From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Feb 17 13:00:16 2000 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA09522 for ; Thu, 17 Feb 2000 13:00:15 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id MAA31930 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:56:08 -0600 Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:56:08 -0600 Message-Id: <200002171856.MAA31930@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 #1532 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 Thursday, February 17 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1532 In this digest: Re: IN> High-Contrast Words Re: IN> High-Contrast Words IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Las Vegas IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) Re: IN> Las Vegas Re: IN> Kyriotate of Jean Re: IN> Kyriotate of Jean Re: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) Re: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) Mee-deep. Re: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 13:24:38 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> High-Contrast Words Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > Are you sure it's not more a Feudal Utopia? Sure looks feudal to me. A given Cathedral is anarchic if and only if its Archangel is of an anarchic turn of mind. Dominic, Jean, and Laurence sure don't want much anarchy in their parts of Heaven. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 14:38:12 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> High-Contrast Words Earl Wajenberg wrote: > > Are you sure it's not more a Feudal Utopia? > > Sure looks feudal to me. A given Cathedral is anarchic if and only if > its Archangel is of an anarchic turn of mind. Dominic, Jean, and > Laurence sure don't want much anarchy in their parts of Heaven. Jordi, Janus, Novalis, and Eli *might* be considered to have anarchic Cathedrals (though the fact that there IS an ultimate authority, however benevolent and however non-intrusive, means by definition it can't be a true anarchy, so only Eli's Cathedral fits the literal definition). The more hierarchical the organization, the less anarchistic it is, and Heaven as a whole is most definitely hierarchical -- and the existence of Judgment disproves any notion that Heaven is an anarchy. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 14:29:07 -0800 (PST) From: David Barr Subject: IN> Las Vegas Just got back from a road trip to Las Vegas, with my wife, best man and her (sic) boyfriend. Throughout the whole of the trip (aside from the parts where i was driving 11 hours straight through (Red Bull Give you wings...Tastes Hideous, though, and the eighth is as bad as the first in any given three hour time span)) I was thinking...who owns Las Vegas? Within an IN context, that is. A case could be made for Gluttony, or theft. But from what i could see in the three days i was there, Freedom was the biggest Word. Everything is for sale there, legal and otherwise. Even though Prostitution is not legal in Las Vegas (it is legal in other surrounding counties) there are Full Service Escort services advertised on billboards and the yellow Pages (according to my wife, who is a professional stripper), this is a very thin euphemism. And, contrary to what i thought, the mob does not own it anymore. They were driven out by busniess people who were a lot better at business. Go fig. So. How about vegas as the personal domain of Lilith? With Marc making a lot of takeover attempts (hostile and otherwise). Any thoughts? - -Daiv ===== reply to my home address -> daiv@cruzio.com time to change sig files i do not have a new one make something up then - -Daiv __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 19:47:15 -0500 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas At 2:29 PM -0800 2/16/00, David Barr wrote: >So. How about vegas as the personal domain of Lilith? With Marc >making a lot of takeover attempts (hostile and otherwise). >Any thoughts? Seems like I remember an anecdote/vignette somewhere saying Vegas was "Mammon's town." - -- Eric Alfred Burns It was then I felt my heart break like a in-sabre@annotations.com fragile Scooby Snack upon the harsh teeth of http://www.annotations.com Reality -- and it's been broken ever since. http://www.annotations.com/~journal --Johnny Bravo ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 19:08:36 -0600 (CST) From: Elizabeth Bartley Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas On Wed, 16 Feb 2000, Whistling in the Dark wrote: > Seems like I remember an anecdote/vignette somewhere saying Vegas was > "Mammon's town." Vignette prefacing "Outlaw Celestials" in the APG p. 90. Elizabeth Bartley e-bartley@pobox.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 20:31:12 -0500 From: John Karakash Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas David Barr wrote: > I was thinking...who owns Las Vegas? Within an > IN context, that is. What does it have to be one? I'd vote that Mammon has the lion's share, with any others bringing up the rear. You don't _have_ to steal in LV... people are lining up to throw their money away. Likewise Greed will try to make a buck at _anything_... if it happens to be legal, that's just a bonus. - -- +============================================= + John Karakash - geek, writer, cook + Code mangler for EMC CLARiiON + mib2300 +============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 21:52:10 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas David Barr wrote: > So. How about vegas as the personal domain of Lilith? With Marc > making a lot of takeover attempts (hostile and otherwise). > Any thoughts? I think somewhere there has been a canon reference to Las Vegas belonging to either Mammon or Kronos. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 21:50:37 CST From: "Justin Buhler" Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas >I was thinking...who owns Las Vegas? Within an >IN context, that is. >So. How about vegas as the personal domain of Lilith? With Marc >making a lot of takeover attempts (hostile and otherwise). >Any thoughts? Myself I see Vegas as just being another city. Being city of Sin just proves it's more infernal bound, but it's still a mundane locale. If anything it's not owned by a Prince, but by a very powerful demon, the demon of Las Vegas, like most other word-bounds. It's up for grabs as to which of the demons, be (s)he a follower of Andre, Mammon, Haagenti, Kobal, Lilith, or any of the other Prince that would make a grab at her ownage is the strongest; but Las Vegas is, like most other Mundane things, not set in stone as to which DP/AA owns it. Or at least those are my thoughts. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 21:12:27 -0800 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas I lived in Las Vegas for a year while going to school. Let me just say that organized crime is still involved in running the city. Only now, rather than the older method of skimming the take and not paying taxes, they just own parts of the corporations. And while junk bonds have replaced investments from unions as the primary funding source for new ventures...which are even more rare, really, since now a few companies are doing all the new mega-resorts on the Strip. Anyhow -- Shal-Mari has always struck me as the Las Vegas of the Damned. Since Las Vegas is the City of Sin to start with, there is no reason not to diversify. Indeed, the whole Shal-Mari crew is very strongly represented there. And even more! And Kronos has to watch and laugh a great deal...many people have to meet their fates in a place where you can (no kidding) PAWN YOUR HOUSE. That's right. If you own your house and can get a copy of the deed faxed to you, it's possible to get money for it. How many people tend to lose? Well... I think Las Vegas can be done with varying degrees of brightness. In the World of Darkness games I have run in that setting, I chose to make it fairly dark. The only thing that kept the backstreets of the city from becoming a kill-you-take-your-organs-and-your-wallet slaughterhouse as people need more to push into the machine is the fact that the people who run the city don't want tourists scared away. However, you can also make the case that Las Vegas is a fairly cathartic sort of place. In an In Nomine game, it might pale in comparison to Los Angeles. From LA, demons control the Media to influence the world's perceptions. Nice people from Kansas visit Las Vegas, lose some money, drink too much, chase some attractive members of the opposite sex...and then go home, with all that out of their system. Hardly worth the effort it would take to clean the place up... In reality, there are a lot of sad things about the city and a lot of good things. I have tried to just present some theories. Sean ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 16:36:29 +1100 From: "Patrick O'Duffy" Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas I'm actually slowly working up an IN module about a road trip to Las Vegas. The module largely involves a major Servitor of Fleurity, but that's because the game is based on FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Based on this thread, and the casino scenes in F&L, I might include a Servitor of Mammon somewhere in the mix as well. (If there's room; we already have Elvis and the Fisher King.) - -- Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia "You want to go out to dinner sometime?" "Sorry, no. I'm married, not hungry, infected with seven unknown diseases, gay, pregnant with lizards and clinically dead." - Spider Jerusalem & Hannah Enkidu, TRANSMETROPOLITAN #9 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 09:43:34 -0000 From: "Laurent" Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas Using a non-canon Prince, I would have said Vega, Prince of Gambling, created by Justing Buhler. Using a canon Prince, I would have said Asmodeus. After all, isn't the Game the main attraction in Las Vegas? Laurent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 10:49:29 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) Now, from what I _hear_, I've gotten my copy relatively late, for me, for reasons involving printers and print runs and other fun things. So _with luck_ the book is already (bat)winging its way through distribution chains and into stores. Now, I can hardly review the _text_. I edited it. I'm too close to it. I either adore it far too much or can't stand it because I went over a slightly cumbersome word-choice fifty-zillion times... But I _can_ say: "The book, it is beautiful!" Yum, art! Okay, if you don't want to hear me enthusing over the art, skip this message. I just need someone to gloat at, and you're _all my hapless victims!_ Muwhahahahahah! Ahem. Anyway... First, there's the cover. You can go to www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/superiors2 and click on the thumbnail there for a larger version. It's one of the better scans I've seen. This is the sort of cover you don't want to show mom unless she's got a lot of steamy romances hidden away where you can blackmail her about them. O:> (Fortunately, _my_ mom both reads steamy romances, _and_ is generally cool; I'll be able to show her.) The very front page has a piece by (I think, deciphering initials) Michael Phillippi, who's a name I don't recall seeing before. Nice work, puts me in mind of Perez and Smif both at the same time -- which probably does the artist an injustice but is about the only way I can think of to describe the style in text. Speaking of Perez -- he's done all five splashpages for this one. The Andrealphus one is _definitely_ you don't want people getting hold of. It's got Andre, of course, and four minions -- in evidence (among the minions) is: a blindfold, a ball-gag, a leather hood with mouth-zipper, one wench serving as a table-stand... The Andre sigil is a whip, tassled at the end and with a suggestive handle, formed into a cursive "A." It's cute. The rest of the Andrealphus section is a little light on art, but the art that's there ranges from good to VERY nice. Notable in the very nice category: there's a bat-winged wench and her three males hanging around in various stages of nudity (and yes, she's clearly topless), there's a very nice Andrea-and-Novalis piece, there's an appropriate SMIF reprint from Night Music, and a couple of Harmon pieces (I don't always like his stuff; I like these). There's a slight over-use of the Lust sigil in this chapter; IIRC, there were some rumors that expected art for the chapter had come in, well, bad. Or not come in, or something. At least it proves the Lust-sigil can be shrunk to several different sizes and still look good. O:> Perez's interpretation of Haagenti is more humanoid than the Smif one, and I'm more fond of the "hopping horror" that Smif did -- but as usual, Perez does a very _detailed_ job. There's a backdrop in woodcut style of demons force-feeding humans. Looks very authentic. Haagenti crouches obesely atop a bunch of skulls (some horned) and munches on a foot. What I _can't_ figure is what all these cute little frogs are doing sitting all over the bones. They're really adorable. Haagenti's symbol is pretty much a stylized exaggeration of his main book picture -- there's little horns, tufts of fur, and hands around a circular inward-fanged maw with a forked tongue curling in the middle. Sort of What You See Last if you annoy Haagenti, which makes one wonder what demon could have designed it. O;> I'm not as thrilled with the use of the Perez Mammon from H&H in here, though it certainly does match Gluttony well; we'll see how Perez copes when he does the art for S4. Some of the art is a little boring -- there are at least two images that are simply a facial of someone stuffing his face with food. There are a couple others that have eating in them which are more interesting, though. The Grand Recipe Repository, for those who remember the playtest, is indeed as ugly as advertised. Thank goodness it's _not_ in color! There's another (good) rendition of the "hopping horror" Haagenti by someone who signed the piece just "-D-" -- probably Jeff Dee. There's also a nice piece of a Haagenti (who looks a bit like Foglio's Aahz from the _Mythadventures_ series...) being served food while starving humans are chained to the wall. Again, there's a bit of sigil usage here (though not as much as in Lust's chapter), which makes me suspect that a few filler bits didn't come in as planned. Kobal's chapter... Perez did a nice job for Kobal in _Final Trumpet_, and does an even better one here. It's a horned man, standing in tassled robes that Perez does so well, holding three masks which have suggestive nails around the edges -- human skin stretched over them. His own smirking face is half-hidden behind one of them. A trio of demonlings caper around him -- one also seems to be stretching a face across its own, while another tries to hold up Kobal's train and waves around a skull-scepter with a jester's cap on it. The sigil here is a somewhat blotchy-looking horned skull with jester-cap; it actually works better than I'm describing it. (But it's stylistically rather different from the other two; more organic lines than clear ones.) Notable art is the Kobalite saying something to a brawny, weapons-hung guy with a sword, and the guy is cracking up -- clearly illustrating the "Now _that's_ a punch line!" attunement. There's also a little piece of what I _think_ is a joy-buzzer in someone's hand; it's a very... cthuloid little trinket. There's a piece in here that I don't really see it's connection -- a guy looking at the image of another man in a "magic ball" kind of effect -- but it's well-done and maybe I'll find out what it's supposed to be representing eventually. Another couple of pieces look like they might be more at home in Andre's chapter, but they're nice to look at so I'm not going to complain. There's also a Lilim in a jester's cap with little skulls on the tassles and this adorable smirk. Anyone who knows about my Lilim NPC munchkin will guess what *I'm* thinking there. Then there's Nybbas. Tacky Satanic Tie-time. Definitely radiates, "I'm the head honcho -- I don't _have_ to dress up!" A demonling is holding an oval-screened TV reading "Thor, the legendary journeys" -- remember that, it will be important later. Nybbas' Sigil is a TV-set -- with long horns. (Put your Band sigil inside the screen and you've got a personalized doodle!) The rest of the art is, I think, all Phil Reed's. The one that stands out for me is for Harrishee, which also has a nice image of her celestial form in the background. Finally, the Adventure Seeds section. Again, Perez does the splash -- the foreground is a pair of strippers doing a pole-dance together. (To para-quote Anthony Ragan, "Strippers are sort of an in-joke in In Nomine, aren't they?") Very nice composition. In the background, there's a film-strip with various scenes which, if you think back to _Final Trumpet_, look like the World-serpent adventure from there. _Very_ amusing, to me. The rest of the art in that section is okay, though nothing that _grabbed_ me, really. There's a reprint, in grayscale, of Smif's Haagenti from the main book, which I crossed my eyes at. I don't mind the other reprints that show up -- indeed, some of the art will otherwise go away forever, if I have my way -- but stuff from the main book? Tsk. The most amusing is the "Princess Adorable" candidate (a little girl) with a machine gun; the execution could be a little better, but the concept is, um, adorable. Now, the subliminals. YOU WANT TO BUY THIS BOOK. Fnord. There, done my duty with _that_ little job... - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:11:58 -0500 From: Jason Schneiderman Subject: Re: IN> Las Vegas >Using a non-canon Prince, I would have said Vega, Prince of Gambling, >created by >Justing Buhler. Oh, I don't know. I've been using Ambsace, Demon of Gambling for some time now. One of GR Cogman's. >Using a canon Prince, I would have said Asmodeus. After all, isn't the >Game the >main attraction in Las Vegas? See above. ;) Jason * * * * * Jason Schneiderman jadasc@ma.ultranet.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:43:56 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Kyriotate of Jean At 10:11 AM +0000 2/16/00, Laurent wrote: >Kyriotates of Jean can use corporeal objects as vessels for a limited time. >Is a relic (in corporeal form) considered as a corporeal object? >I'd say no to that. What about you? I think it might depends, but, happily, the APG sayeth (and I agree): "The GM also determines what sorts of object can be inhabited [...]". O:> - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 10:50:21 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Kyriotate of Jean > At 10:11 AM +0000 2/16/00, Laurent wrote: > >Kyriotates of Jean can use corporeal objects as vessels for a limited time.> >Is a relic (in corporeal form) considered as a corporeal object? > >I'd say no to that. What about you? I'm not sure I'd say no, since Kyriotates can possess other celestials, suggesting that a celestial/supernatural nature is not a barrier to possession. However, I might say that relics require a number of Forces equal to their level to possess them. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:15:12 -0500 From: John Karakash Subject: Re: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > Now, from what I _hear_, I've gotten my copy relatively late, for > me, for reasons involving printers and print runs and other fun > things. So _with luck_ the book is already (bat)winging its way > through distribution chains and into stores. ;) > There's a slight over-use of the Lust sigil in this chapter; IIRC, there > were some rumors that expected art for the chapter had come in, well, bad. > Or not come in, or something. At least it proves the Lust-sigil can be > shrunk to several different sizes and still look good. O:> I'd much rather have good art and some filler than bad art AS filler. Kudos to whoever made that decision if that's, in fact, the case. > > Perez's interpretation of Haagenti is more humanoid than the Smif one, > and I'm more fond of the "hopping horror" that Smif did -- but as usual, > Perez does a very _detailed_ job. There's a backdrop in woodcut style > of demons force-feeding humans. Looks very authentic. Haagenti crouches > obesely atop a bunch of skulls (some horned) and munches on a foot. What > I _can't_ figure is what all these cute little frogs are doing sitting > all over the bones. They're really adorable. Hey, even a lowly demon can have multiple vessels. Why not a demon prince? Maybe this is his 'sauve and sophisticated' look? =) - -- +============================================= + John Karakash - geek, writer, cook + Code mangler for EMC CLARiiON + mib2300 +============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:15:23 -0600 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) From: "Elizabeth McCoy" > > Haagenti crouches obesely atop a bunch of skulls (some horned) > and munches on a foot. What I _can't_ figure is what all these > cute little frogs are doing sitting all over the bones. Snacks, obviously. ;;;) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 13:57:39 -0500 From: Jason Schneiderman Subject: Mee-deep. Re: IN> My Superiors 2 Arrived... (Long Art Praise!) >From: "Elizabeth McCoy" >> >> Haagenti crouches obesely atop a bunch of skulls (some horned) >> and munches on a foot. What I _can't_ figure is what all these >> cute little frogs are doing sitting all over the bones. > >Snacks, obviously. ;;;) Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recall that there was a mention of demonic frogs in the Bible, although I couldn't cite a verse. Anyone with a better search engine/memory than I? Jason * * * * * Jason Schneiderman jadasc@ma.ultranet.com ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1532 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.