From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sat Feb 21 15:08:52 1998 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 PAA21502 for ; Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:08:52 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id OAA31731 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:56:35 -0600 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:56:35 -0600 Message-Id: <199802212056.OAA31731@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 #637 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 Saturday, February 21 1998 Volume 01 : Number 637 In this digest: Re: IN> Hell's Runaways Re: IN> Feast of Blades Re: Jean's Kyrios (was Re: IN> Feast of Blades) Stupid Kyrio of Lightning tricks (was Re: IN> Feast of Blades) IN> Re: Jean's Kyrios Re: IN> Archangel of Purity (Long) Re: IN> Maya Fan Club (Re: Lilim and Reproduction) IN> Re: IN- Blandine's Boys IN> Re: IN- Hell's Runaways Re: IN> Michael Falling IN> Varying superior disturbance levels IN> Archangel of Purity Re: IN> Celestial plurals (was Purity grammar content) Re: IN> Blandine's Boys Re: IN> Hell's Runaways Re: IN> Re: IN- Archangel of Purity IN> Belial Rite makes no sense RE: IN> Re: Jean's Kyrios ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 15:00:51 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Hell's Runaways At 11:19 AM -0800 2/20/98, Querent wrote: >Siggy's plan: Lay low, building essence and build a vessel of his own >(as if in Limbo). Then, he'll come out with a powerful one, slay >Xiasha, and then slay the Mercurian. (Ok, so he's a cocky little >bugger. Welcome to Hell.) Hopefully, this will gain enough of >Saminga's favor that he'll forgive little Siggy for making an >unauthorized jaunt down anyway. Siggy can't build up enough Essence for that without a *lot* of Discord -- and he can't do it outside of Limbo anyway, because there are too many distractions for anyone but a Superior to build vessels outside of Limbo. And he can't get to Limbo except by having a corporeal vessel toasted, so catch-22. >A few questions: > >It takes a Will roll to go to the Corporeal realm from the Celestial. >It doesn't take a thing to go from the Celestial to the Corporeal. Nope. Except a location. This means you have to either go up a Tether, be dropped off by your Superior (or drop-*kicked*), or follow a fellow demon. And if you really *want* to wander around in celestial form, with no way to get *BACK* if the amused Malakim start showing up and picking on you... (Because without a Heart, a demon can't return, except *maybe* by following someone down or using a Tether or begging their Prince to come and get them... And if they follow someone down, they wind up next to that person and their (guarded!) Heart, and somebody's going to start asking questions. If they use a Tether, the Seneschal will Notice. And the wisdom of calling a Prince to rescue you from your own disobediance... *snort*) Shedim have a better chance -- they can possess people. But they're going to be treated as a shatter-Heart Renegade by the Game and anyone else who discovers what they've done. After seeing a Shedite put through a taffy-pulling machine in Tartarus, most baby Shedim are *quite sure* they would rather be picked on by bigger demons than picked on by a Prince. >Can they generate their own vessels as if in Limbo? Through the long >drawn out approach? Is this merely a function of Limbo itself? It's mostly a function of Limbo itself -- look at how *much* Essence you have to have to create a vessel at all! 15 per level per Force! So a Force 1 animal (such as a rat) is 15 Essence! Only in Limbo can a celestial store up more Essence than he has Forces. And only in Limbo can a tiny little celestial mind manage the concentration to shape a vessel in the first place... (Or else there would be 15-Force demons occasionally making rat-vessels.) >If they can't make their own, little Siggy will forever be picked on. Yup. That's why it's Hell. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 98 15:21 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Feast of Blades [Sam Kington:] >Dunno, I'd allow it. But if you're spitting acid at someone from his >clothing, the clothing is going to get some damage from the acid as >well; similarly, if you poke claws out of them, the clothes are going to >get bloody. Both of these I would classify as harming the host. The >Kyrio is going to have to do some serious needle-work/dry-cleaning after >the fight is over - if it's lucky enough to stay in the clothes that >long. Yes, the pants were kind of messed up. Along with a number of other objects the Kyrio has inhabited.... Unfortunately, there's a canon ruling that Kyrios of Lightning do *not* take dissonance for damage to inanimate hosts. (I think this made it into the APG, if not, it should be in the errata somewhere.) I may reverse this for my own campaign. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 98 15:55 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: Jean's Kyrios (was Re: IN> Feast of Blades) >Personally, I don't allow Jean's Kyrios into clothing. My rule of >them, you can jump into any inanimate object that runs on electricity. > From hearing aids to movie projectors. The trick is that it has to >harness the power of lightning. It doesn't at all conflict with the >wording in the book, and seems to fit very well with the spirit of >Jean's servitors. This means that until this century, they didn't really have a special Choir attunement, though. That doesn't seem right. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 98 16:00 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Stupid Kyrio of Lightning tricks (was Re: IN> Feast of Blades) [Leath:] >I'd rule that various Numinous Corpus can only be used by a kyrio of >Jean (or any non-living host kyrio) if the object inhabited has the >facilities to utilise that power. For example, IMO pants wouldn't be >able to use acid, but a water pistol or syringe could. Likewise, >only vessels with arms or legs etc. would be able to use claws (toy >robots as an example). And something would need a mouth-like orifice >to use teeth (even if it's just a stuffed bear with a goofy grin). I thought of that, but it leaves a lot of arguable areas. Does a coat have "arms"? Is the mouth of a bottle a "mouth"? Etc. I'd prefer a solution with fewer areas of gray. The dissonance solution works fairly well, except it contradicts established canon. Denying NC Songs to inanimate hosts also works pretty well, except that the "flying toaster trick" got mentioned in the APG. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 16:12:08 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: IN> Re: Jean's Kyrios Walter Milliken wrote: > This means that until this century, they didn't really have a special > Choir attunement, though. That doesn't seem right. It seems to me that the roles of both Jean and Vapula have to be pretty recent, or at least have to have changed radically in the last few centuries. Vapula's might well be a very recent Princedom, like that of Nybbas. Jean's Archangelic status might be recent, or it might be that his Word has changed. Before electricity, he may have been concerned only with literal lightning, other (more obscure) electrical effects (like St. Elmo's fire), and perhaps metaphorical extensions like the "flash of insight." Perhaps he and Gabriel served the Apollonian and Dionysian sides of inspiration, respectively. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 17:49:20 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Archangel of Purity (Long) On Thu, 19 Feb 1998 gantr@NKU.EDU wrote: Good job. I have a few points that might need a look at, though... > CHOIR ATTUNEMENTS > Servitors of Uriel have been purified and refined, focusing their > resonances and their natures in a more precise manner. Each Choir has two > attunements available to it. Only one is awarded at creation; the other > must be purchased like the attunement of any other Choir. This is a little unusual...why not just choose one of each? I notice that a lot are similar; either your resonance can be used on someone else or it works automatically. It might not seem quite as repetitive if you just picked one for each Choir. > Cherubim > 1) A Cherub of Purity may add the appropriate Forces to any roll made to > protect the subject of his attunement. If the threat is Corporeal, the > Cherub adds Corporeal Forces. If the threat is Ethereal, the Cherub adds > Ethereal Forces. If the threat is Celestial, the Cherub adds Celestial > Forces. The APG already covers this. Any Cherub adds his Celestial forces to any roll made in direct protection of his attunement. > 1) An Ofanim of Purity may use his resonance to gain extra actions. On a > successful resonance roll, the Ofanim gains a number of extra actions > equal to half of his check die (rounded up). This must be used in place > of a standard resonance use. This is very powerful. Baal's Art of Combat attunement costs twice as much, and burns Essence. If this burned Essence instead, I could see it; otherwise, it's too much. An Ofanim with this ability could wipe the floor with ANYone. > BASIC RITES > *Clean an area which has been made filthy by deliberate action. > *Spend one hour persuading mortals to repent and serve Heaven. > *Kill a demon. Shouldn't that be "...or Ethereal being"? Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian (Married to Rev. Unibomber on 11/15/96 - be jealous ;) Meow! And finally, a special message to anyone who thinks I give a damn... \|/ ____ \|/ ~@-/ oO \-@~ /_( \__/ )_\ \__U_/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 18:17:37 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Maya Fan Club (Re: Lilim and Reproduction) At 11:34 PM +0000 2/17/98, Nathaniel Eliot wrote: >> And besides, Nathaniel wants to see it. He *needs* to see it... >> O;> > >Yeah, but you can't see my eyes, even if you are possessing my >computer. I'm wearing my shades, and my modem's covered with >tinfoil, besides... But you were touching the keyboard. O;D >Nathanael >Currently possessed by Saphreal >Paranoid Kyriotate of War >"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me." Paranoid and spies on people... *sigh* Some people. Don't even believe that you're just a little ol' Soldier. Oh, and the proto-Hunt stuff is up. http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/fiction/protohunt.html - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 15:14:58 PST From: "Andrew Frades" Subject: IN> Re: IN- Blandine's Boys >What if their vessel is killed? I interpret it as an involuntary >action, and therefore not dissonant. However, it *is* dissonant for >them to preserve a valuable vessel by going Celestial and fleeing the >fight. (See FAQ) > >Now I'm confused. Can they actually get dissonance for having a >vessel slain? If so, that makes them the only characters who actually >risk falling sheerly by virtue of getting beat up. >If not, then Blandine and Beleth care less about creating new vessels >for their servants than they do about not using Celestial songs and >forms on Earth. That doesn't seem quite right to me. Fairly simple. Servitors of the big Bs gain dissonance by assuming their celestial form on Earth. If their vessel is killed they suffer trauma and show up by their heart (which is in their superiors tower in the Marches). Therefor it is not dissonant for them to get beat to a bloody pulp while it would be dissonant for them to use their celestial form to escape. Andrew ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 15:28:15 PST From: "Andrew Frades" Subject: IN> Re: IN- Hell's Runaways >Why don't runaway demonlings and angels go joyriding down to Earth? >My thinking is: Run where? They need their boss to give them a >vessel or they'd only be there for a few minutes and then come home to >an angry Superior. > >Hmmm...what if they can generate their own vessels? > >Can they generate their own vessels as if in Limbo? Through the long >drawn out approach? Is this merely a function of Limbo itself? The laws of Heaven and Hell preclude you making your own vessel, and thus beings from there (or Earth) can not do it. Beings from the Marches can because, well just because they can, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they are outside of the three realms (Hell/Earth/Heaven). Limbo follows its own rules because it is a place outside of the Symphony. Andrew ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 21:21:12 -0500 From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: Re: IN> Michael Falling I guess now is the time to post this little story. I've had it for a while, but it never seemed the right time. It's a riff on the idea of what would have happened if Michael had fallen with Lucifer, way back when. It's not canon, in either sense, but hopefully it will amuse. - ---- Lucifer, Father of Lies, Lord of Hell, passed over the many cities of his realm, ignoring the scenes of torment and insanity that would in ordinary days attract his attention. He descended -- with such haste that it recalled the first mad motion of the Fall -- down to the lowest levels of his domain, to seek the aid of his mightiest servant. Taking human guise, he lighted upon a rocky promontory overlooking the inky blackness of the Pit. He gazed upon the utter dark that was total seperation from God, and gathering up all his courage (which was considerable, though not so vast as his pride), he shouted the ritual question into the Pit: "Who is like the Lord?" There were no echoes; for all that Lucifer put his full might and dreadful majesty into his voice, the void swallowed it up, making even the voice of Hell's master thin and weak. A moment later, the ritual response came, the answering voice full of such power it shook the bedrock of Hell: "You are, Morningstar." And in the blackness six baleful lights flared, each the size of a world, and Lucifer knew the eyes of the fallen angel Michael looked upon him. Then, with infinite slowness, a giant serpent's head rose from the dark, and it asked, "For what have you disturbed my sleep, younger brother?" Inwardly the Prince of Darkness trembled in fear, but not for nothing is he known as Father of Lies, for none of his terror showed upon his form. In a voice full of the calm certainty of an emperor whose will knows no limit, Lucifer replied, "There are angels at the gates of Hell, my brother, and I would have them gone." And Michael, whose name was that ritual question and whose fall came when he answered Lucifer, asked, "Morningstar! What of the armies of Hell? Can your dukes and princes not hold the field against the angels of the Host? Does the defense of your tattered glory lie once more with me?" Again, Lucifer wished to gnash his teeth and stamp his feet in fury, for there is no wrath like a pride that must announce dependency on another. But he consoled himself with the thought that his lies lies were chain enough to capture the strongest and force that angel to pledge fealty to him. Smiling, the first fallen angel said, "Oh Michael, this is what I say: the armies of Hell are scattered, our dukes and princes dead and beaten, and without your might my light will fade and the Tyrant will rule all!" The great dragon Michael rose half-way from the Pit, and said, "Younger brother, my pride will not see the empire I have won you crumble into dust. I will sally forth from the my own Hell to rescue yours." And Lucifer, seeing that he had stirred up Michael's pride, sought to fan the flames further and make the warrior his, utterly. He said in a voice full of false friendship, "Then, brother, we will battle together, and test once more if the Lord be truly omnipotent. For I hold that nothing less can hold us, not now that we have been tempered in the fires of Hell." And there was war in heaven: Michael and his demons fought for the dragon; and the dragon fought with the angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. - ---- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 23:06:36 -0500 From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: IN> Varying superior disturbance levels One of the things I'm thinking about including in my campaign is to have different superiors make different levels of disturbance when they manifest on Earth, so that a clever character can make an educated guess about who just showed up. Of course it's not perfect, but I want to give thinking players an edge. - ---- Celestial Base Disturbance - --------- ---------------- Michael 100 Lucifer 80 Powerful superiors 40 Average superiors 30 Weak superiors 20 The base disturbance is the disturbance a superior makes when he or she shows up in corporeal form. If the superior shows up in full celestial glory, then add 50% to the base to get the actual disturbance. (20 goes to 30, 30 goes to 45, and so on.) Both Michael and Lucifer are in seperate categories. They are the two most powerful celestial beings in the universe, and they are both break the system even according to the standards of the archangels and demon princes. (IMC, of course.) Below, I list who is powerful and who isn't in my campaign. This is obviously campaign-specific; your mileage will vary. Also, remember that stuff like political power obviously won't show up. (In my own game, Baal can muster very little support among the demons, even though he has one of the power words. Likewise Lilith is more powerful than her raw Force-count would indicate. In Heaven, Laurence commands the armies of God and Michael is fighting to keep from being cast out.) o Powerful Superiors: Archangels: Yves, Gabriel, David, Janus Demon Princes: Kronos, Kobal, Baal, Asmodeus o Average Superiors: Archangels: Novalis, Blandine, Jordi, Dominic Demon Princes: Andrealphus, Beleth, Belial, Saminga, Malphas, Vapula o Weak Superiors: Archangels: Marc, Laurence, Eli, Jean Demon Princes: Lilith, Nybbas, Valefor, Haagenti - ---- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 13:10:46 +0900 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Archangel of Purity DISCLAIMER: None of this is canon _yet_. But it probably will be, if I have anything to say about it :), and it's been discussed a little bit on the list before. Uriel was most likely a Seraph before he became the first of the Malakim. >>> Also, according to the short story at the start of the Marches, the Word of Purity prevents the angels attuned to it from Falling, just like the Malakim.<<< Correct. No Servitor of Uriel has ever Fallen, at least not while still serving the Word of Purity. (They have to willfully abandon their Word, such as by switching to another Superior.) They can go Renegade, but like Malakim, they cannot Fall. Of course, while Uriel was around, this was a moot point, since he made Dominic look positively lax when it came to dealing with dissonant Servitors.... - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 04:17:58 +0000 (GMT) From: Steve Jessop Subject: Re: IN> Celestial plurals (was Purity grammar content) I researched this (briefly) after the last time it came up. Jesse wrote: > I have yet to find the real-world-usage singular of Lilim, though > I think there must have been one. An informant tells me that the singular of 'Lilim' should be 'Lilith', or rather that Lilim is what you get when you pluralise Lilith. I think I have also heard Lilithim, but not from a scholarly source. I am not sure of the correctness of 'Lilim' to mean 'Those who are of Lilith'. However, the Sumerian word Lili, plural Lilitu, means spirit, which means that the Lilitu could be spirits in general, or a particular type of spirit. If Hebrew had stolen Lili to mean that same type of spirit, the plural would be (warding sign against well-informed nitpickers) Lilim. And their progenitor could get the name Lilith after several centuries of etymology. That didn't quite happen IRL, but it's close enough. If you care about real-world grammar, you have to lose those -ite endings. I personally use: Seraph/Seraphim Cherub/Cherubim Ofan/Ofanim Eloah/Elohim [On grammatical grounds. Pronounced ell-o-ay/ell-o-im] Melach/Melachim [ 'Blessed' IIRC. A genuine choir of angels.] or Malak/Malakim as an anglicised corruption. Kyriotate/s Mercurian/s Balseraph/Balseraphim [stress the second syllable] Djinni/Djinn [Just to complicate things, the only Arabic choir] Impudite/s I'm still undecided what to do with the rest of the demons: in games I avoid the issue shamelessly. Steve. - ------ "He's outrageous, he screams and he roars, Djinn/Djinni, let yourself go..." One off-topic cool point to the first correct answer out of the hat. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 22:25:05 -0500 From: Nana Yaw Ofori Subject: Re: IN> Blandine's Boys >Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 10:16:34 -0800 (PST) >From: Querent >Subject: Re: IN> Blandine's Boys >I was thinking maybe the Celestial could just will himself to sleep >and then jump to the Celestial realm. The problem? That's at least >one round that he has a sleeping body vulnerable to attack. > On the other hand, it's a Disturbance-Silent way to Ascend that doesn't leave your body mysteriously missing. Need to talk to your Superior on a transcontinental flight? Will yourself to sleep and hop the border. Even if the flight is full of Baal's servitors all planning to hijack the plane (Your own fault for choosing Flight 666), not a single one is going to notice you jumping for the Halls of Progress.. And it's a good thing that Celesials don't make a disturbance entering or leaving the Marches, or a 9-Forcer would alert pretty much everybody. = http://www.io.com/~beholder ===================== nofori@pop3.utoled.edu === Nana-Yaw "The Fish" Ofori, Freelance Soldier of Heck, presenty serving Spiner, Djinn Knight of Dark Humor, the Demon of Straight Men ===== ><{{"> ============ "Life's a Fish, then you Fry." ======= <"}}>< ====== ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 12:42:12 +0000 From: Julian Breen Subject: Re: IN> Hell's Runaways On Fri 20 Feb, Querent wrote: >A few questions: > >It takes a Will roll to go to the Corporeal realm from the Celestial. >It doesn't take a thing to go from the Celestial to the Corporeal. > >Why don't runaway demonlings and angels go joyriding down to Earth? Good point actually. I'm not sure where the logic is on this one. After all, celestials need a Will roll to ascend to the celestial plane, and they also need a Will to ascend to the ethereal, and indeed return from it. So why not returning to the corporeal (unless they return via a tether of course)? >My thinking is: Run where? They need their boss to give them a >vessel or they'd only be there for a few minutes and then come home to >an angry Superior. > >Hmmm...what if they can generate their own vessels? > If you look at digests 630 and 633 you'll find articles entitled 'Advanced Sorcery' which I posted. They might be of some use. Basically, from looking at the sorcery rules, I thought that there should be some mechanics present for sorcerors to be able to provide a vessel for a celestial that they summoned. In effect, the sorceror sacrifices a human and uses their body to house the summoned spirit. This vessel is effectively *free* to the celestial, yet does have certain limitations... >Can they generate their own vessels as if in Limbo? Through the long >drawn out approach? Is this merely a function of Limbo itself? > IMC I wouldn't let demons start creating their own vessels, and I *would* rule that the essence thing is just a function of Limbo. Yet maybe in Hell you *can* create your own. After all, you *are* free to do as you wish... If only those bigger guys wouldn't keep coming along and squeezing you for essence... If you go with the sorcery variant that I was working on then it does mean that if little Siggy can somehow make himself known to a sorceror, he might just get himself a vessel and some earthbound servitude ]:> >If they can't make their own, little Siggy will forever be picked on. > Yes. Delicious, isn't it? - -- Jules - Demon of 101 Creative Uses for a Set of Pliers. jules@bigjules.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 19:30:14 +0100 (MET) From: David Skogsberg Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Archangel of Purity On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Jesse wrote: > >Honour before life. Death before dishonour. > > And whiskey before breakfast! "Death before dishonor/Drugs before lunch" -Aspen Gun and Drugs Club cd - -- d97skog@dtek.chalmers.se | cd skogsberg ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 13:24:04 -0600 From: "S. Dickie" Subject: IN> Belial Rite makes no sense Howdy, I hope this hasn't been answerd before (if it has it aught to be added to the faq, I suppose). One of the rites for demons of Fire says "Spend half an hour in 250 deg. F heat." (The being must be immune to fire to benefit from this!) The problem is that Firewalker specifically say demons with this attunement are not immune to heat only fire. Does this mean the rite really is "Spend half an hour in flames that are at least 250 deg F"? Thanks ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:47:12 EST From: "Perry M. Lloyd" Subject: RE: IN> Re: Jean's Kyrios Earl writes: >Walter Milliken wrote: > >> This means that until this century, they didn't really have a special >> Choir attunement, though. That doesn't seem right. > >It seems to me that the roles of both Jean and Vapula have to be >pretty recent, or at least have to have changed radically in the >last few centuries. Vapula's might well be a very recent Princedom, >like that of Nybbas. Jean's Archangelic status might be recent, >or it might be that his Word has changed. Before electricity, >he may have been concerned only with literal lightning, other (more >obscure) electrical effects (like St. Elmo's fire), and perhaps >metaphorical extensions like the "flash of insight." Perhaps >he and Gabriel served the Apollonian and Dionysian sides of >inspiration, respectively. > >Earl It seems to me that technology has been with humanity for a very long time. How many creatures actually _use_ tools? Sure, monkeys use sticks to eat ants, but how many tie a rock to a stick and kill other creatures with it? My guess is ONE - humanity. What I am about to say may surprise and shock some people. If you offended by the idea that the wheel and using fire to cook is technology, then we have a difference of opinion which I do not want to argue about since I'm not going to change my mind. Is a spear considered technology? I say yes. How about the wheel, cooking food, bone knives, and spear-heads? If it was man-made, then I consider it technology and Vapula is all over that. I doubt that his Princedom is all the recent. With the use of techology in drawing people to their Fate and thus Hell, what with Wars, Evil Evil Voice-Mail, the Internet (you never know), and Weapons Galore... Anyway, I'd say he's a very, very old demon. My take on Lightning... Lightning perhaps gave humankind its first fires, striking trees and setting them aflame. God's gift of Fire. Or, maybe it was Gabriel, whatever. God giving humanity the "flash of insight" to make better technological inventions. Is it no surprise that the AA of Lightning is the Patron AA of techology and science and progress? If it is a surprise, let me say this. God's got a plan. Maybe, just maybe, a long, long time ago, before the power of electricity was ever harnessed, Jean knew that humanity would harness it. Maybe he knew that eventually humans would do it on their own or that he would "help" discover it, who knows? Perhaps Jean was at first unhappy to receive the word of Lightning. Maybe he decided that he would expand his word and see to it that it would become more powerful as humanity moved along. And so, he worked to make electricity/lightning more and more important to humanity and thus the Symphony. So, maybe Jean's a power-hungry little bugger, or maybe he was granted some insight into God's plan and saw that his Word was going to become very, very powerful and this is why he has been working so very, very hard to keep certain technological secrets out of the hands of humanity and Vapula. Ciao, - -Perry Perry M. Lloyd Check out the PBEM In Nomine: Soldiers of Linn webpage! "Nothing is sacred but truth. Too bad nobody can agree on what's sacred." ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #637 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.