in_nomine-digest Sunday, January 12 2003 Volume 01 : Number 2930 In this digest: Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) Re: IN> Knockout rules? Subject: Re: IN> Why Demons fear the Malakim IN> How strong would the word of Industrial Accidents be? Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) Re: IN> Question about Roles Re: IN> The List Re: IN> Saint Albert Re: IN> Knockout rules? Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!)) Re: IN> How strong would the word of Industrial Accidents be? Re: IN> wouldn't finish off... Re: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My firstpost of the year!)) Re: IN> wouldn't finish off... Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements IN> Mercurian question. Re: IN> Mercurian question. Re: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My firstpost of the year!)) Re: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!)) Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Re: IN> Mercurian question. Re: IN> Mercurian question. Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) Re: IN> Knockout rules? Re: IN> Knockout rules? Re: IN> How strong would the word of Industrial Accidents be? IN> [3 Souls] So you work for a Demon Prince, part 2 Re: IN> Question about Roles Re: IN> wouldn't finish off... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:59:46 -0800 From: Kish Subject: Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) Michael Nutt wrote: > > > 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. Superiors 3, I believe. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 08:26:37 +0800 From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? > 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. Hey, your Cherub and mine must be related. The person who ran my PBEM before I did simply assumed that if you knew how to fight, you knew how to pull a punch. I appreciated this, especially since my Cherub couldn't fail a Fighting roll except on an Infernal Intervention. This also meant he could teach his Attuned how to fight without getting an ulcer. An alternate suggestion is to have the punch-puller roll against *Precision* every time he throws a punch; if he makes it, it's pulled; if he fails it, it isn't. I admit that this is more realistic than the first system, and if I were starting over again I might use it. Note that the fact that a punch has been pulled does not necessarily mean that it produced no results. The aforementioned Cherub once had to teach a Mercurian to fight (an activity he compared unfavorably with teaching a cat to swim). The GM explained that any time the Cherub rolled enough damage that he would have knocked the Mercurian unconscious, the Mercurian was knocked down and/or bruised (but took no damage). The same thing applies with humans -- there is no damage, and therefore no disturbance, but there may well be a bruised human sitting on the floor of the dojo, saying "Ow." > 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. Now that's where I use the Precision roll. Hit the human, do the damage (sufficient to render him unconscious, and with dusturbance). If he makes the Precision roll, the human is unconscious with minor injuries. If he doesn't, the human is unconscious and seriously injured/dying/dead. (My Cherub always checks to make sure. There was recently an *extremely* embarrassing incident with a Soldier of the Sword who got mistaken for a demon ...) Janet Anderson ************************************************* Seraph: What do we want to do if he turns out to be an infernal? Malakite: I'm kinda hoping we don't find that out definitively. Leaving a long string of bodies behind us isn't a really good idea. - -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 11:42:53 +1100 From: "james walker" Subject: Subject: Re: IN> Why Demons fear the Malakim >"Janet Anderson" wrote: > > What a nice way to start the morning. Thank you, Rolland. I'll second that! Cheers, James. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:50:49 -0800 (PST) From: rob scwalen Subject: IN> How strong would the word of Industrial Accidents be? I thinking about making a demon of industrial accidents for my campaign that i have yet to get off the ground. I was wondering what kind of word it would be. would it be a significant word(7-10 Word-Forces)or and Improtant word (11-15 Word-Forces)? If there is a fully detailed demon of that word would it be possible to get his stats and background? I also have a question on an unrelated topic. Has it ever occured in the past that a word-bound angel or demon writen up by an In Nomine fan or gamer to be canonized into the official In Nomine world? __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:23:57 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!) [angel sentenced for killing] >> >> 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. > >Superiors 3, I believe. Superiors 1, one of the adventure seeds for Dominicans. (I just reread it, and it turns out the human wasn't that innocent... but the justification is a little iffy.) William ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 01:22 +0000 (GMT Standard Time) From: jgd@cix.co.uk (John Dallman) Subject: Re: IN> Question about Roles > I'm still pretty much new to the game system, and I was wondering about > Roles. Do you really need one? If you don't have one and you are > arrested or questions by authorities while in caporial form, are you > pretty much screwed? Not at all - you can always mysteriously vanish by going celestial. Of course, if this blows an operation, your Superior may be cross with you ;) >From what I've seen, roles are useful in the paper-thin flavour, where you have an address, basic paperwork, and a job as something freelance, and you pay all your bills and fines on time, so as not to draw attention to yourself, or the really solid variety, where you stay in-role most of the time, except for making occasional 'phone calls or send e-mails. If you have to do something more unusual, you do it when you would be expected to be sleeping. Some things are always best designed out of roles: Living with a family of mundanes or in a really tight-packed apartment block. Playing the role of a fairly private sort of person helps a lot with this, and lack of resources is rarely a pressing reason for living crammed into a crowded area. Being somewhere where you don't get access to information. Finding out what the other side is up to is always a key issue. Having a job where you have fixed hours and no individual initiative. If you need to work for a car company, being a safety inspector is a much better bet than being a production-line grunt. Having a job where you get sent places with no control over your own actions. If you need to be in the Navy, being a basic-training Chief Petty Officer is much better than being a nuclear submarine crewman who's at sea for months at a time with very limited communications, and you get checked up on much less than an Intelligence officer. Being the head of a large organisation gives you power, but it means that people will always be wanting to contact you. It's better to be part-way up the pyramid. Basically, you want the same sort of lives as a deep-cover spy, or the secret identity of a comic-book superhero. Because a mix of those is pretty well what a celestial with a solid role is doing. - --- John Dallman jgd@cix.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 01:22 +0000 (GMT Standard Time) From: jgd@cix.co.uk (John Dallman) Subject: Re: IN> The List In article <20030109135214.GA1579@hiryuu.systemec.nl>, shadur@systemec.nl (Rens Houben) wrote: > The Library exists in all realms simultaneously. Haven't you read > Pratchett? Any sufficiently large concentration of books will distort > normal space/time and form a link into L-Space. ;) Dead right. My challenge for the next session I GM is to get the PCs /out/ of the borders of L-space between Cambridge University Library and Kronos' Archives. Preferably with some of their forces intact, if not their pride. - --- John Dallman jgd@cix.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 01:22 +0000 (GMT Standard Time) From: jgd@cix.co.uk (John Dallman) Subject: Re: IN> Saint Albert In article <014001c2b465$c2d91b60$b03ac818@Vidotron.videotron.ca>, rolland.therrien@videotron.ca (Rolland Therrien) wrote: > His time in the Halls are sent entirely in what he likes to call > "religious calculations", where he attempts to complete his Grand > Unification Theory with the help of other late physicists. There's a big philosophical problem here. As a Saint, Albert knows, for sure, that the universe was created by intelligence, and that a number of minds contributed towards its development. It is therefore distinctly imaginable that there really can't be one GUT, because, say, Eli happened to do something that was inconsistent with a detail of what David had done millennia earlier. It is tempting, therefore, to search for a GUT on the premise that the discovery of one will show that all Angels are really facets of God. But justifying this logical leap will take some work: if there is a GUT, it could still be down to effective planning, or even happenstance. Meanwhile, if one could prove that a GUT is impossible, that might imply a lot about the Fall and Free Will in general. But then again, it might not. And Yves is responsible for philosophy these days, and he isn't telling about these issues. > He's been unofficially declared one of the leaders of this group, who've > built a makeshift religion around the concept that All of the Symphony > (and thus God) can be represented in one Equation. Albert is considered > to lead the ones who believe in a constantly evolving equation which > therefore requires more variables then well-defined numbers. His > friendly rival is Newton, who's more a believer in the "Constant > Equation" theory. This problem is, however, very much a game, and a challenge that the Saints have set themselves. The answer is going to be available in the Higher Heavens, and it's likely going to involve concepts that are a bit twisty for a human mind in the lower heavens. The call of Jacob's ladder might become irresistible for those interested in this problem, and I suspect that many of the more pragmatic physicists - - Openheimer, Von Neumann, Fermi, and so on - took that route to the answer fairly quickly. - --- John Dallman jgd@cix.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:23:26 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? At 10:45 AM -0500 1/12/03, Chris Bergstresser wrote: >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. I would handle this by saying that the Cherub can take any penalty he wishes to his punches, and then just apply it. >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. I'd suggest giving him a small penalty to the Fighting roll, maybe let the guard make a Strength roll (meet or beat the Cherub's check digit) to stay conscious, and go for that? Not canon rules, mind, because this sort of thing complicates and breeds and if it gets to that stage, you might as well get GURPS In Nomine and take Blackjack skill... (*beth eyes Cori, from the IN Yrth game*) But a place to start. - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:26:15 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements At 10:49 AM -0500 1/12/03, Chris Bergstresser wrote: > A number of [attunements] 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? Afraid not. It means that the angel has to look deliberately (i.e., if they're not focused on the target for at least a moment, it doesn't activate unless the GM really wants it to), but no roll is required. When a roll is required, the description says so. > 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. The attunements typically are used to tell the angel who their targets _are_. Once they have a target, they need to deal with it. Then, once the target is dealt with, the very next person to be sighted is the next target. (I generally play that they can _recognize_ other kinds of cruel people, with the right Choir Attunements, which can give them information -- but they're only obligated to target the type of cruelty for their Choir.) - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:37:34 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!)) At 4:04 PM -0500 1/12/03, Matthew Gerber wrote: >Manny, this is absolutely beautiful. Amen. >[...] killing a human, for which Dominic will sentence an angel to >soul-death. Huh? Where's _that_ from? I don't think I see it, scanning Superiors 1. (I do see Soul-death as one of the possible penalties for someone who's become a menace to those around him -- willfully malicious, too insane to notice his sins, or otherwise likely to jump from the point from which Michael pitched Lucifer. Superiors 1, p. 69.) - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:46:23 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> How strong would the word of Industrial Accidents be? At 4:50 PM -0800 1/12/03, rob scwalen wrote: >I thinking about making a demon of industrial >accidents [...] would it be a significant word(7-10 Word-Forces)or >and Important word (11-15 Word-Forces)? I'd, personally, place that at 7-8 Forces at most... > If there is a >fully detailed demon of that word would it be possible >to get his stats and background? (As a notion, I presume you mean a _non-canon_ demon of that Word, right? Because otherwise, that's rather a lot of data that you might be asking someone to copyright violate...) > I also have a question on an unrelated topic. Has >it ever occured in the past that a word-bound angel or >demon writen up by an In Nomine fan or gamer to be >canonized into the official In Nomine world? 90% or better of the Liber Servitorum was submitted by people from the mailing list. But none of the Word-bound made it in. (Including Kathriel, alas, alack.) Uncle Sam, an ethereal spirit, also got reworked somewhat from his original form on the list, submitted to Pyramid, and accepted. (I'd suggest that if you think you have a really cool thing for Pyramid, that you don't publish it here first -- I don't know how much Steven likes "pre- used" stuff, and Uncle Sam _did_ get reworked and have new material added. - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:52:44 -0600 From: Gregg Forge Subject: Re: IN> wouldn't finish off... > > >>Would Marc kill Lilith? > > > >Only if he wants to be dissonant. Mercurian. Human. No hittee. > > Something seems vaguely hide-chafing about that. She may be, technically, human, but she has this whole Princess thing going for her. Never saw a ruling on it, officially (Waiting for S6: The Manipulators), but she's classified as a Demon Princess, so she would be in the Demon catagory, which doesn't mean it wouldn't gall Marc endlessly to have his hand forced in such an unMercurianly manner.... And I think Marc's got a few...sho to speak...Special Discords...in regards to Lilith. Kamika-Z ...and the end of the Final Trumpet hints at it... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:50:01 -0800 From: Kish Subject: Re: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My firstpost of the year!)) Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > At 4:04 PM -0500 1/12/03, Matthew Gerber wrote: > >[...] killing a human, for which Dominic will sentence an angel to > >soul-death. > > Huh? Where's _that_ from? I don't think I see it, scanning > Superiors 1. Look in the Plot Seeds. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:54:48 -0600 From: Gregg Forge Subject: Re: IN> wouldn't finish off... > > >>If she thought it necessary, I suspect so. Saminga, Belial, Baal, and >> Kronos, would be in her top four list, with Vapula right there in place >> number five, I suspect. > > > >Not Malphas? > >I'd be inclined to put him in place #2, if not #1. > No, no, not quite... Malphas, you see, is David's 'Special Friend'... Kamika-Z ..."Better than Pro Wrestling!"... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:53:34 -0800 From: Kish Subject: Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements Chris Bergstresser wrote: > > 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. The angel's purpose on Earth is to punish the cruel. An angel who has no current target may be better off from a human/player point of view, but isn't doing its job. Being able to pick out targets is very useful indeed to Servitors of Gabriel. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:58:26 -0500 From: "S.D." Subject: Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements > (I generally play that they can _recognize_ other kinds >of cruel people, with the right Choir Attunements, which can give them >information -- but they're only obligated to target the type of >cruelty for their Choir.) What about Malakim (and Bright Lilim) of Gabriel? Do they still only have to target whatever individual they're specifically assigned to, even if they have other Attunements? (And when does the clock start ticking on that individual? On-sight, upon receiving the assignment, or...?) ~S.D. Ryukage ****************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:59:11 -0700 From: "Rampaging Crypto-Man" Subject: IN> Mercurian question. A Mercurian cannot act violently -- is he allowed to be violent to anything, or only demons? What about Ethereals? And can a Mercurian wrestle with a human to try to stop him from moving or fighting, or are they pretty well tied-down into "Thou Shalt Not Touch"? This question came up in a game because the Mercurian wanted to restrain a human who was trying to kill some people. He didn't know if he could grab the guy, or if he was limited to just getting in the way and taking the hits himself. Ben ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:08:10 -0800 From: Kish Subject: Re: IN> Mercurian question. Rampaging Crypto-Man wrote: > > A Mercurian cannot act violently -- is he allowed to be violent to anything, > or only demons? What about Ethereals? The original weakness has been erratad--it only applies to humans. > This question came up in a game because the Mercurian wanted to restrain a > human who was trying to kill some people. He didn't know if he could grab > the guy, or if he was limited to just getting in the way and taking the hits > himself. This one's a GM call. Personally I would say forcible restraint is violence, yes. However, IMC, most Archangels (pretty much all except Eli and Gabriel, who might be hard to pin down for an explanation and hard to make understand) would remove the note of dissonance after the Mercurian explained. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:19:53 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My firstpost of the year!)) At 5:50 PM -0800 1/12/03, Kish wrote: >Elizabeth McCoy wrote: >> >> At 4:04 PM -0500 1/12/03, Matthew Gerber wrote: > >> >[...] killing a human, for which Dominic will sentence an angel to >> >soul-death. >> >> Huh? Where's _that_ from? I don't think I see it, scanning >> Superiors 1. > >Look in the Plot Seeds. Found it -- a Kyriotate killing its own host is heading for a Fall. It's not "you killed a human," it's, "You, a Kyriotate of FLOWERS, arranged for your _host_ to die -- and you have nothing to say in your defense." Also, it doesn't even _want_ to have a lesser sentence. (Basically, for a Kyrio of Flowers to kill a host is bucking both of its dissonance conditions, Choir and Superior. Something like that is in the "insane" category, from Judgment's point of view.) - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:23:10 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Dominic and Human-killing (Re: Children of Grigori (was My first post of the year!)) >>[...] killing a human, for which Dominic will sentence an angel to >>soul-death. > >Huh? Where's _that_ from? The "Witness for the Defense" adventure seed in S1 has a Kyriotate sentenced to soul-death for killing an innocent human he was using as a host. I guess, as canon extrapolations go, it's as solid(thin) as any. >--Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor >http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:28:40 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Servitor of Gabriel attunements At 8:58 PM -0500 1/12/03, S.D. wrote: > > >> (I generally play that they can _recognize_ other kinds >>of cruel people, with the right Choir Attunements, which can give them >>information -- but they're only obligated to target the type of >>cruelty for their Choir.) > >What about Malakim (and Bright Lilim) of Gabriel? Do they still only have to >target whatever individual they're specifically assigned to, even if they have >other Attunements? (And when does the clock start ticking on that individual? >On-sight, upon receiving the assignment, or...?) Typically, I figure that Malakim (and Brights) get categories of cruelty as well. E.g., for, er, my redeemed Betharan (*cough*), she targets those who are into cruel games. There's overlap, somewhat, with Elohim -- but not just emotional games. Of course, some mindgames put her overlapping with Seraphim, but still... (Makes her a very good Gamester detector -- but some of them don't play the Game to be cruel, but simply because they love playing the Great Game. Selfish, possibly targetable by a Seraph, but not _cruel_ in the sense that they delight in it.) So you might have a Malakite of Fire who targets those who are cruel under guise of religion -- essentially, corrupt priests, abusive pagan leaders, many Habbalah, etc. Whether it's a case of one being emotionally cruel, or another being physically abusive, the blackwing spots 'em both because they are "cruelty with religious authority" or however the GM and PC have agreed to define that. So by "specific assignment," I don't read that as "one particular target" (unless Gabriel has designated ONE TARGET, in which case the Malakite will be at loose ends -- and snapped up by Soldekai quickly, since he _can_ assign that angel to do other things without risking the Virtue's dissonance -- till Gabriel comes back with another target, or category). I read it as "something that either isn't quite covered by the others, or a refinement that may overlap in different circumstances, or a narrow focus." Pedophiles. Spammers. Con-men. Thieves. Etc. - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:33:02 -0500 From: "William J. Keith" Subject: Re: IN> Mercurian question. >A Mercurian cannot act violently -- is he allowed to be violent to anything, >or only demons? What about Ethereals? They just can't hurt humans. Anything else is okay. >And can a Mercurian wrestle with a >human to try to stop him from moving or fighting, or are they pretty well >tied-down into "Thou Shalt Not Touch"? I'd say as long as it doesn't cause Hits of damage, you're all right. >This question came up in a game because the Mercurian wanted to restrain a >human who was trying to kill some people. He didn't know if he could grab >the guy, or if he was limited to just getting in the way and taking the hits >himself. I'd think grabbing would be okay; the Mercurian might be a little nervous about doing it, but I doubt it would turn out Dissonant unless, in the ensuing struggle, he ended up giving the guy a scrape or a bruise or something. Besides, as other people have said, if the case was clear enough, most Archangels would probably have been lenient. >Ben William ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:39:36 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Mercurian question. At 6:59 PM -0700 1/12/03, Rampaging Crypto-Man wrote: >A Mercurian cannot act violently -- is he allowed to be violent to anything, >or only demons? What about Ethereals? And can a Mercurian wrestle with a >human to try to stop him from moving or fighting, or are they pretty well >tied-down into "Thou Shalt Not Touch"? Mercurians are Friends of Man. Not friends of ethereals, walls, or cats. (Unless they're Jordi's, in which case they're more Friends of Simians, but we won't quite go there right now.) Of course, a Mercurian who blows off steam routinely by smashing walls or kicking cats is going to get a triad's attention as soon as anyone with sense learns about it. That sort of temper is likely to get a Mercurian in trouble, sooner or later. [I.e., there are a lot of things which aren't technically dissonant, but are "Against the spirit" of a Choir or angel, and the way that these things are dealt with are by the society that angels live in: the GM has to arrange for consequences outside of dissonance, such as one's fellows insisting that one needs to take a vacation in Heaven, or even calling down Judgment.] >This question came up in a game because the Mercurian wanted to restrain a >human who was trying to kill some people. He didn't know if he could grab >the guy, or if he was limited to just getting in the way and taking the hits >himself. Don't do anything which will cause Body hits or serious pain. (You can give a human a vaccination if you have a Role as a nurse. You might have to wrestle with a certain amount of self-understanding to be a surgeon or an EMS person.) A relatively painless hold is okay; a nerve-pinch that causes extreme agony is not. In the case mentioned, grabbing the guy in a non-painful grip would be fairly reasonable. Wrestling him to the ground would be a gray area, at best. The more the human struggles, the more the Mercurian is bucking for dissonance if he continues to interact physically. (This is an area where I, personally, reward roleplaying. An Intercessonist who is disturbed and upset by having to sink to the level of physical struggle (if not outright Harming Humans) is less likely to get dissonance than one who is _not_ confronting the part of his nature that is sickened by the activity.) Of course, most Archangels would understand such situations and remove dissonance, so GMs can afford to be harsher -- it _is_ a judgment call. Anyway, this is what the Corporeal Song of Charm is for, or the Songs of Harmony. O:> Interposing oneself is safer, dissonance-wise. (Yes, Nicole shoulda been dissonant. *sigh*) - -- - --Beth, arcangel@io.com / archangel@sjgames.com In Nomine Line Editor http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:50:46 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Everything you know is... wrong (Re: Lilith and Mercurians) - --- Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > Just so long as he doesn't cosplay Sailor Moon... Now that would be just wrong. Gabriel cosplaying as Kekko Kamen, now... };> =====

Michael Walton, #US2002023848

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil." -- Jimmy Carter

__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:02:13 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? - --- Unni Solaas wrote: > Use the Fighting skill. Declare that you want to do a KO, > or declare "subdual damage" That works, so far. > You roll Fighting, the opponent rolls Dodge. If > you win, the opponent is out cold. This is where it needs adjustment. My suggestion: 1) If the target is a minor NPC and the KO is dramatically appropriate for the moment, the target is knocked out. I love being a GM... 2) If the target is a PC or an important NPC, he gets a Strength roll to resist. Supernaturals add their Vessel level to the TN, humans add Toughness. =====

Michael Walton, #US2002023848

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil." -- Jimmy Carter

__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:14:10 -0700 From: "Rampaging Crypto-Man" Subject: Re: IN> Knockout rules? > 2) If the target is a PC or an important NPC, he gets a > Strength roll to resist. Supernaturals add their Vessel > level to the TN, humans add Toughness. I'd be inclined to say that this rule is fine for humans, but that Celestials (or anyone in a vessel) cannot be knocked out except by being given a solid beating. And I'd let any human roll strength to resist, unless it truly was dramatically appropriate for them to be knocked out. The problem in my games is I routinely set a tribe of men against the angels, thus giving them a moral dilemma about how much bloodshed was acceptable in the eyes of the Lord. If they could just knock humans out like some crazy Matrix Kung Fu Master, that part of the game would go away. That's why I'd require a strength check -- if angels want to knock someone out, it's for a dramatic reason ("We can't kill them!", and making it just a touch more difficult makes it more dramatic. Ben ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:18:15 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> How strong would the word of Industrial Accidents be? - --- rob scwalen wrote: > I thinking about making a demon of industrial > accidents [snip] would it be a significant word(7-10 Word-Forces) That's where I'd put it. Now, were you putting the Word under Technology or Death? The former would emphasize the Industrial part of the Word while the latter would focus on fatalities. > Has > it ever occured in the past that a word-bound angel or > demon writen up by an In Nomine fan or gamer to be > canonized into the official In Nomine world? Not that I'm aware of, but stuff that appears in Pyramid is quasi-canon -- I know that Moe wrote up an Ethereal that was published in Pyramid, and others of us have submitted material. I don't know how much has been published, though. =====

Michael Walton, #US2002023848

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil." -- Jimmy Carter

__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:27:12 -0500 (EST) From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: IN> [3 Souls] So you work for a Demon Prince, part 2 - -*-*-*- Lilith - ------ Lilith is pretty easy to construct a likeable servitor for, because she is pretty much a shakedown artist who directs a lot of hose at her own Servitors. While Lilith may not really care what your PC does (that's the Freedom thing), she does care that gets her cut (that's the Demon Princess thing). And what she skims off the top is always going to hurt -- it's always going to be more than you can really afford. Don't expect to ever come out ahead unless you cheat her, and then hope she never, ever finds out. On the other hand, you can pretty much count on her cheating you. But what are you going to do? She's a freaking Demon Princess. Now that your PC has that constant, gnawing fear of bankruptcy and "termination for non-payment", you can portray that desperate edge of panic and neediness that makes a character truly loveable. Malphas - ------- Remember that an affectless master manipulator is not an easy character to make sympathetic -- you need to be able to show some emotion. One easy way of doing this is to create a character who takes whatever divisions that he or she is trying to spread personally. For example, your PC could be a Linux zealot, a gamer who hates D&D, or an artist who loudly despises bourgeois taste. Another way is to think of Factions as the word of "Plausible Bad Advice", but create a PC who also suffers from the chaos that ensues. Think of Christian Slater from _Very Bad Things_ for an example of this model: the idea is to drive people away from social norms and into a twilight zone where all their actions operate according to their own bizarre logic. Nybbas - ------ The key trick here is that Media is all about mediated experience: the demons of the Media exist to supply spectacle with predigested meaning. While the result of their activities makes existence less real and challenging, what they offer is attractive enough that it takes very little work to make them sympathetic. Who wouldn't want to live in a beer commercial, if it meant endless supplies of hangover free alcohol, plentiful willing beautiful women, and endless partying? Saminga - ------- Saminga is a lot of fun to GM, since he is approximately as smart as a decomposing rutabaga. This means that just like with Lilith, you have a nice advantage in building a sympathetic demon of Death -- he will rain immense amounts of crud down on your PC. However, in Saminga's case it arises from dimwittedness rather than malice. You do have a bit of a problem in that his blanket prohibition against doing anything that could encourage life can make many kinds of casual social interaction much harder for you, in ways that will make your PC look like a real ass. One way of dealing with this is to rail against it as the policy of a total idiot, and try to sleaze around the rules on technicalities. For example, signing a get-well-soon card for someone at your PC's job would be dissonant, even if you didn't mean it. However, you could safely order a secretary to sign the card for you. Another is to hang out exclusively in a social scene where healthy practices are at a minimum. For example, if you associated with gamers subsisting on Doritos and Mountain Dew rather than genuinely nutritious food, goths who smoke cloves and drink absinthe, or hard-charging coke-snorting executives who believe sleep is for the weak, you won't stand out. Valefor - ------- There are a lot of sympathetic thieves and assassins in fiction, but it takes a certain amount of care to translate them into an RPG. The basic danger is that your PC will turn into yet another chaotic greedy character, who (whatever the trappings) is basically just annoying. Paradoxically, to really be a sympathetic criminal protagonist, crime can't be the defining characteristic of your character; something else has to drive your character into crime. For example, the lead in The Thomas Crown Affair is motivated by a love of art, not of stuff. Mel Gibson is motivated by a vendetta: he wants to kill the people who betrayed him. Gabriel Byrne in Miller's Crossing is motivated by his loyalty to his mob boss. Robert de Niro in The Score has to do one last job for his old friend Marlon Brando before he can quit and marry Angela Basset. Vapula - ------ It's pretty easy to create sympathetic demons of Technology. After all, they serve Progress! (capitalization and exclamation mandatory) and a certain degree of idealism can make any character far more sympathetic. You could probably get good ideas for PCs by stealing the personality types from the _Ghostbusters_ movie, because it has a bunch of useful cinematic-scientist types from the fanboy to the genius to the Bill Murray character. - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:23:13 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Question about Roles - --- John Dallman wrote: > If > you need to work for a car company, being a safety > inspector is a much > better bet than being a production-line grunt. Unless you're a Cherub Attuned to the person next to you on the line. > If you need to be in the Navy, being a > basic-training Chief Petty > Officer is much better than being a nuclear submarine > crewman who's at sea for months at a time Unless you're mission is to keep tabs on the sub or someone on it. > Being the head of a large organisation gives you power, > but it means that > people will always be wanting to contact you. It's better > to be part-way up the pyramid. But far enough up to effect policy. =====

Michael Walton, #US2002023848

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil." -- Jimmy Carter

__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:40:24 -0600 From: Gregg Forge Subject: Re: IN> wouldn't finish off... > > >She's got access to the Seraph resonance -- she can tell, usually, >when someone _means_ "**** you, rose*****!" She can tell the truth >to the reply when she asks, "And, is that your final answer?" > You know, now I have to fling profanities your way, for the delightful mental image put in my head by the snippet. Of course, given you know how my mind tends to work, this isn't necessarily a good thing. Attunement - Who wants to have One More Chance? This attunement is much beloved of the Malakim of Flowers; in a nutshell, it works as the inverse of the Master of the Army of the Lord distinction. The argument is not seen as ended on a simple NO, but rather, regardless of the answerer. the response that comes from the person via the Symphony. For purposes of ALL Gardeners, however, this allows them to provide the final kindness, before the pruning can begin. This does not compel a truth out of a liar, or even lucidity from the deluded. It siimply allows for the answer to be accepted. Sometimes, the blunt question can save endless amounts of wasted redemption effort...or save from a smiting at tlhe last minute. Rumors that this Attunement coaxes the Symphony to subtly shift the answer into the truth are highly suspect. Kamika-Z, crashing out. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2930 ********************************