From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Feb 25 19:38:45 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 TAA21546 for ; Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:38:44 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id TAA29863 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:15:25 -0600 Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:15:25 -0600 Message-Id: <199802260115.TAA29863@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 #645 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 Wednesday, February 25 1998 Volume 01 : Number 645 In this digest: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Mammon (was Varying Superior Disturbance Levels) Re: IN> Question about Grey Lilim and Malakim Re: IN> Question about Grey Lilim and Malakim Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Thor Point Re: IN> Malakite "Fire and Judgment" Resonance Suggestion Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors IN> A character: Redeemed by Judgment... IN> iNNOMINE LRP "tHE sYMPHONY" Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Question about Grey Lilim and Malakim Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors IN> A Minor Kyriotate Confusion Re: IN> iNNOMINE LRP "tHE sYMPHONY" IN> Damaging vessels pointblank Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 98 14:27 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors >But for the time being, H&H mentions Etecius - Seneschal of the Supreme >Court building in Washington as having 21 forces. Those should have been errata'ed by now -- official canon is that no one except Superiors has more than 18 Forces. > If this is the case, then I would >suggest that your are correct within the 20-30 forces range (approx). In excess of 18, anyway.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 98 14:31 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors >And what *does* happen if Haagenti tries to eat Mammon? Whatever the GM wants to, of course! They're both NPCs. I'm not against adding *some* detail to Superiors' powers, but actually quantifying it probably isn't necessary, unless PCs are ever expected to affect or become Superiors. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:48:22 GMT From: maya@tcp.co.uk (GR Cogman) Subject: Re: IN> Mammon (was Varying Superior Disturbance Levels) >I always wondered why Mammon wasn't an original DP. His power must be >immense. Money is the root of all evil, after all. Correction, in a nitpicking sort of way: the quotation is: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Slightly different emphasis. - --- Maya, Elohite of Eli in service to Blandine maya@tcp.co.uk - -- "There are those who say that wizards are subject to temptations and addictions beyond the understanding of ordinary men: the addiction to shape-changing, or to meditation under the influence of certain herbs and conditions of the stars; the obsession with knowledge, and the development of power. Yet this is not so. Temptation is temptation, obsession is obsession, and choice is choice." - Isar Chelladan, Precepts of Wizardry. -- "Dog Wizard", Barbara Hambly. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 98 14:41 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Question about Grey Lilim and Malakim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 98 14:57 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Question about Grey Lilim and Malakim >Erm. Okay. After a looong time musing over what I wanted to do in my >campaign, I decided to have as NPCs a grey lilim and a malakite who >are, erm, involved. Now, my question is: is it possible? I would say yes. After all, I'm doing something similar in my campaign - -- I have the original grey Lilim there.... It does, however, depend on the Malakite in question. Some Malakim tend to interpret their oath "not to suffer an evil to live" as "demons are evil; kill demons". That's generally true for those serving the "war party" in my campaign: Dominic, Michael, David, and Laurence. However, if one of these killed a "good" demon, i.e., one their resonance didn't show as worse than average on the good/evil scale, they might get in trouble -- especially if they didn't check with their resonance first. Even if they decided that they didn't have to kill the demon, they're not going to be comfortable with it, though.... Other Malakim are more flexible, either understanding that not all demons are strictly evil, or interpreting "not suffer ... to live" as not necessarily requiring killing the perpetrator as much as correcting their evil nature. In fact, and an little off-track, I came up with the notion the other day that "not suffer an evil to live" isn't limited to *people* -- some Malakim, especially those of the peace faction, may try to "kill" *social* evils: poverty, slavery, and the like. That greatly expands their scope from simple sword-swinging crusaders against demonkind to include placard-wielding social crusaders. > And if the >lilim placed a geasa on the malakite, how would that fly with his >superior? Generally not well. A "nice" Lilim would give back the hook -- if they're keeping it, it implies selfishness, which is generally a bad sign. > Are there written >down any rules about how a grey lilim acts? I think Elizabeth has some stuff -- I think it's gone in as a Pyramid article, having not made it into the IPG. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 98 15:22 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors >FORCES - This has been the greatest point of disagreement that I have >seen thus far; How many Forces does a Superior have? Given their >disturbance on the Corporeal Plane, it suggests perhaps either 20-30 >total, or roughly 20 or so Corporeal and 30 or so Celestially. Some have >suggested that Superiors should have hundreds of Forces and others have >said nearly unlimited. Personally, I'm not sure anymore how many Forces >they should have. I've been thinking a bit about this, also, and came up with the notion that Superiors have 18 Forces among Corporeal/Ethereal/Celestial; the remainder of their Forces are tied up in their Word, and wax and wane with the power of the Word. I may propose this as canon, if there is ever any serious attempt to describe game mechanics for Superiors. >DISSONANCE - Superiors suffer from the same Dissonance that their >servents have as well as those of the individual Superior's Choir/Band. It's not clear to me if a Superior *can* be dissonant -- they *are* their Word, so they can't really act against their nature; they merely redefine their Word a bit by their actions. >ATTUNEMENTS and DISTINCTIONS - Superiors have every Choir/Band and >Servitor Attunements they give their servents, as well as possessing all >the abilities their Distinctions grant. I also assume Superiors have the abilities of all Choirs (or Bands). It's already canon that Superiors can be present in multiple places at once, like Kyrios. A Superior's Choir or Band is probably more important in their psychology than in defining what they can do. >TETHERS - In order for a Superior to have any Influence in the Corporeal >World, they must have at least 1 Tether. From what I've figured out, >that if a Superior loses all his or her Tethers, then he or she becomes >very weak.. perhaps loses half of his Forces? I don't know, just an idea >off the top of my head. I've been thinking that Tethers are partly Essence generators/conduits to the Superior helping feed him Essence from the power of his Word in the corporeal world. Thus, without Tethers, the Superior's major Essence flow is diminished severely. Tether canon may be established sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'll probably propose something like this. >ESSENCE CACHE - I think that Superiors have an Essence Cache similar to >Ethereals, equal to 100 times their total Forces, which is used for >creating Vessels and perhaps other things. This may be possible. Another notion, which I've been playing with for Word-bound, is that a Word generates a continuous flow of Essence to the holder, of a magnitude comparable to the Word's power in the corporeal world. Tethers are a way of more efficiently conducting this Essence (i.e., they amplify it in some fashion). So a Word-bound would have access to a certain amount of Essence per turn, plus all the Essence stored in the Forces comprising his Word, plus all the Essence stored in his "personal" Forces. That gives Superiors a *lot* of Essence to play with, since the Word-flow replenishes them, if they even happen to need to tap it (rather than simply use the Essence flowing through their Word for needs of the moment). This, combined with the Forces idea, goes a *long* way toward explaining why Superiors want to promote their Words. >CREATING ANGELS AND DEMONS - Superiors, thru their Essence Cache and >perhaps thru a Skill of Force Binding(?), are able to take either some >of their Forces, other Celestial's Forces, or using Essence to create >the Forces. I think canon may address this issue fairly soon -- what you propose sounds plausible, though the ability may be more of an attunement or Song than a skill. >SONGS AND SKILLS - Superiors buy Songs and Skills as normal characters, >except they may learn them up to level 12(?). With lots of Essence to play with, there's no real need to up skill levels -- they merely boost themselves to whatever level is needed. It's noisy, but then, Superiors aren't supposed to be mucking about in the corporeal realm much, anyway. I would generally assume any Superior has any important skill at 6, ditto for Songs. >SUPERIOR SONGS - To make things simple, all effects of a Superior's >Songs are 10 times the normal levels, except for damage with is 2 times >the normal levels. (?) With virtually unlimited Essence, Superiors could boost effects of normal Songs to unusual levels. Also, there are almost certainly Songs restricted to Superiors, or ones which simply require *lots* of Essence to use. I don't think there's any real need to go beyond the existing mechanics, except possibly to lift limits on Essence used imposed in certain Songs. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 20:21:38 +0000 From: Julian Breen Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Earl Wajenberg writes > >> I, *personally*, don't see why the superior has to so excede his >> immediate inferiors by such a high margin. > >He doesn't, but the IN book talks up the power of the Superiors >no end, and makes them clearly beyond the reach of mere PCs. > But that may only be because it would take you as a player character many, many, sessions to get the experience needed to approach their power levels. Lets just say that the average Superior has 30 forces (Lets just *say* :) ). Assuming that you as a character get around 2 exp.points every trip, *and* assuming that you put these most cost effectively into force generation *and* assuming that you survive, *and* assuming that you can find a Word worthy enough of Superior status, this means that you'll be eligible for promotion to their exalted ranks after 105 trips. Now that, to me, *is* generally out of the range of mere PCs :) I think that my campaign might finish well before, because with myself playing roughly one eight hour stint a week, that would take me about two years real time! Yet it would still be possible for a PC to get there... If the object of most celestials existance is aspiration to a Word, why should they not stand a chance of becoming the ultimate embodiment of one? - -- Jules - Demon Uber Alles jules@bigjules.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:05:33 -0500 From: Andrew Frades Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors > > > And what *does* happen if Haagenti tries to eat Mammon? > > > > Depends upon what you want to have happen and what will fit your > > campaign. If you give the Superiors stats you might be boxed into > > the idea that if the two fight one would win while the other would > > be crippled. If you want that, fine. > > I do, personally. I want internal consistancy. I want to know what > would happen without having to decide on the basis of plot. Does > anybody else, or should I just quietly slink away? And what pray tell is internally inconsistant with the following: PC: "Ok, having just convinced the Servitor of the War to summon Baal, I now prepare to attack him" GM: "Baal shows up in a thrum of Celestial drums, from the sound they are war drums. You determine that he is in corporeal form from the way the Symphony is resonating." PC: "I attack," , "I'm using my flaming sword so my skill is..." GM: "Baal procedes to beat the ever loving crap out of you. Sending you back to Heaven to lick your wounds and wonder why you ever thought that attacking a Superior was a good idea." ... Later ... PC: "Ok, everything is all set up. This time when Baal shows up, all forty of us attack." GM: "Everything goes as before and you wake up in Heaven with thirty-nine less friends and a Superior who is simply pissed that they bothered to give you a vessel again after the last stupid idea you had. You are reasigned to desk duty for 1000 years..." Andrew ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:12:29 -0500 From: Andrew Frades Subject: Re: IN> Thor Point Julian Breen wrote: > Incidentally, do any of you beautiful people have any idea on how much > each strength level can lift? Especially the upper levels...9+? Assuming that strength is fairly linear and the average person can lift (bench press) about 100 lbs and the greats bench about 700 lbs. This would mean that a 12 strength could bench about half a ton. Now if you decided to use a more exponential scale and interpretting the above approximations would give you an upper lift of about a ton. I would tend to use the second choice as IMO it better gives the feel that a strength above 9 is truly amazing without having the ability to pick up and hurl cars and trucks... Tip them over, sure, but not throw them around. Andrew ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 09:06:15 GMT+10 From: "Leath Sheales" <938269@wrpc.riv.csu.edu.au> Subject: Re: IN> Malakite "Fire and Judgment" Resonance Suggestion "R. Sean Borgstrom" wrote: The victim can, > of course, resist with a Will roll. Whether the victim makes > their roll or not, they will suffer the check digit in Mind hits > as they confront their most unpleasant deeds inside their > head. If they're going to suffer Mind hits anyway, why bother resisting? IMO, this Resonance should work more like the Lilim: if the victim resists, the Malakite suffers Dissonance AND the number of mind hits he would have caused the target. Splitting headache for failure, anyone? Leath. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 21:17:25 +0000 From: Julian Breen Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Nathaniel writes >I do, personally. I want internal consistancy. I want to know what >would happen without having to decide on the basis of plot. Does >anybody else, or should I just quietly slink away? > No way Nate! I'm with ya! Waddya reckon, back to back, reckon we can take these punks..? - -- Jules - Djinn of Overconfidence jules@bigjules.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 09:24:06 GMT+10 From: "Leath Sheales" <938269@wrpc.riv.csu.edu.au> Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Nathaniel wrote: > Well, a 20 force superior is pretty small; there are canon Word-bound > that are larger than that. My preference would be ~75 for DPs and > ~120 for AAs; that would take a small army of regular angels and > demons to take down. I'd agree with this for established AAs and DPs. IMO opinion (I may be alone), when Furfer became a DP, he didn't suddenly jump up to this level. I think that when Lucifer made him DP of Hardcore he probably tacked on a few extra Forces, maybe so he's around 20 Forces. Night Music specifically says that this is a dangerous time for Furfer. I interpret this as meaning that he has to hide from other DPs who want to kill him while forging alliances. Then he has to attract servants to his Word, who will generate Essence for him (through Rites) so he can grow and consolidate his power. An idea which suddenly occurred to me is perhaps Superior-level Celestials (who we'll say can have Essence caches like Ethereals) increase in Forces when they collect enough Essence, say perhaps ten-times their current Forces? Then when a Servant performs a Rite, 1 point of Essence goes to the servant, and 1 gets channeled to the Superior, through the enforcement of his Word. In this method, servants can generate Essence for their Superior, who grows in power. When Furfer can collect 200 Essence, he'll be 21 forces. Another 210 Essence 22 Forces etc. With the day-to-day needs of spending Essence to create new servants and other duties, it keeps Superior growth slow, plus explains why the more powerful Superiors (Michael, Gabriel etc.) aren't having great increases in power. They're powerful as it is, so with the need to spend their hoarded Essence, they can't accumulate enough to gain more Forces without effort (assuming Michael's around 100 Forces, he'd need 1000 Essence just to become 101 Forces!) Hmm, any opinions? Leath. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 17:07:22 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> A character: Redeemed by Judgment... "I'd worked for certain...people in the past. That's what got me my DA job. Then I got offered a position as a junior partner in a nice little private firm. One who did a lot of _pro bono_ cases, took things on for a cut of the winnings, that sort of thing. They were really good about helping out the people who needed to be helped, instead of just going for the ones who could afford it. Hey, they had the right attitude, so I agreed. I hadn't known the entire firm was Soldiers, or I'd never have stayed up all night on the Krantz case. A few months later, I met the senior partner, on the day of the week he was talking to the *founding* partner... I think the 'recruitment speech' turned out a little differently than usual, after I said yes. Not every day you get to shock an Archangel, *meaning* that 'yes'." Dedan, Bright Lilim of Judgment Forces: 9 Corporeal 2 Strength: 4 Agility 4 Ethereal 4 Intelligence: 9 Precision: 7 (Mind Hits: 36) Celestial 3 Will: 6 Perception: 6 (Soul Hits: 18) Vessel: Human/2, Charisma +1, Role ("Debra Daniels," Lawyer/4, Status/4), Body Hits: 16 Skills (& Target Numbers): Computer Operation/1 (T#10), Detect Lies/3 (T#9), Dodge/1 (T#5), Driving/1 (T#8), Emote/2 (T#8), Fast-Talk/3 (T#9), Knowledge (Law/1) (T#10), Lying/1 (T#10), Move Silently/1 (T#5), Ranged Weapon (Pistol/1) (T#8), Savoir-Faire/1 (T#10), Seduction/1 (T#7), Singing/1 (T#7). Songs: Affinity (Celestial/1), Charm (Celestial/1) Attunements: Bright Lilim of Judgment Dedan is really something of a "thought exercise" in the kind of personality (esp. Lilim personality) who *could* get redeemed by Judgment. (And I don't mean the BalDom version.) It would have to be someone who was really concerned with justice beforehand -- say, a Lilim who'd gotten a little ...enthusiastic... about the idea of defending people against the "bigger boys" who had money to throw at lawyers. She gets a nice little spot with the DA, being a court-appointed lawyer for a while, and then this law firm -- run by Soldiers -- asks if she wants to join... Okay, so you're a demon who's been in the habit of helping out the little guy, the people who don't really have the money that they need to stand up for themselves in a court of law. Maybe you've gotten some hooks on the side, but hey, you haven't used one to benefit the guilty for a long time! And then you get asked to talk to the senior partner, the one who's been out of town for a while. But what you don't know is that the senior partner is an angel, and that right after he finishes doing the explanation about the War (you're sitting there trying to decide whether to laugh or run and settling for a calmly fascinated "go on, this is interesting") -- *his* boss is going to show up for that weekly visit. Lucky for Dedan, she really *was* interested. The senior partner asked, "So, do you want to join up on the side of the angels?" Dedan said, "Yes." And the Archangel in the background who had just shown up said, "By God, you really mean that." Dedan's not earned her wings fully, yet -- she needs to acquire a Servitor Attunement before she's considered to be a "full fledged" angel -- but she's done a good enough job that she can access a Choir Attunement. (I'm using the Bright Lilim Attunements, from the INC. If those don't suit your tastes, give her the Elohite of Judgment Choir Attunement.) She's mostly been working with the Soldiers, but may be tapped for triad-duty in the future. (She'd definitely be paired with a couple of older, steady angels.) I am not entirely sure which Prince she might have been serving previously, but for the story to work right, she'd have to have practically gone Renegade already -- in which case she has her ex-Prince's bully-boys gunning for her -- or have been a Free, in which case she'll probably owe some Geases to Lilith. Either can serve as a source of plot-potentials... Dedan is a balanced starting character, suitable to boggle your PCs. ("Why do you Need us to go away, angel?") - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 22:31:20 +0000 From: "PD Andrews" Subject: IN> iNNOMINE LRP "tHE sYMPHONY" In the digests Innomine LRP has been mentioned. I might have missed it, but is there any ETA for "the Symphony"? Is it going to be a largescale organised thing i.e: UK Masquerade for Vampire etc.. (if so, where do I sign up?) Paul Reliever (Calabite aspirant) "Of course you can trust me with that. I personally guarantee absolutely no harm will come to it..." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 18:31:33 +0000 From: Julian Breen Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Peter Frederick writes >I tend towards the abstract and freeform for anything over 18 total forces. > As a Word Bound Angel of Over 18 Forces in my mind is the sort of entity >who has a fair number of servitors who have anything up to 18 Forces then >they should be much bigger than their servitors, a figure like 100 Forces >occurs to me. And given that Arch Angels (and DP's) can have a fair number >of these sort of Word Bound working for them they should have even more >Forces, the figure 1000 springs irresistably to mind. This set up also >reinforces the "flash you're dead" aspect of directly facing up to any >Superior. > I, *personally*, don't see why the superior has to so excede his immediate inferiors by such a high margin. Take as an example, a feudal baron. He didn't have to be tougher than any vassal beneath him, and in many cases would be considerable weaker or less experienced. All that he had to do was be capable of commanding the obediance of his subordinates... >If there wasn't this sort of rise in power as you went up in the hierarchy, >or down the lowerarchy, then I feel there would be a lot more upward >movement, as opposed to the downwards movement we hear about amongst Demons >who's ambition attracts their Superior's attention. But surely, if you were this powerful as a DP, you wouldn't worry about intrigue and backstabbing because no uppity servitor is going to touch you. If there is not *much* difference between you and your more senior servants then you're constantly having to monitor them and/or slap them down. - -- Jules - Balseraph with Eyes in the Back of his Head jules@bigjules.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 09:54:30 +1100 From: christopher.stevenson@aihw.gov.au (Chris Stevenson) Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors >GM: "Baal procedes to beat the ever loving crap out of >you. Sending you back to Heaven to lick your wounds and wonder why you >ever thought that attacking a Superior was a good idea." >GM: "Everything goes as before and you wake up in Heaven with >thirty-nine less friends and a Superior who is simply pissed that they >bothered to give you a vessel again after the last stupid idea you had. >You are reasigned to desk duty for 1000 years..." > >Andrew Oh, and Baal could send a conciliatory but patronising letter to the Superior in Heaven about the loss of angel power and how to recruit better. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 10:44:02 +1100 From: christopher.stevenson@aihw.gov.au (Chris Stevenson) Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors >> Realism in a world of supernatural things? An interesting notion. > >Don't knock it till you try it. Realism isn't about keeping the >laws of physics; things must be internally consistant, that's all. It was a joke. :-) But doesn't this statement contradict your later statement about no balance. >> Unless a player is controlling an arch beast, isn't the result >> the impact of one GM-defined thing against another GM-defined thing? > >At some point, yes. That's the whole point: I want to know how Baal >is going to walk when he leaves a fight with Mammon. Without simply >rolling and shouting - roll and shout (IMO) is something that should >be reserved for when you don't have time to work out the answer. I >have time to work out a Baal vs. Mammon match. So the GM says one loses a chunk from the backside which makes walk funny and brings tears to the eyes of any compassionate creature. 'Without simply rolling...', I didn't suggest rolling in the first place. :-) Whether you have time to work it out or not, I'm suggesting there is no point unless you intend for the GM and players to play Mortal Kombat. I can't see the benefit of a random element in GM contrived circumstances. One could almost say that the GM is condoning an argument from a player about a GM decision along the lines of: 'let's just make a roll to see if you're right, GM.' >> I would think that all these GM-defined things form a cosmic >> balance, realistic or not, and the outcome would be patent. > >Not necessarily; in my campaign, the balance is political, and many >of the lesser superiors would take a tromping in a good long fight. > >> Granted a realistic determination requires some frame of reference, >> but why must it be quantifiable? Surely a qualitative assessment >> would serve as well. > >Not if I wanted to know specifics from an inter-Superior fight. How >hurt will Baal be before he reduces Mammon to kibble? Would it be >enough for another Prince to risk an attack? And would that other >Prince succeed or fail? I still say it's not necessary to count beans. The GM just decides how hurt Baal will be before it reduces Mammon to kibble. And whether another arch beast will risk an attack. And whether that attack will succeed or fail. But of course, in the waves of superior machinations, perhaps a PC celestial may make a ripple. >> But by saying 'not in my game', isn't the GM invalidating his or her >> own quantifiable argument? > >What I was saying is that by saying on the list that "Superiors >shouldn't be quantified", you discourage a potentially valuable >resource for both yourself and me. I, personally, am in favor of >finding some good frame of reference; if you don't like it, replace >it with your own or discard it completely. I believe Superior statistics are a liability rather than a resource. But, in the end, we all do what we want to do. I'm happy to debate the pros and cons of Superior statistics ad infinitum without either of us ever seeing the light. If that's a problem, I'll stop now. :-) >Nathaniel Eliot Achilles had a heel, and someone found it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 18:57:56 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Question about Grey Lilim and Malakim At 2:57 PM -0500 2/25/98, Walter Milliken wrote: >>Erm. Okay. After a looong time musing over what I wanted to do in my >>campaign, I decided to have as NPCs a grey lilim and a malakite who >>are, erm, involved. Now, my question is: is it possible? > >I would say yes. After all, I'm doing something similar in my campaign >-- I have the original grey Lilim there.... http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Demons/Lilim.Urilebana.html The original "Gray Lilim." >Other Malakim are more flexible, either understanding that not all >demons are strictly evil, or interpreting "not suffer ... to live" as >not necessarily requiring killing the perpetrator as much as correcting >their evil nature. Destiny, for instance, might say, "Well, this demon isn't very evil, and with a little work and guidance, could go Bright! And thus evil is no longer living, *and* we have another angel! Besides, just toasting the vessel will probably result in a ticked off selfish demon popping out later. Bad. Encourages evil and fate." Others might simply twitch and remove themselves from the presence of the abnormal demon -- they don't have the patience to deal with the conflict of "evil demon" and "this demon not very evil". >> And if the >>lilim placed a geasa on the malakite, how would that fly with his >>superior? > >Generally not well. A "nice" Lilim would give back the hook -- if >they're keeping it, it implies selfishness, which is generally a bad >sign. If there were some *reason*, that the Malakite agreed with, to keep a hook or invoke a Geas, that might work. But I can only think of two, and any sensible Lilim would be *very* dubious about having a Geas on a friend that she might be forced to invoke in the cause of evil! (Her own Geases might get called in at any time, after all!) #1: she wants to be able to trace him, and has the Celestial Song of Affinity. (From the Liber Relequarum; it works like the CelSong of Attraction, I believe, but you can use it if you have something the person made/is bonded with (an artifact, say) or a Geas/Geas-hook.) #2: they want to play the "Wookie Prisoner" schtick. "Let me put a big old year-Geas around your neck, and we can tell the demons that you're my slave, which will slow them down long enough to do [x]. Mind you, any self-respecting Free would be very uncomfortable enslaving someone else to her will, if she's at all non-selfish. >> Are there written >>down any rules about how a grey lilim acts? > >I think Elizabeth has some stuff -- I think it's gone in as a Pyramid >article, having not made it into the IPG. Gray Renegades in general, it worked out as, actually. And yes, Pyramid. I don't know which issue it will appear in yet. At 10:24 AM -0500 2/25/98, Raoul Duke wrote: >On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Twila Oxley Price wrote: > >> Are there written down any rules about how a grey lilim acts? >Not officially, but check the In Nomine Collection pages; I'm positive >Beth (Queen of the Lilim) has done something on it. Queen? And poor Lilith a mere Princess? Hm. I suppose it could work that way. Though Em has a certain influence on me as well. (It's Dai. That angst-fest Lilim is just too insidious.) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 18:50:17 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors At 1:56 AM +0000 2/25/98, Nathaniel Eliot wrote: >So I tend to be in favor of Superiors having statistics. I've said before that using the Amber system for Superiors might be a viable sort of thing... I think that if there ever *were* Stats for Superiors, they'd be Superior stats, and no real corrolation given. Essence might be the one common thing. So it would be a case of measuring Superiors against each other, and you see these little one-Force critters? Those are standard PC-grade celestials. You don't like one? Squish. Sorta like how humans are already, only moreso. So pick something in uberForces, and scale as whim dictates. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:08:25 -0500 From: "Michael Stanley" Subject: IN> A Minor Kyriotate Confusion On page 55 of the "Angelic Players Guide" the following can be read: "Manifestations on the ethereal plane require 3 free Forces per ethereal form. The angel may not enter the Marches by going to sleep in one of its hosts, nor need any of its hosts sleep. Instead, the Kyriotate must make a Will roll to place the invested Forces in a dreamlike state." Now I know that Kyriotate servitors of Blandine can have multiple manifestations in the Marches equal to their number of Ethereal Forces; but does this passage from the AGP mean that *all* Kyriotates can have multiple maifestations providing they have 3 Forces per appearance, or does this just mean that each time they enter the Marches (single "form") that they must have 3 free Forces. Thanks in advance, - -Michael- Michael Stanley, "Self-Proclaimed Demon Prince of Tortured GMs" :-) Email: stanman@netset.com WWW: http://www.netset.com/~stanman/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 18:02:14 -0500 From: eswhanu@juno.com Subject: Re: IN> iNNOMINE LRP "tHE sYMPHONY" You may be (I think) referring to my group's Live Action In Nomine effort, "The Symphony - Live", which we ran at Dreamation 1998, a gaming convention in the Northeast United Stated. Our first event was called Purity, which dealt with the apparent soul-killing of Eli at the hands of Uriel, and the madness that resulted with this apparent rogue (and quite insane) celestial walking the Earth. Oh, and Eli's Lunchbox, which was a portable Tether to Yves' Library and held several tasty ham sandwiches... We had 46 players, and it went very well. We are still in the process of editing rules, working on difficulties such as Disturbances in the Symphony, and creating scenarios between the Angelic and the Diabolic that don't result in mass combat. As for an organization, you have to wait until the game gets written... but hopefully, SJ picks it up when we get done with it. Brian Ward Theatre in the Darkness of Our Soul www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/3841/theatre.html On Wed, 25 Feb 1998 22:31:20 +0000 "PD Andrews" writes: > >In the digests Innomine LRP has been mentioned. I might have missed >it, but>is there any ETA for "the Symphony"? > >Is it going to be a largescale organised thing i.e: UK Masquerade for >Vampire etc.. (if so, where do I sign up?) > >Paul >Reliever (Calabite aspirant) > >"Of course you can trust me with that. I personally guarantee >absolutely no >harm will come to it..." > > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:20:58 -0500 (EST) From: Highway Star Subject: IN> Damaging vessels pointblank Just out of curiousity (and yes, you can read this, Dan)... What happens if someone shoots a vessel pointblank with a shotgun, or cuts its throat, etc? Is it automatically *dead*, like a human would be, or is there just damage and it keeps functioning? In my first session of the campaign, the Malakite wanted to take an unconscious Calabite and kill it. I let him do it "off-screen" much as if he'd wanted to take the cute girl at his bar back to his joint. (Let's not get gratuitous or anything, right?) SeanMike - -- SeanMike Balseraph of Gratuitous Unnecessary Disgusting Comments Except While Playing Role-Playing Games ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 18:37:05 +0000 From: "Patrick Chester" Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors > > > >GM: "Baal procedes to beat the ever loving crap out of > >you. Sending you back to Heaven to lick your wounds and wonder why you > >ever thought that attacking a Superior was a good idea." > > > > >GM: "Everything goes as before and you wake up in Heaven with > >thirty-nine less friends and a Superior who is simply pissed that they > >bothered to give you a vessel again after the last stupid idea you had. > >You are reasigned to desk duty for 1000 years..." > > > >Andrew > > Oh, and Baal could send a conciliatory but patronising letter to the > Superior in Heaven about the loss of angel power and how to recruit better. "The Department of The War regrets to inform you that your Servitors are dead because they were stupid....." :-) - -- Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus) wolfone@io.com "Well Jim, that proves it. The Universe not made up of an endless vacuum of eternal nothingness like we once believed. The Universe is in fact made up of Fabio." -Cape Carbunkle bunch at work. :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:41:48 -0800 From: Drake Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors Well, from what I have seen in responce to my post, that many people do think that Superiors (Archangels, Demon Princes, and perhaps even some of the more powerful Ethereal Spirits/Gods) should have some sort of "stat" levels. The question is, how. Should they be designed just like all other characters in the game or different? I would really like to see some replies suggesting how to do this. After all, I'm not so much suggesting everyone has to use this and I'm not concerned about what others do in their own campaigns. I simply think there should be power listings for them, for my campaign and to be out there for anyone that would like to have them. So any ideas are more then welcome. Amon-Nahashel "Drake" Utterly Devoted Seraph of War ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 20:05:06 -0800 From: Drake Subject: Re: IN> Statistics for Superiors As to giving Superiors actual stats, I have been thinking about using 2 sources from another game as a suggested guideline. Legends and Lore and Wrath of the Immortals from Dungeon and Dragons games. These products do attempt to give power levels for the Gods. One noteable thing is their stature levels. In legends and lore it ranges from Demi, Lesser, Intermediate, and Greater Gods, with increased power the higher you go. Wrath of the Immortals has a smilar structure, but I can't remember it off hand, but it has about 6 levels of power. And within those 6 levels, the Gods have various other power levels as well. Such as a Power Point level, which is similar to Essence in IN, and is used for the same things. Attribute wise, they range from slightly better then normal humans, to 4 times the maximum stat level (which is 25, 100 for the most powerful Gods). So thus in attributes, the most powerful Gods out there would be roughly 10 times more powerful then a normal human. What made them so powerful though, wasnt their attributes, but their actual powers and what they could do. Including an ability to actually create things, such as countries, planets, moons, stars, even an entire universe, or simply to change these. This of course required a great amount of Power and only the most powerful of beings could do it. Yet they did not have that powerful of attributes. So thus I think that Superiors shouldn't really have that high of Forces in comparison to characters, but should have an Essence Cache of about 100 times their Forces. That should be more then enough to make them more powerful then most characters, even an 18 Force Archangel would have 1800 Essence to use. Not to mention the fact that they would have high levels of songs, characteristics, attunements, rites, and probly a lot of special abilities. So whatcha think? Amon-Nahashel "Drake", Faithful Serpent of God and Seraph of War ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #645 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.