From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sun Mar 26 23:20:20 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 XAA26795 for ; Sun, 26 Mar 2000 23:20:20 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id XAA17364 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sun, 26 Mar 2000 23:17:50 -0600 Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 23:17:50 -0600 Message-Id: <200003270517.XAA17364@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 #1564 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, March 26 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1564 In this digest: Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? Re: IN> Economies of Essence... (Re: The Home Front) Re: IN> Warning: Saminga At Work. Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? Re: IN> Very nasty Malakite of Eli trick Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question Re: IN> More Birthday Gifts IN> Word Reinterpretation (Re: Jack, Demon of Haunted Toys) Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? IN> Kobal Software (A Vignette) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 10:32:15 -0800 (PST) From: Guy Royse Subject: Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? > > How do you think Celestials would react to this new development? > > I suppose Valefor is delighted that millions of people are ignoring > > copyright law, but how would Nybbas, Eli and Israfel react? Nybbas > > has more control over the record industry than he has over the > > Internet, but the Internet is part of the Media, and Napster is > > building a bigger audience. > > I think Nybbas would hate it, seeing as so many people are so eagerly > lapping up the media, in the form of pirated mp3s. Malphas is > probably feeling good on the issue himself - distinct factions are > being formed. I think that the superior that would dislike it the most would probably be Marc. The purchase of music is definately an act of trade. When one downloads an MP3 (assuming that they don't already have the CD it came from), the artist who wrote the music doesn't get paid, the record company doesn't get paid (awww... breaks my heart), and the distributers don't get paid. I don't think Nybbas would care. The content is still being delivered. People are slavishly bound to their computers, ignoring family and friends, while eagerly downloading music with no regard for the artists compenstation. How more selfish can one get? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 18:46:38 -0000 From: "Genevieve Cogman" Subject: Re: IN> Economies of Essence... (Re: The Home Front) - -----Original Message----- From: Kiara S. Legner >> >> If it were a 1-Essence, 1-coffee equation, that _would_ be icky... >> >That's the implication in the coffee-bar scenario... (Don't remember which >book it's in at the moment - but it's implied that it's 1-Essence, >1-coffee....) Okay, as the writer for this one (it was in _You Are Here_...) My concept of the place was as an echo of the earthly cafe-where-people-have-coffee/food-while-making-deals, given that the lower Heavens use earthly images (the Glade, Commerce Park, etc) -- we never get to see the Higher Heavens. The mechanic wasn't exactly one essence for a cup of coffee. It was basically "one essence for unlimited drinks or food for as long as you're there, paid for with the first order". The place was known for its coffee, as the Elohite of Creation who worked there liked to use the provided Essence to Abracadabra up a pound of coffee to any customer's precise specification, then use the remaining coffee (after the customer had had their drinks) for other customers, so they could discover new tastes. It was a hangout for people to make deals, or watch other people making deals. Why payment? Well, this is Commerce Park, this is Trade, this is the very place centred around the theme of "something for something and we both profit by it and create a better situation thereby", to paraphrase on Trade a little. For Servitors of Trade to just give the coffee away totally free and without obligation -- no, it doesn't quite fit. (It would for Servitors of Novalis, however, but this just demonstrates inter-Word differences). If someone actually _needed_ coffee, they'd give it free. As it is, they make an equitable transaction, the humans get to feel they've actually "bought" the coffee/food and had an impact on the place, the Traders probably cream off a bit of Essence at the end of the day, everyone's happy. Not all Traders do this, of course, and certainly many angels from other Words wouldn't. And certainly plenty of angels of Trade on Earth contribute to charities. It's just . . . one of those things that happens in Heaven, which contains a lot of different concepts. - --- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 14:01:05 -0500 From: Andrew Dawson Subject: Re: IN> Warning: Saminga At Work. If you browse a few of the links from this website, you will find information indicating that this is still a functional church, that more ossuaries exist in Europe, and that they often used the glut of bodies produced by the plague. Some of these may be tethers to Death, but any that still host normal Christian services are generating essence for Heaven. Any site that inspires piety (based on reflecting on the fragile and ephemeral nature of man) in humans isn't a great infernal tether. IMG, this wouldn't make most servitors of Flowers nauseous because angels know that death is an old and established fact on Earth. Some angels might be reminded of the presence of death and those who have a personal grudge against Saminga might view an ossuary as a reminder of the task at hand. IMO, feeling nausea at the sight of bone sculptures is a weak human reaction and beneath even the most deep-cover Mercurian. Even a human doesn't need to be a death/Satan worshipper to appreciate the artistic merits of these bone structures. I found them to be very aesthetically pleasing. OTOH, I can see any angel becoming irritated at a modern devotee of Death who is butchering (or not) people to create some wonderful death art. Brian Lumley's later Necroscope books (first series 3-5 IIRC) are good sources of fictional inspiration for art composed of the dead or the grotesquely altered living. Later, Andy P.S. This was a neat site. There is at least one hour-long TV show on these ossuaries being shown on one of either PBS, TDC, or TLC. At 11:58 AM 03/25/2000 +0100, you wrote: >I was browsing the web and I found this site: > >http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/silver_p/kutna.html > >It's for a church in the Czech republic called the Sedlec Ossuary that >Just has to be a tether to Saminga. Lots of lovely pictures (lovely from a >demon's point of view... It would probably make a Flower nauseous) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 17:25:17 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? Guy Royse wrote: > I think that the superior that would dislike it the most would probably > be Marc. The purchase of music is definately an act of trade. When > one downloads an MP3 (assuming that they don't already have the CD it > came from), the artist who wrote the music doesn't get paid, the record > company doesn't get paid (awww... breaks my heart), and the > distributers don't get paid. Well, that's the record company line. A lot of independent artists feel that Napster will *help* them, and ultimately lead to increased revenues, just as VCRs led to increased revenues for Hollywood, despite the fact that film studios initially resisted videotape technology, thinking it would lead to the demise of movie theaters. > I don't think Nybbas would care. The content is still being delivered. > People are slavishly bound to their computers, ignoring family and > friends, while eagerly downloading music with no regard for the artists > compenstation. How more selfish can one get? Again, that's a one-sided view of Napster's effects. Also bear in mind that media not controlled by Nybbas isn't the Media, as far as Nybbas is concerned. (And I doubt many people are slavishly bound to their computers, ignoring family and friends, just to download music files.) - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 18:26:54 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Very nasty Malakite of Eli trick At 12:04 PM +0100 3/25/00, Dave Taylor wrote: >He wants to use his attunement on a Large Sword (already power +4) in the >hope of getting a Sword with power up to +10. Naturally I ruled that the >attunement ignores the inherent power of the item when used, giving him >only a maximum of +6, Amen. And I'd be tempted to make him describe roughly _how_ he's using it so creatively that he's getting the bonus... (Or lack of bonus -- you either get the attunement +1-6 bonus, or the Power +4 bonus, not both, not the higher of the two... ("What do you _mean_ you held the sharp end and pistol-whipped the demon with the hilt?" "Uhhh, it was creative?") >but it's still one open for munchkin abuse. I just >thought people might like to be warned. I'll see if something like "Actual weapons get _either_ their normal Power, _or_ the Power conferred by the attunement, not both!" can make it into the FAQ -- and perhaps from there into the eventual Eli writeup... - --Beth, catching up as she can, while taking care of her little preemie, the Impudite Princess of Cute, aka Iolanthe Lynn Cayce McCoy, aka Io-chan, aka the little reliever. (Kind of hard to type with her on my lap!) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 18:32:27 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question At 9:34 AM -0600 3/25/00, David Edelstein wrote: >"Kiara S. Legner" wrote: >> Okay. Then why on earth would Curtis, the Malakim of Etiquette hand out one >> of his rites to anyone who "takes an oath to always be polite (and apologize >> for any lapses of etiquette)"? [Superiors 1, pg. 96] > > Good point. I wrote that, but Curtis is actually an old character >from before I wrote the GMG. Fear not! The GMG text actually reads: "Normally a Word-bound's Rites draw upon his link with his Superior's Essence. A Disfavored Word-bound loses access to his ex-Master's reserves, and any Rites will draw upon his _personal_ Essence, instead!" (p. 27, bottom of first column) (I don't know if you caught this, or I did. I think it has to do with something that already got into the APG or IPG by virtue of something SJ wanted when the Rites discussion was going on for those two books.) So Curtis had better not ever fall out of favor with Laurence, or he's going to be wandering around as The Outcast With No Essence... - --Beth, catching up as she can, while taking care of her little preemie, the Impudite Princess of Cute, aka Iolanthe Lynn Cayce McCoy, aka Io-chan, aka the little reliever. (Kind of hard to type with her on my lap!) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 17:43:49 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > Fear not! The GMG text actually reads: "Normally a Word-bound's Rites draw > upon his link with his Superior's Essence. A Disfavored Word-bound loses > access to his ex-Master's reserves, and any Rites will draw upon his > _personal_ Essence, instead!" (p. 27, bottom of first column) Argh, that's even worse. It means I forgot the rules I wrote, and I've been contradicting myself here on the list! - -David (I guess I'm just too prolific to keep up with myself) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 19:08:17 -0500 From: Marc Bowden Subject: Re: IN> More Birthday Gifts - --On Fri, Mar 24, 2000 19:51 -0500 Elizabeth McCoy wrote: >> Laurence: Ten good comebacks for "But it's not fair!" > > I'll be happy with the Master of the Armies of God Distinction, > myself... > Hmmm. Doesn't that work out to the same thing? Marc. Just Marc. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 20:04:06 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Word Reinterpretation (Re: Jack, Demon of Haunted Toys) At 5:47 AM -0800 3/13/00, Erich Arendall wrote: >>Marc Bowden wrote: >> > How flexible is the definition of 'toys' in regard to the Word? I can >> > imagine the force going much higher if it extended to subtly messing >> > with peoples' cellular phones, microwaves, cigarette boats, belt >> > sanders... >> >>Lesser Word-bound don't usually get to reinterpret their Words that >>broadly. Unless they can convince the rest of the world to see their >>Word that way.... >>-David > >So where is the line between when Words can be reinterpreted, or is that >reserved for Superiors? I'd make that a GM call -- _most_ of the time, a lesser Word just can't be expanded that way, which is a large part of _why_ it's a _lesser_ Word! A greater Word-bound (GM call) may well draw its power from expanding the interpretation of its Word, or may simply have a Big Word in a "raw" sense, or may be really lucky and have both. The Superiors are mostly in the category of "both." Look at Flowers, for instance -- they're all over the place, _and_ can be expanded to Peace and Lurv and all that good stuff. - --Beth, catching up as she can, while taking care of her little preemie, the Impudite Princess of Cute, aka Iolanthe Lynn Cayce McCoy, aka Io-chan, aka the little reliever. (Kind of hard to type with her on my lap!) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 20:46:04 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question At 5:43 PM -0600 3/25/00, David Edelstein wrote: >Elizabeth McCoy wrote: >> Fear not! The GMG text actually reads: "Normally a Word-bound's Rites draw >> upon his link with his Superior's Essence. [...] >(p. 27, bottom of first column) > >Argh, that's even worse. It means I forgot the rules I wrote, and I've >been contradicting myself here on the list! There, there -- you can blame me for it. >-David (I guess I'm just too prolific to keep up with myself) Hey, new unofficial suggestions are fine... O:> - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 01:17:50 PST From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> 'Hi There!', and a first question >From: David Edelstein >Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com > > >"Kiara S. Legner" wrote: > > Okay. Then why on earth would Curtis, the Malakim of Etiquette hand out >one > > of his rites to anyone who "takes an oath to always be polite (and >apologize > > for any lapses of etiquette)"? [Superiors 1, pg. 96] > > Good point. I wrote that, but Curtis is actually an old character >from before I wrote the GMG. > Not one of my favourite NPCs, to be honest. If you look at the rites, you can see that there are several different objectives that a rite can have. One is to give players an example of the sort of behaviour they can expect to be doing in their spare time, or see NPCs doing (some of the demonic rites are good for giving you an idea of what demons do when they aren't in GM plots). Another is to be a pure source of Essence for PCs -- these ones usually tie PCs up for a few hours. In IC terms, you can imagine that these involve the character meditating on the Word he serves, and being able to draw Essence from it. ie. Jean's "plug into the mains" rite or Nybbas' "watch TV" rite. But I'd always imagined that the _real_ point of a rite was that it strengthened the Word of the Wordbound. Some of the other rites are very obviously intended to do this. Anything which involves spreading the Word amongst humanity is a good candidate. Now here's the neat bit. Assume that only superiors have enough Essence reserves to be able to give out the meditational rites. If you are working for a minor Wordbound, the rite you will get is one which directly strengthens the Word. It binds the PC more tightly to the Word _and_ strengthens the celestial who gave out the rite. So (ignoring canon), this means that Wordbound rites should typically be a bit more demanding than some of the easier Superior rites. A rite of the angel of Etiquette might involve getting two people who have been arguing to apologise to each other formally, or teaching a class of children about the importance of saying 'please' and 'thank-you'. My thinking is that these sorts of rites might well effectively feed Essence to the Wordbound which he chooses to direct to the recipient of the rite. That's what being 'given' a rite means. Obviously, anyone who does the rite will help the Wordbound out -- but only those who have been given the rite have the Essence directed back to them. jo ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 16:41:11 +0100 From: "Liam Astley" Subject: Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? From: Sean McCarthy > Record companies don't like being > made irrelevant...record companies serve Nybbas now, almost certainly. definitely. in fact, seeing as old Nybby's been around for a century i'd say they've *always* been one of his tools liam ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 12:11:50 -0600 From: Matt Trent Subject: Re: IN> How would Heaven and Hell react to Napster? Guy Royse wrote: > I think that the superior that would dislike it the most would probably > be Marc. The purchase of music is definately an act of trade. When > one downloads an MP3 (assuming that they don't already have the CD it > came from), the artist who wrote the music doesn't get paid, the record > company doesn't get paid (awww... breaks my heart), and the > distributers don't get paid. Ah, but in reality to download from the best sites with the rare/most interesting mp3s almost always requires that you upload a number of MP3s at least equal to the number that you download. So, yes there most definitely _is_ trade going on and all trade supports Marco's word. Now whether or not Marc likes this depends on if he's a Hypercapatilist or a believer in non zero sum economics at a more basic level. > I don't think Nybbas would care. The content is still being delivered. > People are slavishly bound to their computers, ignoring family and > friends, while eagerly downloading music with no regard for the artists > compenstation. How more selfish can one get? Have you listened to a rock radio station recently? (i.e. within the last 8 years) Those guys are so obviously pawns of Nybbas, and I'd wager that his influence is felt though out the distrobution/marketing/performing stages of the music industry... The few areas he doesn't have complete control over are the oddball stations like Public Radio, ect. Now I'm having trouble thinking that Marc is against both harming Nybbys' stranglehold on modern music and supporting his word on a basic level. Also, many of the artist's aren't really suffering. I know a guy who is almost always searing for rare 311 files, from concerts, promo disks, ect. This stuff cannot be bought at your friendly neighborhood Warehouse Music(tm), and he still goes out of his way to buy every single CD that 311 sells. He isn't really harming the poor multi-platinum artists. Trent Ofanite of Doubt ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 23:23:49 -0800 From: "Matthew W." Subject: IN> Kobal Software (A Vignette) Vapula tucked his computerized and database cross-referenced Clipboard 2001X under his arm and walked into his "office", a small section of the main labs near the Forges closed off by metal and glass walls, his frayed dress shoes sounding metallicly against the iron grate floor as his white lab coat swished from side to side. The room was sparsely decorated with an old 50s style metal desk, and file cabinets which threatened to explode from overstuffing. Kobal, he thought, since when is Kobal interested in my business? Never the less, his interest is something that needs to be handled quickly, or else... Vapula still remembered the incident with Baal and the intercontinental ballistic wombat. "Still serving God, are we?" Kobal smiled, leaning back in the chair behind the desk, the metallic scraping sound of old hinges left unoiled filling the room. The Prince of Dark Humor absolutely loved Habbalah, with all his Heart. Vapula just scowled a little bit. God was dead as far as he was concerned, and Science had replaced him. "What do you want?" spoke the master of technology, pushing back a wild bunch of long white hair, speaking quickly, a thousand ideas boiling in his twisted mind. "Oh, cheer up, Vappy boy. I'm here to solve a problem of yours, and give me a good laugh at Heaven's expense." Vapula looked at him. Being suspicious of Kobal is not just the prudent thing to be, it's the only halfway sane thing to be. "Go on." "How would you like it if... well, Jean stopped being so focused on his work... had less time to spend around his labs. Started falling behind on projects, forgetting about servitors, that sort of thing." Kobal smiled enigmatically again. "I would like that, yes. What do you plan to do to that blind Elohim, Kobal?" "Not just to him, maybe Marc and a few others as well. They are going to get an addictive little hobby fairly soon," Kobal said, as he smirkingly pulled a laptop from inside of his blazer, putting it on the desk and opening it. A program was running, and Vapula saw computerized graphics of the Council Spires, the Halls of Progress, the Groves.. everything, laid out on a grid with strange colored zones everywhere. The programming was impressive, Vapula could give him that, though he would have changed one or two things if he was in charge of the project. "I call it SimHeaven," Kobal said, "The complimentary copies are being sent upstairs as we speak, and they will arrive mysteriously to their various targets." "Genius. It's even better than that... what was that thing you and Nybbas came up with... Tragic the something..." "Oh yes, that. Believe me, this will be far better. Oh, and I haven't shown you my other little thing for Michael and Laurence and all them. It's called Might and Malakim..." Elizabeth McCoy said: >Marc's are selling things, buying things, Trading things, serving as >go-betweens for other deals, and generally serve as Heaven's Commercial >zone... (SimHeaven, yeah!) (She's responsible for this. Not me. At least I didn't put in the part of about Jordi getting a copy of Lemmings.) = Mathus = = Demon of Rants = = ArchRival of Timothy = ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1564 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.