From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Fri Nov 19 18:17:58 1999 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 SAA03178 for ; Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:17:54 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id SAA20846 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:14:34 -0600 Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:14:34 -0600 Message-Id: <199911200014.SAA20846@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 #1424 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 Friday, November 19 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1424 In this digest: re: IN> One Tough Taker re: IN> One Tough Taker Re: IN> Re: Adventures Re: IN> Re: Adventures Re: IN> Remnants and Braindead Humans (Re: Shedite/Kyrio question) IN> Publishing Company for Sale! IN> Re: Adventures Re: IN> Remnants and Braindead Humans (Re: Shedite/Kyrio question) IN> Soulless Essence IN> The Destiny anf Fate of all Humanity re: IN> One Tough Taker IN> Exerpt from Daily Illuminator Re: IN> Re: Adventures Re: IN> H e l p Ordering INS/MV in German? IN> Side effects of Fallen Superiors RE: IN> Re: Adventures re: IN> One Tough Taker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 16:53:22 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: re: IN> One Tough Taker At 4:22 PM -0400 11/19/99, Douglas Muir wrote: >If he wins... well, he's a young demon, and whipping a Mal is a *huge* >coup. I imagine him incapacitating the angel, then (slowly) kicking him to >death. Just remember, Malakim can go celestial too. "Let me see. My vessel is TRASHED, and it's going to die, and I'm going to be out a vessel and this evil little so and so will get away and live to be evil another day. Or. I can go celestial, ascend, get a few of my buddies who happen to have vessels and be hanging around (and hopefully someone with the Corporeal Song of Healing!), descend, let my friends follow me, and we can _ALL_ kick the snot out of this jerk, and maybe _he'll_ go celestial and we can Force-strip him or even kill him. Which one definitely lets evil live, and which at least gives us a chance of smiting it?" "See ya later, demon scum. Believe me, I'll see you later." - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 17:08:13 -0400 From: Douglas Muir Subject: re: IN> One Tough Taker >At 4:22 PM -0400 11/19/99, Douglas Muir wrote: >>If he wins... well, he's a young demon, and whipping a Mal is a *huge* >>coup. I imagine him incapacitating the angel, then (slowly) kicking him to >>death. > >Just remember, Malakim can go celestial too. > >"Let me see. My vessel is TRASHED, and it's going to die, and I'm going to >be out a vessel and this evil little so and so will get away and live to be >evil another day. Or. I can go celestial, ascend, get a few of my buddies >who happen to have vessels and be hanging around (and hopefully someone with >the Corporeal Song of Healing!), descend, let my friends follow me, and we >can _ALL_ kick the snot out of this jerk, and maybe _he'll_ go celestial >and we can Force-strip him or even kill him. Which one definitely lets evil >live, and which at least gives us a chance of smiting it?" > > > >"See ya later, demon scum. Believe me, I'll see you later." Point. However 1) if Marco has a lick of sense, he'll make the Mal promise to fight "fair"... viz, to the corporeal death. I'd give him a "very easy" IQ roll, perhaps with his Paranoid discord _added_ to the target number (when dealing with the Malakim, paranoia is a survival characteristic for demons...) 2) if the Mal does go Celestial, it's going to take a while to gather friends and get back... during which time I'd expect Marco to be making some serious preparations. Cell-phone to the nearest Tether to call for backup, then out into the neighborhood to round up some mortal cannon fodder. The Mal comes back with friends to find that Marco is surrounded by innocent humans who'll fight to protect him, plus those 10-Force Cals mentioned earlier. Big fight, with the outcome by no means certain. And even if the angels win, it's going to put a heck of a dent in their Roles ("A riot at a South Side neighborhood fitness center last night left three people dead. Police are searching for two men who..."). 3) Alternately, Marco goes Celestial too. He's not nearly as tough on this plane as on the Corporeal, but with 3 Celestial Forces, a 9 Will, and Fighting-6, he's no slouch here either. He'd be an even match for an ordinary angel, although the angel's higher Perception would probably allow him to escape in a pinch (since perception = speed on this plane). And, of course, if both go Celestial it'll probably make enough noise to be heard at that Tether a few blocks away... Going celestial is a nice option to have, but it isn't a cure-all by any means. And I question whether an honorable Malakite would always be quick to pull this particular ripcord. Doug M. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 17:16:48 -0500 From: neel@cswv.com Subject: Re: IN> Re: Adventures John Karakash > >neel@cswv.com wrote: > >> For example: LA is supposed to be a city so thoroughly controlled by >> demons that they can successfully demand that any angel that enters >> must show up and pay homage to the demons. Yet no credible mechanism >> for enforcing this demand is given beyond a mention of three low-level >> demons watching LAX. [...] > > The actual answer to this, IMO, is that it's >a hostage situation. The angels of LA are well-known >and tracked. Any incursions into there would be an >astoundingly major play in the Game and would probably >mean the death of all resident angels. Plus all the >demon princes have tethers and can put their boys on >the front lines in no time at all. Then the smart thing to do in this situation is to recall all the compromised angels and reassign them to somewhere else, where they would be useful. Then you move some unknown angels into the city, and suddenly none of the demons know who or where the angels are. This drastically increases the good your angels can with no real change in the degree of commitment. I don't even think the Seraphim Council could deadlock over this. All it takes is one son-of-a-bitch archangel (Michael or Janus, say) to announce to the Council: "I'm moving in a squad of Malakim to raise some Hell in LA. To minimize reprisals you should tell your angels there to ascend to Heaven within the next twenty-four hours, because that's when my people will commence making a big noise. You probably also want to move in some new faces the devils don't know to make it harder for them after the big boom. Have a nice day." It's not nice, but then neither is the status quo. - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@cswv.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 17:25:28 -0500 From: John Karakash Subject: Re: IN> Re: Adventures Eeyore wrote: > Which would all be fine if the title adventure didn't rely on their being > *no* other angels in the city that the gruesome twosome doesn't know about. > Blandine has no inconspicuous Menunite wandering around with orders to keep > his head down. Dominic has no one keeping an eye on things because he > thinks it's a bad idea for these angels to be unsupervised in a demonic > city. No Windy has blown through just because it's the thing to do. For > the scenario to work, LA pretty much has to be tightly sealed up, and this > isn't really possible. Good point. - -- +============================================= + John Karakash - geek, writer, cook + Code mangler for EMC CLARiiON + mib2300 +============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 17:39:43 -0500 From: John Karakash Subject: Re: IN> Remnants and Braindead Humans (Re: Shedite/Kyrio question) Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > At 2:41 PM -0500 11/19/99, John Karakash wrote: > >Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > > Argh, no! Let's NOT have soulless bodies generating > >essence. > > Remnants do! And they're _really_ soulless, come right down to it. > > (Mind, to keep the soul/body thing fuzzy, I'd probably say that if the > body were still "alive," whether it was "soulless" or not, the soul is... > nowhere to be found. Not Heaven, not Hell. Limbo? Yeah, like you'd > be able to tell.) In the cases I was talking about, the soul has definitely left (i.e. you saw Bob go to his eternal reward and there's nothing left but meat). By what you are saying above, you can keep a 'soul' indefinitely on hiatus by keeping their body alive. IMO, while an interesting idea, raises all sorts of canonical problems. Can you keep a celestial/ethereal from going to their realms by putting their vessel on a heart/lung machine? Does this work with Malakim? Howabout Saints? Can braindead humans spontaneously spend Essence to do anything? Whatever you can point at and say, "This is Joe Smith", whether that's their spirit, them alive in their body, or their Remnant. That should be the part that generates Essence. Not a piece of meat that's only technically 'alive' because of some machines. OTOH, an angel or demon with certain resonances would be an excellent way of detecting whether a 'braindead' person was still around or whether they had gone on. Remnants still have the tattered remains of their soul. They aren't 'elsewhere'. What you see is what you get. - -- +============================================= + John Karakash - geek, writer, cook + Code mangler for EMC CLARiiON + mib2300 +============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 99 16:59:30 EST From: Publishing@PublishingCompany.fsnet.co.uk Subject: IN> Publishing Company for Sale! See information about Free Credit Application Below! My Multi-Million Dollar Publishing Company ONLY $149 Free Pre-Approved Merchant Account Application with Order!! To Start Your Business Out Right!! 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Any incursions into there would be an astoundingly major play in the Game and would probably mean the deat of all resident angels. Plus all the demon princes have tethers and can put their boys on the front lines in no time at all.<<< That's how I run In Nomine LA. Yeah, there were flaws in FotM, but the *characters* and the setting is wonderful. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:05:36 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Remnants and Braindead Humans (Re: Shedite/Kyrio question) At 5:39 PM -0500 11/19/99, John Karakash wrote: >Elizabeth McCoy wrote: >> >> > Argh, no! Let's NOT have soulless bodies generating >> >essence. >> >> Remnants do! And they're _really_ soulless, come right down to it. >> >> (Mind, to keep the soul/body thing fuzzy, I'd probably say that if the >> body were still "alive," whether it was "soulless" or not, the soul is... >> nowhere to be found. Not Heaven, not Hell. Limbo? Yeah, like you'd >> be able to tell.) > > In the cases I was talking about, the soul has >definitely left (i.e. you saw Bob go to his eternal reward >and there's nothing left but meat). Then I'd say the body is dead. No matter what you try to do, it's just going to fail. The kidneys will go out of whack, the liver will shut down. It's gonna be dead, Jim, even if you keep pumping the lungs and forcing the heart. The soul is in Heaven or Hell or on the next round, and the meat is kaput. There's nothing of the soul left to provide the "breath of life." >By what you are >saying above, you can keep a 'soul' indefinitely on >hiatus by keeping their body alive. Sure. Why not? Souls don't necessarily show up in a timely fashion anywhere anyway. And the body _will_ fail eventually, unless you're doing In Nomine Ultratech. Mortals _age_. (Start using Songs, and you probably risk that Something Weird Will Happen eventually. Like the human waking up.) >Can you keep a celestial/ethereal from going to their >realms by putting their vessel on a heart/lung machine? Sure. But remember how fast they heal! And supernaturally. They're locked, unconscious, inside their vessel until it heals (1 point per day) up to normal hits, whereupon it will be good as new. >Does this work with Malakim? Howabout Saints? Can >braindead humans spontaneously spend Essence to do >anything? Yes, probably (with the same supernatural healing trick), and no. > Remnants still have the tattered remains of their >soul. They aren't 'elsewhere'. What you see is what you >get. That's not how I see it -- when the body dies, they go pfft. They're the celestial equivalent to zombies (and should spook celestials about as much, too). No soul. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 16:58:02 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Soulless Essence >>>Argh, no! Let's NOT have soulless bodies generating essence. Essence goes with the soul. If no-one is home, there's no essence. The undead have the scraps of their souls bound into their corporeal form... but at least the souls are still present. Please reconsider this!<<< Slight problem: Remnants also have no souls, but generate Essence. And reliquaries obviously have no souls, but generate Essence. Obviously, a soul is not a prerequisite to generating Essence. >>>[Imagines rooms full of brain-dead, soulless bodies generating essence.<<< Only an Impudite could use them, though. >>>Could a very unlucky Saint, for example, end up with a bunch of useless, brain-dead vessels, all generating essence, while he does so as well?]<<< No, because a Saint's vessel is the same as a celestial's vessel; it will expire if the Saint leaves it for too long. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 15:05:49 -0800 From: "Glenn D. Brown" Subject: IN> The Destiny anf Fate of all Humanity I've been thinking lately about the really large issue of just what the Destiny of the Human race might be in an In Nomine game. Obviously, this isn't something that's going to happen in most campaigns, but it might be nice to have some ideas about what it might involve, just so you can plant hints about it. As in, "This assignment might not make much sense to you now, but centuries from now, it will..." It seems to me that Humanity's Destiny must require us humans to do something really, really, selfless. Something that we'd never willingly do if we were still selfish. What could it be? What if we're confronted with a situation similar to that which the angels faced, when humans first appeared, and God told the angels, something like, "You see those naked apes down there on the savannah? Well, I know they don't look like much, but they are potentially more important than you are." Many of the angels didn't like it, and thought that their interests should not be subordinated to those of humans. That's how demons were invented. And humans tend to have little sympathy for the demonic position. But suppose some new form of intelligent life appeared, and we humans were expected, for the good of the Symphony, to put its interests ahead of ours? Would we like it any more than Lucifer did? This leads me back to a thread that was discussed a few weeks ago. Remember the talk about artificial intelligence in In Nomine? What if its Humanity's Destiny to create machine Intelligence and then help it develop until it can spread throughout the Galaxy? And what if its our Fate to try to enslave machine intelligence so that it serves Humans, in the way that demons want humans to serve them? Can anyone see any stupid flaws in this idea? Or suggest any other, equally large scale ideas about what our collective Destiny and Fate might be? It would help, the next time I'm planning a metaplot. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 17:57:46 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: re: IN> One Tough Taker At 5:08 PM -0400 11/19/99, Douglas Muir wrote: >>At 4:22 PM -0400 11/19/99, Douglas Muir wrote: >>>If he wins... well, he's a young demon, and whipping a Mal is a *huge* >>>coup. I imagine him incapacitating the angel, then (slowly) kicking him to >>>death. >> >>Just remember, Malakim can go celestial too. > >Point. > >However > >1) if Marco has a lick of sense, he'll make the Mal promise to fight >"fair"... viz, to the corporeal death. I'd give him a "very easy" IQ roll, >perhaps with his Paranoid discord _added_ to the target number (when >dealing with the Malakim, paranoia is a survival characteristic for >demons...) What Malakite is going to swear an oath to fight "fair" against a demon? Remember, Malakim can lie, cheat, and steal if they haven't made an oath against it -- and few Malakim consider demons _worthy_ of honor. A Swordie _might_ already have an oath of fighting fair. Or might not. >2) if the Mal does go Celestial, it's going to take a while to gather >friends and get back... during which time I'd expect Marco to be making >some serious preparations. Cell-phone to the nearest Tether to call for >backup, then out into the neighborhood to round up some mortal cannon >fodder. The Mal comes back with friends to find that Marco is surrounded >by innocent humans who'll fight to protect him, plus those 10-Force Cals >mentioned earlier. Song of Thunder is your _friend_! And Ethereal Attraction, and Song of Motion... (Being surrounded by innocents is nuttin' -- just bamf in, whap the little blighter over the head, bamf out again.) Assuming he _can_ gather that number. It would still be a more even fight than one where the Malakite was _losing_. >Big fight, with the outcome by no means certain. And even if the angels >win, it's going to put a heck of a dent in their Roles If you _have_ Roles. Your buddies in Heaven might not. Or might have iron clad alibies. "Why, yes, Officer. I was in San Francisco not five hours before you claim I was seen elsewhere. Look, here I am on the security camera tape. You must have been mistaken." >3) Alternately, Marco goes Celestial too. He's not nearly as tough on >this plane as on the Corporeal, but with 3 Celestial Forces, a 9 Will, and >Fighting-6, he's no slouch here either. So he gets to hit once -- unless your angel is a Will-wimp, the angel's not going to lose a Force before he ascends to his Heart. (Only a War- angel would have a problem with that, I suspect.) >And, of course, if both go Celestial it'll probably make enough noise to be >heard at that Tether a few blocks away... Details, details. All the PCs I know of are about as quiet as a sack of cats in heat. >Going celestial is a nice option to have, but it isn't a cure-all by any >means. And I question whether an honorable Malakite would always be quick >to pull this particular ripcord. If he's not sworn not to, and isn't a total youngling... Malakim aren't _stupid_, after all. Losing means letting the enemy live, which is dissonant, if they ignore a way where they can stave off losing. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:28:31 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Exerpt from Daily Illuminator November 18, 1999: Free Online Samples in PDF Beginning with the November releases, we will be replacing the text excerpts normally found on each book's Web page with a PDF (portable document file) of actual pages from that book. These PDFs will include the Table of Contents, the Introduction, and one or two random pages. You'll be able to see these pages exactly as they appear in the book. In fact, we already have the first one out. Check out the In Nomine Superiors 1's page and download the excerpt in its new format, then let us know what you think. Acrobat Reader is freeware and is available for download at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:30:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Gant Subject: Re: IN> Re: Adventures On Fri, 19 Nov 1999, John Karakash wrote: > The actual answer to this, IMO, is that it's > a hostage situation. The angels of LA are well-known > and tracked. Any incursions into there would be an > astoundingly major play in the Game and would probably > mean the deat of all resident angels. So they die. So what? They're (in my opinion) a bunch of losers, angels without the courage of their convictions. They bow the knee to demons and obey their whims. They don't have the courage to do what is right, and to resist the forces of Hell even though that's their function. Maybe some time in Trauma would do them good. It would also allow tHeaven to slip in new angels, angels who would act like angels. > Plus all the demon princes have tethers and can put their boys on > the front lines in no time at all. So? The War isn't won by troops. It's won through human souls, and those can be gained without Symphonic disturbance. > Okay, maybe this isn't the best solution, > but it IS plausible. The demons are basically saying, > "we've got all the strength here... come around and > we'll use it to keep this city in line." Heaven has > decided that it doesn't want to get into a major war > over LA (at this time) so angels are circumspect. No. The angels are negligent, and they are cowards. Heaven should let them die, and have Judgement talk to them when they recover. Richard Gant - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Gant's Gaming Ghetto: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/4656/ The Unofficial Returners Final Fantasy Role-Playing Game Site: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Matrix/5758/ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Nov 99 09:55:50 PST From: "Azrael" Subject: Re: IN> H e l p Ordering INS/MV in German? I don't know if it would be better but, you could try ordering from the German company in the main book on Pg.205. (Babelfish you questions) Or if you hadn't already thought of it Babelfish (Biological or Digital it won't matter). Hope I helped Azrael > So if anyone is willing to help me out on this, I'd be grateful. (And if > anyone knows an even better way to get the German INS/MV set, I'd be > even more grateful!) Thanks, > > -David > > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 16:03:44 PST From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: IN> Side effects of Fallen Superiors Someone mentioned that since it is dissonant for Laurence's Servitors to disobey him, they would be in serious trouble if he ever became a Renegade. It has also been pointed out that in the case of Superiors like Laurence, Michael, or Gabriel, whose Servitors are intensely attached to them, there would be a strong possibility that large numbers of Servitors would fall along with their Superiors. I agree that this would be a problem, but not as serious as it appears, for the following reasons: 1) Any Servitor who chose to serve someone else would, of course, be free of Laurence's dissonance condition. 2) Any Malakite who had the oath "Never disobey [insert fallen Superior here] could have the oath removed by his new Superior, as per the Angelic Player's Guide. Yes, I know the Malakite can't *ask* to have it done, but in the case of a fallen Superior he wouldn't have to -- Dominic would do it if no one else did. 3) Any angel other than the Servitors of Laurence and the above-mentioned Malakite could probably continue as Servitors of their old Word if they wanted to. There are still Servitors of Purity around, and I believe that some of the dead or fallen Superiors still have a few Servitors. (I am sure that somewhere I read there was still at least one Servitor of Light puttering around heaven. The stories *he* must be able to tell ...) I have never been convinced, anyway, that the Servitors of a fallen Superior would simply follow him or her like lemmings. After all, the fallen Superior *isn't* the person the angel loves, but someone entirely different. Although in the case of Gabriel, perhaps the point is that since she's insane, her behavior as a demon might not be immediately distinguished from some of her behavior as an Archangel. Of course, I also believe (and play it this way with my PCs and IMC) that *all* angels feel about their Superiors the way Gabriel's are described as feeling. My Malakite of War thinks Michael is Beyond Wonderful, and will happily get into fights with anyone who bad-mouths Michael within his hearing. On the other hand, being intelligent as well as honorable, he does not bad-mouth other angels' Superiors (within their hearing), because he assumes they feel the same way, unless it's a Servitor of Dominic in which case he just might. (He would never insult Novalis in her Servitors' presence, although he thinks she's a waste of space, because he knows her Servitors aren't allowed to fight, so provoking them would be dishonorable.) Janet Anderson P.S. I read "Saints Preserve Us!" and loved it, but I am not sure this is a trick that will work very often. Those Saints had better save it for when it's really important. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 10:46:02 +1100 From: "Leath Sheales" Subject: RE: IN> Re: Adventures John wrote: > The actual answer to this, IMO, is that it's > a hostage situation. The angels of LA are well-known > and tracked. Any incursions into there would be an > astoundingly major play in the Game and would probably > mean the deat of all resident angels. Plus all the > demon princes have tethers and can put their boys on > the front lines in no time at all. So the Archangels have a meeting and plan which servitors they're going to place in LA. Then they get those servitors into place with legitimate transfers for those with Roles, and decent back-stories for those without. The Archangels then send word to their 'compromised' servants and suddenly the angelic population of LA is gone, back to Heaven for reassignment. The demons are worried sick, because they no longer know who the angels are and there's not a damn thing they can do to find out, short of carefully putting together the pieces. Not to mention that the angels now have the advantage, because they know who the demons are... The angels become entrenched and start to subvert the demonic rule of the city. If the demons discover and manipulate too many of the new angels, they are pulled out and replaced with squads of Malakim. Malakim without stupid oaths, and even more stupid superiors (as David is portrayed in that book). So really, the hostage scenario doesn't even work (IMO) unless the Archangels don't have the collective IQ to tie a shoelace. Leath. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 19:12:28 -0400 From: Douglas Muir Subject: re: IN> One Tough Taker >>1) if Marco has a lick of sense, he'll make the Mal promise to fight >>"fair"... viz, to the corporeal death. I'd give him a "very easy" IQ roll, >>perhaps with his Paranoid discord _added_ to the target number (when >>dealing with the Malakim, paranoia is a survival characteristic for >>demons...) > >What Malakite is going to swear an oath to fight "fair" against a demon? Well, there's the Mal of Michael in _Final Trumpet_ who has the oath "Always offer a fair fight to an honorable opponent". IMO this would include any demon (other than a Balseraph) that was behaving honorably, up to the point where it stopped doing so. Yeah, it gives the demon a "free" treachery, but that's no worse than the dissonance conditions for Servitors of David. Less, in fact -- the Mal is allowed to stay alert and watch for the knife, and can act pre-emptively if he sees it coming, while the Stoner has to stand there and take the first hit. >Remember, Malakim can lie, cheat, and steal if they haven't made an oath >against it -- and few Malakim consider demons _worthy_ of honor. IMC Mals don't like to break their given word; it's not *automatically* dissonant, but it can be, and in any case it's just not something most Mals are comfortable doing. Both the main book and the APG fuzz this point, BTW... that is, they don't tell us whether Mals should get dinged for breaking promises, lying, cheating, and what have you, other than for breaking their permanent oaths. Both books note that Malakim have individual concepts of honor, and then they move on. But if Cherubim can get dissonance from breaking a promise (and they can -- APG page 31), then IMO Malakim certainly can, though the details are highly sensitive to context. >A Swordie _might_ already have an oath of fighting fair. Or might not. Again, I note that Swordies are the "most honorable" even among the Mals. So if a demon *offers* a fair fight to the corporeal death, and the Mal accepts... and then the demon sticks to his side of the offer, but is winning the fair fight... I agree that it's something of a judgment call, but given that this is a Swordie, I'm inclined to think he's stuck. Teach him not to underestimate an Impudite again. >>2) if the Mal does go Celestial, it's going to take a while to gather >>friends and get back... during which time I'd expect Marco to be making >>some serious preparations. Cell-phone to the nearest Tether to call for >>backup, then out into the neighborhood to round up some mortal cannon >>fodder. The Mal comes back with friends to find that Marco is surrounded >>by innocent humans who'll fight to protect him, plus those 10-Force Cals >>mentioned earlier. > >Song of Thunder is your _friend_! The high-will demons are probably still standing. The humans are mostly on the ground, but still in the way... >And Ethereal Attraction, Resisted with Will, so the demons are probably fine. Used on a human who's been under an Impudite's sway for months... mmm, I think it makes him love the angel, but not hate the Imp. >and Song of >Motion... (Being surrounded by innocents is nuttin' -- just bamf in, whap >the little blighter over the head, bamf out again.) Bit expensive in Essence, ennit? And all your friends have to have it to come in with you. IMC it's not a terribly common Song, though it's certainly not unheard of. And you need a high check digit, otherwise you're "bamfing" in from the next room, or just down the block. And a demon with 90 Body hits is going to take more than one whack on the head. And, you know, the demons will have Songs too. Song of Thunder right back atcha, babe... Cals in particular tend to love this one, since their high Wills make them immune, and there's nothing more fun than inflicting damage on stunned and helpless victims. >Assuming he _can_ gather that number. Already established in the character writeup; he's got a bunch of humans who've been under his influence for months, and can gather a dozen or so in about an hour. Don't think this is unreasonable for an Impudite with an established Role who's been living in one place for a year. >>3) Alternately, Marco goes Celestial too. He's not nearly as tough on >>this plane as on the Corporeal, but with 3 Celestial Forces, a 9 Will, and >>Fighting-6, he's no slouch here either. > >So he gets to hit once -- unless your angel is a Will-wimp, the angel's >not going to lose a Force before he ascends to his Heart. Not so sure about that. Your normal plain vanilla 9-Force angel has a 6 Will, which means he has less than an even chance of Ascending (5 chances in 12). Even an angel with an 8 Will (which is about as high as I've seen a starting angel go, since they'd usually rather bulk up Perception) will fail about a third of the time. >>And, of course, if both go Celestial it'll probably make enough noise to be >>heard at that Tether a few blocks away... > >Details, details. All the PCs I know of are about as quiet as a sack of >cats in heat. Heh. Point. >Malakim aren't _stupid_, after all. Losing means letting the enemy live, >which is dissonant, if they ignore a way where they can stave off losing. True. OTOH a novice Mal may have to get dinged a few times before this particular lesson is well learned. Doug M. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1424 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1999 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.