When I grow up, I want to be a Balseraph.
Balseraphs don't lie.
It's a strange truth. A demonling who learns the Lying skill had best avoid
becoming a Balseraph - if he is foolish enough to do so he will be twisted
by Dissonance whenever he uses the skill. Demons make great liars - so long
as they are not Balseraphs.
Balseraphs really don't lie.
Nor do the smartest demonlings. Where's the point? It's not like anyone will
believe you. Lying is pointless. The truth is pointless. The only thing that
matters is that some people are bigger than you are and they hurt you when
they feel like it.
How do you stop them feeling like hurting you?
A demonling lives in a demon's world. Everything around him is owned by
beings much bigger and more powerful than himself. Whenever he makes a
mistake, he gets punished. When a demon storms in demanding to know why the
demonling has taken something, he's in trouble. Unless...
He lies? No. He tells the 'truth'? No.
What will either achieve? The demon has already made up his mind. The demon
says I stole the cup? Then clearly I stole the cup. Do I have the cup?
Yes? Then yes, I TOOK the cup, because I thought that if I polished it you'd
be pleased. I'm sorry. Should I finish polishing it? No? Is there any other
way I can show I'm loyal?
Perhaps I don't have the cup. But I stole it - the demon says so, and if I
contradict him he'll hit me. Perhaps:
"He made me take it, he wanted it himself, so he made me take it and then
ran off with it! Who is he? [insert name of bigger demonling who demon will
believe the worst of - that's almost anybody]. The last I saw he was
going..."
Of course, the cup may have been misplaced. But our little demonling isn't
foolish enough to say that. If he finds the cup, he can hide it in the lair
of the framed demonling. See? He did take it!
In game terms, this is Fast-Talk being twisted. In roleplaying terms, it's
something much deeper. The demonling lives in a world where everybody is
bigger and stronger and brighter than he is.
And they're always right.
If the demon believes that the demonling is guilty, then he's guilty. This
is clearly true, because he gets punished. That's what 'guilty' means, after
all. It doesn't have anything to do with what you've done. If he doesn't
punish you then you are innocent. So the demon can never be wrong.
The only place they aren't always in control is in his mind. They normally
control his mind, of course; his emotions are the toys of the habbalah, his
beliefs the toys of the balseraphs. Still, his mind is the closest thing the
demonling has to a possession. He can't control who tramps through it, any
more than he can prevent a demon wandering into whatever hovel or cardboard
box he calls home; but he gets to choose what to hang on the walls. When a
Balseraph tells him that he's better off telling the truth, he must believe
- but he can decide what the truth means. The demonling masters the
intricacies of helltongue; the innuendoes and implications, learns to shift
the emotional baggage associated with words.
There's nothing 'relative' about the demonlings view of the world. He feels
the soft song of his personal symphony, knows that what he perceives as the
truth is true - in his symphony. He knows that bigger demons have stronger
symphonies, so what they say is true, because they can enforce their world
on him.
And strongest of all is God.
But not different.
The demonling who aspires to being a Balseraph knows something that makes a
Habbalah's delusions seem quite reasonable - every Balseraph is God. They
speak the word, and it becomes so. Unfortunately, their Symphony is smaller
than God's, so they're at a disadvantage. For now. But Lucifer is playing
well; how long before he defeats God?
And Lucifer must win, because he says he's the First Balseraph. If God was
mightier, then Lucifer would only be the second Balseraph, and claiming to
be the First would cause him dissonance.
So the demonling feels smug about his future. But not complacent. Who
created the world he is walking through? Did he? if not, then he is in
another Balseraph's world. A world created for the benefit of that
Balseraph. Maybe he is a brain in a vat, deluded by a rival. Sure, he's
walked past the banks of vats with brains in them, but wouldn't you put that
image in the world, to ensure complacency? Paranoid world that he lives in
- better become a Balseraph quickly, so that he can protect himself.....
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