From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sun Aug 9 13:14:57 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 NAA02580 for ; Sun, 9 Aug 1998 13:14:57 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id NAA30135 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sun, 9 Aug 1998 13:25:00 -0500 Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 13:25:00 -0500 Message-Id: <199808091825.NAA30135@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 #904 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Sunday, August 9 1998 Volume 01 : Number 904 In this digest: Re: IN> The Singular of "Lilim" IN> Fall of the Malakim Nitpicks. [Here there be Spoilers!] IN> The second woman in Eden in In Nomine IN> Fall of the Malakim (Long) (Spoilers here, too) Re: IN> Wives of Adam RE: IN> The second woman in Eden in In Nomine IN> Re: IN> Archangels of the Virtues? Re: IN> Archangels of the Virtues? IN> Re: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 18:05:24 From: Peter Frederick Subject: Re: IN> The Singular of "Lilim" **Earl's interesting questions and options snipped for Brevity** >But that >still leaves me wondering what the singular of "lilim" is. > >Any ideas? > >Earl > >P.S.: The proper singular of "shedim" is "shed," but I can see >why no one wants to use it. Hey I like Shed. It's short, and to my ear has a nasty sound that goes well with the being in question. But then I also like Lil and Malak and tend to use Kryio a bit, so that gives you some idea of my taste in names :) . Regards, Peter. Reply to peterf@wr.com.au May the Goddess shelter you in the palm of her hand until we meet again. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 11:29:41 -0400 From: Nana Yaw Ofori Subject: IN> Fall of the Malakim Nitpicks. [Here there be Spoilers!] I'd thought I wasn't going to do one of these for Final Trumpet, but hey, I've got some free time. All in all, it's a nice book, with some excellent clarifications about Geasa. and In Nomine LA seemed quite a bit more plausible than Austin. The adventure, however, seems to beg "Run me concurrently with 'The Final Trumpet!'" WHich is pretty darn difficult, since FT ain't here yet. nyway, here are my Nitpicks. p47. Bangman the Calabite has no "pet discord." p57. Scamper, the Impudite of Dark Humor, is personally killing people, on a decent scale. Sure, it takes weeks for them to die, but he's doing it. And there's no humor in it, it's just simple confinement and torture. p69. If relations only advance one space, Shouldn't the sidebox read "Hostile" becomes "Neutral" rather than "Hostile" becomes "Associated?" p77. Mal the Calabite doesn't have a pet discord either. p117. Why would opening an Angelic Tether kill Natalie's vessel? Just a dramatic plot thing? Or some part of Tether Canon we haven't seen yet? p125, Dominic insists that the investigating angels be made outcasts. I'm having a hard time figuring out what it is that the investigating angels are being forced into doing that makes them warrant this punishment. At the behest of Heaven. David wants the "Fallen" Malakite killed. Dominic wants the "Fallen" Malakite killed. Gabriel, Janus, Jordi, Laurence, and Michael agree. Jean and Novalis want him captured. Eli, Blandine,Mark and Yves are more on the side of "Find out what happened, and do what seems right." All the "obvious" evidence leads to the conclusion that the Malakite Fell. So, let's see. Angels are ordered into LA, and if by some happenstance, the Malakite proxies are killed. Dominic rewards them by insisting that they be Outcasted. Seems Dissonant for Dommie. ===== ><{{"> =================================================== <"}}>< ====== Nana-Yaw "The Fish" Ofori, Freelance Soldier of Heck, presenty serving Trudy, Impudite Captain of Gluttony, the Demon of Popcorn nofori@pop3.utoledo.edu | Homepage: http://members.tripod.com/~maltesh maltesh@usa.net | In Nomine: http://members.tripod.com/~maltesh/T317 ===== ><{{"> ============ "Life's a Fish, then you Fry." ======= <"}}>< ====== ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 11:46:25 -0500 (CDT) From: Benjamin Acosta Subject: IN> The second woman in Eden in In Nomine Hi, I've been lurking for a while now and just had to post something (either that or get dissonance). Anyway, with all this talk I've seen on the digest about the woman created between Lilith and Eve, I've had an idea on how she could be used in In Nomine. What if she was recruited by Heaven the way Lilith was recruited by Lucifer? Maybe even in response to Lucifer's recruitment of Lilith, so that Heaven also had someone who had insight into human nature. She could even be the mother of the Grigori, which explains why they were so close to humans and why Heaven doesn't talk about her now. The only to things left are giving her a name and a word. I can't think of a name, but as for words how about Humanity? Or maybe Free Will to serve as a parallel for Lilith's Freedom. Which of these fits better? Or are there any other words which would fit? Ben, Angel of Neat Ideas ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 15:30:30 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: IN> Fall of the Malakim (Long) (Spoilers here, too) Some comments and criticisms, which I'll go through in a mostly page order. David - I have a serious problem with David, which I figure is being commented upon by a number of angels in the aftermath of the title adventure. He preaches a philosophy of Strength through Unity, and yet, when one of his servitors is in trouble, he has a tendency to tell them to sink or swim on their own. I understand that he believes in terrible trials for his followers, but that doesn't mean it can't be a group effort. Lilith - I was kind of disappointed with this section. Looking back, it isn't any different than most of the other extended write-ups, but I had been looking forward to this one so much. Part of it, I suppose, is that I may be looking for something different in source material than others are. Simple plot concepts I don't have much trouble coming up with; I like published source material to contain more detail. Previous books have been full of various hints of what Lilith might be up to, like the extended Kronos write-up. I'd also like her relationship with Lucifer clarified; it's nature would have big effect on how Lilith behaves in a lot of situations. I was hoping to see some of these answered; instead, we got the statement, "Besides the knowledge of which rumors are true, Lilith posseses many other secrets..." followed by another list of things which may or may not be true. I was hoping to get some answers, not more questions. Bright Lilim & Geases - These sections look very good. They will probably ber quite helpful if I ever get a chance to play IN. In Nomine L.A. - Again, this was sort of disappointing. There wasn't a lot of information on how the celestial community interacts with the mundane one, particularly with respect to the mundane power structure. IN Austin didn't need these, because of the peculiar situation in the celestial community. Los Angeles, however, does; it's controlled by demons and I'm sure they have their hooks into the local government. We aren't given any information about mundanes in the city at all, save Mortimer Brian and an unnamed girl Novalis is interested in. There isn't even very much that makes this specifically LA. We get brief descriptions of a number of large areas of the city, in which some of the information is either wrong or misleading (for instance, read the description of South Central and see if you pick up on the fact that in the last few years, Latinos have come to outnumber blacks in the area). It rather seems like we are given a description of a city that demons control and how this affects celestial interactions, and, oh by the way, it's LA. There's nothing wrong with this , per se, but it's not exactly a presentation of Los Angeles. I'm also not sure why the Diabolicals put up with any Angelic presence in the city at all. I don't really see that they get anything out of it, and it gives the angels a chance to make mischief and find people like the girl Novalis is interested in. Angels & Demons of LA - With one exception, I like these. In particular, I like Absinthia James, John Downing and Pendrake Carmichael. They all are fleshed out to make them feel real, and ways to use them are almost immediately obvious. This is even true of the one exception: Scamper. As has already been pointed out, he should be picking up dissonance for the pickling barrels. This is an example of why I don't like Choir Attunements that allow you to evade Choir Dissonance, particularly when it involves Mercurians or Impudites being able to kill someone. It's not too bad if the situation is clear cut, like Mercurians of Judgement, but I hate these open ended ones. I'm sure whoever came up with the character thought that this whole set-up counted as a big joke, but it doesn't seem that way to me. Besides, it seems to me that the joke wears thin after a while. Maybe the first one or two of his victims counted as being funny, but you can only use the same punchline so often before it becomes stale. Tethers - Again, these are quite good. Glug, at the La Brea Tar Pits, is particularly amusing. The only question I have, which may be addressed in the Tethers book, is about Kevin the Terrible being both the Seneschal of Enfer Fleur as well as being in charge of LA as a whole. This strikes me a spreading himself a bit thin. Then again, that may be why John Downing thinks he can make a power play. Thnigs to Do - I feel pretty neutral about this section. Some of the specifics (Brian Mortimer, Novalis' child) don't hold a lot of interest for me; others might feel differently. There are a few good plot seeds in here, and some of the more general information is helpful. There just isn't anything in here I got excited about. The Premiere - This adventure could be a lot of fun. Particularly if you are running a group of angels where some of them will insist on finding the guilty party while others are trying to do a frame-up job on Jurgen or some other demon. Keep a Seraph away from this one, though. Granted, he can't use his Resonance on Frank (remnants being immune to perception based resonances), but he'll probably still be able to pull the whole thing down. The Fall of the Malakim - Sigh. I'm not sure where to begin, other than to say that the criticisms that have already been leveled are quite accurate. It shows all the signs of skipping an important step when writing a story, namely writing a plot outline from the perspective of each of the significant characters to make sure that their behavior makes sense. (I learned this trick reading an otherwise fine book by Robert Harris, "Fatherland", that has a conceptual flaw that vastly exceeds any of the problems here.) There are a couple of points I would add: 1) I can see why Dominic has panicked to the point that he wants to work with Asmodeus to straighten out this mess. I'm not at all clear on why the reverse is true. Unless he has some very deep reason why he wants to avoid Armageddon, it makes no sense. Heaven has just suffered a terrible reverse, is probably fractured (there has got to be some unhappiness with David) and is quite preoccupied; their morale is at rock bottom. Why is Asmodeus essentially offering to help bail them out? I would think that he would demand that heaven stay out of LA (even if he's not sure it can be entirely enforced) and flood the place with his own agents. This keeps Heaven off balance, and if nothing really comes of Gabriel blowing her trumpet, he's established himself as the new power in LA, which his write-up in Things to Do says is his goal if there is some sort of major upheaval there. 2) Mira's mission makes no sense to me at a more fundamental level than has been brought up already, though I agree with those points. On p. 99, the APG states quite clearly, "Only the angel's own actions can cause the final destruction of his Heart." Then what is Mira doing? It's possible I missed something in Liber Reliquarium, since Hearts aren't listed in the index, but this seems like a pretty blanket statement in the APG. I guess violating this isn't as big an overturning of canon as saying that Malakim can fall, but it ought to have some sort of explanation of why we have this change. 3) Even if Mira's mission is plausible in that regard, the timeline has a big flaw in it. Malphas calls in Mira's geas and sends her off before the videotape is made. The whole plan seems to hinge on managing to get the reaction Malphas/Kobal want from Maximilien on record. The implication is that they were counting on the destruction of his heart to produce the right reaction, but this is a real leap of faith. Maybe he'll just scream, topple over and flee. Maybe he'll keel over and die. Hell, since this has never happened to a Malakite before, for all they know, it'll actually clear up his Discord and make him healthy again. In short, getting him to say the key words, "I've Fallen," in the right place and at the right time was a monster longshot. If they don't have the videotape, they won't get the right reaction. David will be able to keep news of the shattered Heart fairly contained while Dominic launches an investigation. Heaven's armies won't be demoralized (they probably won't let Laurence know at all, for precisely this reason) and Hell won't get the news at all. As has been pointed out, Bright Lilim are very rare and I don't see Malphas using the only big hook in one on such a crapshoot; if doesn't work and Asmodeus finds out, he's going to be in a lot of trouble. There are other timing issues, as well. It has to be done after Pendrake's construct of Maximilien is ready, but before it's begun its work.\ 4) And just how did Malphas and Kobal find out about the construct, which seems to be an important part of their plan? (It's certainly an important part of the adventure plot.) Only Pendrake and Hopscotch know about it, with the demon pretty securely bound to secrecy. But if Scurvy doesn't know about it, then he would only show up to kill Pendrake, not hijack the construct. And the write-up on constructs certainly implies that he isn't going to know how to take it over as an opportunistic discovery he makes when he shows up. 5) I can see that there are plenty of ways that Hopscotch could use to infiltrate the video camera, but I would have liked some explanation for how he smuggled it in and how he knew when and where. Does Natalie have one of the robotic dogs, which Hopscotch has modified for this purpose? If this is so, doesn't it mean that Pendrake could have tumbled the whole thing? The description of the video doesn't even say where they are, which could be an important fact, both before and after the video is released. 6) Nowhere in the description of Scamper's and Scury's assault on Kevin's party does it say how much Essence was used from the battery, but it had to be a lot. While it was used in smaller doses, combined with the amount of destruction going on, there had to be one godawful disturbance in the Symphony. This may be what alerted B.J. and led him to flee the city. But it should also have alerted everyone else, too. Pendrake, for instance, should be pretty alert when Scurvy shows up with the Essence battery. Since Pendrake's alliance is with Hopscotch and not with Scurvy, I'd think he would have been a bit more careful in these circumstances. 7) The other half of Kobal's & Malphas' scheme, starting Armageddon, relies on being just as lucky as the Maximilien part does. Not only do they have to be sure to nail all of the celestials in town that they no about, they have to luck out that there aren't any that they don't know about. This is something that I find to be highly implausible. For one thing, Asmodeus would certainly want to have a couple of agents keeping an eye on things that everyone doesn't know about, even if the information in the Things to Do section forget to mention them; the Humanity attunement was designed for exactly this kind of work. And LA is such an important city that other Superiors, on both sides, would want to keep a close eye peeled. I can't imagine that there is any time when there aren't at least a couple of interlopers in town. In all, the whole scenario makes no sense. I think there's a germ of a great adventure in here, but it needs an awful lot of work. I don't see any short term patches we come up with for the list as doing the job. General Comments - There is one thing to say about this book besides making sure that more thinking goes into the adventures. It tries to do too much for one volume. We have expanded Superiors, some source material on game mechanics, a description of one of the largest cities in the world and two adventures, one of which is supposed to be on an epic scale. This really isn't possible. I'd say that Los Angeles probably needed a supplement for itself, like some of the White Wolf WoD material (though hopefully without doing anything as stupid as having Romans in charge of Milwaukee). The FotM adventure would probably be better as part of a campaign length adventure supplement combined with the adventure in Final Trumpet and some additional stuff. For a lot of GMs, myself included, these adventures need more detail rather than the sketch approach to the events that they currently take. Players are notorious for throwing a monkey wrench into the works and there is no material addressing what happens if the plan goes wrong. It's telling that of the 24 pages devoted to the adventure, 22 of them deal almost exclusively of the events that preceded the point where the adventure actually starts. With the current format of the Revelations Cycle books, they have a lot of trouble focusing on anything. This wasn't the case with The Marches and Heaven & Hell; they had a focus indicated by the title But Night Music and FotM feel like a a bunch of different thigngs thrown together, with none of them being done as well as they could have been. I have a bad feeling about Final Trumpet; I'll still buy it, but this hasn't left me feeling too hopeful. There is another problem with all of these supplements, that was most evident to me in the Lilith write-up. The writers seems very, very reluctant to close off any of the possibilites that they have opened up. They don't want to address Lilith's relationship with Lucifer, because providing more information would close off other options in Canon. To me, this is extremely frustrating. Make a decision, for crying out loud. If we don't like it, we can always make changes in our own games. But to never actually make these choices means that the whole game system is rapidly turning into a confused morass of ambiguity. It's actually easier to make changes from a set base than to keep wading through all of this vagueness. There are going to people (myself undoubtedly included at times) who don't like the choices made at times, but that is a danger that has to be faced. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 21:14:17 +0300 From: Yossi Gurvitz Subject: Re: IN> Wives of Adam At 08:13 AM 8/7/98 , you wrote: >Gaiman cites the Midrash as the source of the story. > >Anyone? It is Talmudic, but I can't give you a precise reference - I heard it in a sermon, long ago. Yours, Yossi ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 21:39:00 +0100 From: "Ellen Kakkaratchi" Subject: RE: IN> The second woman in Eden in In Nomine > Anyway, with all this talk I've seen on > the digest about the woman created between Lilith and Eve, I've had an > idea on how she could be used in In Nomine. What if she was recruited by > Heaven the way Lilith was recruited by Lucifer? Maybe even in response to > Lucifer's recruitment of Lilith, so that Heaven also had someone who had > insight into human nature. She could even be the mother of the Grigori, > which explains why they were so close to humans and why Heaven doesn't > talk about her now. The only to things left are giving her a name and a > word. I can't think of a name, but as for words how about Humanity? Or > maybe Free Will to serve as a parallel for Lilith's Freedom. Which of > these fits better? Or are there any other words which would fit? Considering the story, how about the following words; the Unwanted the Disregarded the Abused Victims Depreciation Neglect the Forgotten and especially, Angel of the Ugly Truth Actually, although I was being somewhat facetious, that's not a bad idea. Why not make her the Angel of the Unwanted, patron celestial of the homeless and hopeless. She shouldn't have a name, or if she does it should be a word that means 'nameless' or 'nobody'. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 18:05:51 EDT From: Heretic103@aol.com Subject: IN> Re: In a message dated 8/2/98 8:51:31 AM Central Daylight Time, havic@erols.com writes: << HAVIC6@aol.com >> whon are you and how did you get my name, I hate WOC as much as the next guy but who are you? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 22:01:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Jevon Heath Subject: IN> Archangels of the Virtues? I have been voraciously reading everything I could find about IN, or at least what looks interesting, and I noticed an imbalance in the words of the AA's versus those of the DP's; or at least those I have found. In the core book, for the DP's we have Princes of Lust and Gluttony, which are two of the Seven Deadly Sins. Later we got the Prince of Greed. I seem to remember somewhere that the Prince of Sloth was eaten by Haagenti, but I'm not sure this is canon. Also, from the INC I found a write-up of Fezek, Prince of Wrath. Anyway, this leaves only Pride and Envy, which according to Dante are the two least of the Seven. However, for the Archangels the only Virtue I could find is Khalid, Archangel of Faith. I have looked through various lists of Virtues, and Faith is the only one I could find for the AA's. Recently I saw (first draft?) something about the Archangels being divided into four groups: Fortitude, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance. These may be considered Virtues, but they have not been given as words. My point is that Hell seems to be one up on Heaven in this arena, because the most persuasive pseudo-emotions humans can have seem to come from Worded demons. What about Honesty? Courage? Hope? Charity? Humility? Awe? Mercy? Diligence? Fidelity? Patience? Piety? Compassion? Obedience? Tranquility? Sincerity? And on, and on. All of the lists of Virtues differ amazingly, with very little overlapping. All of the lists of Sins, on the other hand, concentrate on Anger (Wrath), Lust, and Greed. However, with all of these powerful words, why are none of them represented for the angels? Maybe some of them have been taken by larger concepts. I can see Khalid taking over Faith, and maybe Laurence or Michael enveloping Courage. But most of these Virtues deserve to be Archangel-level Words in their own right. Is this just a big oversight on the part of Heaven? Or is there something I'm missing. Or has this already been asked? Thank you for listening/reading this far. I would sincerely appreciate comments, suggestions, reprimands, threats, what have you. Jevon Heath ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 01:26:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Archangels of the Virtues? On Sat, 8 Aug 1998, Jevon Heath wrote: > I have been voraciously reading everything I could find about IN, or Welcome to the cult. Or, as I ike to put it, Intellectual Crack. ;) > My point is that Hell seems to be one up on Heaven in this arena, > because the most persuasive pseudo-emotions humans can have seem to come > from Worded demons. What about Honesty? Marc. > Courage? Laurence or Michael. Prolly Michael, considering his Dissonance conditions. > Hope? Blandine. Remember, hope is a dream of something better... > Charity? Marc again. > Humility? For some odd reason, I'm inclined to say Eli. Perhaps because he's all but abandoned Heaven for working directly on Earth. > Awe? Awe of -what-? If awe of God, then Khalid. > Mercy? The easy choice is Novalis, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest Dominic. It's Dissonant for Judgement to overpunish, but no reason why they can't underpunish if they feel the situation calls for leniency. > Diligence? David. Diligence is just another word for stubbornness. Tho Gabriel fits, too.... > Fidelity? Laurence. > Patience? Yves. > Piety? Again, Khalid. > Compassion? Novalis goes here. > Obedience? Definitely Laurence. > Tranquility? Novalis again. > Sincerity? Marc. - -- 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: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 20:58:34 +0300 From: Ijon Tichy Subject: IN> Re: At 18:54 07/08/98 , Hart, Joanna wrote: >>Lilith also had a son from her union with Ashmodei, another demon. > >Ashmodei is the Hebrew form of Asmodeus, FYI. Ashmedai, if we want to nitpick, actually. - -- Ijon Tichy Sailing the 'net in the only e-mail: ijon@forum2.org Space Barrel known to man. Homepage: http://forum2.org/ijon MOO: VotSB, http://forum2.org:7000 ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #904 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.