From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Mar 23 20:39:41 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 UAA26598 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 20:39:40 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id UAA20062 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 20:36:48 -0600 Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 20:36:48 -0600 Message-Id: <200003240236.UAA20062@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 #1561 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, March 23 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1561 In this digest: Re: IN> London Re: IN> Eseence in Heaven/Hell Re: IN> London Re: IN> London IN> Soldiers with Band Forces. Re: IN> Eseence in Heaven/Hell Re: IN> London Re: IN> Essence in Heaven/Hell Re: IN> Soldiers with Band Forces. Re: IN> The Home Front ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:09:21 +0000 From: Omentide Subject: Re: IN> London >No dinero and very much modified Fall of the Malakim. So, I would like to >know what to change in these two adventures to make them fit better to >London. I would really appreciate suggestions for places to use as Tethers to >Media and Lust. The very obvious tethers are a clip joint in Soho for Andre and a pub in Fleet Street for Nybbas. In both cases you can make the details up for yourself. The Soho clip joints are run by criminal gangs. They charge exhorbitant amounts to buy the ladies drinks then throw you out with extreme prejudice. Fleet Street pubs really are what non-Londoners assume they would be like. Probably more than anywhere else in London. Less obvious ones would include Conservative Party Headquarters (for Andre) and Leicester Square (film premieres) for Nybbas. Capital Radio has a large building on the Marylebone Road. Pinewood studios is seriously cool (we used to film amateur horror movies in the grounds) but a fair drive from Central London and probably never successful enough to have attracted Nybbas' attention. Looking at Gentrification, the prime example of this in London at the moment is Docklands. From whence both Fleet Street and Soho are both easy tube (subway) trips. Also not far from Tower Hamlets where most of the Bangladeshi sweat shops are located. However, Docklands has flattened everything around it - it was never really the kind of gradual incursion you probably need to run No Dinero. Last year's nailbombings took place in Brixton (no longer really and truly front line) and Brick Lane. The pub that got nailbombed was not far from Fleet Street and only a short stroll from Soho. You are going to have serious difficulties finding London cognates for Tar Pits and Death Valley. We don't have open country round here. There is Chislehurst Caves in SE London which might be an interesting location for a pit, or you could use the underground section of the River Fleet, it opens up on the Thames under one of the bridges (can't remember which one). It's a fairly large watercourse, was navigable years ago and nowadays is not much more than a huge sewer. Then there are the unused parts of the tube system, nobody knows where some of the tunnels are anymore. Thinking about it, it might be an idea to site No Dinero in Putney. Not an area I personally know well, but gentrification is definitely taking place. Unfortunately public transport links to the rest of London are dodgy (and even an Offanite would have problem negotiating London traffic!). Another possibility (and much closer to my own home) would be Ealing. If I was going to do this 'translocation' I would pick Ealing or Brent but that's partly because they are places I know well (having lived in both!). Both are driveable from Central London (I'd rather drive in from either than from Putney or Docklands). There's the old site of the defunct Ealing film studios for Nybbas and Southall (in Ealing) is one major source of 'Asian Babe' magazines (a lovely combination of Andre and Nybbas). Then you are going to have to consider ethnicity. Our ethnic mix here in London is rather different from the mix in the States. We have our own Chinatown (not far from Fleet Street, Soho or Leicester Square), mostly centered round Leicester Street. We have concentrations of people whose family came from the Subcontinent (Brick Lane, Tower Hamlets, Southall) and of people of Afro-Carribean origin (Brixton, Brent). It really depends on whether you want a mythical Jack the Ripper London or the 'real thing'. Ashley and Hilary omentide.omentide@virgin.net http://freespace.virgin.net/omentide.omentide ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:16:29 -0500 From: David Wood Subject: Re: IN> Eseence in Heaven/Hell Quoth Douglas Muir on 3/21/00 6:30 PM: > Of course, it's not their *last* point. Which leads to a nice symmetry: > in Hell, the damned are almost always at either 0 or 1 essence; in Heaven, > the blessed are almost always at full essence, or just one point below it. And the easiest way to explain that IMHO is the difference between Mercurians and Impudites, and for that matter, Heaven and Hell: Mercurians spend their time doing what other people like to do, possibly because it helps them generate Essence on their own. It's a house rule in my campaign that someone doing something he enjoys for long enough may actually regenerate extra Essence above and beyond that which they'd get at noon. Impudites spend their time around humans siphoning that Essence off. And while they're fun to be around and all, they tend to want to do what *they* want to, dragging people along and *convincing* them that it'd be fun. And while they may enjoy it in the short run, really the humans they sting along get nothing out of it. At least, the explanation works for me... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:49:43 -0500 From: "Gregory Gietzen" Subject: Re: IN> London From: "Omentide" > building on the Marylebone Road. Pinewood studios is seriously cool (we > used to film amateur horror movies in the grounds) but a fair drive from > Central London and probably never successful enough to have attracted > Nybbas' attention. IIRC, didn't a lot of the filming for the Bond movies go on at Pinewood? What's more Media than that? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:57:58 PST From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> London >From: "Gregory Gietzen" >Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com > >IIRC, didn't a lot of the filming for the Bond movies go on at Pinewood? >What's more Media than that? > BBC headquarters at Shepherd's Bush. BBC world service HQ on Aldwych (near Fleet Street). Wapping/ Isle of Dogs (where most of the newspapers moved to from Fleet Street.) Channel 4 HQ in Camden. Wherever the HQ of the Evening Standard is. I think El Vino's or the Coach and Horses (wine bar and pub respectively) might be the most typical choices. They're quite associated with media types. jo ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:14:31 -0700 From: "ben" Subject: IN> Soldiers with Band Forces. Soldiers can pick up choir and band attunements if they are given a force that previously belonged to a celestia of that band or choir. If Kronos bound a Balsperaph's force onto a Soldier of Hell, could that soldier purchase the band attunement and thus recieve an angelic resonance? I know demons can't pick up the Balseraph Attunement of Fate after creation, but does this also apply to a mortal? If yes, could a mortal use the Kyriotate resonance, drop his own body, and smurf into another? (Presumably it takes all his own forces to use his own body.) Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:17:23 -0700 From: "ben" Subject: Re: IN> Eseence in Heaven/Hell The demons discovered Hell. They didn't create it. Sure, Hell sucks off a lot of essence from its victims. On the other hand, Hell wastes a lot of that essence competing with itself. Furthermore, demons are, by definition, weaker than angels. They essence gained from all the damned souls is probably what keeps Hell competitive. On the third hand, wouldn't a perfectly selfless being happily contribute his essence to Heaven? Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 20:19:05 +0000 From: Omentide Subject: Re: IN> London At 00:57 23/03/00 -0800, you wrote: >I think El Vino's or the Coach and Horses (wine bar and pub respectively) >might be the most typical choices. They're quite associated with media types Or maybe Stringfellows - combination of media and lust.. Ashley and Hilary omentide.omentide@virgin.net http://freespace.virgin.net/omentide.omentide ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 15:57:51 -0500 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Essence in Heaven/Hell At 1:17 PM -0700 3/23/00, ben wrote: > >On the third hand, wouldn't a perfectly selfless being happily contribute >his essence to Heaven? Sure. But why would Heaven require or need it? Does the Lord Provide, or is Heaven just another staging ground for a battlefield. If the Blessed Souls who decide not to ascend to the Upper Heavens choose to remain in perfect harmony, why would it ever occur to the Angels to ask them to pay for the privilege? Furthermore... the Angels aren't perfectly selfless beings. They aspire to be, but they Fall and they accuse each other and they have Superiors who feel hostility towards one another and pursue their own political agendas and and and and.... In other words, the expectation here is that a Blessed Soul is either innately closer to the Divine than an Angel, or that coercion or threats are involved. (Perhaps threats with having to go to the Upper Heavens). All of the above can work in a Low Contrast game, where Heaven can easily run like Hell, only not so honest about it. But if there's a moderate to high Contrast, "happy willing contributions of Essence" rapidly have no place. So, let me take Jo up on her offer and "talk economics to her, bayh-bee!" In Heaven, all needs are provided for. The Essence Reserves needed to fuel Heavenly Activities come from the Light of Heaven itself -- an infinite supply, but one that can be exhausted in "local areas" if someone isn't careful. In the beginning, the Light of Heaven was a tremendous Essence Advantage over Hell, with Tethers and generated Essence from Word Forces filling the gaps for the Personal power of the Archangels. Hell needed to close that gap, but discovered they could tempt, tease, torment and take Essence from damned souls. So damning souls became a *huge* priority, to close the Essence Gap. And it worked -- it may be safe to say Hell has a stronger daily Essence Reserve than Heaven now, even as they have more Demons. Of course, they're not as unified in purpose in using it.... So, needs are provided for... but there are other needs. A need for purpose. A need for social interaction. A need for Trade, in other words. A need for things that aren't really needed. Marc has provided here, both the tools and the rewards. Take the Ithaca Bucks model. This is named after a volunteering initiative in Ithaca, New York. The idea is people contribute time to the community and each other, doing what their trained to do. (Desktop publishing, physical therapy, field work, what have you). That contributed time is "cashed in" at a central "bank," which issues some "Ithaca bucks." Some cheap paper coupons reflecting hours of work. Those coupons are then accepted at a number of local merchants and restaurants, as well as by a number of the people who volunteer. (After all, if you offer an Ithaca Buck to someone to give you a massage therapy massage, they don't have to give it to you, attest to it, and get the buck from the Authority. They have it in hand). They're not hugely equitable in a labor-to-goods means, but they're meant for community service rewards, not a substitution for economy. So. Extend this to Heaven in principle. We know Robert Heinlein's working in the Halls of Progress, choosing to remain in the Lower Heaven to pitch in for the good fight. We also know Heinlein believes in an honest wage for an honest day's work. So his time is rewarded with some kind of benediction, affirmed by the Angels of Trade but brokered through Jean's organization. These aren't very much, really. But Heinlein can take those, and wander through the bazaar and pick up some fripperies if he wants, or stop on his way home for a cup of coffee or a beer. And in giving the symbols of his contributed time to an artist who's crafted a new coffee cup, he affirms that artist's time and effort, even if that time wasn't spent working for Heaven's War. Economics, but economics for nonessentials. So. Someone want to slash this, burn this to the ground, dance on its grave and sing "Gypsies, Beggers and Thieves" over it? - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 15:53:55 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Soldiers with Band Forces. ben wrote: > > > Soldiers can pick up choir and band attunements if they are given a force > that previously belonged to a celestia of that band or choir. > > If Kronos bound a Balsperaph's force onto a Soldier of Hell, could that > soldier purchase the band attunement and thus recieve an angelic resonance? No. Soldiers acquiring Band/Choir attunements are subject to the same rules as other Servitors acquiring a Band/Choir attunement not their own - -- if it's dependent on having that Band/Choir's resonance, you can't have it. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 20:31:22 -0600 From: "Kiara S. Legner" Subject: Re: IN> The Home Front > > Am I the only one who simply doesn't accept that Heaven runs on an > Essence based economy, but instead runs on a soft currency based > economy in those (rare) sections that have economics at all? > > The idea that Blessed Souls and Angels have to yield up their > precious Essence -- the very flow of the divine within them, the bit > of hope and luck that drives their activities -- to get a cup of > coffee bothers me greatly. It turns Marc and the like into an > Impudite, and makes Heaven no intrinsicly better than Hell. > Not in the least bit. I don't care for the idea at all, and I think it makes Heaven way too much like Hell. Heaven, in my campaign, is still in its formative stages, but the Essence-for-coffee thing is rapidly disappearing. Kiara ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1561 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.