From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Feb 11 15:24:46 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA22689 for ; Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:24:45 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id OAA25215 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:10:53 -0600 Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:10:53 -0600 Message-Id: <199802112010.OAA25215@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 #621 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 Wednesday, February 11 1998 Volume 01 : Number 621 In this digest: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns IN> Lilim and Limbo Re: IN> IN Safety's off, just don't shoot MY game... Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" IN> The Angel of World War Two et al Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns - Some Malakim stuff Re: IN> FLUFF! (Re: Lilim and Reproduction) Re: IN> IN played with the safety off Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns - Some Malakim stuff Re: IN> IN played with the safety off Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Re: IN> Re: IN- Canon Doubt and Uncertainty Re: IN> Lilim and Limbo Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Re: IN> IN played with the safety off Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns IN> In Nomine flavor concerns Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Re: IN>Remnants (they sure are fun) IN> Angels and Planaria (flatworms) Re: IN> Angels and Planaria (flatworms) Re: IN>Remnants (they sure are fun) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:31:45 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns Stacy Stroud wrote: > Sir, permit me to shake your hand, at least virtually. Thank you. It's always fun to get fan mail. > Perhaps you and Mr. Dobyns and I (and anyone else with thoughts in > this direction) could work on a general "back-to-the-sources" IN > variant? The problem is, I don't feel there is that much that needs to be done. There's just some minor adjustments I'd make: - I'd stop avoiding the words "good" and "evil" when that is clearly what you're writing about anyway. - I'd edit out the pantheism. - I'd give a more favorable interpretation to Dominic et al. I have not read all the IN books, so there may be other stuff, but I'm certainly not going to complain about it before I'm aware of it. A few weeks ago, I posted "Christian Mods" for IN, designed to make the game more Christian-specific. I still think that would be a really fun way to play IN (even Catholic-specific or Mormon-specific, along with, of course, Chassidic-specific, Shiite-specific, etc.) But I certainly wouldn't expect SJG to provide those, and such campaigns would only be suitable for equally specific audiences. Some of my "Christian Mods" could be used as more general "Abrahamic Mods." These would be: - Shape up the Archangels: Don't have them suspect each other of being evil, though this certainly doesn't mean having them live in monotonous harmony. ("Dominic: Can't do without him, can't smack his head against the wall.") - Let there be more irrevocable forms of blessedness and damnation. - Let souls, celestial and terrestrial, be more immortal (and com- pensate with more and longer Trauma to take characters out of play when dramatically necessary). I could re-post the whole list, or mail it to interested individuals. > As for the "Dominic/Malakim as near-evil" bit, I just adopt the most > sympathetic interpretations of them. That would be my own approach. And let me say again that the canon doesn't portray Malakim as negatively as they portray Dominic. I almost retract the remark. I was mostly thinking of the idea, kicked around on the list a few months ago, that Malakim can't Fall because they are already demons, with much accompanying fun, burrowing for clues in the canon and arguing from the narrow, severe description of Malakim. I like your Rangers interpretation of them. Likewise, I have advocated Malakim played like Steed & Mrs. Peel of "The Avengers," or D'Artagnan, though I am really thinking of Reepicheep from "Narnia." > ...isn't there anyone else here who was just a little sickened by > the APG's bizarre canon explanation of "why the Malakim didn't just > whack Hitler"? I didn't know about it; I haven't bought the APG yet, just window- shopped over it while waiting for a favorable monetary fluctuation. Gee, I would have explained it more simply -- the inner Nazi circle had heavy demonic protection. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:34:25 -0400 From: Nana Yaw Ofori Subject: IN> Lilim and Limbo ...Four million, nine hundred thirteen thousand, six hundred twenty. Four million, nine hundred thirteen thousand, six hundred twenty-one. Four million, nine hundred thirteen thousand, six hundred twenty-two... "Hi. You Owe me. I'll be in touch." (4 Essence) ...Four million, nine hundred thousand, six hundred twenty-three... Damn. ...One. Two. Three... I'd been thinking of putting something like the above in a character story. Namely, I'm wondering...Is this possible? Can a Lilim toss Essence to a Celestial in Limbo and hook a Geas along with it? By the core rules guidelines, a single point of Essence to a Celetial in limbo should be worth at least a Geas/3, as J. Random Renegade needs a week to get another one. And so long as the Celestial accepts the Essence, and doesn't manage to lose it, when he finally emerges, not only do you have a decent way of tracking him down, he owes you. Seems like if it is possible, it would be SOP for Lilim of the Game (Or even Judgement), when it's important that a Celestial who's gone to Limbo be tracked down and brought in, for some reason or another. Of course, she can't find him until he comes out of Limbo. And I guess a Geas/3 isn't enough to force on a Renegade the "Follow me to Hell," command. Rather, a "Name your compatriots, and help us hunt them down." or "Reveal where you hid Artifact X.", perhaps... Guess one should really be careful about accepting Essence from strangers. \|=) = http://www.io.com/~beholder ===================== nofori@pop3.utoled.edu === Nana-Yaw "The Fish" Ofori, Freelance Soldier of Heck, presenty serving Legion, Party of six thousand. Smoking or Non? ===== ><{{"> ============ "Life's a Fish, then you Fry." ======= <"}}>< ====== ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:38:30 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> IN Safety's off, just don't shoot MY game... York H. Dobyns wrote: > I *know* it would offend more people if it went more in the > "Abrahamic" direction. I'd be one of them. Have you've seen my more specific recommendations in other posts? Which of them would be offensive? > Make more definite statements about God the Creator, and it seems > almost inevitable you'll start tripping over people's toes on issues > like: One or Three? One. Only one, for all the Abrahamic religions. You can go on about Christianity for great lengths of time without touching on the issue of the Trinity. And any generally Abrahamic version of IN would almost never mention Christ at all, much less the relation of the Son to the Father. > Pantheism and panentheism are both entirely compatible with > monotheism. They address the issue of immanence versus transcendence, > not the issue of plurality. In strict metaphysics, yes. In general religious practice, "monotheism" tends to be bundled with the strong distinction between Creator and Creation. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:40:36 -0500 From: jesse Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" >I personally favor the tragic hints in Night Music that a Word-bound whose >Word ceases to be will simply fade from existence. >Has God's most loyal defender, then, willingly taken on a task that will >prevent him from ever personally experiencing his own ultimate victory? >Will Michael, like Moses, lead his people to the Promised Land, but never >enter it himself? So what if that is the case? It will be a reward. Michael has been at this for way to long. Fadding away into the symphony or being recalled to the High Heavens (they may be the same thing) will be alot nicer for Michael. As for the angel of WWII, think about this: Did he stick around till the War Trials at Nuerumburg? It he did he might as well stick around for the WWII movies, the aniversery celebrations etc. - -Jesse, sometime Soul of Tongue-Planted-So-Far-in-Cheek-I-Have-a-Second-Set-of-Lips "Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it." Peter Lamborn Wilson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:04:03 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: IN> The Angel of World War Two et al I appreciate the tragic self-sacrifice of an angel who takes a temporary Word even though knowing he will fade out when the Word ends, but other considerations occur to my mind. The angel was able to exist without a Word before. Why not after? Perhaps losing a Word just sends one into Trauma. After all, one doesn't even go into Trauma for Falling, which removes or corrupts one's Word. An angel with a Word is supposed to promote that Word. If the Word becomes impossible to promote, why should this be fatal rather than just frustrating? In the special case of the Angel of WWII, he was, more specifically, the Angel of Helping the Allies Win World War Two. Well, they won. And now they will always have won. His Word is as "promoted" as it can get. Maybe nothing happens to the angel except that now he can't take any other Word (since I never heard of anyone having more than one). To get a new Word, he'd have to have the old one removed (if that's possible). Undoubtedly a drastic step to take. So maybe by taking a temporary Word and getting it fulfilled an angel *does* make a sacrifice, not of existence, but of any further chance to get ahead in the Word game, which is an ingrained ambition of all angels, the APG tells us. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:15:34 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns - Some Malakim stuff > > As for the "Dominic/Malakim as near-evil" bit, I just adopt the most > > sympathetic interpretations of them. > > That would be my own approach. And let me say again that the canon > doesn't portray Malakim as negatively as they portray Dominic. I almost > retract the remark. I was mostly thinking of the idea, kicked around > on the list a few months ago, that Malakim can't Fall because they > are already demons, with much accompanying fun, burrowing for clues > in the canon and arguing from the narrow, severe description of > Malakim. Can I claim some of this? Please? Pretty please? I'm fairly sure that some of it is my fault. At the time that I was arguing for Malakim to be demons, I was thinking more of several interesting facts about how the sourcebook portrays them: 1. The expect honor in others, but not in themselves. Ie, they can lie, cheat and maim demons and Bad Humans in the names of their oaths. 2. They embody vengance, which isn't a particularly selfless concept, even in the name of Heaven. Revenge for 'bad things done' is not an exceptionally 'good' thing to be running around doing, even if there is plenty of support in the Bible for the action. 3. They seem to internalize their oaths, sort of like Geas/Infinity, and then use them as a basis to rationalize their actions. 4. Oh, yeah. They don't Fall. It's hard to Fall off the floor. It kind of went like this for a while, about 20K worth. Go look it up in the digest archive, it's all there. But when it comes right down to it, I rather like Malakim, and they're really cool in their own special way. It just takes some doing to get into their heads. I can very easily make the opposite argument for why Malakim are _not_ demons (and in my game, they aren't), and rationalize it without ever picking up the source book. What I ended up doing, in my contemplation periods when I drive home, is split up the severity of Malakim dependant on their Archangel. Which is, on reflection, how it should have worked all along. On one hand, we have senseless killers who hunt down people who consider themselves evil, and slay them in their own blood, 'putting them out of their misery' after allowing their target to contemplate the harsh reality of their actions for a few good solid minutes. And then as their oaths dictate, execute them. This is the severe end of the scale, something I tend to reserve for Malakim of Fire and Judgment. Even of War, to an extent. On the other side of the scale are people like the Malakim of the Sword - incredibly honorable warriors who will take pains to make the combat fair and just, and allow the demon to die an honorable death. Or a Malakite of Destiny, who may be willing - for just a moment - to consider the demon's chances at Redemption and maybe give them The Talk before the sword comes out. Or the Malakim of Creation, whom I love to pieces because you too can be wacky, brightly colored, artsy, and goofy while still maintaining the morals of Heavenm, in your own way, by using lace doilies and unsharpened #2 pencils. The myth that Malakim are unfeeling killers is just that, a myth. They're still angels, they still have personalities, they still have something that runs along the lines of a moral judgment. They aren't machines, they're celestials. They've simply taken oaths to uphold a certain part of the Good that is Heaven, and sometimes it sucks to do it. (And sometimes it's lots of fun, when giving that Bal of the Game a good, solid nuggie.) And remember - Malakim always look good in leather pants. :::> - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:23:05 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> FLUFF! (Re: Lilim and Reproduction) > >> Yes, most celestials are created soley by their Superior. (Gee, > >> imagine having Laurence as a *Daddy*...) > > > >AUGH! *eyeballs explode* > > All *six* of them? Gee, Em, I'm sorry... I didn't know the idea > would be worse than Djinnporn. Um. Right. Sorry, sorry, forget > I mentioned it. *instantly forgotten* Hey, remember what I said about Terry and his view on the universe? Maybe it was one of those enlightenment explosions. Ow, my head now hurts. > >You know, my Lilim have two parents and two parents _only_. And I have > >never once said that Lilith could only pick from high ranking demons and > >Demon Princes. (Not canon, but available if ya wanna use it.) > >My God. What a confused chick she would be. "I must valiantly uphold > >the tenants of Freedom against the accursed Angels who would besmirch my > >Honor! And the Game! Don't get me started on them." > > I bet Malakim would be even *more* confused, meeting > her. "Um. Maybe she's one of us. On some serious drugs. We should > rescue her. We think." The poor Malakim. They resonate on her and get something very bizarre. She's not really all that honorable in the context of the entire universe (she is a demon, after all), but boy, she has it down to a science in her own world view, to the point of avoiding leather pants and meditating. Well, maybe not the former, she did pick up some things from Mom, such as Good Fashion Sense. (I am convinced that Lilith has one over on the Balseraphim on fashion.) "Maybe. Okay, who has the chocolate supply?" > >Yikes. There are some people Lilith just should not... now I love > >Laurence. That's why I beat him up and put him through angst hell. But > >he just should never have any Lilim who call him 'Dad'. > > Well, I admit that there I was thinking of the general > angels that he creates, more than J.Random Lilim... But there is > that, isn't there? Of course, the trick is to get him dating a > Princess for long enough... > Or tie him down somewhere... um... well, maybe not. Even though he might enjoy it and it'll get some of that pent up frustration out of his system... uh... Yes, I have been working on my Laurence/Novalis romance too much lately. Sheesh. - - Em. :::> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:27:04 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> IN played with the safety off [snip] > Me, I monkey around with the bell-curve. There are Princes who > are *very* dark (Em knows who I mean), and there are Archangels > who are very light, and there's a *lot* of gray area in between. > Hm. My darkness may be darker than my light, come to think of it. > Don't know. I think the overall tone is lighter than the obvious > "middle ground" between dark Darkness and slightly-gray Light, > though. > > Must be all those humans. Yes, I do know what you mean. I'm going to say that I agree with Beth 100%. Mark your calendars, this may never come to pass again. Yes, there is something I actually outright totally agree on, and this is it. Without those grey areas, the game starts to really lose some of its flavor, and as I've found through GMing it, that is where all the interesting action happens. Besides, the gray area is where you can prism out the colors and get interesting rainbows and tie-die. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:28:39 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns - Some Malakim stuff Emily Dresner wrote: > Or the Malakim of Creation, whom I love to pieces because you too > can be wacky, brightly colored, artsy, and goofy while still > maintaining the morals of Heaven, in your own way, by using lace > doilies and unsharpened #2 pencils. If this got written up, I must have missed it, but I'd dearly love to see it. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:36:59 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> IN played with the safety off Emily Dresner wrote: > Without those grey areas, the game starts to really lose some of its > flavor, and as I've found through GMing it, that is where all the > interesting action happens. Besides, the gray area is where you can prism > out the colors and get interesting rainbows and tie-die. No one has accused me of anything, yet, but to head off any potential misunderstanding, I like grey too. I guess I just want to see some really solids whites, too, in certain areas. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:02:48 -0000 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" MICHAEL: What's that you've got there? BAAL: I am proof reading my autobiography, it just got back from the printers. I'm still in two minds on picking a title. MICHAEL: If you had another mind, it would be lonely. BAAL: What's that you say? Ah yes, it would be lovely, yes. I think I'm going to call it 'How I Single-handedly won Armaggeddon and other True Stories' That has a nice ring to it. MICHAEL: But you didn't win Armaggeddon! BAAL: What's that you say? MICHAEL: I said you didn't win the war, you old git! We had orders from on high to shake hands and call it a day. BAAL: Sorry old chap, can't hear a word. Oh here's a good bit ... this is where I inspire Napoleon to march on Moscow! Shall I read it to you? It might be instructive. MICHAEL: Oh yes, very instructive! 'Her bosom heaved wildly as the pirate captain pulled her into his arms, crushing her lips in a brutal kiss.' So which one of them is Napoleon? BAAL: Didn't anyone ever tell you its rude to do that? NURSE: Now boys, thats quite enough arguing for one day. If you can't behave then there won't be any more 6 o'clock showings of 'M.A.S.H for the next month. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:30:09 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" Very nice. Sort of the Eternal Squabble of Good and Evil. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:57:00 -0500 From: "David C. Shadle" Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Canon Doubt and Uncertainty I doubt New Testament will ever be done - > a bit too risky, methinks. They could do part of that in a suppliment called In Nomie:Rome ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:38:26 -0500 (EST) From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Lilim and Limbo On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Nana Yaw Ofori wrote: > I'd been thinking of putting something like the above in a > character story. Namely, I'm wondering...Is this possible? Can a Lilim toss > Essence to a Celestial in Limbo and hook a Geas along with it? By the core Toss Essence, yes. Hook a Geas to it....I don't think so, since the rules stipulate that eye contact must be made to find a Need. - -- Casca, Seraph of Archives (bertishg@db.erau.edu) "...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 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:39:58 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" > overstuffed armchairs. All the superiors are wrinkled and greying.> > I just laughed so hard I had Coke - my LUNCH, mind you - come out my nose and in a rather mess onto the keyboard. Good thing I have napkins. And now I've just finished choking. Here I am, minding my own business, reading about error handling of all things. Man, that message should have come with a warning. - - Em, who was a rather NICE balseraph until a few moments ago. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:46:26 -0400 (EDT) From: gantr@NKU.EDU Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Stacy Stroud wrote: > Back to the Malakim for a moment, and touching on the "absolute good and > evil" question as well -- isn't there anyone else here who was just a > little sickened by the APG's bizarre canon explanation of "why the Malakim > didn't just whack Hitler"? Y'know, that really did bother me. A lot. But I then promptly forgot about it until you brought it up. What is the "official" explanation for that canon statement? Couldn't anyone come up with a better reason? > First of all, it's not even correct > mechanically: Malakim do *not* earn dissonance for killing "honorable" > humans, even if one considers Hitler "honorable." Very true. Good point. In fact, you could make an excellent case for a Malakim *gaining* dissonance for not taking a shot at Hitler if he had the chance. After all: "I will not suffer an evil to live if it is my choice." By any defenition of the word, Hitler was evil. > Second, even though the Malakim resonance is for honor and integrity > rather than goodness per se, saying that the Malakim will leave someone > alone just because that person lives up to *his own* morality, even if > that morality is thoroughly twisted, stands in utter contradiction to > every other statement and implication in the IN books about the nature > of Malakim. Another good point. If that is the case, then Malakim would have to leave Habbalah and Balseraphim alone. Especially Habbalah, since they believe they are angels and are performing their actions accordingly. The Habbalah would "ping" as having behaved in a moral fashion, relative to his own morality. I had always assumed that the Malakim resonance measured honor against an objective standard. > Given that the Nazis are usually such a hot-button topic, I'm surprised > there hasn't been a massive outcry against this explanation of "why the > angels didn't think Hitler was really evil." Is it because people are > so willing to think badly of the Malakite ethos, or did most folks just > miss that one? Playing cynic, I think it's because people are willing to think badly of the Malakim. They actually have the nerve to say things are right or wrong, live accordingly, and expect others to do the same. Now, for my theory on why the Malakim didn't whack Hitler: Angels aren't in the business of full-scale interventions in human affairs. What they do in the Corporeal Realm is typically limited to dealing with demons and the occasional surgical alteration. They aren't suppossed to be involved at all (hence the constant disturbances in the Symphony when they act, and the more blatant the act the more disturbance). Killing Hitler would have been a *blatant* action in the Symphony, having repurcussions far beyond the simple distrubance caused by killing him. A second reason is what it would have done to the balance of the War. Right now, neither side is willing to take dramatic actions in the Corporeal Realm. An action as dramatic as assassinating the leader of a nation involved in a World War would have provoked responses from the other side. This would have quickly escalated into a premature Armageddon that neither side would be prepared for. Basically, the Malakim didn't wack Hitler because they were ordered not to. Rich Gant ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:47:55 -0400 (EDT) From: gantr@NKU.EDU Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Jo Hart wrote: > At 01:12 11/02/98 -0500, you wrote: > > > >As for Dominic, the relatively new Marvel superhero team the Thunderbolts > >took their name from a proverb that is obviously near and dear to old Dom's > >heart: "Justice, like lightning, should be terror to all but ruin to few." > > Actually my fave Judgement 'quote' is "Judgement will be as swift as it is > unexpected." How about: "Let justice be done, though the Heavens fall." That's my favorite. Rich Gant ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:49:58 -0500 (EST) From: IQJason@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" "I have visions of a hall in Michael's cathedral where a row of "eternal flames" is kept burning in honor of the various angels of specific wars. Naturally, there's a *big* brazier at the end of the hall, intended as Michael's memorial once the War is won and he, too, fades." *nod* I like it lots. But my image of the hall has certain flames that burn less brightly because people are still "fighting" them long after the armistice (or whatever) was declared. Take the angel of the American Civil War... yours, - -J ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:36:58 GMT From: maya@tcp.co.uk (GR Cogman) Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns >> Actually my fave Judgement 'quote' is "Judgement will be as swift as it is >> unexpected." > >How about: "Let justice be done, though the Heavens fall." That's my >favorite. >Rich Gant Oh, do you by any chance mean "FIAT JUSTITIA, RUIT CAELUM"? http://www.tcp.co.uk/~maya/nomine/fiat.html Maya, who picked that quote for the title of her current IN campaign. Can't think why this should worry her players at all. Really. Trust me. - --- Maya, Elohim of Eli in service to Blandine maya@tcp.co.uk - -- "There are those who say that wizards are subject to temptations and addictions beyond the understanding of ordinary men: the addiction to shape-changing, or to meditation under the influence of certain herbs and conditions of the stars; the obsession with knowledge, and the development of power. Yet this is not so. Temptation is temptation, obsession is obsession, and choice is choice." - Isar Chelladan, Precepts of Wizardry. -- "Dog Wizard", Barbara Hambly. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:54:33 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" At 12:49 11/02/98 -0500, you wrote: > > But my image of the hall has certain flames that burn >less brightly because people are still "fighting" them long after the >armistice (or whatever) was declared. Take the angel of the American Civil >War... > Nah, all civil wars (apart from maybe the Spanish Civil war) get demons, IMO. Wasn't the American Civil War the one that had more casualties than WW1? And civil wars really screw a country up, brother fighting brother etc. jo - ---------- "I like getting into hot water, it keeps me clean." G. K. Chesterton jhart@btinternet.com -- http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jhart/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:59:04 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> IN played with the safety off At 16:09 10/02/98 -0500, you wrote: >>>>(I know I may be in a minority of 1 but I think Dominic is utterly >cool)<<< > > > >Minority of 2 at least. > >-David (I knew there's a reason I like you ;)) ** grin ** So all we need to do is find one more person and we can form a threeso^D^D^D^D^ triad! jo (ObRelevance -- An alternative reason to the rule of three for those who aren't so hot on the trinity symbolism is that one judge would not be able to ensure their own judgement wasn't getting out of alignment after a long stretch on the road, two might get deadlocked, so three is the minimum number who can disagree and then have a discussion and vote to determine the majority view -- members of a triad keep each other in line). - ---------- "I like getting into hot water, it keeps me clean." G. K. Chesterton jhart@btinternet.com -- http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jhart/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 19:16:46 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns At 10:31 11/02/98 -0500, you wrote: >Stacy Stroud wrote: >> ...isn't there anyone else here who was just a little sickened by >> the APG's bizarre canon explanation of "why the Malakim didn't just >> whack Hitler"? > >I didn't know about it; I haven't bought the APG yet, just window- >shopped over it while waiting for a favorable monetary fluctuation. >Gee, I would have explained it more simply -- the inner Nazi circle >had heavy demonic protection. > So what happened to him afterwards? Well, he topped himself, but instead of going to hell it turned out that a lot of people were still quietly worshipping his memory so he became a minor ethereal deity (hey, canon says mortals can't become celestials -- not a word about becomeing ethereals :) ) but one bright day he strayed just a bit too far into the Far marches and Em's Cult of Uriel sacrificed him to their whacked out concept of purity. I'm all for poetic justice. And this way the Malakim did get him in the end. jo - ---------- "I like getting into hot water, it keeps me clean." G. K. Chesterton jhart@btinternet.com -- http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jhart/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:19:45 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> In Nomine flavor concerns >>>Back to the Malakim for a moment, and touching on the "absolute good and evil" question as well -- isn't there anyone else here who was just a little sickened by the APG's bizarre canon explanation of "why the Malakim didn't just whack Hitler"?<<< Yes -- me. That's another bit that was added to my draft (the first time I saw it was when the APG came out). I still don't buy it -- after all, some *demons* are honorable and moral by their own standards. A Malakite's resonance might have found that Hitler was plenty honorable by his own standards, but that wouldn't prevent a Malakite from killing him. Their resonance won't necessarily detect a demon, but they'll still kill one if they detect it by other means. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 13:24:49 +0000 From: "Patrick Chester" Subject: Re: IN> Baal and Michael's "retirement" > At 12:49 11/02/98 -0500, you wrote: > > > > But my image of the hall has certain flames that burn > >less brightly because people are still "fighting" them long after the > >armistice (or whatever) was declared. Take the angel of the American Civil > >War... > > > > > Nah, all civil wars (apart from maybe the Spanish Civil war) get demons, IMO. > > Wasn't the American Civil War the one that had more casualties than WW1? Um. No. Maybe more casualties for American soldiers than WW1, but fewer people died during the Civil War than in WW1. > And civil wars really screw a country up, brother fighting brother etc. No kidding. - -- Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus) wolfone@io.com "Well Jim, that proves it. The Universe not made up of an endless vacuum of eternal nothingness like we once believed. The Universe is in fact made up of Fabio." -Cape Carbunkle bunch at work. :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:38:41 -0500 (EST) From: Nana Yaw Ofori Subject: Re: IN>Remnants (they sure are fun) : >Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:14:35 +0000 (GMT) >From: Kevin Walsh [snip] >I assumed that this meant it made only a 1pt Disturbance (due to the >essence expenditure), and that the Bound Discord does not affect it at >all, since there is no question of making Will rolls to ascend to >Celestial form. > >If it does cause so much disturbance, spare vessels are going to go with >the Songs of Entropy, Possession and Projection into my "those >superficially cool things which are completely and utterly useless" >collection. Yep. Noisy stuff, swapping Vessels. I'd since decided, that for the purposes of swapping one Vessel to another, the disturbance is Total Forces, or Total levels of the Vessels being swapped, whichever is less, plus the necessarry Essence. Seemed to make more sense, as the Symphony doesn't get a peek at the Celestial Form, rather, one Vessel gets shoved into timeless nowhere, and one comes out. = http://www.io.com/~beholder ===================== nofori@pop3.utoled.edu === Nana-Yaw "The Fish" Ofori, Freelance Soldier of Heck, presenty serving Legion, Party of six thousand. Smoking or Non? ===== ><{{"> ============ "Life's a Fish, then you Fry." ======= <"}}>< ====== ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:49:48 -0800 From: Armand Subject: IN> Angels and Planaria (flatworms) Okay, I stated earlier that I believe that celestials are asexual beings. I still hold to this. I still don't think your average celestial capable of reproducing. Someone, I deleted the message so I don't remember who, stated that I must be wrong based on the example of the flatworm. It took me a while to assimilate this bit of thinking, and found that I couldn't. Okay, the planaria is an asexual being. Like the starfish, when cut in two or more pieces, the flatworm becomes two organisms; regenerating lost material to form a whole body. If we apply these rules to our angel buddies, say Bobiel, Malakim of Michael. He is pitched celestial combat with an elder cabalite, Tim. Tim, being more trained in combat than Bobiel, hacks the unfotunate Malakim thirty odd pieces. By the rules of the planaria and like asexual creatures, Tim will be facing down either thirty new Bobiels or a brand new Kyriotate. Hey, this could explain why demons out number angels. However, I am still not convinced that non-superior celestials are capable of breeding. I may just be a stodgy old man or something, but I just don't see why it needs done. Armand ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:00:58 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Angels and Planaria (flatworms) Armand wrote: > Okay, I stated earlier that I believe that celestials are asexual > beings. I still hold to this. I still don't think your average > celestial capable of reproducing. Someone, I deleted the message > so I don't remember who, stated that I must be wrong based on the > example of the flatworm. I think you were being slyly nudged about your use of the word "asexual." It doesn't mean "doesn't reproduce." It means "reproduces without sex." I've lost the thread of this discussion. As I recall, canon has it that, yes indeed, celestials don't "breed" in anything like the sense that organisms do. They are *always* manufactured by Superiors, who may or may not use Forces from older celestials to do it. There were some exceptions concerning a "Song of Fruition," but they were very rare and I don't remember if they involved inter-celestial breeding or just breeding with humans. Was someone suggesting that unaided celestials breed?> Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 13:57:04 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN>Remnants (they sure are fun) At 5:45 PM -0800 2/10/98, Querent wrote: >---gantr@NKU.EDU wrote: >>On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Querent wrote: >> >>> Do remnants age? >I was curious, because p.30 says he would have to "live out the rest >of his mundane life". I wondered then would his body take on human >reality rather than those qualities of a celestial vessel? That sounds like at least some of them do. On the other hand, some *don't*... (There's a very old one in _H&H_, for instance.) It may well depend on if they have a Role or not. If they do, the Role might "take over", and they're drawn into the Symphony. The Role expects them to age (bad phrasing, but the best I can think of right now), so they do... >>> Can a remnant change vessels? >Changing vessels requires 1 point of Essence, and no roll. They still >have Essence (don't they?), so they still follow the rules as stated. >I'll go with the Bound at level infinity treatment though. Also, if a >remnant is created who has multiple vessels, which one then does he >enter? Options: #1: the last one they were in. #2: the one they most identify with. #3: GM willing, the one that the character *wanted* to be in, just before his celestial nature was torn away. #4: the one the Superior doing the remnatizing wanted. #5: the one with a Role. #6: the healthiest one... >>>Can a remnant use 10 character points to spontaneously regenerate >>>one Celestial force? > >As soon as I wrote that, I thought "Beth will make it a GM's call no >doubt." No doubt. It is, however, rare enough that most celestials would be very boggled to learn that a remnant was regenerating Forces. As in, they'd want to know how, because it's "just not possible." >As to why Superiors don't just fix it? How? You >have to *find* a remnant before even thinking of fixing him. Take a >look at p.68. "Without a Heart, and without any Celestial Forces, a >Remnant becomes very hard to track....his friends (and his Superior) >often can't find him to help..." There are also other considerations... These are all fuzzy, not canon things, but... The remnant may be too damaged to repair -- even if you give celestial forces back, all you get is a celestial who doesn't remember much of his previous existance. It may not be *possible* to give celestial forces back to a (given?) remnant. It may just be too much trouble (popular with Princes). >>> Does a remnant retain any rites or attunements? >> >>I think they retain their Rites, but I'm not sure about attunements. > >Again, p.30. A Remnant keeps all his Corporeal and Ethereal Songs, >his Rites, and his Attunements. It then says they can not use them in >a *directed* manner. > >What's directed? If a remnant Angel of Hockey has a rite "stand on >the ice for 15 minutes", and he goes hiking on a glacier, does he >inadvertantly gain a point of essence? Yes, that's how I'd do it. He may have an affinity for glacier-hiking, too, without knowing why. The Tangle-Bearded Man remembered that being polite was important; one of his Rites is making someone smile. The Angel of Hockey might also have an affinity for the sport, and be good at it. >What if his attunement is that he can not be hurt by hockey pucks? >Does a flying hockey puck now hurt him? Any "automatic" attunement, I'd say, generally works. So he's still protected from hockey pucks. I suspect that "directed" primarily means that he can't do it very consciously. He tends to do things under stress, and blows all his Essence on them, like a human... >Personally, I read this as "he can't use them if it requires a roll of >any type, or if essence use is needed. But for passive "always on" >attunements, and by definition any rite, can he still use them? Yes, if it requires a roll, then it's *definitely* an "only under stress" thing. If Essence use it needed, then it's probably "only under stress" and/or all the Essence possessed is blown. And I don't know if it's silent or not. I would suspect so -- they're burning Essence like a human, not in a "focused, directed" manner, and their celestial nature is toasted. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #621 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.