From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Aug 31 13:47:15 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 NAA16361 for ; Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:47:15 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id NAA10848 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:44:50 -0500 Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:44:50 -0500 Message-Id: <200008311844.NAA10848@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 #1799 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, August 31 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1799 In this digest: IN> The Marches IN> New discord for Calabim Re: IN> Silly artifact Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Re: IN> The Marches Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Re: IN> The Marches Re: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude Re: IN> The Marches Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Re: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) Re: IN> The Marches Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) IN> Amusing Artifact(s) Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) IN> Judging the Powers Re: IN> Judging the Powers Re: IN> Judging the Powers Re: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude Re: IN>A Vignette Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 18:22:00 +0930 From: Gnezda Subject: IN> The Marches Just thinking, how big do y'all imagine the Marches to be? I mean, what things would qualify being in the Marches? The reason I'm thinking this, is because lately with talk about In Nomine characters and what-not got me thinking about things. If we assume that everyone has their own views on everyone else, and the Marches is everything that people can imagine, it creates quite an interesting predicament. For example, some people may think I'm a very honest person, some may think I'm dishonest. Some may think I'm an optimist, some may think I'm a cynic. People's opinions of me (and everyone else of course) depends purely on what experiences they have of me, also coloured by their own views on the world in general. But just because someone thinks I'm optimistic and someone thinks I'm a cynic, it doesn't make either of them wrong, in a manner of speaking (sure, I see myself as a *massive* optimist, but that's just me... :)). Maybe there is a purely objective view, but still each person would have a subtly different presentation of me in their own minds. That being the case, you could imagine the Marches being full of variations of each person. You could imagine if one of these 'alernate' versions came into existence in the physical world, then which would be the *real* me, if it even existed? I suppose this is very much like all those alternate reality ideas, but it's something I've been throwing around... Milan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:35:16 +0100 From: "Laurent" Subject: IN> New discord for Calabim This discord will probably seem useless if your take on Calabim is different of this one: Calabim are described in Canon as big bullies whose only past-time is to destroy everything they can put their hands on. Though I agree many of them probably do match this profile, I believe some of them are different. In fact, I think most Calabim are victims of their own power. They just have to live with it. See, Ofanim have this constant, overwhelming energy overload that pushes them towards motion. If they stop moving, the energy grows to deadly proportions, and they just feel like they're going to explode. When they fall and become Calabim, this energy changes to a powerful field of entropy that pushes them towards destruction instead of motion. Even if they don't like it, they have to destroy things. If they don't, the energy grows and eats their own soul. Calabim destroy things not because they enjoy it (although most of them do), but because they have to destroy or be destroyed. Now the discord (I didn't find any good name for it... Entropy Leak? Incontinence??) Destroyers affected by this discord find it hard to contain their power. If they don't "unload" it at least once every <24 divided by discord level> hours, it will start dripping from their soul, causing minor damage to everything they touch. During the first hour, they will only inflict 1 body hit to everything they touch, but the longer they'll wait, the stronger the leak, and therefore the more damage they'll cause, inflicting 6 body hits at the end of a cycle (24 divided by discord level hours). The damage won't go over 6, however, so if they start a new cycle without using their resonance, the overload will start destroying their vessel at the same rate. If they don't have a vessel, they take soul hits. Example: A Calabite (in a vessel) has 4 levels of this discord. For some reason, he won't be using his destructive resonance for 19 hours. After 6 hours, he starts causing 1 body hit to everything he touches. After 12 hours, he'll be causing 6 body hits. After 13 hours, he'll be inflicting 6 body hits to everything he touches, and 1 body hit to himself (per hour). After 19 hours, he will still cause a damage of 6 to other things, and take 7 body hits himself per hour!! Suffering of this discord can be very annoying for a character, even at a low level. Imagine leaving a crack in any wall you lean on, glasses exploding every time you want a drink, door knobs and switches falling apart in your apartment, hurting someone every time you shake hands, or even the steering-wheel of your car dropping on your knees at 70 mph on the highway... And don't even thing about handling weapons or explosives! Comments and suggestions are welcome, just don't be to hard on me. If anybody wants to rewrite it in a proper English, please, do. Laurent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:52:40 +0100 From: "Laurent" Subject: Re: IN> Silly artifact > Sorry, Laurent. It's been stressful, lately. :( No worry, I finished the last details, and I'm about to start an adventure based on her ascension to princedom. > the silly version kept all the barking insane ideas that gibber > in my brain from contaminating the collaboration. :) Can't wait to see it! Laurent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:46:13 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> New discord for Calabim This discord makes sense, but aren't Calabim already supposed to be surrounded by a general entropy leak? I recall one freakishly neat Calabite in the Liber Servitorum, who had to change clothes many times a day to retain his wonted dapper appearance. This makes the discord sound like a hypertrophy of this standard Calabite feature. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:00:19 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> The Marches If/when the Ethereal Player's Guide comes out, we may get some rulings on this, but I don't think the Marches contains everything ever imagined. It Is Written that there aren't Ethereal versions of celestials, nor do there seem to be multiple versions of pagan gods. The mechanism that forms ethereals appears to be rather conservative about starting new ones, and once an ethereal forms, it appears to absorb any energies that would otherwise go to making a very similar version of itself. My own picture of the Marches is as follows: In the middle, you have the Near Marches, full of dreamscapes and divided by the Vale into Blandine's side and Beleth's side. Dreamscapes come and go as people and other animals enter and leave REM-state and other dreaming states. Occasional celestials and ethereals can be found there, entering and leaving dreamscapes. Beyond is the Far Marches. The nearer Far Marches is the realm of myth, containing the various surviving pantheons (most notably the Hindu pantheon, doing quite well thank you), the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and miscellanous surviving fabulous beasts. So far, so canonical, I think. But beyond THAT lies the realm of the Collective Unconscious. The figures there are vaguer, less personified, but also exactly as indestructible as the human race. They are, in Jungian terminology, various breeds of Anima, Animus, Personna, Shadow, and so on. Many a pagan god is derived, in some way, from these -- created when the energy of human dreams is focused through the lens of one or more of these archetypes. Beyond THAT are the collective unconsciouses of other species -- the archetypes of ape minds (not very different from our), and cats and dogs (more different, further away in the ungeometrical geography of the Ethereal Plane), birds (still further), etc. And far beyond THAT are the realms of the elemental ethereals, the Primal Spirits that depend on no dreams or minds, being barely more than the mental side of natural phenomena. That's my own picture, anyway. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:09:35 -0400 From: "Galen G. Silversmith" Subject: Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) > Return-Path: pkitty@brainpuke.com > On Thu, 31 Aug 2000, Rolland Therrien wrote: > > Whoever this Cathexis guy is... That must be a guy even 1/2 the Demon > > Princes of Hell wish was dead... > I don't see why... Baal and Asmodeus are happy as long as he's firmly on > the side of Hell. Not really. Quite a few of the demon prices are firmly on the side of hell that neither of these supriors are all that fond of; Baal probably has no problem, but the attention he garners from the AAs oribably doesn;t thrill Asmodeus. And, lets face it, he terrifies most of the the other demons, and gives some of them reasons for seeking redemption ("We're evil, not amoral"). > Andrealphus, Kobal and Saminga are both into the whole > corpse-raping thing. Saminga, certainly, Andre, maybe. Not if it was someone he wanted alive first. Kobal, only if its funny. And while breaking angels like this is certainly funny, its long term humor value isn't high. > Beleth (and probably even Belial) would like his > style. You're definately right there. > The others - Haagenti, Kronos, Lilith, Malphas, Nybbas, Valefor, > and Vapula - I just don't see caring that much. Lilith and Nybbas maybe; > I don't see her as being pro-rape, and he wouldn't be able to get any > footage from this guy that would pass the censors. Lilith would want his head on a plater. Pure and simple. Haagenti won't care. Kronos would be peeved as he's preventing people from meeting their fates, and scaring others away (if there's someone whose a boarderline psychotic going ionto rape when this guys in town, theresa good chance he might be scared straight). Malphas - this type of action encourages community reaction, can't have that. Nybbas would love the snuff films. Vapula and Valefor don't overlap much, here, either. > > I picture the trap being something where ALL the Archangels spring a trap on > > this guy, using information sold to them by the Shal Mari princes > > All the Archangels? I think that's a BIT extreme... if this guy is one > hell of a big shot, I could maybe, maybe see two of the Archangels > deciding to make a special project out of this. Laurance has it out for him. (Then again, he also has it out for every named demon he knows, so thats not necessarily a big deal.) OTOH, I get the impression that this guy is well known and hated... - - Galen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:11:46 +0100 From: "Laurent" Subject: Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Earl wrote: > This discord makes sense, but aren't Calabim already supposed > to be surrounded by a general entropy leak? I recall one > freakishly neat Calabite in the Liber Servitorum, who had to > change clothes many times a day to retain his wonted dapper > appearance. This makes the discord sound like a hypertrophy > of this standard Calabite feature. Oops! I don't have the Liber Servitorum. But I don't recall seeing this notion of entropy leak anywhere in the main book, or even the GMG (note: I don't have the IPG either...) Would anybody have a canon reference I could check? Laurent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:13:26 -0400 From: "Galen G. Silversmith" Subject: Re: IN> The Marches > Return-Path: gnezda@netadvantage.com.au > Just thinking, how big do y'all imagine the Marches to be? I mean, what > things would qualify being in the Marches? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Er, don't answer that... Its got a dreamscape for every living soul (human, animal, alien or AI -- the latter two depending on your game world). These exist mostly inbetween the two towers. Plus there are the realms of various gods, mythos, pantheons, etc. Not everything exists in the ethereal, on those things which people believe in and dream about. And except for those dreams which have a strong following, their existance is ephemeral and temporary. In my opinions. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 08:08:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 10:27:27 -0500 (CDT) From: EDG Subject: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude >The things that I think of when I have a song stuck >in my head... > >Oh yes, and I'm back. > >- -EDG Glad to see you again. :) >With the Elohim separated from Heaven, and two more >Archangels absent, Hell has redoubled its efforts in >the War. Vapula is known to be releasing bizarre and >deadly technologies into the world at an alarming >rate, and Nybbas is starting to churn out anti-Heaven >propaganda in astonishing numbers. Of the Demon >Princes, only Asmodeus is known to be concerned. Smart of him. Vapula and Nybbas haven't fully thought things through yet, apparently. This scenario is _bad_ for Hell. Very, very bad. Now, there's no hard and fast statistical data on celestial populations, but I suspect that the major Choirs are pretty much equal in numbers, which means that Dominic just dumped (conceivably) 1/7th of the Host on Earth, all of whom are ... not annoyed, precisely, but certainly disquieted. Quite a few will Fall, no doubt, but trying to guess how many is kinda difficult, considering the circumstances. So ... we've got a bunch (read: "depending on campaign, anywhere from a few thousand, to over ten of million") of Elohim of all shapes and sizes, a bunch of Servitors of Faith (read: "all of them. Where Khalid goes, they go."), a bunch of Servitors of Lightning (read: "a godawful lot of them, some of whom aren't under Jean's direction anymore") and two Archangels, one of whom is quite used to exile, thank you very much. Add to that the fact that Michael and Novalis (at least) are going to give Dom the fisheye when he brings reports that their people are helping out these involuntary exiles, and mix in the minor little fact that one reason that Elohim are so devoted to objectivity is because getting annoyed when you've spilled blood onto the new carpet _again_ is counterproductive, and we end up with a situation where Servitors of the Media are dangling from every telephone pole in Hollywood and whole neighborhoods are being blown up to crack Tethers to Technology. Calmly. Dispassionately. With no remorse or pity or any other emotion at all. Oh, yeah, Hell's going to love this scenario a _lot_. Moe (Hey, I _liked_ the scenario. It's a neat idea. I'm just gonna [gleefully] run with it differently.) ;) ===== In Nomine stuff: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Everything else (not that there is, right now): http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/main.html Last updated 8/7/00 (this is a guess) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:43:59 -0700 From: Rolland Therrien Subject: Re: IN> The Marches - -----Original Message----- From: Earl Wajenberg To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Date: Thursday, August 31, 2000 7:12 AM Subject: Re: IN> The Marches >If/when the Ethereal Player's Guide comes out, we may get some >rulings on this, but I don't think the Marches contains >everything ever imagined. It Is Written that there aren't >Ethereal versions of celestials, nor do there seem to be multiple >versions of pagan gods. The mechanism that forms ethereals >appears to be rather conservative about starting new ones, >and once an ethereal forms, it appears to absorb any energies >that would otherwise go to making a very similar version of itself. > >My own picture of the Marches is as follows: > >In the middle, you have the Near Marches, full of dreamscapes >and divided by the Vale into Blandine's side and Beleth's side. >Dreamscapes come and go as people and other animals enter and >leave REM-state and other dreaming states. Occasional celestials >and ethereals can be found there, entering and leaving dreamscapes. > >Beyond is the Far Marches. The nearer Far Marches is the realm >of myth, containing the various surviving pantheons (most >notably the Hindu pantheon, doing quite well thank you), the >Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and miscellanous surviving fabulous >beasts. > >So far, so canonical, I think. But beyond THAT lies the realm of >the Collective Unconscious. The figures there are vaguer, less >personified, but also exactly as indestructible as the human race. >They are, in Jungian terminology, various breeds of Anima, Animus, >Personna, Shadow, and so on. Many a pagan god is derived, in >some way, from these -- created when the energy of human dreams >is focused through the lens of one or more of these archetypes. > >Beyond THAT are the collective unconsciouses of other species -- >the archetypes of ape minds (not very different from our), and >cats and dogs (more different, further away in the ungeometrical >geography of the Ethereal Plane), birds (still further), etc. > >And far beyond THAT are the realms of the elemental ethereals, >the Primal Spirits that depend on no dreams or minds, being >barely more than the mental side of natural phenomena. > >That's my own picture, anyway. > >Earl Earl, I must say, that's the best description of the Marches I've ever heard! So, the Collective Unconscious is where the energies that animate Pagan Gods come from, huh? This gives me an idea: what if the survivors of the different Pagan Pantheons that Uriel decimated had spent the past centuries working on some way to revive their fallen? Say you wanted to revive Thor: You start by carving up a new Etherial template build with the collective view of Thor by modern humanity (This means the New Thor would be a clean-shaven Fabio lookalike, but beggers can't be choosers), then they find a way to start collecting the Essence that Humanity still unconscioulsy sends towards Thor, and channel it into the new shell, while at the same time trying to focus the Jungian templates that once fueled Thor, such as the Storms and the Warrior, and with a little luck, VOILA! Thor Lives Again! Now, mind you, I doubt that the Etherials might figure all this out on their own... Which is why they probably would ask Blandine and Eli to help them. Blandine, who's always ready to help fuel Humanity's dreams in any way, and Eli, who's always looking for new sources of inspiration or the next big Creation challenge, would most readily agree to help. Inspiration fuels inspiration... - -Exit the LoneWolf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:00:02 -0700 From: Ryan Elias Subject: Re: IN> New discord for Calabim Laurent wrote: > > Earl wrote: > > > This discord makes sense, but aren't Calabim already supposed > > to be surrounded by a general entropy leak? I recall one > > freakishly neat Calabite in the Liber Servitorum, who had to > > change clothes many times a day to retain his wonted dapper > > appearance. This makes the discord sound like a hypertrophy > > of this standard Calabite feature. > > Oops! I don't have the Liber Servitorum. But I don't recall seeing this > notion of entropy leak anywhere in the main book, or even the GMG (note: I > don't have the IPG either...) > > Would anybody have a canon reference I could check? Pretty positive that it's in the main book, under the Calabite band description (that's why Vapula won't be having Calabim in Tartarus, and why they always look so unkempt). And I seem to recall a discord (possibly in the Infernal Player's guide? One of the Revelations books? Maybe even S4...) that already amplifies this ability. I could be wrong about that, though (it's a very vague recollection). Which doesn't make it any worse of an idea. My only complaint with the discord as written is that I think it's far too easy on the afflicted calabite. Make it once every (30 min/level of discord) and we're cooking. (the hypothetical already existing version of this discord worked differently, again IIRC. I think the Calabite just generally leaked everywhere, causing body hits of damage to anything they touched, and could contain it if they turned the damage on to themselves. They go through clothing really quickly. If said discord exists. If not, I'm talking about some strange dream I had.) Cheers, Ryan "River of orchids winding our way Want to walk into London on my hands one day River of orchids the road overgrows Want to walk into London smelling like a Peckham rose" -XTC, River of Orchids ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:23:05 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) At 2:51 AM -0400 8/31/00, Rev. Pee Kitty wrote: >Haagenti might not be into him, but I thought this guy was a servitor of >Andrealphus with a great cover story, personally. Andre is definitely into >rape and pain... I don't see him objecting to fetus rape if it serves a >purpose. Andre is an Impudite, though, and likely disapproves of things which kill the amusing little mortal toys. (Not that he _cares_ about them, of course -- but they're more fun alive.) (Kobal's an Impudite too, but his Impudite Band Attunement includes immunity to dissonance if a human's death is Funny.) (I wanna know why the Malakite didn't invoke David, myself. _That_ woulda dampened the party... Yeah, he'd have had to revert and get killed to do it, on the strictest reading of the attunement, but after that...) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor RPG links; Random name list, Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:25:53 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> New discord for Calabim At 3:11 PM +0100 8/31/00, Laurent wrote: >Would anybody have a canon reference I could check? I think the IPG has a Discord for Calabim that's already about what you described. Let me see if Io-chan will let me look without eating the pages... Yup, p. 41, Aura of Entropy. Drastically accelerated entropic field effects. - --Beth, typing w/a uncoopertive baby (iolanthe) causing typos. "She's either babbling, or summoning Elder Gods. I'm not sure which." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:12:51 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> New discord for Calabim By the way, a literary version of the Calabite aura of entropy is described in "Good Omens," as part of the special effects attending the White Horseman of the Apocalypse (Pollution, replacing old Pestilence, who retired, a beaten personification, after the invention of penicillin). Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:32:21 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude At 8:08 AM -0700 8/31/00, Maurice Lane wrote: >[...] Quite a few will >Fall, no doubt, but trying to guess how many is kinda >difficult, considering the circumstances. > >So ... we've got a bunch (read: "depending on >campaign, anywhere from a few thousand, to over ten of >million") of Elohim of all shapes and sizes, [etc.] _Not_ to mention however many unsworn Habbalah wandering around "serving God" in that random crazy Habbalite way, which is undoubtedly causing trouble, especially if some Habbalite meme gets established in a group that the way to serve God is to punish the weak...DEMONS. (And if you have a clump of Habbalah who were together, maybe directed by an Elohite member who either joined them or ran away real fast, or even if the Habbalah insanity just took that tack ("If we punish enough demons, they'll let us go back to Heaven")... The meme might be strong.) Sure, Kobal and some of the more random Princes might like all these Habbalah wandering around causing trouble, but the Princes who like order aren't going to be happy. Asmodeus is just the first to realize the danger of chaos... - --Beth, typing w/a uncoopertive baby (iolanthe) causing typos. "She's either babbling, or summoning Elder Gods. I'm not sure which." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:27:17 -0400 From: "Galen G. Silversmith" Subject: Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) > Return-Path: emccoy@nh.ultranet.com > (I wanna know why the Malakite didn't invoke David, myself. _That_ > woulda dampened the party... Yeah, he'd have had to revert and get > killed to do it, on the strictest reading of the attunement, but > after that...) Good point. Other options include recalling to his heart (Sure, follow me into heavan, into a stronghold of david. That's a good idea.), calling daivd there, and returning, although I don't know the speeds of those actions at the moment. Hell, if he DID die corporeally, he'd appear next to his heart in heavan, and could do the same except for the return to where he recalled part. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:36:59 -0600 From: Tim Groth Subject: Re: IN> The Marches >Earl, I must say, that's the best description of the Marches I've ever >heard! So, the Collective Unconscious is where the energies that animate >Pagan Gods come from, huh? This gives me an idea: what if the survivors of >the different Pagan Pantheons that Uriel decimated had spent the past >centuries working on some way to revive their fallen? In the Marches it mentions that Isis is attempting to ressurect Osiris from soul death. About the larger issue of the Marches it technically does contain everything imagined, as dream scapes flicker in and out because of imagination and day dreaming. Most of the time the impressions/imaginings within don't go further than the dreamscape so don't really do much. But I think for fictional characters ethereals may be created, as long as their is enough of a 'following'. There is definetly a Startrek and Starwars 'pantheon' out there in the Marches. Devotion can make up for numbers. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 2000 09:37:13 -0700 From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) On Thu, 31 August 2000, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > (I wanna know why the Malakite didn't invoke David, myself. _That_ > woulda dampened the party... Yeah, he'd have had to revert and get > killed to do it, on the strictest reading of the attunement, but > after that...) That was how I interpreted the Attunement, yes. And I also seem to recall that Invocations take at least one turn to complete. Either way, the Virtue was screwed. Literally. - -- Casca "...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying...At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." -- Isaiah 6:2,4 _______________________________________________________ Are you a Techie? Get Your Free Tech Email Address Now! Many to choose from! Visit http://www.TechEmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:58:24 -0400 From: "Charles Phipps" Subject: IN> Amusing Artifact(s) "EUREKA!" Vapula shouted to the highest counternances before letting out a diabolical laugh and caressing the new creations like it was one of the opposite sex in the throws of passion. "It's purrrrfect." Meanwhile one of his robotic imps fluttered up behind him. "" It spoke in a mechanical voice. "NO ONE YOU FOOL! If Hell got wind of this device it would spell the End of my funding! It must be kept secret until the time is correct for me to wield it! They laughed at me before...BWHAHHAHAA LET'S SEE THEM LAUGH AT ME NOW!" Vapula chuckled walking away from his three prototypes and towards his chemistry lab, turning his back for a second before Kobal tip toed in and then teleported away. "AHHHHHHHH!" Vapula screamed realizing the devices were missing. "The Three Little Pigs" or Bomb Prodject-Omega X-333 The code name for Vapula's prodject (which has taken up more essence than any two of his previous completed endeavors combined and only surpassed currently by his hypnosis engine and the stick of dynamite powerful enough to destroy the world). Basically the weapons are one use devices that Vapula believes will turn the tide of the War against Heaven in three short bursts or destroy any Prince (and maybe crush any three princes from their lofty heights). Bomb A: Or "Messy" Is an unorginal device that was orginally made just to prove that Vapula could. A standard Nuclear device with about 300 times the yield of the Average H-Bomb it just happens to have one little amusing catch.....it inflicts Soul Damage. Presuming you survive the Blast (which at the epicenter incflicts 666 points of Soul Damage and goes down by 111 points for every mile away from it) you will also have to contend with the Soul-Radiation Vapula has added which inflicts 1/10th the intial damage blast every round for 1000 years and 6.66 points every round for the next three miles around. Worse is the mutation effect which causes one's soul to suffer "simulated" corporeal discord on a 1d6 roll for every 10 rounds you spend in the radiation.....specifically you roll 1d6 and the result is the level of discord you get. The essence cost of dealing with this is needless to say considerable given that it may well spawn demonlings too from the radiation if it absorbs enough soul forces...but Vapula isnt certain yet it will, he considers the intial dropping a trial run. It looks like a nuclear bomb. Bomb B: "Squealer" This is a bomb that is a little more subtle in it's effects than "Messy", Squealer appears to be a 1 foot tall cube with a puzzleboard on it. Once the device is activated Squealer emits 40 miles of subminal sonic suggestion that simulates Ethereal discords according to the type of puzzleboard emplaced. Specifically Vapula thinks "Wrath" will do the most turning entire cities to war zones for as long as it's activated....it has about enough Essence to continually function for a year.... Worse Squealer is undetectable given that the disturbance (if used on the ground) is in an a 40 mile area, presumably in a populated area. Since this also works on Celestials it's quite dangerous to have around.... Bomb C: "Porky" Porky is the most powerful of the three bombs resembling a antique cookoo clock with the numbers running backwards, I don't think I need to state exactly what happens when you set the dang thing to 13. Well if you want to know truly, a tiny Lucifer the Balseraph will come out and ding a triangle before all Hell breaks loose...literally. Basically Bomb C has two disticnt effects depending on where it is; if anywhere but Hell the resulting yield of Hellish energy causes a dimensional explosion/rift that will tear a hole into an era leading directly to Hell for both humans/mortals/angels and for a mile area that place will seem to BE hell even if it's in the middle of Dominic's cathedral.... Vapula never intended of course to use "Porky" in Hell because opening a rift to Hell in Hell by his phsyically calculations is as about as stupid as you can get. However if it's detonated there they'res a very real chance it might cause a celestial black hole to emerge... What that will do who knows. - -Charlemagne ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 2000 10:14:15 -0700 From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) On Thu, 31 August 2000, "Galen G. Silversmith" wrote: > Other options include recalling to his heart (Sure, follow me into heavan, > into a stronghold of david. That's a good idea.), calling daivd there, and > returning, although I don't know the speeds of those actions at the moment. > > Hell, if he DID die corporeally, he'd appear next to his heart in heavan, and > could do the same except for the return to where he recalled part. Consider the following combination: 1) Discord Bracelets 2) Songs of Charm 3) Calabite of Lust Might I suggest that folks hold off on picking this apart until after I post his stats? It's still a usable NPC, even if I didn't get every nitpicky detail painstakingly finessed. Servitors of Nitpicking, I rebuke thee. - -- Casca "...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying...At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." -- Isaiah 6:2,4 _______________________________________________________ Are you a Techie? Get Your Free Tech Email Address Now! Many to choose from! Visit http://www.TechEmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:08:09 -0400 From: "Charles Phipps" Subject: IN> Judging the Powers I disagree that Dominic would not be able to make this judgement.... Presumably the Big Cloaked Seraph was busy working on this here case for a number of years as he was with Eli, the Grigori, Michael, and Gabe. Charges against the Elohim A:) Your choir as a whole takes for granted that the ways of God are best and right, when these assumptions are subjective and not backed up by recent objective observation. Dominic by stating this has evidence that the Elohim have been ignoring the Ten Commandments, God's "Love One another" statement, and even the very nature of the war. Basically the Powers according to Dominic's evidence have no moral authority or ways over demons, the only difference between them right now is that they serve Hell. I bet Dominic has about a thousand reports of Elohim killing humans as soon as they achieve their destiny for the essence, systematically dismantling entire nations and the like without compassion or the like etc. Basically Dominic has charged the Elohim with not only not letting their subjectivity of "good emotions" get in the way of doing the right thing but the charge that they have completely stopped feeling good emotions or see their benifit. In effect Dominic is saying the Elohim of this time have gone from being Spock to being the Borg. Thus the betraying their nature. B:) Jean, Archangel of Lightning, I call you in particular because you have allowed your prejudice against the humans to interfere with their own development and with the development of Heaven While Jean might know this is not true... Just imagine what you would say if you as Dominic discovered that Jean had deliberately ordered the assasination of a doctor who had discovered the cure for cancer....the same for AIDs. "It's not their time yet for it" - -Charlemagne ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:21:11 -0600 From: "ben" Subject: Re: IN> Judging the Powers > I disagree that Dominic would not be able to make this judgement.... I like the exiled Elohim story, but I disagree with your explanation. I'm not sure upon what you base your assumption that angels must follow the Ten Commandments. > Thus the betraying their nature. Surely, if this were true, the entire choir would be besotted with dissonance? > -Charlemagne Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:28:00 -0700 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> Judging the Powers Our spies report that on 01:08 PM 8/31/00 -0400, Charles Phipps said: >Just imagine what you would say if you as Dominic discovered that Jean had >deliberately ordered the assasination of a doctor who had discovered the >cure for cancer....the same for AIDs. > >"It's not their time yet for it" > >-Charlemagne I would point out, however, that existing sources say Jean grumbles when the humans figure something out he doesn't want them to, but accepts it. Now, if Hell figured out a way to cure these things and told the human ... Hmm. You know, I could see Anrdre backing a no-strings-attached cure for all disease. Sure, many Princes would want the life's blood of virgins involved or something else that twisted people towards Hell, but for Andre's Word, removing sexually transmitted diseases would be great. Removing other diseases would be a bonus, the more humans the merrier. A version of Jean that DID stifle human innovation would work nicely for some campaigns. Sean ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:16:17 +0000 From: Charles E Smith Subject: Re: IN> New Adventure Setting: Prelude Oh yes, and I'm back.<<< Welcome back. :) This was a great adventuring setting. What would Heaven do without the Elohim? Not even counting Jean and Khalid, without the Elohim around to keep everyone else objective (and sense out potenial proto-demons) Heaven would probably fall apart. Add any Word-Bound Elohim feeling disgruntled and Vapula's agents cruising for disaffected Lightning-Servitors, and Dominic may have just started something that even he cannot stop. :P ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:21:05 +0000 From: Charles E Smith Subject: Re: IN>A Vignette I'd go into more detail about that, but suffice it to say that people trying to show Love to a Princess of Hell are, well... Only _slightly_ better off than the fools who try to show Andre what he turned his back on.<<< You're probably right, but what a great resume piece it would make if the Seraph survived and was going for the Word of Love or Forgiveness. Eloria, standing before the Seraphim Council: "The most convincing proof I can bring before this Council as to why I should be granted the vacant Word of Love is that I have demonstrated the Love of Heaven to the Demon Princess Lilith." Dominic, slowly: "You...*what?!?" Novalis, smiling warmly: "Awww....that's sweet. I vote we make her the new Archangel of Love." Everyone else just looks stunned. :) ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 14:30:20 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Cathexis (Warning: High squick factor) At 9:37 AM -0700 8/31/00, Casca wrote: >On Thu, 31 August 2000, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > >> (I wanna know why the Malakite didn't invoke David, myself. _That_ >> woulda dampened the party... Yeah, he'd have had to revert and get >> killed to do it, on the strictest reading of the attunement, but >> after that...) > >That was how I interpreted the Attunement, yes. Reasonable. Also by that strict reading, he can't do Songs, either. >And I also seem to recall that Invocations take at least one turn to complete. Two rounds. >Either way, the Virtue was screwed. Literally. Yup. Probably a GM call whether or not major distractions like, ur, that would prevent the angel from invoking his Superior or not. Hrm. I'd probably want Will and/or Precision rolls to concentrate on an invocation in the face of Severe Distraction -- though obviously it must be possible to invoke a Superior in the face of _some_ distraction, because some Superiors have Invocation modifiers such as: "Angel's corporeal vessel is at risk of death" (Universal; +2) and "While actually engaged in mortal battle (Gabriel; +6)" [On a tangent, can a Malakite of Stone in a male vessel serve as an Invocation Bonus to get his boss? O:> (Fnord, Fnord!)] Of course, this is _exactly_ what Songs of Seals and Celestial Shields are for. ( Well, really they're for making sure Shedim can't get away, but those vile demons keep perverting their intent... ) There's still the option of leading people back to the scene of your death, of course. ("Kill the Malakite last.") Which means I really have to write up a "minor Choir"... - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor RPG links; Random name list, Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1799 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.