From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Jul 29 08:45:26 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA16534 for ; Wed, 29 Jul 1998 08:45:25 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id IAA31626 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 29 Jul 1998 08:42:19 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 08:42:19 -0500 Message-Id: <199807291342.IAA31626@lists.io.com> X-Authentication-Warning: lists.io.com: majordom set sender to owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com using -f From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #882 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, July 29 1998 Volume 01 : Number 882 In this digest: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? Re: IN> Questions of Religion and Truth(Monster Post!) Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #880 Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #880 Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? Re: IN> Kyrios in Celestial combat, remnants etc.->Golems RE: IN> Re: your mail IN> Operation Satan (was Re: Judaism again) Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) IN> Uriel's Crusade IN> Finding Dreamscapes IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one IN> Angelic memory IN> Singing Question Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? Re: IN> Roles and Celestial Detection Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 12:24:03 -0700 From: "E Kumar" Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? As an aside : Malakim- Listen I'm a US citizen. Customs Agent- Well there's no proof. What's your mothers maiden name? Malakim- "Mary". *laughing* - ---------- > From: Jo Hart > To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com > Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? > Date: Tuesday, July 28, 1998 11:15 AM > > At 11:05 28/07/98 -0800, you wrote: > > > >I've been lurking on this one to see what the positions were, and no one > >seems to run this the way I do. > > > >My take on the role is that it works like a Jedi mind trick. Your > >celestial walks up to a person and states, "I'm a Reporter for the Daily > >Planet". In their mind, assuming that you have the appropriate role and > >level, they see a press pass and other necessary credentials. > > > > I'd go for something like that ;) > > I think of it this way. How well do you actually know anyone? How well do > you know your next door neighbour? Maybe they make a lot of noise when they > go out in the morning or you can sometimes smell burning toast from their > kitchen at night, but do they _really_ exist for you in any other sense at > all? How well do you know people at work? They wander past your desk > occasionally but do they really exist after you leave the office. > > I submit that some people are just more _real_ than others. A level 1 role > will be like that next door neighbour -- a few people will 'know' them, > without really knowing them. Enough paperwork to support that will exist, > if anyone searches, but no more. Any enquiries will find that.. no-one > really knows them at all well. They simply aren't very real to anyone, > except possibly other celestials/ soldiers etc. > > > jo > ---===--- > "Some people leave money for the improvement of public buildings. I can > leave dynamite for the improvement of public buildings." > --- G. K. Chesterton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 98 16:03 EDT From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Questions of Religion and Truth(Monster Post!) > The reason for a lot of the confusion or deliberate blurring of history in >IN seems to be simple enough: memory. Although the way celestial (or ethereal, >for that matter) memory works is vague at best, there are many indications that >most celestials (i.e. non-Superiors) have a limited capacity for remembering >events which is usually greater than human capacity but still finite. Well, some of the confusion in IN history is simply errors of one sort or another creeping in via fallible human writers and editors. This includes Em's favorite, the bit about Uriel's Crusade destroying some of the South American gods who weren't actually around then. However, there is a canon statement (I think it's in the APG's history section) that even Superiors can't remember back clearly more than a few thousand years or so. Angelic memory, at least, is clearly not perfect even over the shorter term, since otherwise Jean's Seraphim attunement would be pretty much unnecessary. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 16:05:53 EDT From: MarkDEddy@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) In a message dated 7/28/98 12:57:05 PM, akira@sprint.ca writes: >Satan actually means "enemy " so are you sure about the nickname thing? > > Correction: Satan actually means "Adversary" or "Accuser," with the implied meaning of "Prosecuting Attorney." It's a job title more than anything else. Of course, Lucifer means "Light-bearer," and is also a title. Just a clarification, Mark ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 98 16:07 EDT From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? >My take on the role is that it works like a Jedi mind trick. Your >celestial walks up to a person and states, "I'm a Reporter for the Daily >Planet". In their mind, assuming that you have the appropriate role and >level, they see a press pass and other necessary credentials. That's one approach, but a) it doesn't really match the ways Roles are described in canon, and more important, b) it doesn't explain why the *Symphony* accepts you as the Role -- i.e., it doesn't explain the disturbance-surpressing effects of Roles. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 21:10:46 +0100 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 07:15:08PM +0100, Jo Hart wrote: > >My take on the role is that it works like a Jedi mind trick. Your > >celestial walks up to a person and states, "I'm a Reporter for the Daily > >Planet". In their mind, assuming that you have the appropriate role and > >level, they see a press pass and other necessary credentials. > > > > I'd go for something like that ;) > In my mind, if they have the press pass and other necessary credentials, the person will tend to believe them. If not, the person will or will not believe them, depending on how suspicious the person is. > I think of it this way. How well do you actually know anyone? How well do > you know your next door neighbour? Maybe they make a lot of noise when they > go out in the morning or you can sometimes smell burning toast from their > kitchen at night, but do they _really_ exist for you in any other sense at > all? Not my next door neighbours, but they exist for other people. How well do you know people at work? They wander past your desk > occasionally but do they really exist after you leave the office. > Sometimes you see them in the city streets. > I submit that some people are just more _real_ than others. A level 1 role > will be like that next door neighbour -- a few people will 'know' them, > without really knowing them. Enough paperwork to support that will exist, > if anyone searches, but no more. Any enquiries will find that.. no-one > really knows them at all well. They simply aren't very real to anyone, > except possibly other celestials/ soldiers etc. > This makes sense, kind of. But it doesn't work everywhere, and there is a certain amount of knowledge that's required. If you're asked where you're from often, and you give a consistent answer, you're eventually going to meet people who come from where you claim to be from. This can cause problems. Taking an example from a real life secret war (that is; secret in the sense of not consisting of pitched battles), the Troubles in the North, should prove instructive in showing the kind of things that break roles. This is all from Martin Dillon's book, The Dirty War, from a chapter entitled "Robert Nairac - Hero or Villain?". Robert Nairac was an undercover SAS agent who was killed by IRA members and sympathisers in an apparently unauthorised action in the '70s. "Many questions need to be answered. Why was Nairac encouraged or permitted to enter a Provo area with an alias which was that of a member of the Official IRA? There was so much enmity between the two organisations that he would have been regarded with suspicion. Why was he allowed to visit a pub from a catchment area which included Crossmaglen, where Nairac was known? Surely long hair and a moustache would not have changed the features of a man _whom people in Crossmaglen had undoubtedly scrutinised with a view to remembering him_ (my note: now isn't that significant?). The Three Steps Inn was in a remote part of South Armagh and was not a place where strangers would have gone for a drink. Why allow a good operative to risk life and limb with a weak alias, with no back-up and with a knowledge of Belfast that did not fool his captors? The fact that people thought his name was McElean indicates that he could not pronounce the 'r' in the name McErlean (earlier on in this chapter the author notes that there is no Catholic name McElean, and deduces that the name he had taken was McErlean, but that he was unable to overcome the British habit of almost omitting to pronounce 'r's in such positions); that would have been noticeable to Republicans suspicious of a stranger who claimed to be from Belfast. In an area so closely knit as South Armagh, most people in the bar on that fateful night would have viewed any outsider with suspicion and hostility." (This is an argument against the idea that Celestials can operate freely in such places as Northern Ireland without being literally snuck into the cradle.) It may also be noted that at one point during his "interrogation" "Townson insisted that if he was a 'stickie' (derogative term for a member of the Official IRA coined by the Provisional IRA) he would know 'stickies in Dundalk'" (This is an argument that can be applied to almost any roll; invariably someone will ask if you know their cousin/friend who works in the same field or worked in the same factory or was from the same town or went to the same school. If it's the latter, your Role is certainly doomed unless you did go to that school.) and also that an unnamed IRA source claimed to the author that the IRA knew that Nairac was a spy and probably SAS, and that the IRA were letting him go free in order to see what they could catch. In conclusion, most Roles are easy to break if people are suspicious enough and it wasn't built up from the cradle. Given the fact that thousands of minds and documents need to be affected in order to erase all doubt that someone does exist, I think reality-bending can be safely dismissed. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellow-citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such methods may gain empire, but not glory." Machiavelli, the Prince. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 21:16:47 +0100 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 11:26:54AM -0700, Graveyard Greg wrote: > > I'm wondering where people are getting these quotes from, because I > can't > > find any link to excerpts in the bit on Fall of the Malakim on the SJG > > homepage. Is this something magical that happens to people who connect > > from Ireland, or who use Netscape, or who have unknowingly incurred > the > > displeasure of the Game? I can see excerpts from the IPG without > > difficulty. > > The quote I used are from the rulebook. Sorry to confuse ya! > Now I'm more confused. Where did this stuff about the Malakite being ordered to stand around in LA come from? As I said, I see no excerpts on the web page. As an aside, shouldn't ordering dissonant behaviour be dissonant for David? As a Malakite, he's sworn not to suffer evil to live, and that's passively creating evil. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellow-citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such methods may gain empire, but not glory." Machiavelli, the Prince. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 16:20:33 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) MarkDEddy@aol.com wrote: > Correction: Satan actually means "Adversary" or "Accuser," with the > implied meaning of "Prosecuting Attorney." It's also worth noting that, in the law courts of ancient Israel, the judge was also the defense attourney. This is why the book named "Judges" is full of people like Samson and Deborah, who are more like knights errant and heroes than jurists. The word translated "judge" could almost as well be translated "defender" or "vindicator" or "champion." Or so I read in "Essays on the Psalms" by C. S. Lewis. So the Accuser was pitted against the Judge/Champion, which puts Satan right back being pitted against God as ultimate judge and champion of Israel or humanity in general. It's easy to see how that figure would be hard pressed to stay on the Good Guy list. In fact, you get a figure very like the darker renditions of Dominic that have appeared on this list. Remember Dominic the Undercover Balseraph? This accuser/champion imagery also shows up in the Psalms, where the psalmist frequentyly begs for protection from his accusers and for judgement -- which sounds odd if you think of a judge as being "judgemental" in the negative sense or just coldly impartial, but makes excellent sense when you realize "judge me" means "vindicate me," or at least has a strong suggestion of that. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 21:16:17 +0100 From: Sandra Palmer Subject: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #880 >PS. On another topic, has anyone thought about trying to adapt IN to >Milton's Paradise Lost? You'd have to change the names/ characteristics of >the demon princes and the geography of Hell but it might be quite >interesting to do... > This is something I have been dying to do since I picked up IN > (some of the folks on the list are aware of my opinion on the canon > version :) but I have never had the time for yet to sit down and > really hammer away at it. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has > been working at it and how it has been going. I considered it when I studied PL in uni a few months ago, and I'm up for a collaborative effort if anybody's brave enough. To go for a *really* authentic version, you'd need to redefine the choirs and bands too - Milton has, as far as I recall, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. James. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 15:40:13 -0500 From: Bob the Dancing Monkey Subject: Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting At 03:23 PM 7/28/98 -0500, you wrote: >Bob the Dancing Monkey wrote: > >> There is an on-and-off discussion of In Nomine going on in a Christian >> Role-Playing Games mailing list that I recently stumbled onto a digest >> of. >> As far as I recall, the general consensus was that they didn't know >> what exactly to make of it - go figure. I do seem to recall mention >> of not one, but several variations that had been made up to deal with >> IN rules in a Evangelical Christian worldview. >> >> Most peculiar. Interesting though. > >Could you give a pointer to this digest? > I believe the URL you look for is: http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~sholden/CRPGA/list/ The main CRPGA page is: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/2964/games.htm I recall when looking through a couple of things to note: 1) They seem to be a big fan of the GURPS system (surprise!) 2) They keep making reference to a variation on White Wolf's central world called World of Brightness. If anyone has information on that, I'd be intrigued to see what this entails. - -Drew [O] Drew Johnson - CLA - Office of Info Tech [O] x5-4885 - http://www.econ.umn.edu/~djohnson/ [O] djohnson@cla.umn.edu - ICQ: 10800645 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 15:47:50 -0500 From: Bob the Dancing Monkey Subject: Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting A little link-following, and here it is! The version of the IN rules that spawned a massive discussion a while back - a rather sloppy Christian worldview In Nomine. http://www.hevanet.com/rebarnes/INNOMINE.html [O] Drew Johnson - CLA - Office of Info Tech [O] x5-4885 - http://www.econ.umn.edu/~djohnson/ [O] djohnson@cla.umn.edu - ICQ: 10800645 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 15:53:08 -0500 From: Bob the Dancing Monkey Subject: Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? >Now I'm more confused. Where did this stuff about the Malakite being >ordered to stand around in LA come from? As I said, I see no excerpts on >the web page. > >As an aside, shouldn't ordering dissonant behaviour be dissonant for >David? As a Malakite, he's sworn not to suffer evil to live, and that's >passively creating evil. These things were all mentioned in a blurb in the Daily Illuminator on July 1st. "Fall of the Malakim takes place in Los Angeles (and includes tons of adventure ideas for your own campaign that can be played out in the mis-named City of Angels). A Malakite of David has earned his wrath, and to teach him a lesson, David has sent him to demon-dominated L.A. with instructions to observe and report only -- not to attack, not to destroy. It's against his nature, but the pain caused will be a useful lesson . . . besides, David figures, Malakim can't Fall, so there's no real danger, right? Right?" - -Drew [O] Drew Johnson - CLA - Office of Info Tech [O] x5-4885 - http://www.econ.umn.edu/~djohnson/ [O] djohnson@cla.umn.edu - ICQ: 10800645 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 17:00:23 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Re: in_nomine-digest V1 #880 Sandra (or James) Palmer wrote: > To go for a *really* authentic version, you'd need to redefine the > choirs and bands too - Milton has, as far as I recall, Cherubim, > Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. This might not be as big a re-write as it first appears. If you look carefully in the IN book, you see that "Thrones" is another name for Ophanim, "Dominations" for Kyriotates (in fact, the one is just the other in Greek), and "Virtues" for Malakim. "Angels" would correspond to Mercurians, I think. Elohim are "Powers," by the way. The quoted choir names all come from the angelology of Pseudo-Dionyius, the most popular one in Christendom. There is no IN equivalent to principalities and archangels *as* *choirs*, but Principalities are the guardian angels of nations and ethnic groups, and archangels are the guardians of cities and other communities, including religious congregations, so these titles could be given to, say, Worded servitors of Zadkiel, or otherwise moved from choir name to job title. (Lowercase archangels obviously correspond to Archangels no more than a stenographic "secretary" corresponds to the Secretary of State.) Earl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 17:01:06 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting Thank you for the pointers. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 98 17:23 EDT From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? >Now I'm more confused. Where did this stuff about the Malakite being >ordered to stand around in LA come from? As I said, I see no excerpts on >the web page. The Daily Illuminator: http://www.sjgames.com/ill/ill-jul98.html See the entry for July 1st. >As an aside, shouldn't ordering dissonant behaviour be dissonant for >David? As a Malakite, he's sworn not to suffer evil to live, and that's >passively creating evil. Not necessarily -- remember that David is into severe trials of people to strengthen them; he'd have been right at home in the story of Job. (Maybe he was....) What he ordered isn't directly dissonant, anyway. I can certainly see him doing something "evil" for a greater good, later, i.e., eradicating that evil and more, besides. This time, though, he miscalculated.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 20:43:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Kyrios in Celestial combat, remnants etc.->Golems On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Alloni Kramer wrote: > >However, since Hebrew is read right to left, those who tried this trick > >without knowing that would probably end up erasing the 'T' instead. > >Bugger. > > Leaving Am, meaning country, which might do strange things. The golem becomes a real-estate agent? - -- Casca, Seraph of Archives (bertishg@db.erau.edu) "...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying...At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." -- Isaiah 6:2,4 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 11:03:58 +1000 From: "Stevenson, Christopher (Pubs)" Subject: RE: IN> Re: your mail Furthermore, Uriel didn't just Crusade against the pagan gods, but also against all kinds of fantastic creatures, which - -weren't worshipped, so argument is still kind of moot. In some ways I think even mythical creatures were worshipped, as they epitomised various beliefs about the way the world worked. That's drawing it a bit far, I think. Was the unicorn worshipped? Mermaids? Dragons? If they were, so were many ordinary animals, and Uriel didn't seem to have anything against them. Anders Gabrielsson I think they were: the unicorn as a symbol of purity, the dragon as a symbol of the fiery heart of the world, and mermaids, um, how about the dangerous appeal of the ocean to mariners? As for the more common animals, perhaps Uriel just didn't get around to it. :-) Or . . . perhaps Uriel's crusade focused on those animals which were attributed significance in Christian bestiaries. I mean, you don't see halcyons much these days. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 02:35:00 +0100 From: Julian Breen Subject: IN> Operation Satan (was Re: Judaism again) >> (Side note: Could this be why angels don't like referring to Lucifer as >> Satan? It was a nickname for him that he acquired before the Fall, and >> thus brings back painful memories of the beginnings of upset in >> Heaven.) >Satan actually means " enemy " so are you sure about the nickname thing? > 'Adversary' to be slightly more correct, but I could easily see Lucifer acquiring that epithet in events leading up to (or possibly at the very moment of) the Fall. He may even have adopted it himself. Or maybe Baal proposed a code name for the Rebellion ;) Anne Rice does something like this in her book 'Memnoch - The Devil'. Until being cast out, God begins to refer to Memnoch (who is IN's Lucifer, essentially) as His 'Accusing angel', but it is in the context that he is an accuser _of_ God, not _for_ Him. This I thought was kind of nice. It being a good example, for In Nomine at least, on how human religion can make errors in interpretation. - -- Julian jules@bigjules.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 19:07:43 -0700 From: "E Kumar" Subject: Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) Mark wrote: the implied > meaning of "Prosecuting Attorney." It's a job title more than anything else. > Of course, Lucifer means "Light-bearer," and is also a title. > > Just a clarification, > Uh, job-titles? So Mrs. Carpenter down the street is a craftsman? And Mr. Baker is a chef? - ---------- > From: MarkDEddy@aol.com > To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com > Subject: Re: IN> Judaism Again (Was Re: Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting) > Date: Tuesday, July 28, 1998 1:05 PM > > > In a message dated 7/28/98 12:57:05 PM, akira@sprint.ca writes: > > >Satan actually means "enemy " so are you sure about the nickname thing? > > > > > Correction: Satan actually means "Adversary" or "Accuser," with the implied > meaning of "Prosecuting Attorney." It's a job title more than anything else. > Of course, Lucifer means "Light-bearer," and is also a title. > > Just a clarification, > Mark ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 00:16:01 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Uriel's Crusade >>>That's drawing it a bit far, I think. Was the unicorn worshipped? Mermaids? Dragons? If they were, so were many ordinary animals, and Uriel didn't seem to have anything against them.<<< Uriel went after the mythical beasts because (according to him) they weren't natural creatures, but were created as a result of ethereal/celestial meddling. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 00:19:43 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Finding Dreamscapes >>>I thought that it wasn't possible to enter the dreamscape of a waking person (though you could look into it and see daydreams), but that there wasn't really any problem with finding it.<<< Nope, canonically dreamscapes "disappear" while the dreamer is awake. No one (except _maybe_ Blandine and Beleth) can find or affect them. >>>Speaking of, could a Cherub or Djinn on the ethereal plane find the dreamscape of someone they're attuned to?<<< Yes. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 00:24:06 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one >>>How is it handled in TV shows like "Touched By An Angel" and "Highway to Heaven"? I am asking because I don't know; I don't own a television.<<< I never saw "Highway to Heaven," but in TBAA, the angels seem to have a new Role every week. In a sense it appears by magic, but they always introduce themselves as "new employees/etc." I don't recall any episodes where anyone has actually done background checks on an angel. I handle it in my "In Nomine / Touched By An Angel" crossover (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/DavidEdelstein/Innomine/Touched.h tm) by giving them a special attunement called "Jack-of-all-Roles". - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 21:26:15 PDT From: "Doug Muir" Subject: IN> Angelic memory >> The reason for a lot of the confusion or deliberate blurring of history in >>IN seems to be simple enough: memory. Although the way celestial (or ethereal, >>for that matter) memory works is vague at best, there are many indications that >>most celestials (i.e. non-Superiors) have a limited capacity for remembering >>events which is usually greater than human capacity but still finite. >However, there is a canon statement (I think it's in the APG's history >section) that even Superiors can't remember back clearly more than a few >thousand years or so. > >Angelic memory, at least, is clearly not perfect even over the shorter >term, since otherwise Jean's Seraphim attunement would be pretty much >unnecessary. Yes, I remember being surprised by this when I first read the APG. But it actually could make sense, and does allow the GM to add some interesting blurry areas to his campaign. Angels are immortal, and some of them have been around for a long, long time. And, you know, they're (quite literally) artificial intelligences. It stands to reason that they would have a very large but ultimately limited "hard drive". Mind you, Yves' speech in the APG intro seems to be going a bit farther than that... he seems to be suggesting that there has been some *deliberate* fuzzing of angelic recollection, at least in the last few thousand years. Well -- perhaps some angels *could* remember everything since the Paleozoic, in day-by-day detail... but they are simply too alien and distracted to deal very effectively with humanity, or the War. And perhaps it's *necessary* for an immortal to have a bad memory, lest the gradual accumulation of trivia lead to madness. Of course, the forgetting is (at least partly) what allows the older angels to disagree about basic matters like free will and the role of humanity. Maybe they all knew the right answers once, back at the very beginning... Some thoughts/plot seeds: What if the Library is the angelic mass memory? You may not remember if you were in Prague in the winter of 1619... but you put the relevant information there before you forgot it, and a search should turn it up. This might explain why the Library has developed a mind of its own. Of course, if this is the case, then people might be tempted to try altering the stored memories there... What if it's memory -- an inability to forgot -- that's driving Gabriel around the bend? What if some angels get addicted to forgetting? You might end up with the occasional amnesiac celestial -- not a remnant, but a full-powered angel or demon who has simply forgotten who and what he is. What a Kyriotate or Ofanite might *think* he is, based on available evidence, could make an interesting subplot... In a less extreme form, something like this may be what has happened to Eli. Perhaps millenia of experience were making it ever more difficult for him to manifest his Word, so he simply scrubbed 99% of his memories out of his head, and woke up in a latte bar somewhere. -- If this works for you, here's a plot seed: Eli's lost memories are stored somewhere, perhaps the Library, perhaps somewhere much stranger. Someone tries to convince the PCs to retrieve them. But is the Someone an angel of Eli who wants his Superior back on the job, an angel of some other Superior who thinks Eli made an awful mistake, or a hostile party, angel or demon, who thinks that Eli was *right*, and that ten billion years of information will petrify him and render him incapable of any sort of creative action? Played properly, a party of PCs could easily find themselves working for the wrong side, all unknowing... Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Doug M. dougmuir@hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 00:37:40 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Singing Question >Where does it mention components of a song anyhow? Pg 47, main rulebook.<<< And p. 00 of the Songbook! :) (P. 00 meaning that layout is just beginning, but the playtest drafts should be appearing on Pyramid Online Real Soon Now. And thanks for bringing up the question of language & singing, I'll have to think about whether and how to address that in the Songbook....personally, I assume it can be any language the singer wants to sing in.) - -David (editor of the Songbook, which will probably have some fancy Latin name ala the Liber Reliquarum) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 23:08:34 -0800 From: Armand Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? >Jedi mind trick! I like it and it does have a more powerful *role *( >pardon the pun ) with far less disturbance, if any. Would you still allow >characters to purchase a role in game while the SHTF!? Going back to AOA (Any Old Apple) the celestial that got caught in the airport, I would say no. He wasn't on his game, and so misses the ball. Sticking to the jedi mind trick motif, I wouldn't let it be a skill you can just pick up. You have to find some time to practice. In this case, it's mostly a matter of making the celestial fit the role. Learning the right cliches, "FBI, ma'am." The somatic compnents, [tosses bottle with a flourish, and produces a very dry martini, "Shaken, not stirred."] These take time. Just letting someone try and pull it out of their posterior quarters takes all the fun out of having them prepare the character properly. Armand ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 23:19:16 -0800 From: Armand Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? >>My take on the role is that it works like a Jedi mind trick. Your >>celestial walks up to a person and states, "I'm a Reporter for the Daily >>Planet". In their mind, assuming that you have the appropriate role and >>level, they see a press pass and other necessary credentials. > >That's one approach, but a) it doesn't really match the ways Roles are >described in canon, and more important, b) it doesn't explain why the >*Symphony* accepts you as the Role -- i.e., it doesn't explain the >disturbance-surpressing effects of Roles. However, it does work as a nice and easy way to run the system. Why does the Symphony accept this? Here goes: I was watching a show about psychic phenomena. There were two guys, I never learned their names, who would fake psychic powers. To the untrained eye, they would appear to have weird little mental powers (How useful is psychic spoon bending anyway?) Then, they would explain the way that they did it. The one that influenced my thinking on Roles was their version of "What hand is the coin in." How it worked is pretty simple. They would stand close to the participant and show them the coin. The "psychic" would flourish the coin, and toss it away. However, the participant would look for the coin moving between the hands. Hence, when asked where the coin was, the participant would point to one hand or other. Even after people saw how the trick was performed, they would point to one of the hands. The power of suggestion does strange things to people. My system merely gives celestials a rating. Armand ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 23:44:21 -0800 From: Armand Subject: Re: IN> Roles and what happens if you get caught without one? >On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 07:15:08PM +0100, Jo Hart wrote: >> >My take on the role is that it works like a Jedi mind trick. Your >> >celestial walks up to a person and states, "I'm a Reporter for the Daily >> >Planet". In their mind, assuming that you have the appropriate role and >> >level, they see a press pass and other necessary credentials. >> > >> >> I'd go for something like that ;) >> >In my mind, if they have the press pass and other necessary credentials, >the person will tend to believe them. If not, the person will or will not >believe them, depending on how suspicious the person is. My wife and I have a theory. We call it the First Barrier theory. In essence, if you make it past the first barrier in any situation, then proceed in a rational fashion; you can get either in or out of just about anywhere. Again, just a theory. >> I submit that some people are just more _real_ than others. A level 1 role >> will be like that next door neighbour -- a few people will 'know' them, >> without really knowing them. Enough paperwork to support that will exist, >> if anyone searches, but no more. Any enquiries will find that.. no-one >> really knows them at all well. They simply aren't very real to anyone, >> except possibly other celestials/ soldiers etc. >> >This makes sense, kind of. But it doesn't work everywhere, and there is a >certain amount of knowledge that's required. If you're asked where you're >from often, and you give a consistent answer, you're eventually going to >meet people who come from where you claim to be from. This can cause >problems. I see this being a really important issue in beaureaucratic games, but I don't like running things that way. I also like the idea of celstials being more than just spirits inhabitting bodies. I think that there should be Distubance free ways for them to interact with humans without making them "humans". For a moment though, think of how long it would take a celestial to plant a Role 3. First of all, you need the paper work: birth cert., some form of state/national ID, school records, credit reports, tax forms, degree/diploma, etc. This doesn't include optional forms: car/house titles, club memberships, signed credit card receipts, awards, video store membership, etc. Now that we have made a life on paper, it needs human interaction. First, family: Mom, Dad, assorted sibs, aunts, uncles, etc. Second, friends and associates: classmates (k - ?), kid next door, nutty neighbor, Mr. Whipple, Mr. Wilson, Brad from the office, first kiss, first black eye, boss, etc. How much time have you alloted? Personally, I tally up at least twenty years. Now, your Malakim has spent 20 years making a Disturbance free Role. 20 years have gone by. Say good-bye to those 20 years in which no demon was punished beyond the sound thrashing he gave the Tompson boy after that one dance. I just like my celestials to get to the work that they were created for. If I was running a game like an FBI investigation, then I might want a more paper based role system for my characters. However, for now, they just need a reason to be able to requisition 40 cc's of elephant tranquilizer and a dart gun. Armand ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 08:41:09 -0400 From: Andrew Frades Subject: Re: IN> Roles and Celestial Detection Matthew D. Gandy wrote: > This is a good use for Roles, actually--anyone targeted by an appropriate > resonance could resist with Corporeal Forces + Role Level, so that if the defender > succeeded, the resonance would reveal Role information, not celestial information. > I think this has probably been suggested before, but it certainly improves the > utility of high-Level, high-maintenance Roles that players don't want to spent the > effort or the points on. Or you can just assume (as I do in my game) that the Mercurian resonance picks up Corporeal stuff (i.e. roles) on the Corporeal plane. It gives Celestials a nice reason to have roles at all, even just a low level low staus role. My ruling is always to err on the sdie of making it rather difficult to detect direct information about Celestials on the Corporeal plane. But I'm also weird in that I have a small number of Celestails in my campaign, but the group just keeps on running into them. Keeps people wondering. Peace, Andrew ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 15:23:05 +0200 (MET DST) From: Jasper Reijer Floor Subject: Re: IN> Eastern religion in the In-Nomine setting On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Anders Gabrielsson wrote: > On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Walter Milliken wrote: > > > >> g) God communicates through his prophets (& Moses was the one who saw God > > >> most clearly) > > > > > >Considering that God doesn't even communicate with His -angels- very much, > > >and that IN hasn't made any mention what so ever of prophets, I'd say this > > >is highly dubious. > > > > There are some implications in and around Gabriel's material that > > prophets are part of the IN system. > > > > Also, the fact that the Superiors on both sides apparently believe in > > Armaggedon, which is essentially from a human prophetic vision (as I > > understand it -- my Biblical scholarship is rather weak), suggests that > > prophets have some basis in fact in IN canon. > > Hm. I guess you've got something there. OTOH, Revelations doesn't > necessarily have to be actual prophecy in IN - it could be things some > Soldier picked up and then started to preach when he went 'round the bend > after getting too much Ethereal damage. :) Hmm, interesting. I'd also like to point out that Armageddon is a place, not an occurence, this sort of makes you wonder what is so special about that particular place. Could there be a tether there? I seem to recall that Armageddon is in Israel, and that it isn't very exciting to see (a hill in a dessert, or something). Anyone know anymore? Revelation 16:12-16 12 The sixth angel poured his bowl on the great river Euphra'tes, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. 13 And I saw, issuing from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mout of the false prophet, three foul spirits like frogs; 14 for they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. 15 ("Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed!") 16 And they assembled them at the place which is called in Hebrew Armaged'don. Can we ever have too much of a good thing? Miguel de Cervantes -Don Quixote Chap. vi ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #882 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.