Wordplay

By Jonathan Walton (Jonathan.Walton@oberlin.edu)

**Flaming
Feather**

Ruhiel
Seraph of Dreams
Angel of Angels


Unfortunately, despite the seeming importance and interest of Ruhiel's Word, there's not much to say about this particular Seraph. As the Angel of Angels, Ruhiel is charged with making sure that Angels are always a force for the betterment of the Symphony as a whole and that the image of angels in human society is never corrupted, both tasks which she takes _very_ seriously. To tell the truth, it isn't all that hard. As much as the Diabolicals would like to make angels out to be a "mysterious alien menace" or some such thing, humanity isn't buying it. The most difficult of Ruhiel's tasks is to make sure that the names of angels aren't used in occult or cultic practices that harm humanity. For instance, if a Sorcerer believes that he can call on the power of Michael or Gabriel to proform dark deeds, or if the worship of angels is used to bring people away from the worship of God, Ruhiel and her servitors step in to reassert the Truth, that angels should always been seen as a symbol of hope for humanity and a sign of God's favor looking down on them.

In a more tongue-in-cheek game, one of Ruhiel's servitors could be the Angel of Archangels, who's job is to uphold the names of the Corporeally known Archangels (Raphael, Uriel, Michael, Gabriel) and make sure they are not slandered.




Nakael
Malakite of Revelation
Angel of Demons


(This guy should make you think about breaking out David Edelstein's "Dark Malakim" rules.)

Originally, it seemed like a great idea to the Seraphim council. Litheroy had just been made an Archangel and one of his most ancient supporters, Nakael, was in line for a fairly significant Word. Meanwhile, in the Corporeal world, the Diabolicals had finally gotten around to developing the idea of "spin" and were trying to make demons out to be "cool, anti-establishment rebels" instead of the more traditional "evil minions of darkness." Who better to reveal the Truth to the world but a servitor of Litheroy? And who better than a Malakite, since his job would doubtlessly mean encountering a good many demons?

So, Nakael was made Angel of Demons, something that has come to cause a good many problems. First of all, as a Malakite, Nakael has started to feel that it is almost Dissonant for him to have the Word of Demons, since his Oaths mean that he would kill them all if he could, which in turn would destroy himself (as his Word died). This seeming contradiction is not actually enough to cause Nakael dissonance in and of itself, but the Malakite is starting to descend more and more into feelings of confusion and angst, not good things for a Malakite. Also, in his struggle to reveal the Truth behind demons to the world, Nakael has been faced with a great many discouraging facts.

For one, demons _are_ kind of cool. Sure, "cool" doesn't have much meaning in the War or in the balance between good and evil, but Nakael can't deny that there are just some pretty appealing things about being a demon. Instead of being righteous, you can just be self-righteous. And diabolicals have a sense of style that, try as they may, most angels just can't beat.

So, basically, Nakael is stuck in a kind of vicious cycle. He both admires some things about demons and is Oath-sworn to destroy them (and then, if he destroys too may of them, he's actually damaging his Word). Just what this ends up doing to him is up to individual GM's, but one thing's for sure: it ain't going to be pretty.




Hazzareth
Balseraph of Dark Humor ISO the Media
Demon of Angels


Hazzareth was Kobal's first joke after the Fall. When the original Demon Princes were asked by Lucifer to submit canidates for the first non-Superior Word-binding, the Prince of Dark Humor didn't hesitate a second. It is rumored that even Lucifer laughed during the binding of the former Seraph.

Hazzy (as he is affectionantely called) is the Demon of Angels. If you ever wondered who invented spin, know that it wasn't Nybbas. It was Hazzareth all the way. In his line of duty, Hazzareth is charged to use angels themselves, the purest beings in God's creation, as a way of dragging humanity towards the pit. How does he do this? Spin, baby.

Angels are something only superstitious people believe in, after all. Y'know, all those people who enjoyed "Touched By An Angel" and "Micheal." Ugh. Makes me want to throw up. Also, talking about angels isn't PC. I mean, you may offend some athiest somewhere, so it's better just to flinch or run away from any mention of angels. Also, angelology is all that New Age voodoo stuff anyway. Praying to angels? Hah. Heresy and idolatry. Along with crystals and the Tarot, no one wants to hear about angels these days. And one more thing, only super-conservatives still believe in angels. Bible-thumpers are always talking about the apocalypse and how the Archangel Michael is going to kill the dragon and such. B.S., if you ask me.

But, of course, Hazzareth isn't content with just spreading those ideas about angels. He wants a distaste for angels balanced by the image of angels everywhere you can see, so that they are unescapable, leading to more distate, outright disgust, and a total loss of the symbol's true meaning. Like the Demon of Easter has done with bunnies and eggs, Hazzy would totally leach every spiritual connotation from angels if he could.

And, hey ... he isn't doing a bad job. Of course, as soon as Nybbas started his meteoric rise to power, Hazzy knew where he truely belonged. He's basically on permanent loan now, since Kobal agrees that he's hundreds of times more effective in the Media's services than he had been for the previous millenia under Dark Humor. Whether he ever officially joins Nybbas' ranks is still up in the air, but Hazzareth has learned to keep his options open.




Ellabis
Habbalite of Dark Humor
Demon of Demons


Ah, finally, the most fun of all.

Hazzareth being the Demon of Angels kept Kobal smiling for a long time, especially since Hazzy did such good work of keeping angels from being a direct influence in mortal lives. However, there was an even bigger joke that Kobal was yet to play. It all involved proper timing. He waited for a long time.

John Milton's "Paradise Lost" raised something of a contraversy in his time. Critics argued that Milton made Satan too much of an attractive character and gave him all the best lines and speeches. Milton went a long way into making demons into noble creatures, righteous in their own right, and both pious mortals and angels didn't think this was the best idea.

In the middle of this, Kobal supported Ellibis, a relatively young Habbalite, for the Word of Demons. Lucifer was hesitant at first, but then, for reasons altogether unclear, Kobal's servitor recieved vocal support from Kronos, of all people. Trusting a bit in his two most powerful Princes, Lucifer finally agreed.

Now, Ellibis has the unique position of being the Demon of Demons, though, as a Habbalite, she firmly believes herself to be an angel. As you can probably imagine, her resoning is pretty warped.

Humanity, the Punisher believes, is mostly made up of sheep and lemmings, those without a backbone who simply do good because everyone else is doing it. These people are hypocrites and not worthy of the joys of Heaven. Instead, those who are only good by default must be seperated from those who are truely good (who, of course, are very, very few).

Therefore, in a pseudo-Miltonic style, Ellibis tries to make Demons as attractive as possible. Being evil is cool, hip, trendy, rebellious, and sexy. You get to hang out with Lilim all the time and indulge in sex, drugs, and rock & roll (or, as the saying in Hell goes, "Lust, Drugs, and Hardcore"). Demons are the ultimate badasses, who don't take no lip from anyone and do as they please. John Wayne, Harrison Ford, and Clint Eastwood would make great demons. Little kids dress up as devils on Halloween and secretly believe that it's fun to be naughty. Lucifer, of course, is the epitome of all this and is the swingin'-est cat you ever could meet.

Ellibis is a firm believer that God created demons in order to seperate the good of humanity from the bad. In her own special way, Ellibis thinks scarily close to Uriel, except her job is exactly the opposite. Instead of destroying evil wherever she finds it, Ellibis encourages the image of demons to grow so that it can root out those who would betray their own souls.

In this way, in the end, the Demon of Demons is doing the work of God.




As a side note, it might be important to show why Hazzareth is a good successful supporter of his Word while Nakael is not. First of all, Nakael is only focused on the "real" meaning of "Demons," as he is Oath-bound to reveal the true horrors of demonkind to the mortal world. This has limited him to the point that he finds it impossible to effectively accomplish his job. Maybe another Choir would have been more effective, but the Seraphim council was too afraid of having a servitor Fall, so it had to be a Malakite.

As a contrast, Hazzy doesn't care at all what angels are "really like." It doesn't matter to his work. He knows what he wants "Angels" to mean and works to impose that view on the world. He's also a great deal older than Nakael, and, as a Balseraph, is much more ingenious and flexable about the way he implements his Word.

**Flaming
Feather**

Back to the INC Mainpage.
Back to the Resources page.

Send mail to the Curator