From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sun Jun 1 23:34:46 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 XAA06653 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:34:46 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA15405 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:20:33 -0500 Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:20:33 -0500 Message-Id: <199706020320.WAA15405@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 #191 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 Sunday, June 1 1997 Volume 01 : Number 191 In this digest: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #189 Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) IN> Still more Kyriotate/Shedim questions... IN> The Song of Fire IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) Re: IN> The Song of Fire IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #190 Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) RE: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #190 Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) Re: IN> Cosmology ad infinitum Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 01:13:10 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) > Hmmmm... I wonder... Words are not absolute, you know. They change and > develop over time... Linguistic drift and all of that. Heh...interesting point, actually. My immediate thought on it is that it explains why the Word Bound are described as "Defending" their Word. If they're affected by changes in the common definition, they'd be well off to promote their vision of it...(Belial and Gabriel probably have a particular quarrel going on with that. This aspect of it could well be one of the other reasons it's considered generally a bad idea for two Celestials to share the same Word.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 01:29:23 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #189 > this," you don't have the option of simply saying "No." It's the celestial > equivalent of someone hacking into your bank account, stealing twelve > thousand dollars, and buying you a car with the money. Well, no - the example, I think, is wildly off the mark. Granting, if you Need a car, the Lilim could probably DO it that way and still claim it, if she wanted to take the more evil route on things, but it's not a fair descriptor of the Resonance as a whole. It's more the equivalent of seeing that you need a car, getting you one (however), and then you owing twelve thousand dollars without knowing when it might be called on. That latter is, to a significant extent, a potential downer to the deal, but it's a heck of a lot FAIRER than anything you'll get from the bank. Lilim can't even charge interest. Now, personally, while admitting that there isn't a strong `canon' basis for it, I'm a proponent of the idea that a Lilim can't just go fulfilling the Need without you at least generally agreeing to it, if not necessarily knowing everything that's going on. The downer is more in the generality of the return owed...the Lilim gets to choose to do a SPECIFIC thing for you while being able to ask ANYTHING roughly equivalent later on, and until she asks, you don't know what. However, even disregarding that - I won't claim that the Resonance can't be slanted, and I certainly won't claim that an even moderately clever Lilim can't use it to her advantage. That's what it's for. But I don't think it's unFAIR, because it pretty strictly enforces balance. Unlike your example, the Lilim actually DOES have to do something for the person, and she can't ask more in return than was given to them. It CAN be used unfairly, but that takes effort and creativity. Basically; your car example is a fine example of how a Lilim could twist the Resonance to something unfair. But at its base level, it's not. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 01:55:59 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) > > *ahem* And whoops again. Still, I'm not sure that exercising the > > free will that God, personally, gave her can be construed as Evil... > I don't think God could grant free will. If everything exists only Well, that steps away from game view and seriously into philosophy, which is a favored pastime of mine, but not quite appropriate to the list. It's generally taken as given that God genuinely gave humanity Free Will, omniscience aside. Now, as that applies to the angels I consider to be a strong plot point. Like I said somewhere else; He never GAVE it to angels, so where did Lucifer suddenly come up with this Fall thing? It's gotta be part of the Plan... > are things in existence not of his creation marring his work. Or things OF his creation...it's mostly the Angels and Demons that go mucking up the Symphony, after all. [And as to how humanity can be a major component of the Symphony while still having free will - I put it down as chaos theory. God can handle it, and the Symphony's big enough that while each individual element may be specifically unpredictable, the whole still reacts about as intended...unless something gets in the way. Like, say, a Calabim with a celestial Uzi artifact. Just for instance.] Though, speaking of that, one thing keeps bugging me about the bit on sensing disturbances. Specifically, the note that if the Perception roll is successful with a check digit of 4, they know the "distance away, to the mile." This, despite the fact that the distance it MIGHT be sensed in is measured in yards. Do you have any idea HOW BIG a disturbance it would have to be to be to be sensed more than 1760 yards away? Even if we're figuring a wildly unbalanced angel with 7 Celestial Forces, and granting the additional multiples of distance that just subtract for their effective Perception for it...at this point, it's just theoretically possible that the arrival of a Superior might be detected -ONE- mile away, unless my math is just wildly wrong. (Which is possible, I'll admit, I've been known to figure things along some very strange paths, but...) So granted, if a Celestial drops a nuke somewhere, this might make enough celestial Disturbance far enough away for miles to matter. But then, that's going to make plenty of other disturbances and show up on the news within a couple minutes, so who cares? Basically, what's bugging me here is that for a check digit of four, I think you deserve something that gives some actual information, rather than an almost inevitable, "Less than one." I suppose it would tell a LOT if you ever got another answer for it, but...is it just me, or is this useless information? "Lemme guess, Bob - less than one mile away again, huh?" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 10:38:27 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Still more Kyriotate/Shedim questions... >>>Just thinking of the possibilities, you'd never want to annoy a Kyrio, especially if he *can* possess a celestial (I still don't think so). Even if they can't hurt the host, they could still make your life pretty uncomfortable.<<< All of those things you suggested are nasty tricks more appropriate for a Shedite than a Kyriotate. I think a Kyriotate that screws up peoples' lives without actually causing harm to their bodies is still going to incur dissonance. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 10:38:25 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> The Song of Fire >>> Of course, if this song is non-canon, and an isolated incidence of this type of damage (barring the Level 6 Gun resource that does check digit x 50 in soul hits - standard issue of Ultimus Maximus I would guess) that would make this a moot point.<<< Of course it's non-canon, anything not officially endorsed by SJG is non-canon. I believe John Karrakash mentioned there may be other situations in which celestial damage can be inflicted on a corporeal form....but they will probably be rare, for the reasons you mentioned; a Song that anyone can learn would result in a bunch of celestials who specialize in blasting celestial vessels into Remnants. >>>BTW - has anyone else noticed that nobody actually seems to be creating Lilim that are not either "bright" or "grey"? From reading the list alone, you would assume that there wasn't a single Lilim left in Hell, they all seem to have defected to Heaven or Earth. Maybe it's like trying to create a Malakim who *isn't* a prat, and can't be done?<<< Not true at all. In my online game, there are two Lilim PCs, both serving a Prince of Hell other than Lilith. And there is also a Malakite who isn't a "prat". She has a sweet, cheerful disposition, and loves humans. Would you believe she's a Malakite of Judgment? She aspires to earn the Word of Willing Obedience to the Law. Dominic actually likes her, but he's worried about her being too soft (she's already gotten in trouble once.) - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 10:38:31 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) >>>*ahem* And whoops again. Still, I'm not sure that exercising the free will that God, personally, gave her can be construed as Evil...<<< No, that in itself doesn't necessarily make her evil (though one could infer that defying the will of God is an evil act.) It's what she's chosen to do with her free will since. >>>I'm less sure of that with Lucifer than I am with Lilith, as you mention it. God never DID give the angels free will, after all...<<< That's not assumed to be true in In Nomine. Whether or not angels truly have free will is one of those questions the GM is left to decide. >>>You don't have to reject the "God really -IS- God" basis for them to have been a bit startled when Uriel popped in and started splitting heads.)<<< Well, my assumption is that if God really IS the Supreme Being, and Heaven has always been the celestial superpower, it's unlikely that the residents of the ethereal planes could have been unaware of them. For that matter, you're assuming that only Judeo-Christian-Islamic worshippers interacted with angels. I'm sure Heaven would have had an interest in the entire human race, from the beginning. Geographically isolated cultures might not have dealt with Michael appearing as a winged European man calling himself "Michael", but angels' territories certainly weren't limited by the spread of Western civilization. >>>Potentially, but as you note - if Vapula's inventions have positive effects, it's only as a hook. Lilith, as even you have argued, at her worst just doesn't care.<<< Actually, I'm arguing that at her BEST she doesn't care. At her worst, she's petty and spiteful, trying to make humanity suffer because of lingering resentment over being subjugated by Adam (or just getting back at God by preying on His favorite creations). >>>But I think it's equally valid as the point that she's purely evil, which strikes me as also being "Not at all." If anything, she's a sanctioned Renegade.<<< No, she is a Princess of Hell. Not a sanctioned Renegade, but a recognized part of Hell's heirarchy, even if she personally disdains holding her own Principality. And I think very few of the Princes are pure, unadulturated Evil. In Nomine makes it clear that angels and demons, like humans, have personalities, flaws and quirks. Reading "A Dark Dream" you can see that even demons may have a few soft spots in their hearts, and they are certainly capable of feeling doubt, regret, even compassion (it's just that if they let themselves be swayed by those emotions, they're gonna start wracking up dissonance.) Princes probably suffer from such "nice" emotions far less, because they've had centuries of experience at suppressing any non-diabolical weaknesses, but that doesn't mean they are incapable of a non-Evil thought. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 12:00:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Austin George Loomis Subject: Re: IN> The Song of Fire [I'm writing this without knowing what's gone out since the small hours of Sunday morning. Bear with me for not mentioning comments that didn't make it into the last digest.] On Sat, 31 May 1997, at 00:33:21 EDT, Calabim@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 97-05-31 00:24:39 EDT, you write: > ><< [I kept meaning to check the INC pages and see if somebody's already >submitted > a Song with this motif. If somebody has, I'm going to feel a right prat, > I can tell you...] > >> > >Thanks for the song of fire. > You're welcome. >A while back a player in my gaming group DID do a song of fire and I posted >it, since we were wondering if people thought it was playable or if stank or >what. It warranted a few jokes, but no serious "it was cool" or "y'kno that >was really bad" type reactions. > I must have missed it. Oh well, I *knew* it was too good an idea for me to be the first to have it. I'll have to see if Beth or Paul (or even Jason Newquist) preserved it on the INC, so I can check it out and see what it was like. >My player will be happy to see your take on a song of fire. > Tell us what he thinks, do? >But please! I don't know what "a right prat" is but it sounds a bit nasty. >Don't feel one unless your absolutely sure it's necessary. :-) > Sorry. My Anglophile tendencies showing through. "Feeling a right prat" is Britlish for, approximately, "feeling like a complete idiot" (though Sir Charles Grandiose would probably blanch at the crudity of that low and vulgar translation). Now you know, and knowing is half the mandatory educational content segment. Sailor Novalis says! Teeheehee! On Sat, 31 May 1997, at 05:44:00 UT, Kurt White wrote: [...] >I may be sounding a little naive, but I thought that for game-mechanics, you >could not do Celestial damage (apart from Andre's limited ability) to a >Corporeal vessel, to stop players from creating a monster at Celestial combat >who never really bothered with Corporeal forces because he could toast his >enemy's brains and turn them into a remnant with a snap of his fingers. I am >assuming here by "Naturally corporeal" that this means humans, and undead. Basically. And animals. Any creature native to the corporeal realm was what I had in mind. >Maybe Moriah, John or His Holiness Pope Derek P. could give us the canon >approach to Celestial damage in a vessel? Of course, if this song is >non-canon, and an isolated incidence of this type of damage (barring the Level >6 Gun resource that does check digit x 50 in soul hits - standard issue of >Ultimus Maximus I would guess) that would make this a moot point. > Something like that. Alternatively, you can impose on it the same limit as the Calabite of Lust attunement, that it can't take out the target's last Soul hit unless he ditches his body. Or state that it can never strip more than one Force from the same victim (the lost Force becomes a sort of psychic burn-scar, which can't get any worse thereafter). I can understand the in-game reasoning in back of that sort of thing, now that it's explained to me slowly and patiently. >BTW - has anyone else noticed that nobody actually seems to be creating Lilim >that are not either "bright" or "grey"? From reading the list alone, you >would assume that there wasn't a single Lilim left in Hell, they all seem to >have defected to Heaven or Earth. Maybe it's like trying to create a Malakim >who *isn't* a prat, and can't be done? > Obviously, you missed Kanah/K.K., Beth's Lilim of Kobal. (A voice at the back of my head suggests that she should get try to get a Geas on a Malakite of Eli, so that when it comes time for the Show, she can have him [or her, if it's Ana] sing "If you're anxious for to shine in the High Aesthetic line" [Bunthorne's song from _Patience_]. I must listen to this voice -- it could be a new character taking shape.) >- -Kurt >Where have all the Lilim gone? > Gone to Heaven, every one. Austin George "Oh, when will they ever learn?" Loomis, off to commune with his personal demon... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 12:32:51 -0500 (CDT) From: rogue@ez-net.com (RogueLdr) Subject: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #190 > >BTW - has anyone else noticed that nobody actually seems to be creating Lilim >that are not either "bright" or "grey"? From reading the list alone, you >would assume that there wasn't a single Lilim left in Hell, they all seem to >have defected to Heaven or Earth. Maybe it's like trying to create a Malakim >who *isn't* a prat, and can't be done? > >- -Kurt >Where have all the Lilim gone? Hey! I like to think my Malakim is far from prathood. He's not a complete combat monster nor a bloodthirsty maniac- he's actually closer to James Bond than he is to Rambo. But you're right about the Lilim- we do seem to have an unnaturally high concentration of them. - -Rogue ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Jun 1997 19:28:27 GMT From: w_mazur@primenet.com (Walt Mazur) Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) On Sat, 31 May 1997 00:06:45 +0500, "James Rand" wrote: >> *ahem* And whoops again. Still, I'm not sure that exercising the >> free will that God, personally, gave her can be construed as Evil... > >I don't think God could grant free will. Then you're saying God isn't omnipotent, he's only small-g god. > If everything exists only >because he created it and he has omniscience (and therefore knows how >everything he creates will turn out) isn't he responsible for how it >all falls out? If He is omnipotent, then He can create truly free-willed beings. At that point His omniscience can tell Him all the ways things *might* happen. His omnipotence allows Him to make any result happen, but that would negate (to a greater or lesser extent) free will. If He chooses to allow free will to continue, then He's still responsible for the initial conditions and allowing free will to continue, but that doesn't mean that the free willed individuals aren't also responsible for their actions. Responsibility isn't a zero-sum game: one person being responsible for something doesn't prevent other people from also being responsible for it. If ten people all let a monkey play with a loaded gun, they're all responsible for the result; and God is, too, since He created the conditions that allow for monkeys and guns and the one playing with the other. > Since he knew what was going to happen, and could have >changed things beforehand so that they worked out differently? If he >is, then everything happens because that's the way he wanted it to >turn out. I don't see much free will there. And that isn't how it >works, then his knowledge is either less than omniscient or there >are things in existence not of his creation marring his work. Here's an easy anology to that: A GM decides all the time whether to rule arbitrarily or roll the dice. Even if he decides to let the dice roll, he knows what the possible results are. He could also let the dice roll, but overrule any result he didn't like. But, it's often a better game if the GM lets the dice roll and lets the results stand. God is in a similar position: He lets free will take its course, and lets the result stand. It doesn't mean that He doesn't know what the results *could* be, and it doesn't mean He can't force the result to be anything He wants. He is merely choosing to delegate a small part of His omnipotence. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 17:40:18 -0400 From: Denis Sarrazin Subject: RE: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) - ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC6EB2.F41AEA90 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable - -----Original Message----- From: Walt Mazur [SMTP:w_mazur@primenet.com] Sent: Sunday, June 01, 1997 3:28 PM To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) [...] If He is omnipotent, then He can create truly free-willed beings. At that point His omniscience can tell Him all the ways things *might* happen. I somehow doubt that knowing what "might" happen would make him = omnipotent - sorta goes against the definition, no? Another way of looking at it would be that God does indeed know = everything that is going to happen, and that he knew it when he created = humans. Humans still have free-will in that God does not control what = they do, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't know what is going to = happen - the two aren't really related, imo. Free will simply means = that God (or whatever) or not controlling your action. It does not mean = that God didn't know in advance what you were going to do, though. He = created people and created freewill, and then let things fall as they = may. When he did create freewill, though, he did know what each person = would do, but he did not "control" this, he simply set things in motion = and let things fall through where they may. The difference was that he = did indeed know the results of his action, but again, this is different = than controlling the creations that he did, imo. =20 Of course, people might get upset that if God knew what he was doing, = then why did he do things so that there is so much suffering etc. One = way to answer this is that there is a "master plan" and that there are = reasons for the suffering and for the creation of the demons and such. = These reasons are simply unfathomable to humans (or even to angels) most = of the time. I remember reading somewhere that one of the worst thing = you can do to your child is spoil them. If you spoil them when they are = young, then you lead them to a life of misery since they will have = learned that things were supposed to be easy, but of course, in real = life, they aren't. If, on the other hand, you teach your kids some = discipline, as hard as it can be sometimes not to spoil someone you = love, you are ultimatly helping them be happier people, and thus, you = are doing something that will likely hurt your children (few children = like being told no ) but you are doing so out of love and knowledge = that it will help them in the long run. One might use the same logic to = explain God's plan, imo. - -Denis - ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC6EB2.F41AEA90 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 eJ8+IjUVAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAEIgAcAGAAAAElQTS5NaWNy b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQ2ABAACAAAAAgACAAEEkAYAyAEAAAEAAAAQAAAAAwAAMAIAAAAL AA8OAAAAAAIB/w8BAAAATwAAAAAAAACBKx+kvqMQGZ1uAN0BD1QCAAAAAGluX25vbWluZS1sQGxp c3RzLmlvLmNvbQBTTVRQAGluX25vbWluZS1sQGxpc3RzLmlvLmNvbQAAHgACMAEAAAAFAAAAU01U UAAAAAAeAAMwAQAAABkAAABpbl9ub21pbmUtbEBsaXN0cy5pby5jb20AAAAAAwAVDAEAAAADAP4P BgAAAB4AATABAAAAGwAAACdpbl9ub21pbmUtbEBsaXN0cy5pby5jb20nAAACAQswAQAAAB4AAABT TVRQOklOX05PTUlORS1MQExJU1RTLklPLkNPTQAAAAMAADkAAAAACwBAOgEAAAAeAPZfAQAAABkA AABpbl9ub21pbmUtbEBsaXN0cy5pby5jb20AAAAAAgH3XwEAAABPAAAAAAAAAIErH6S+oxAZnW4A 3QEPVAIAAAAAaW5fbm9taW5lLWxAbGlzdHMuaW8uY29tAFNNVFAAaW5fbm9taW5lLWxAbGlzdHMu aW8uY29tAAADAP1fAQAAAAMA/18AAAAAAgH2DwEAAAAEAAAAAAAAAtljAQSAAQAuAAAAUkU6IElO 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N4UAAAEAAAABAAAAAAAAAB4AQ4AIIAYAAAAAAMAAAAAAAABGAAAAADiFAAABAAAAAQAAAAAAAAAe AD0AAQAAAAUAAABSRTogAAAAAAMADTT9NwAA/h4= - ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC6EB2.F41AEA90-- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 17:22:25 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #190 > >have defected to Heaven or Earth. Maybe it's like trying to create a Malakim > >who *isn't* a prat, and can't be done? > than he is to Rambo. But you're right about the Lilim- we do seem to have an > unnaturally high concentration of them. It's not terribly surprising - the Lilim are the most `grey' by their immediate design, so particularly in a campaign where people are playing from both sides, people are almost bound to take advantage of that. (I'm surprised we're not hearing more about the grey Habbalah...) The Lilim Resonance and outlook also strike me, at least, as being some of the best suited to "campaign play"...The Shedim, for a counterexample, look like a lot of fun - but during an adventure, being forced to go out of your way for little `corruptions' could get seriously annoying, almost on the level of having to actually play out restroom trips. Now, I wouldn't say it's a flaw in the system; the fact is, Shedim are sent to Earth to corrupt. It's what they were made for and it's what they DO, and if their particular Prince happens to have other jobs for them while they're here, well, great, but it doesn't countermand their fundamental nature, and as GM, I'd be very reluctant to let a player just "assume" they get that handled and ignore it, for many of the same reasons I wouldn't let someone in a superhero game just `assume' their secret identity goes on without their active attention. As a player, however, I've gotta say it'd give me serious pause when considering one as a character option, just because I don't know that I'd want the distraction after the initial thrill. Lilim are great. Their Resonance is something incredibly useful, and they only get Dissonance from someone resisting it. On the related note, the Dissonance you get while Serving Lilith is something ANY gamer would do anyway. When's the last time a player said, "Oh, I've been captured? Sucks. Well, I give up."?!? Refusing to accept orders theoretically MIGHT be a problem, except all you have to do is freely negotiate that you will...and `having' to try to escape imprisonment isn't remotely as restrictive as the Ofanim compulsion to keep actually moving. {As to the Malakim problem, well, technically, they don't get Dissonance for being non-prats, but doing pratfalls...*shrug* Heh..I've got a couple of ideas for Malakim characters that wouldn't be too bad. A Servitor of Novalis who, rather than just chopping a demon in half, works diligently for their Redemption, only entering into combat when convinced that they're utterly irredeemable...at which point he feels compelled to take them apart Force by Force, as mere Trauma isn't enough at that stage. Then again, I've got my hippie Malakim of War, Sunray, who can hardly help it if demons just assume that because he's wearing a tie-dye, he can't hit first..} ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 17:46:11 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) > has always been the celestial superpower, it's unlikely that the residents > of the ethereal planes could have been unaware of them. For that matter, Presumes that they were all on the Ethereal planes before Uriel went after them; personally, I like the idea better that there were other Celestial homes before. (Mt. Olympus, Asgard, that sort of thing..) It is noted that they all fled either to Beleth's realm or the Far Marches - it COULD be presumed that that just happened to be from Blandine's side, but it's not clarified, so it could go many other ways... > you're assuming that only Judeo-Christian-Islamic worshippers interacted > with angels. I'm sure Heaven would have had an interest in the entire human > race, from the beginning. Geographically isolated cultures might not have I'm not, referring to both, but the latter is purely up to individual interpretation. To the former, I'm assuming that not EVERYONE interacted with angels, which is very different from assuming only those three did. (Quetzecoatl, for example, I will acknowledge as having potentially been a manifestation of Michael...it's an amusing thought, anyway. But the really remote ones, yes, those I tend to assume didn't have any such interaction.) Beyond that, while Heaven may well have had an interest, until Uriel beat up the other gods, Heaven may NOT have had the opportunity to interact. There were obviously forces around that Uriel had to actually chop to bits and chase out; it's not too far a stretch to suggest that the reason he did this was because they actually had some control over things, or why bother? > Actually, I'm arguing that at her BEST she doesn't care. At her worst, > she's petty and spiteful, trying to make humanity suffer because of I don't, personally, see any evidence of that. She can be petty and spiteful, yes, but I have to say your interpretation of her leaning that way and taking it out on humanity is largely that - your interpretation. Valid, sure. I'm all for interpretations that suit a given campaign. But far from absolute - my personal interpretations much more strongly blur the lines, largely because I, personally, have trouble believing in any kind of absolute "Good" or "Evil." For me, it's a lot more fun to take the whole world, both sides, as a lot more 'grey', with the potential for very bright and very dark spots..on BOTH sides. (Even beyond the Habbalah believing they're still angels, many of the demons, to my view, believe Lucifer was right, and serve Hell from a very noble outlook. Oh, Hell is largely an evil place and Heaven is largely a good one, but I'm nonetheless inclined to point out that Dominic makes his living hunting down fellow angels.) > No, she is a Princess of Hell. Not a sanctioned Renegade, but a recognized > part of Hell's heirarchy, even if she personally disdains holding her own Recognized as such because otherwise she wouldn't have the power Lucifer promised her to maintain her personal freedom. You've noted several times now that it was her choice to go with Lucifer's side that makes her evil - to me, her further and continuing choice to not hold any domain or servitors there and to refuse to actively advance the cause herself speaks a lot more... (They do note, under Free Lilim, that she does "just as easily" trade favors with the Archangels. Do you think they'd deal with her if she were inexolerably evil?) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 18:16:02 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) > I dunno, Uriel conducted one purge 1200 years ago, but most of the gods > that survived that seem to be surviving quite well. Sure, since Uriel got pulled and his Cathedral dimmed...and even now, they don't much dare poke their heads out of Beleth's Marches. > Survival may well be Lilith's rationalization for siding with Hell, but I > don't buy it as being exclusive of her also being spiteful, self-centered, Barring the "and basically evil," which is the whole center of the discussion, well, sure. Again, no one's suggesting that Lilith is GOOD...just ambiguous. > Self-centeredness is definitely more evil than good. She may not think of > herself as evil. But her efforts do far more for evil than for good, and I disagree with that, somewhat vehemently, actually. Where else is one supposed to center? Try centering your balance on a point two feet to your left sometime. If you can wrap your mind around it in the first place, you'll fall over, so don't do this by any stairways or cliff edges, please. (Gotta say, I'd miss you, even if we've only been talking for a week or so..) Self-centeredness is -SANE-. > >>>This makes her a more evil entity than Janus, who advocates change > and chaos and swiping things for "completely unselfish reasons"?<<< > Yes. Janus makes value judgments; his angels steal from the *wicked*. They Ohhh, yeah, there's that, isn't there. Janus, Laurence, and Dominic seem to go a lot for that, "Ends justify the means" kind of defense. Personally, I don't buy it, and I think it's why even some of the Archangels wonder if Janus isn't suspiciously similar to a certain Demon Prince... > Lilith's intentions are completely self-centered, she has chosen to side > with evil, and her Servitors are, by overwhelming majority, actively Lilith doesn't have permanent Servitors, and when she does, they're serving -her-. > I am not arguing that one can't. I'm arguing that very, very few Lilim are > good, and Lilith certainly is not even ambiguously close to being good. The former I'll grant, the latter I'll grant as well on the note that no one's even said she's "close to being good," ambiguously or otherwise. We've said she's flat out ambiguous, which is a -VERY- different matter. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:42:05 +1000 From: christopher.stevenson@aihw.gov.au Subject: Re: IN> Cosmology ad infinitum >On Thursday, Jeff wrote >"If belief ir even just thinking about them *can* create "gods" in the >Marches then I can see the posibility of some Cthuloid beings in Beleth's >realm." > >I like this idea, should sort out some of the cockier Celestials. Considering >the Old Ones inhabited the Earth millions of years before the first trace of >man, they must have a bit of power behind them, even if they are >dead/sleeping. > >What a scenario - Cthulhu wakes up and finds out some upstart called Yahweh >trashing his planet fighting some other little nobody called Lucifer. Cthulhu >calls in the big guns; Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub- Niggurath... For completeness, don't forget Yog-Sothoth. >Of course, if the Elder Gods also got in on the action, I don't think there >would be much left of the Earth to fight over. > >I wonder if the Old Ones feed off the Essence of their worshippers/slaves like >Impudites feed off people? > >-Kurt >Cthulhu Fthagn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 01:19:22 GMT From: w_mazur@primenet.com (Walt Mazur) Subject: Re: IN> Lillim are Evil! (What, all of them?) On Sun, 1 Jun 1997 17:40:18 -0400, Denis Sarrazin wrote: >>If He is omnipotent, then He can create truly free-willed beings. At >>that point His omniscience can tell Him all the ways things *might* >>happen. > >I somehow doubt that knowing what "might" happen would make him omnipotent - sorta goes against the definition, no? I was referring to omniscience, not omnipotence. God, being omnipotent, can choose to do anything, necessarily including making Physics indeterminate, as He has apparently done. Having done that, God's omniscience can only detect the possibilities his omnipotence has allowed. Using the GM analogy again, the GM may choose to decide what happens (determinism) or he may decide to roll, then only knowing that the result will be one of a number of options determined by the di(c)e. >Another way of looking at it would be that God does indeed know everything that is going to happen, and that he knew it when he created humans. Humans still have free-will in that God does not control what they do, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't know what is going to happen - the two aren't really related, imo. Then that would mean that a human is only free to choose the one deterministic choice, known but (supposedly) not controlled by God. I have two objections: First is that if the choice is deterministic and God set the initial conditions, then God made the choice in setting the initial conditions and only the illusion of choice remains. Second is that a choice among one option is not a choice at all; the very concept of freedom implies that one has at least two options to choose between. This is not free will, but only its illusion. > Free will simply means that God (or whatever) or not controlling your action. It does not mean that God didn't know in advance what you were going to do, though. If God knows in advance that I must do one and only one thing, then while I may feel I have free will, the feeling is false. A choice among one option is not a choice at all; freedom to do only the single thing that is determined by the structure of the universe is not freedom at all. >Of course, people might get upset that if God knew what he was doing, then why did he do things so that there is so much suffering etc. One way to answer this is that there is a "master plan" and that there are reasons for the suffering and for the creation of the demons and such. These reasons are simply unfathomable to humans (or even to angels) most of the time. I remember reading somewhere that one of the worst thing you can do to your child is spoil them. If you spoil them when they are young, then you lead them to a life of misery since they will have learned that things were supposed to be easy, but of course, in real life, they aren't. If, on the other hand, you teach your kids some discipline, as hard as it can be sometimes not to spoil someone you love, you are ultimatly helping them be happier people, and thus, you are doing something that will likely hurt your children (few children like being told no ) but you are doing so out of love and knowledge that i! ! t will help them in the long run. One might use the same logic to explain God's plan, imo. This I quite agree with, though obviously if all things are preordained so is whether you will or will not discipline your children and how they will act and what they will become. We must necessarily assume we have free will, because if we indeed have it, we must prepare ourselves and our children for the responsibility of it. If we assume we do not have it, then nothing matters since our life is preordained. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #191 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.