I've had for a good long while, and I hope you don't mind if I use your poem to ask it. > One by one we died, died like the sons we bore > martyred for a cause we did not understand. > What was their crime? That they were born at all, we were told, > and grimly they spared us, for we had no crime. Yet one by one we died. I've heard both that Heaven did everything it could to ruthlessly slaughter all of the children of the Grigori, and that killing such a child is equivalent to killing a human, for which Dominic will sentence an angel to soul-death. Which is right? Matt ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:16:50 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) >I've heard both that Heaven did everything it could to ruthlessly slaughter >all of the children of the Grigori, and that killing such a child is >equivalent to killing a human, for which Dominic will sentence an angel to >soul-death. Which is right? Some children of the Grigori were Nephallim, monsters with Discord-like Disadvantages that frequently looked hideous and acted evilly. These would have been hunted down and slaughtered. The Children of the Grigori, capital-C, are humans with a certain connection to the Symphony. They are human in every supernatural respect, such as echoing disturbance when hit, etc. Since canon does have an angel sentenced to soul-death for killing a (seemingly innocent!) human, I imagine that killing one of these, without extenuating circumstances ("he was about to kill my Attuned" or something) would constitute a grave crime. >Matt William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:55:04 -0500 (EST) From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: Re: IN> [3 Souls] So you work for a Demon Prince, part 1 Unni Solaas wrote: > On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Neel Krishnaswami wrote: > > Asmodeus > > > > > in the universe. Of course they're going to be brutal. If *you* were > > the only thing standing between a Renegade Balseraph of Fire and a > > nuclear warhead, wouldn't you be willing to get a little...rough? > > Oh....YES! I am loving this interpretation of The Game. I can't belive I > hadn't managed to see all that on my own, it's so /obvious/! This is so > going into the save file! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! > > *cackle* This way I can screw with my players' heads, when they > realize that that nasty Gamester habbie has...well maybe not a > heart, but.... :) You're welcome. Maybe he needs a partner? :) - -*-*-*- Evi Impudite of the Game Captain of Integrity "Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson Corporeal Forces 3 -- Strength 5 Agility 7 Ethereal Forces 4 -- Intelligence 8 Precision 8 Celestial Forces 5 -- Will 12 Perception 8 Vessel: Human Female/3, Charisma +1 (Glamorous), Black Cat/1, Crow/1 Role: Private Investigator/4, Status/3 Skills: Fighting/3, Firearms/3, Dodge/5, Lying/5, Fast-Talk/3, Detect Lies/5, Area Knowledge(local city)/3, Tactics/2 Songs: Ethereal Form/3, Celestial Motion/3, Celestial Shields/3 Attunements: Impudite of the Game Distinctions: Captain of Integrity Appearance: She appears on Earth as a tall and lean Caucasian woman, with black hair and brown eyes. She dresses casually but in expensive designer labels, tending towards solids and dark colors. Image: Evi is hard-boiled -- tough, cynical and worldly to the Nth degree. She is keenly aware of the seamy reality hiding behind every ideal, and acts like a character from a Mamet script, seeing hidden meanings and subtle implications in even the most apparently innocuous phrases. Her own words seem blunt and careless, but that's intentional; she wants to put her opponents off-balance and trick them into unguarded speech. Quote: "Forget justice, forget mercy, forget fairness. It's about revenge. People want it, and I buy it for them." History: Evi is a fallen angel. Once, she was a Mercurian of Novalis who began to use her political talents to work the levers of power and bring succor to the weak and powerless. And that's what she did, at first. Then she began to think that if she was successful at this, she could use the same means to bring justice to the powerful. Again, she was successful, but the line between acting violently and ordering violence done is a fine one, and she became dissonant and Fell. She sees her Fall as proof that Heaven has ossified to the point that it can no longer take action against tyranny and evil, and was drawn into the service of Asmodeus. He allows her to do as she likes; and what she likes is to see that those who are powerful and arrogant stay that way until they die, so that they will suffer the horrors of the Pit for their crimes against the weak. She doesn't pretend that what she does is anything other than simple vengeance, and is now remarkably indifferent to the fallout from what she does. Though she won't deliberately ruin anyone who is innocent, she doesn't care if the side effects of her plans hurt them. For example, Evi would willingly help a union boss find blackmail material on rival candidates in a union election. Even though this would harm the workers he represents, Evi would do it to make sure that the boss's sins are bad enough to totally damn him. She is not entirely averse to working with angels. She finds it wrenching to deal with those who still are what she once was, but she hides it under a layer of ice-cold cool. Any redemption story involving her is likely to harsh and brutal. She will respond very poorly to gentle persuasion, seeing it as coddling evil -- her own self! - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:49:37 -0500 From: Michael Nutt Subject: Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) > Since canon does have an angel sentenced to soul-death for killing a > (seemingly innocent!) human, I imagine that killing one of these, > without extenuating circumstances ("he was about to kill my Attuned" > or something) would constitute a grave crime. Um, where is this found? I don't recall ever seeing it, and it would certainly put an entirely different spin on many games that have bloodthirsty angels. - -- Michael ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2929 ********************************