From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Tue Oct 21 01:49:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA16246 for ; Tue, 21 Oct 1997 01:49:03 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id AAA29341 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Tue, 21 Oct 1997 00:42:55 -0500 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 00:42:55 -0500 Message-Id: <199710210542.AAA29341@lists.io.com> From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #414 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Tuesday, October 21 1997 Volume 01 : Number 414 In this digest: IN> Re: Redeeming Shedim: it can be done IN> Lilith IN> [DARK VICTORY] The Seed of Hope: An Introduction to Dark Victory Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #412 Re: IN> Lilith Re: IN> [DARK VICTORY] The Seed of Hope: An Introduction to Dark Victory Re: IN> Re: Redeeming Shedim: it can be done Re: IN> [FFULF] New Demonette: Tizzy! Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #412 IN> [DARK VICTORY] Notes on Interventions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 20:08:28 -0400 From: Nana Yaw Ofori Subject: IN> Re: Redeeming Shedim: it can be done >Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 02:53:18 +0100 >From: Sam Kington >Hi, > >Yes, Shedim have a problem if they want to be redeemed: every day they >don't make their host do something evil, they gain dissonance, and start >racking up the Discord. And of course, convincing an angel that you >really feel bad about doing evil when you have to do evil every day is a >hell of an uphill challenge. But it can still work. > I never said it couldn't. Okay, so maybe I heavily implied it. It's been a couple months, and my memory's not what it never was. >First of all: so a Shedite has to make their host do something selfish, >that will harm someone in some way. And they're best starting off with >something small, then working their way up to absolute evil, then >bailing out and starting again. But who says they have to stick around? >They can possess someone, make him blow his nose on the napkin, stick >around for the rest of the day and start again the next day. If a >Shedite is actively trying to do as little evil as possible, he can. It >takes more work, potentially, but it can happen. [Snip] > >And finally, of course, the Shedite only needs one evil action per day. >There's nothing dissonant about doing *good*. A Shedite could inhabit a >serial killer with an obsession with cleanliness, spend most of the day >helping people out and doing good, then on his way home pee against a >wall in a dark alley - measurable harm, contrary to the serial killer's >own moral code, but no great shakes compared to what the guy could have >done, and what he actually did that day. Yah, that works, though urinating against a wall in a dark alley isn't something I'd count as a daily dose of corruptuon. It's an act of selfishness, yes, but I don't think it "indisputably harms someone." Sure, it smells a little, but it's a dark alley. They have a habit of doing that. Now, if instead, it was a corner behind the shelves of the local library, that might be a different story. But outside the building, prolly not. Even blowing your nose on a napkin doesn't really "indisputably harm someone." If the busboy scoops it up and never notices all the snot on it, and he doesn't get sick, nobody's really harmed, and it doesn't count. Even if he does notice, he's still not really harmed by it. He's probably seen worse, depending on the restaurant. Now if he catches a nasty cold from it, that's different. But having that manifest could take hours, or days, and you won't know whether it worked till then. You'll find out whether it did if it's the only nasty thing you do that day and you take dissonance. Much easier to shoot somebody from your car. Instantant manifestation, though not the kind of thing that gets you Redeemed. Yes, you can stay in the same guy for nine years and rack up so much discord that your Celestial Form looks like the kind of thing Saminga scrapes off the underside of his feet, but that makes it so much harder to do anything if you're murderous, vulnerable to cheese, deathly afraid of the color blue, and your host glows in the dark. > >A player in my forthcoming campaign is a Kyriotate, ex-Shedite of Kobal, >Redeemed by Eli, then loaned off to Jean. She'll have oodles of >background, will know lots of people (demons included), and will >generally be a character I can just hang ludicrous amounts of plot off. > >I'd like to know what people think about this. Is this possible, or am I >being too lenient? > Eli seems to be doing a lot of the Shedite redemption. I'm presently, albiet slowly, GMing for a Kyriotate of Creation in service to Jordi, recipient of an on-the-spot Redemption from Eli. Kind of sidesteps the whole problem, entirely. In, general, I see Redemption as a process that takes years. A) Get an assignment to Earth, B) Become dissatisfied, C) Go Renegade, D) Wander around dodging Asmodeus' Squads, E) Meet up with favorable Angels, F) Dodge/Defuse situations with Dominicans, G) Get one of the Angels to reccomend you to his/her Archangel. H) Convince Archangel you are worthy of Redemption. I) Get Redeemed. The problem for the Shedim, is that some of these steps take a lot of time. E, G, and H, most notably. And Mass-murders with loads of hangups tend to be hard to find. (A good number of them may already have Shedim in them) Stay in that mass-murderer too long, and you've got him doing nasty things again. Stay in a location long enough, and you start messing up people to the threshold that you don't want to possess them again. You're going to run out of people with lots of hang-ups, before too long. It could also go a lot quicker. Here's an example of another way to do it.: Engineer situation with a +6 Summoning modifer. Blow all Essence and summon Archangel. Demand/Request/Beg for Redemption. No, it's not very likely to work, but I'm sure it's happened at least once. Who knows, the Archangel might be amused by the Demon's audacity and may take him up on it. Don't try it with David, though, and it most definately won't work on Dominic. But I digress. So, to close, Yes, Shedite redemption can be done. It's a lot easier for those Shedim who don't have to run around corrupting their hosts, and it's very, very difficult for those that don't. If you can manage a Redemption in the Marches, good for you. = http://www.io.com/~beholder ===================== nofori@pop3.utoled.edu === Nana-Yaw "The Fish" Ofori, Freelance Soldier of Heck, presenty serving Legion, Party of six thousand. Smoking or Non? ===== ><{{"> ============ "Life's a Fish, then you Fry." ======= <"}}>< ====== ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:38:10 -0400 From: John Dye Subject: IN> Lilith Any clues into the character of Lilith? Okay, she is freedom. Why is she with the forces of Badness, since Hell seems to be an Unequal Opportunity Employer, not to mention other oppressive actions. Is SHE in debt to Lucifer? I don't understand how her Word would work, or how her Servitors could get anywhere when everyday or act is a haggling session. I would like to hear about how others have portrayed her and particularly her Servitors. I don't know what kind of Words or missions they would be associated with. Many thanks If this has been a beaten to death topic, send to jcd@bellatlantic.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:50:40 -0500 (CDT) From: redneck@txdirect.net (Redneck Gaijin) Subject: IN> [DARK VICTORY] The Seed of Hope: An Introduction to Dark Victory (To Elizabeth - This may or may not work better as an introduction section to the proposed Dark Victory section. Once it's worked out better in my mind, a companion short, 'The Seed of Fate,' will follow. - Redneck) (The following story takes place in Austin, post-Armageddeon, and uses several characters from 'Night Music.' Special thanks to Derek Pearcy for creating this group, used here without permission. While I'm at it, Derek, thanks for the whole thing, to you and CROC, for turning a new viewpoint onto religion.) (A final note: I attended UT Austin for a year and am familiar with many landmarks and sites around the campus; this, plus the supplement 'Night Music,' is why I chose to set this bit of DV there. Thanks to my friends in Austin who kept me in gaming and opened my mind to new horizons, often with the soft end of a nerf sword. Krystn's still kicking around.) * * * * * * On the Seventh Day, Eli worked his ass off. Power flowed through the wires of a quarter of the electrical grid of Austin, Texas; the city power plants along Town Lake could do no more. The wires leading down from the hydroelectric dam at Lake Travis, knocked down by the earthquakes caused by the collapse of Enchanted Rock, were almost reconnected- a miracle worked by people who refused to give up living, even if Armageddeon had come and gone. Of the handful of Archangels still alive and free after Armageddeon, only Eli, the Archangel of Creation, remained loyal to Heaven's cause. If it was a divine or infernal joke, Eli wasn't laughing. He knew Gabriel was alive- he'd sought her out in the fires at the center of the Earth, begging her help- but she had turned inward, licking her wounds, the crippled Wheel of Fire herself weeping quietly and incoherently in the brilliant darkness at the world's core. Jordi had gone ballistic when the human soldier he'd rescued against his better judgement killed one of his host-bodies; now, the beasts of the farm were as likely to turn on a person as those of the wild. Janus... nobody had -ever- known about Janus, now less so than ever. Eli sighed and shouted down to the ground for another cable. A worker tied a fresh line of lights onto the pulley rope and hauled it up, letting Eli nail the cord in place in the mortar of the University of Texas' tower. The steel and glass buildings of Downtown had collapsed or shattered, in whole or in parts, during the tremors and sinkings of the Apocalypse, leaving the old brick-and-mortar Tower on top of University Hill as the tallest monument in the city. In the past, its lights could have been seen for a twelve-mile radius in almost every direction; tonight, a thousand lights would shine where a hundred had before, turning the Tower into a great beacon. The idea had been Eli's. When he'd proposed it to the emergency leaders of Austin, it had taken a lot of Divine cajolery to get them to buy into it. Thankfully, the Symphony was still so jangled from the Last Battle that nobody would've noticed if he'd created a midget T-Rex capable of singing 'Michigan Rag' during the meeting. To the Governor, the Mayor, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University, he'd said that the symbolism of the gleaming Tower would show Texas, and the world, that there was still hope, and that some part of civilization still waited to welcome humanity home. The truth was a bit different. Every time Eli tied a cable in a knot around a hook, the knot formed a specific shape, a rune most humans didn't know signified Hope in the Celestial Tongue. Every nail he hammered into the sides of the Tower, as well as all the other workers' nails, had the same rune etched in the head, apparently a forging flaw but in reality a very careful act of Creation. Even with the job half finished, the local Symphony resonated softly with the power building in the old Tower. Eli hoped that the positive power generated when the Tower lit up would punch a new Tether through into Heaven. He'd been locked out ever since the Day of Persecution, when the Eternal City fell. He'd been in San Francisco at the time, and he'd just barely used Novalis' Tether on Lombard Street to get to Heaven before the earthquakes ripped the California coastline into a new island, with the crater at the southern end forming Los Angeles Bay. An instant later, he'd leaped back down another Tether into Hippie Hollow- just in time for Lake Austin to swallow up the park in one of dozens of sinkholes still forming in the area. An hour later, he lost contact with the last Angelic tether anywhere on Earth. Eli -needed- to get back into Heaven. He might be alone, but he was still an Archangel, and possibly the most powerful... and if there were to be any hope of regrouping Angels, any sanctuary for Traumatized Celestials, he would have to make one. Alone. "Hey! Hey -you!-" Eli looked up to see a young redheaded man, a bowtie hanging loose from the unbuttoned collar of his white shirt, horn-rimmed glasses reflecting the light of the angry red clouds overhead. Like Eli, he had a carpenter's apron around his waist and a claw hammer in his hand, and he bounced down playfully from the Tower's observation deck in his harness, moving to a spot about eight feet to the left of Eli. "How's tricks?" "Nybbas," Eli whispered. "What are you doing here?" The Demon Prince of the Media frowned- something he almost never did- and looked at Eli somberly, the reflection on his glasses fading to reveal small, serious dark eyes. "Defecting," he said. "I thought we'd just get to rule humanity when we won... but after watching Saminga...." He shuddered to himself, catching a rising string of lights and planting a hook into a crack in the Tower's masonry. "He destroyed Budapest, Eli. Singlehanded. Took every single soul and stripped them like a human might pluck a chicken. Then he stripped the rats and vultures. He left nothing alive in the city, Eli, nothing even for the afterlife." Eli couldn't repress a shudder of his own. Budapest, once upon a time, had been a center of art and culture- not on a par with Paris or Vienna, but great in its own right. His horror faded to amazement when Nybbas knotted the cable into the sigil for Peace and added, "If Saminga is what the War was about, I was on the wrong side." Eli nodded, and added the Loaded Question; "Do you regret what you've done?" Nybbas dropped a few feed farther down the tower, and Eli mirroed him, both Celestials drawing a nail from their pouches and driving it through the cable into the brick wall. With the last pound of his hammer, Nybbas admitted, "Some. Not all of it, though." He smiled a bit of his old, made-for-TV insincere smile and said, "A lot of it I don't regret at all." Eli sighed. A Renegade Demon Prince. Not Redeemable. "You know what I'm doing here, don't you?" Nybbas nodded. "I'll risk if if you will." Eli nodded and hammered another nail into the wall, accepting what he could get. * * * * * "Man, what is -taking- them so long?" Wrenchial muttered, pacing uncomfortably as the Symphony throbbed with an undercurrent of power around him. Night had fallen on Austin, and although the lights on the bookstore side of the Drag lit up the street almost as charmingly as before, the University across the street lay in total darkness. "Take it easy," Tomas sighed. "It's twenty-five miles, give or take, to the dam, right? Rebuilding every high-tension tower between the dam and the substations isn't an easy job." He worked his hands a bit, remembering the soreness from the past few days. "I know, I helped." "Man, if what's happenin' is what I think is happenin', I shouldn't even -be- here," Wrenchial sighed. "Or I should be stoppin' it, or somethin'..." "You wouldn't stop it if you could," Tomas sighed. "I mean, who carved that epitaph on the Treaty Oak? If Billy Bob ever finds out that was you-" "He'd agree," a gruff voice drawled behind the two. Tomas and Wrenchial both turned around to see Deputy Sheriff Buford, alias Triple-B of the Demonic Inquisition, looking at them. Sweat covered his face and arms, nothing to do with the heat or the press of the Austin crowd around them. Every once in a while, his cheek would jump in a nervous tic, and Wrenchial noticed Billy Bob's hands trembling as he moved. "Are you all right, Billy?" Wrenchial asked. "N-no," Triple-B gasped, dry mouthed. "After what they've done to my city... m-m-MY city... no, not one bit." The crowd parted to admit a tall, stunningly beautiful woman through. She stood inches above virtually everyone in the crowd, her weary eyes and haggard expression not detracting in the least from her Helenesque beauty. In her wake walked a handful of other people- Tomas' eyebrow quirked as he recognized Doc Jo and Nurse Run, followed by Lauren- Lauren!- and Zara, virtually the rest of Austin's remaining 'old guard' Celestials. She walked past them, whispering, "You Need to follow me." The three Celestials immediately felt the featherheavy touch of a Geas settle onto them, confirming their suspicion. "Lilith," Billy Bob whispered. "That makes three Superiors here." "Three?" Tomas didn't even notice his feet moving to follow the string of Celestials working their way through the crowd. "Who else?" "Nybbas and Eli, that I know about," Billy Bob husked, reaching a shaky hand up to wipe his forehead; a trickle of blood came away on his hand. "Maybe more. I don't know." The line of Celestials stopped in front of them, and the three of them grew silent as Lilith whispered, "Thirteen bombs. It takes a lot of effort to miracle away the radiation from thirteen nuclear bombs." "Fourteen," Eli whispered grimly. "Mitrah had her own." Lilith sighed and nodded. "I'll get to it when I can... I need time to rest and restore Essence..." Eli looked past Lilith and noticed Tomas, smiling softly. "Hi, guy," he said with a bit of his old whimsy, "haven't seen you or your partner in grime in a while. Still livin' on a prayer?" Tomas smiled. "Sorry, had my pick-me-up for the day, boss. Thanks, though." Wrenchial forced himself calm. "Yo," he answered. "So, how much longer?" Lilith asked. "The wires have been in place since 5 PM," Eli sighed. "They're argueing over who gets the honor of turning on the switch." "SSSSSSSSH!!" The hissing sound of humans shushing each other, ignoring each other shushing each other, and shushing each other again, rippled up and down Guadelupe Street, from Tower Records down to Quackenbush's. The Celestials, grouped together in front of the Church of Scientology building at Guadelupe and 22nd Street, couldn't hear the Governor pontificating in his soft, droning voice through the hastily arranged loudspeakers on West Mall, and so eased themselves back behind the crowd under the overhang of the church, leaning against the glass of the dormant Le Fun video arcade. "Any minute now..." Eli fidgeted anxiously, his fingers crossed, hoping for the best. "Boss," Tomas asked quietly, "won't Hell notice this?" "I just need five seconds," Eli replied. "Five seconds in Heaven, and no way can they keep us out any more." A faint drum roll echoed down the street, and then the cloudy Austin night sky lit up bright as day around them, two thousand high-power bulbs covering the University Tower, shining out to the wild cheers and whoops of Austinites across the city. "You sent for me?" a voice muttered in the ears of the gathered Celestials. Each looked around at each other, confused, before noticing the form in the stairwell leading down to the basement-level storefront. A grey-haired man, smiling a friendly smile, wearing a suit of the most solid white. Behind him stood a bruised, weak-looking old man with a pair of reading glasses hanging from his nose, a younger man in a dusty brown double-breasted suit, and a horribly scarred, bloody woman in jeans and a tie-dye shirt. Lucifer's smile faded as he looked from one Celestial to the other. Finally spotting Eli, he stepped forward and knelt, saying, "Eli, Archangel of Creation, I repent my vanity and folly and ask your pardon for my past misdeeds. Where you go, I will follow." Eli blinked, totally nonplussed at the gesture. Yves limped around Lucifer and whispered in Eli's ear, "Arise..." "Arise..." Eli echoed. "Lucifer..." "Lucifer..." "Archangel..." "Archangel... of Light," Eli finished, recovering and smiling, feeling the link between Lucifer and the cheering crowds, the brilliant light of the Tower, grow stronger and stronger. As he finished the sentence, the link flared into a full-fledged Tether, strong and firmly anchored, to Heaven. Wrenchial blinked, looking first at Lucifer, then at the Tower, finally whispering, "You?" Lucifer nodded. "Me." Wrenchial stepped forward, feeling out the Symphony, looking more and more confused than ever. "It feels different somehow." Lucifer nodded. "Heaven's still in demon hands. It's been pretty well desecrated... it isn't an angels-only club anymore... which reminds me..." He stepped forward, moving to the back of the group, where Billy Bob shivered and sweated nervously. "Billy Bob Buford," he said, "do you regret what you have done?" Billy Bob shook as if under interrogation, nodding nervously, forcing the word, "Yes," from his lips. Lucifer stared into Billy Bob's eyes, grasping the djinn's shoulders, whispering, "Let there be light." A tremendous flash of light flickered around Billy Bob for just a moment, then vanished like the glow from a flashbulb. Billy Bob staggered, gasping, flexing his hands experimentally, wiping the last of the bloody sweat from his brow. "I sponsor Billy Bob Buford, Cherubim of Light, for the post of Seneschal of the University of Texas Tower. Any objections?" When nobody spoke, he turned to Eli and said, "Do you approve?" "He does," Yves smiled, not waiting for Eli's jaw to make its way back up into place. "So let it be done," Lucifer smiled, nodding as the Symphony reset itself around a very changed Billy Bob. "Now, ladies and gentlemen," the Archangel of Light smiled, "I think we've got a lot of work to do." * * * * * * Welcome to DARK VICTORY. Armageddeon is history. Most of the old Superiors on both sides are dead. God took His blessed in Paradise away, sealing off the Upper Heavens from the lower, removing them from the Spheres of the World. The militant Celestials on both sides fought and died, leaving the peaceful and the destructive to sort out the aftermath. In its moment of victory, however, Hell split apart into factions. Saminga roamed the Earth, destroying humans and absorbing their Forces wholesale. Nybbas, Andrealphus, and Lilith bolted Hell, vanishing into the ravaged Earth. And then, Lucifer, the Adversary himself, vanished. Hell didn't notice this until Novalis was ripped from her place of torment in the heart of Abaddon by a power so horrible and brilliant in its glory that few of the lesser demons could even look at it. Subsequent investigation revealed that Dominic, Marc, Yves, and a great number of lesser Angels had been rescued from Hades' dungeons. Then Dominic returned, a Balseraph wrapped in fire, ranting on how the forces of Light had betrayed God, and how Lucifer had them enchanted and coerced and corrupted, and how all Creation must die by the sword, and much other paranoid ranting. The more stable Demon Princes pieced together the mad Fallen Angel's rantings and deduced the horrible truth- somehow, some way, their dread leader had Redeemed. The seat of power in Hell lay wide open. Before any of the other Demon Princes (including the new, totally mad Demon Prince of Cleansing) could make their move, unfortunately for them, Saminga returned and laid his own claim. Thanks to Armageddeon, his power had grown past even Kronos', and as the most powerful being in Hell he asserted the power he'd thought he had all along. Once on the Granite Throne, however, Saminga did almost nothing. In his little world, he already ruled everything, and so while his delusions and paranoia paralyzed Hell, Lucifer and the defecting Demon Princes, along with the escaped Angels and their Servitors, organized an alliance with the few remaining free Angels. Good once again has a tiny foothold on Earth and in Heaven... but it is a Heaven desecrated, an Earth scarred and depopulated, and an Afterlife in which Paradise is lost to Man; when you die, you go straight to Hell, good, bad or indifferent. It is an Earth where the pagan gods grow more powerful as the desperate seek them out, praying for salvation to any who will hear. It is a universe where Hell is still winning, and the thin candle-flame of divine hope may still be snuffed out. It is a world without God. * * * * * In Dark Victory, your character will either be an Angel, neo-Angel (Demon serving the side of Heaven), or a Demon. Angels and neo-Angels call themselves the Preservers, and call the Demons remaining in Hell the Destroyers. PRESERVER GROUP GOALS * Thwart the efforts of the Destroyers, whatever they may be. * Preserve what is not yet destroyed, rebuild what has been. * Rescue trapped Angels and unjustly damned souls from Hell. * Retake Heaven from the Demon occupation. * Find a way to convince the Almighty to return Paradise to his Creation DESTROYER GROUP GOALS * Destroy the Preservers, Angels and Rebels both * Complete the destruction and enslavement of humanity * Support your Superior in his/her bid for the Granite Throne Players playing from the Preserver point of view should read 'Good Omens' by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett immediately. Players playing from the Destroyer point of view will be best served by reading 'The Screwtape Letters' by C.S. Lewis or the most recent inter-party diatribe from the US Congress, whichever happens to be more diabolic at the moment. Take a look through the collected writing, feel free to email me with questions and requests... and if you decide to run a campaign through this world, by all means let me lurk or keep me informed of what goes on, so I can get feedback and give as well. And as always, have fun. --- Redneck Kris Overstreet, will write for food... | Do not taunt Happy Fun Belial. http://www.txdirect.net/users/redneck | * * * c/o White Lightning Productions | "I love the sweet smell of http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/wlp/ | humiliation in the morning!" Webmaster for Antarctic Press | --- Kobal reaffirms himself http://www.antarctic-press.com/ | ***QUESTION EVERYTHING*** ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:52:57 -0500 (CDT) From: Dorothy Bixler Subject: Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #412 On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Donald G Bixler wrote: > > Dominic cleanses with fire and sword, not with mop and broom. > > Yup, friendly guy. In a word, Uriel. ;'} > > I like your setting quite a bit and I have to admit that being redeemed > just to be eaten by his brother is one of the funniest things Kobal had > ever done. Now _that's_ dedication to dark humor... "Ok Kids, I can only do this trick once..." > > One thing I don't understand is Vapula. Is he planning to take on > Saminga soon? I can't see him suffering that fool to lead for very long > and if the universe is cleansed of creation, what will he do with all of > his toys? > Yeah, and I don't see Saminga letting Vap beta-test on his pet undead. > > Redneck > > Oops da Ogre, he who has all the toys when the universe is gone, is bored > mudgb4@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu > *Dorothy Michelle Bixler * mudmh10@ecom.ecn.bgu.edu* "Gidget, have you been laying with the Horned One again?" -MST3K's Mike from "The Thing the Couldn't Die" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:13:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Robert Knop Subject: Re: IN> Lilith > Any clues into the character of Lilith? Okay, she is freedom. Why is > she with the forces of Badness, since Hell seems to be an Unequal > Opportunity Employer, not to mention other oppressive actions. Is SHE > in debt to Lucifer? Her brand of freedom is just that -- unrestrained freedom. It's probably like the beginning of the description of Hell in IN. In Hell, anybody can do whatever they want. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people around much stronger than you doing what they want. Freedom, Lilith style, has nothing to do with being an equal opportunity employer, or being fair, or being nice. It has to do with doing what you want, and getting into your bonds and obligations because you (perhaps foolishly, or under the influence if bad advice) choose to. - -Rob ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 00:35:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Raoul Duke Subject: Re: IN> [DARK VICTORY] The Seed of Hope: An Introduction to Dark Victory Wow. Wow. That's quite good. Looks like you achieved your fantasy of meeting Eli, yes? All that creation in such a short time... My hat's off, sir. Joe ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 23:16:58 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Re: Redeeming Shedim: it can be done > >Yes, Shedim have a problem if they want to be redeemed: every day they > >don't make their host do something evil, they gain dissonance, and start > I never said it couldn't. Okay, so maybe I heavily implied it. It's > been a couple months, and my memory's not what it never was. > >And finally, of course, the Shedite only needs one evil action per day. > >There's nothing dissonant about doing *good*. A Shedite could inhabit a > >serial killer with an obsession with cleanliness, spend most of the day > Yah, that works, though urinating against a wall in a dark alley > isn't something I'd count as a daily dose of corruptuon. It's an act of I still very much agree with the point someone else made that inhabiting someone already ON the side of Evil and then `corrupting their nature' to the side of good, is perfectly valid. Yes, the acts have to hurt SOMEONE, but again...that someone can be a bad guy, too. (The Mafia accountant who turns in his books for the selfish reason of making a better life for himself against his nature has just done serious, measurable harm to a number of very nasty people...qualifying for everything a Shedite has to do to avoid dissonance, and very probably not annoying any Malakim at all.) > >I'd like to know what people think about this. Is this possible, or am I > >being too lenient? On the semi-related note of the Redeemed character...It's possible that giving someone that kind of Redemption in play would be too easy, but it sounds like this was just included in the background during character creation..and playing a Redeemed Demon shouldn't be any more restricted than playing a Fallen Angel is, really. As you note; it makes for great character hooks. > presently, albiet slowly, GMing for a Kyriotate of Creation in service to > Jordi, recipient of an on-the-spot Redemption from Eli. Kind of sidesteps Heh...bet they're still dodging a lot of suspicion from Dominic's crowd, though. "Ohhh, you came from ELI. Of course. That makes it all okay. And working for Jordi now, eh? Gosh, well, Jordi's certainly no loose cannon...listen, can you tell yet I'm not the Seraph of my Triad, or do they not have enough sarcasm in HELL, YOU DIRTY SPAWN OF..*sputter*" > of time. E, G, and H, most notably. And Mass-murders with loads of hangups > tend to be hard to find. (A good number of them may already have Shedim in > them) Stay in that mass-murderer too long, and you've got him doing nasty They're not SO hard to find if you've been hanging around with Soldiers of Hell for a while anyway, and since those are already Soldiers, they generally aren't ALSO Shedim. (It's riskier, of course, because you're more likely to run into people who know you, but...with a bit of subtlety, a Shedite could mess up an awful lot of plans before anyone figured out he wasn't your basic psycho Shedite...) > But I digress. So, to close, Yes, Shedite redemption can be done. > It's a lot easier for those Shedim who don't have to run around corrupting > their hosts, and it's very, very difficult for those that don't. If you I'll grant, the impression given is that Shedim have to do EVIL every day...but by the actual terms used, it's just that they have to change their host, and hurt SOMEONE...and it's not as though a lot of head-cracking in the name of God doesn't go on every day. As much as it's tricksier for a Shedite to start on the path to Redemption, they're also going to have an easier time dodging Asmodeus's crew... ("Funny, I'm SURE this was Syzygy just yesterday..darnit, who is he now?") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 01:20:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Calabim@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> [FFULF] New Demonette: Tizzy! In a message dated 97-10-20 04:23:59 EDT, you write: << I'll grant, it does seem part of the basic Djinn nature that they don't form strong connections to people, but I don't see anything in their Resonance that mandates BROODING... >> I kind of liked tizzy...I'll use her, or some variation of her in my game. She may very well be a djinni, or impudite, or something else altogether...hmmm... a Lilim with a role as a little kid... I certainly don't see any reason why she can't be a djinn. All descriptions of choirs and bands should be taken as "what is the norm". Individuals can always vary. I mean. look at it this way... One of my players is playing a Malakim of Micheal, with a cover as a Marine MP...now the book says Malakim wear animal skins...does this mean that no Malakim of Micheal can ever have a role as a soldier due to dress code violations?!!? I think you have to take all of the descriptions a little loosely. Don't confuse flavor with mechanics. If the character strays *too* far I might consider disoance, but this should be done very rarely... I don't think smiling is necessarily a sign of selflessness or goodness at all, and it's the latter two that would be disonant. That said, why couldn't tizzy be a Djinn or any other choir... (Except Calabim, since vapula doesn't have any...) - -Calabim ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 00:13:10 -0500 (CDT) From: redneck@txdirect.net (Redneck Gaijin) Subject: Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #412 Let me say, before I answer this one... I *HATE* my local ISP, voted best in town in opinion polls but only gets 40% of all Usenet posts and loses my emial frequently... I got -nothing- for about six hours from the IN list. >On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Donald G Bixler wrote: > >> > Dominic cleanses with fire and sword, not with mop and broom. >> >> Yup, friendly guy. In a word, Uriel. ;'} Much, much, much, much worse. Dominic believes he is the only clean thing in the universe... although his servitors will make nice cleaning tools before they are burned to remove the taint of corruption. >> I like your setting quite a bit and I have to admit that being redeemed >> just to be eaten by his brother is one of the funniest things Kobal had >> ever done. Now _that's_ dedication to dark humor... It wasn't intentional. He just went Bright at the wrong place at the right time, and managed to give Haagenti a major case of indigestion. >"Ok Kids, I can only do this trick once..." .... mmmmmmmaybe, mmmmmmmmaybe not.... }:-{D >> One thing I don't understand is Vapula. Is he planning to take on >> Saminga soon? I can't see him suffering that fool to lead for very long >> and if the universe is cleansed of creation, what will he do with all of >> his toys? >Yeah, and I don't see Saminga letting Vap beta-test on his pet undead. Vapula didn't join the Preservers because (a) he didn't notice and (b) he's a nutter. Vapula would -love- to see the Universe destroyed just so he can observe what happens next- he just doesn't realize that when Existence goes, he goes with it. Vapula isn't -quite- as focused as Saminga, but he's got David and all those Malakim to play with, so he's going to be occupied for quite some time... Redneck (razzinfrazzin lost email) Kris Overstreet, will write for food... | Do not taunt Happy Fun Belial. http://www.txdirect.net/users/redneck | * * * c/o White Lightning Productions | "I love the sweet smell of http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/wlp/ | humiliation in the morning!" Webmaster for Antarctic Press | --- Kobal reaffirms himself http://www.antarctic-press.com/ | ***QUESTION EVERYTHING*** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 00:23:31 -0500 (CDT) From: redneck@txdirect.net (Redneck Gaijin) Subject: IN> [DARK VICTORY] Notes on Interventions So, God's buttoned up the Upper Heavens, and Lucifer's Redeemed himself into a less powerful Seraph. Guess that does away with the need for Intervention rolls in Dark Victory, right? WRONG. Just because the two most obvious mechanisms for Intervention have been removed does not mean Intervention does not happen. The Symphony works in very mysterious ways, and good and evil both have a theme in that Symphony. Interventions may not be directly fulfilled by the Almighty or the original Adversary, but that doesn't mean they aren't fulfilled. Let's take three examples. (1) You're in deep kimshi now, Sato-san You're an Angel. You're in a fix. Your Superior isn't answering. You roll to Dodge... and get a 111. * Gabriel hears your summons to someone else and comes to your rescue, destroying all demons in sight. (Works well if your character is alone or is not working with neo-angels.) * Jordi shows up and throws the demons into total confusion, letting you escape. (General purpose out.) * The demon's strike whiffs and hits another demon. (Standard GM catastrophic-whiff ploy.) (2) Let's discuss your anti-antisocial tendencies You're a demon with a lotta Dissonance. You do something else Dissonant and roll a 666. (1) One of your Superior's rivals likes what you're doing and cleans your Dissonance up... -and- lets you Summon him if you get in a bind with your current Superior. (2) Circumstances undo the act which would have been Dissonant (for example, the doggie a Servitor of Saminga just gave a biscuit to wags his tail, devours the biscuit, and then trots right out into the street and dies happy). (3) Three days ago i koooldnt spell engineer. now i are un. You're trying to do something using a Skill, the success of which may just make or break your entire mission. You roll an Intervention. No examples needed here- you got lucky. (Or unlucky.) An angel forging an ID to get into the Socialist Republic of Cornwall might roll a 111 and get an ID so good he can use it -anywhere-... or on a 666, he'd get a one-way ticket to a Reeducation Clinic the first time he set foot in southwest England. A demon trying to Fast Talk someone might roll a 666 and gain a Servant (or just a total trusting dupe), or on a 111 might be talking to a Soldier of God. Whups. One final note- demons on the side of the Preservers are shooting for 111, NOT 666. 666 is the attention of their former friends in Hell... something they do not want in the least. Redneck Kris Overstreet, will write for food... | Do not taunt Happy Fun Belial. http://www.txdirect.net/users/redneck | * * * c/o White Lightning Productions | "I love the sweet smell of http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/wlp/ | humiliation in the morning!" Webmaster for Antarctic Press | --- Kobal reaffirms himself http://www.antarctic-press.com/ | ***QUESTION EVERYTHING*** ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #414 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.