From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Jan 13 13:26:18 1999 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 NAA13399 for ; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:26:17 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1a) id NAA21157 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:16:52 -0600 Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:16:52 -0600 Message-Id: <199901131916.NAA21157@lists.io.com> X-Authentication-Warning: lists.io.com: majordom set sender to owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com using -f From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #1094 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, January 13 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1094 In this digest: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements Re: Old-School IN [was Re: IN> product quality] IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) IN> Improving the squishies Re: IN> IN - GURPS Re: IN> Angels of the Lens Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers (some how got change to VtM) Re: IN> Discord and Rites Re: IN> Shedim redeeming Re: IN> Improving the squishies Re: IN> IN - GURPS Re: IN> IN - GURPS Re: IN> IN - GURPS Re: IN> Improving the squishies Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers IN> RE: tethers Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers Re: IN> IN - GURPS Re: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) IN> ADMIN: Don't Go Off Topic (Re: Re:IN product quality and tethers (some how got change to VtM)) Re: IN> Shedim redeeming IN> The Creation of Lilim Re: IN> RE: tethers Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements Re: IN> IN - GURPS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:54:26 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 05:52:00PM -0500, Walter Milliken wrote: > > (It's the same principle > >I guess as the V;tM rule about how many Vampires exist in a city.) That rule was rather ill-considered in my opinion, since it appears to have been designed for American conditions. I have trouble with the idea that Dublin should only have 10 Vampires, since it wreaks havoc with any games one might want to play there. And then you get to the propotion of Mages... > Nope, not really. There is a discussion of Tether placement (for the > GM) in the book. I'm not going to go into the details here, but I will > say that a lot of people didn't like any sort of fixed numerical > relationship, so it's left up to the GM, with some suggestions about > effects on the campaign of Tether frequency. > Which I think was a good idea, given the point I made above. > Yes, it *is* unreasonable to infer that. Nothing that's been said > suggests that -- even the notion that London has dozens of Tethers > doesn't; 25-30 Tethers there would only be 1 per 200,000 people or so, > which you didn't seem to mind in your quote above. > Of course, that high a proportion of Tethers implies that the proportion of Celestials based in a place like London is quite significant, and the player group's impact on events shouldn't be very great except in unusual circumstances. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "In our revolutionary court we are guided not by articles of the law and not by the degree of extenuating circumstances; in the tribunal we must proceed on the basis of considerations of expediency." the Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 14:33:23 +0100 From: cd skogsberg Subject: Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 05:31:56PM -0800, Sean McCarthy wrote: > Our agents report Adam Canning wrote: [Why no Calabites of Technology?] > >Not all people with calabite Choir attunements are calabim. > >Some are other things, like Lilim. > However, in Vapula's case, I can see him asserting, "No Calabim, no > Calabim attunement, not even any PICTURES of Calabim anywhere near my work!" I *still* feel that the original Bastard Operator From Hell[1] is a *perfect* Calabite of Technology. I mean, his way of working: "So visitors are getting pretty thin at the moment, and the Quick- Lime Pits are filling up rapidly, and all I've got to do is the full backups and maybe I can go home. "So, to relieve the boredom, I get some iron filings and pour them into the back of my Terminal until it fizzes out (Which doesn't take all that long, surprisingly enough), then call our maintenance contractors and log a fault on the device. Sometimes they'll send someone who knows what they're doing, but it's a lot more fun when they don't - which is about 98% of the time." His attitude: "There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting their REAL earnings to the IRS" And his feeling for his job: "It's a dirty, filthy, stinking dog-kill-dog job, but someone's got to enjoy it" It's all so .. Hellish. And great fun, as long as you aren't bothered by lots of gratuitous violence. /cd [1]: http://www.iinet.net.au/~bofh/ - -- "We are indeed tight-assed tyrannical bastards, but we prefer to be referred to as Bastard Operators from Hell, and we have had much more experience dealing with people like you than you have had dealing with people like us. After all, we do it for a living. There are more of us than there are of you, and we stick together." -- Mike Andrews ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 09:29:39 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: Old-School IN [was Re: IN> product quality] gantr@NKU.EDU wrote: > I believe I have the Divinity chart in my files somewhere. if > there is interest (and if I have the permission of the SJ people), > I can post it. I'd be interested in seeing it, with permission. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 09:41:36 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) >>>Is there a page reference for this limitation? I can't find it or anything like it.<<< I don't think it is explicitly stated anywhere. Maybe it should have been, but it strikes me as being so obvious one would assume that to be the default -- you can't attack someone between realms, you can't see someone between realms, you can't use the Song of Shattering, Song of Possession, etc., on someone between realms, nor can you teleport someone to another realm with the Celestial Song of Motion. Crossing realms is something outside the parameters of almost every ability except a _few_ Songs, which specifically say they can reach between realms. >>>But the destination for the song of motion is in front of me. I can see it. It's the origin point I don't know the location of and neither song makes any restriction on the origin points.<<< What you're proposing is "I use the Song of Correspondence to turn the range between the spot in front of me and the spot under the feet of someone who could be anywhere else on Earth to 0." Remember, you're targeting a location, not the person. You can't do that, because you can't use the Song of Correspondence to target a random spot somewhere in the world when you have NO information about where it is. You can target the _person_ with Correspondence, and then bring him to you with the Celestial Song of Motion, _if_ he's within range of the latter. But to make his range 0 (so that he's automatically within range of the Song of Motion), you have to also target his location. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 09:53:16 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Improving the squishies >>>It occurred to me that if you want to boost the humans in IN without blowing the power curve to hell *ahem*, you could figure their attributes by multiplying their Forces times -five- instead of four.<<< I don't think putting humans on a different scale from other characters (e.g., celestials get 4x their Forces to divide between characteristics, but humans get 5x) is the best solution, at least in canon. (As a house rule it's fine.) However, humans probably could benefit from more options to increase their characteristics independent of increasing their Forces. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 10:01:50 -0500 From: werther@hilander.com (...jason schneiderman...) Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS >Of course, in theory they might be fixed in the process of >converting, but I fully expect vaguely threatening email from Walter even >for mentioning the possibility... :) Oh, I don't know. I distinctly recall Someone describing Gurps IN as a sort of "In Nomine v1.5" - so fixes to troubling things might well be in the works. - -J ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 10:03:26 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Angels of the Lens Adam Canning wrote: > Though Uriel crusading to destroy the Velantians for being > dragons... Sure, if Uriel's crusade was interplanetary in scope, he'd be going after Velantian Ethereals, possibly the ones that look like nightmarishly squishy bipeds. > Seriously though the original post was just a joke. I know. For that matter, GURPS Lensman and Smith's original works have tongues even deeper in cheek than the IN stuff. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be a fun game. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 15:24:10 -0000 From: "Ramesh Satkurunath" Subject: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers (some how got change to VtM) Kevin Walsh wrote on 13 January 1999 On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 05:52:00PM -0500, Walter Milliken wrote: >> > (It's the same principle >> >I guess as the V;tM rule about how many Vampires exist in a city.) > >That rule was rather ill-considered in my opinion, since it appears to >have been designed for American conditions. I have trouble with the idea >that Dublin should only have 10 Vampires, since it wreaks havoc with any >games one might want to play there. And then you get to the propotion of >Mages... erm.. I'm not sure this is the place to discuss WoD but... There shouldn't be many vampires in relation to kine or the Masquerade wouldn't work. Reality makes sure people don't find out about mages. And NWO brainwashes people to forget those kind of things, if the Masquerade was ever broken the Technocracy would just go vulgar and wipe the memories of everyone who had found out, why do you think no one remember when Czar Vargo tried to "save the world" from it's leaders? Ramesh ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 15:09:56 -0000 From: "Ramesh Satkurunath" Subject: Re: IN> Discord and Rites Kevin Walsh wrote on 13 January 1999 >And orders Servitors of the Game to watch each other. And few Servitors of >the Game are averse to inventing Renegades where none exist. If I were >running In Nomine, I'd take pains to make it evident that most Renegades >never set foot on Earth. Except for the Marches (which for many demons isn't an option) where do Renegages go if not on Earth. Surely not Hell, they'd get caught way too easily. Ramesh ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:59:44 -0500 From: neel@cswv.com (Neel Krishnaswami) Subject: Re: IN> Shedim redeeming Kevin Walsh wrote: > >As to Khalid, I don't think it's in the nature of Shedim to be Fanatically >religious anyway. Look at the description of Shedim in the main rulebook. >The most deeply evil and anti-angelic Band of all? I really don't see Dark >Khalid making Shedim. (I have partly written up a story where Baal is >messing with demons' heads to see if he can get them to believe in God, as >opposed to just knowing he exists. And there are no Lilim or Shedim in his >experiment either.) Shrug. The only demon who redeemed IMC was a Shedite Baron of Fate. Even before he redeemed, he believed in God, and believed in His righteousness and goodness. Slipgash just thought he was filth and worthless refuse undeserving of being anywhere near the holy presence of God. IMC, most Shedim /believed/ that they were the most evil and wretched demons in the Pit, but that was a lie the Princes were extremely careful to cultivate. Despite the best efforts of the Princes, the Shedim produced the most Redemptions of any of the demonic Bands, both on a percentage and absolute basis. This is because they can't have any illusions about the nature of their existence: they exist in direct opposition to the will of God, and they bring suffering and misery to mankind. Their dissonance condition means there's just no way for a Shedite to rationalize that fact away like other demons can. More, they spend time in the heads of human beings, where they are made acutely aware of the reality of faith, love and charity. It's not easy for them to pretend that this is just Heavenly propaganda when they feel them flowing through human souls every single day. So the Princes need to make extra efforts to keep Earthbound Shedim from Redeeming in large numbers. So the Infernal propaganda machine tells everyone that Shedim are the most vile and evil of all the demons. The Shedim find this plausible, because they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are doing bad things, and combined with hints of the severity of divine justice this dissuades even the ones most unhappy with what they do from seeking Redemption. [That this propaganda also gives non-Shedim a group to look down on and feel morally superior to, and that smug self-righteousness is a good way to prevent moral improvement, is a side-effect the lords of Hell are fully aware of, btw.] Further, this has the nice in-game side-effect that Shedim were sent to the Earth pnly in extreme cases, where the risk of the Shedite possessing a good person and deciding to Redeem was judged to be less than that of the potential profit. So as a GM I didn't have to run a lot of NPCs who could -never- be caught if they had even two brain cells to click together. (Shedim and Kyriotates make investigative games much, much harder to run, and so I wanted a good reason to avoid using them if possible.) - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@cswv.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:57:39 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Improving the squishies On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, David Edelstein wrote: > >>>It occurred to me that if you want to boost the humans in IN without > blowing the power curve to hell *ahem*, you could figure their attributes > by multiplying their Forces times -five- instead of four.<<< > > I don't think putting humans on a different scale from other characters > (e.g., celestials get 4x their Forces to divide between characteristics, > but humans get 5x) is the best solution, at least in canon. (As a house > rule it's fine.) However, humans probably could benefit from more options > to increase their characteristics independent of increasing their Forces. It's also easy (and canonical) to just add an extra 1-3 points of characteristics to each Force area... CF: 2 (Str 5, Agi 6) EF: 1 (Int 3, Pre 4) CF: 2 (Wil 7, Per 4) ...is a perfectly valid 5-Force human, for example. - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Thinking about a Tampa Bay Devival in the future - email me! ::: Or go to http://www.cris.com/~pkitty (hell, go there anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 99 12:03 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS >>However, I haven't started on these yet. (Yes, for those who haven't >>seen the chat session with Dr. Kromm yet, Elizabeth and I are currently >>writing the GURPS conversion of In Nomine.) Currently we've got most of >>the Choirs and Bands done, and a lot of the other character-creation >>material in notes. > >Have you included advanced uses of Resonances? Not consistently yet (i.e., mostly not except for a couple of trivial ones). We'd like to, but it's not clear whether we have the space. If we do, they'll go in. Some of them will also be modified somewhat, since Elizabeth would like to tone down/change some of the APG ones a bit. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 99 12:04 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS > I somehow suspect that advanced Resonance uses aren't >likely to be included in a conversion till they're fixed somehow for >normal IN. Of course, in theory they might be fixed in the process of >converting, but I fully expect vaguely threatening email from Walter even >for mentioning the possibility... :) Nope. Elizabeth *really* wants to fix them.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 99 12:12 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS > Just what do you believe is wrong with the Kyrio advanced resonance? It >seemed to follow pretty well to me. 1) It makes the Kyrio of Destiny attunement practically irrelevant. 2) It makes Kyrios *way* too powerful, and they're already the most powerful Choir or Band (at least in GURPS character point terms, and also in my own IN experience). One of the few things that keeps them in check is the difficulty of being "amnesiac". As a matter of fact, I disallow this expanded resonance in my game. > The kyriotate can find out how to >keep its host in good shape and maybe access some of the memories and >skills. They obviously have this potential, since shedim can do it >naturally. Most likely they'll keep this ability in a weakened form, but I don't know exactly what yet. One thing I've been thinking of is that memories are only accessible when they're *directly relevant* to what the Kyrio is doing. I.e., if the host's children come up to him, he *may* be able to pull up their names and relationship. But he won't remember the host's computer passwords unless he's in front of the computer, and maybe not then unless he needs them to avoid harming the host (i.e., he needs to do the host's job). Skills might work similarly. I think the other major problem area is the expanded Mercurian resonance. I'm not sure what, if anything, we'll do with it. This all assumes we'll have room to make changes in GURPS IN. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 99 12:18 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Improving the squishies [Casca:] >It occurred to me that if you want to boost the humans in IN without >blowing the power curve to hell *ahem*, you could figure their attributes >by multiplying their Forces times -five- instead of four. This would mean >that two Forces in a gives realm would produce truly average stats (5 >instead of 4), and three Forces would be rather impressive for a human >(average of 7.5 instead of 6). It would become unbalancing at higher >levels, but given that humans rarely go past 5 Forces, and Saints >(who are so rare as to practically be endangered) start at 7, I don't >see this to be a problem. Another way to do this without breaking the mechanics quite as much is to say that the average human has a couple extra levels of attributes in each realm. Sort of an additional 1/2 Force, but it doesn't count as additional Forces because no realm gains a whole additional Force. This would represent the fact that the average case should be halfway between 0 and 4 (a new Force) extra attribute levels for a randomly-selected entity. (Of course, the same argument could be applied to celestials, as well.) - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 99 12:30 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers >Of course, that high a proportion of Tethers implies that the proportion >of Celestials based in a place like London is quite significant, and the >player group's impact on events shouldn't be very great except in unusual >circumstances. Not necessarily -- Tether staffs aren't necessarily all that large. If you figure there are maybe 10 celestials loosely associated with every Tether (including Servitors of that Word assigned to the surrounding area), that isn't a huge number of celestials in a city the size of London. (For the couple-dozen Tether case, that's maybe 300 celestials. Covering 10 million people. I'd expect them all to be rather busy....) Right now, there's no official canon on celestial population, either. The published books seem to imply that the number of celestials assigned to Tethers is very small (often only the Seneschal is mentioned), and also there are only a few celestials mentioned for each of the cities covered so far, with the implications that there aren't a lot more who *aren't* mentioned. Overall, I don't think a couple dozen Tethers in a city of 10 million would lower the impact of the PCs. Rather the opposite -- spread that thinly, there's more than enough work to go around.... The one thing it *does* do is that, when they *really* need it, help is somewhat more accessible. But it also means they're more likely to get called in to assist someone else in the area.... I think it works out OK. I covered these issues in somewhat more detail in the L.Castellorum -- there's a whole chapter on how to fit Tethers into a campaign. That inspires another thought -- I wonder if it would be worthwhile to put a book's table of contents up with the book's web page on the SJGames site. This could be done about the time the book goes to the printer. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 10:06:10 PST From: "Martin Arnold" Subject: IN> RE: tethers Walter: "If the location were now a museum, for example, it might hang on." I had pretty much lumped all museums under destiny (and Fate of course), like the libraries and video stores. The only exceptions are the really big or bizarre ones. But even they would still be linked as repositories of knowledge. I do this because it's easier! Walter: "There will probably be another Cycle of some form started sometime in the not-distant future, they may wind up there." I do recall something about a Creation Cycle, revolving around Eli? Maybe this was a hallucination after too much creamed mushroom. (Mmmmmmm…free goo!) "It was also entirely a non-canon discussion, based to some extent on data on the "known" cities in canon (primarily Austin, TX, at the time)." I wasn't aware whether it was canon or not. I picked up on it because it gave me some useful guidelines to work with. You must understand that I am only trying to feel my way around this concept. "Nope, not really. There is a discussion of Tether placement (for the GM) in the book. I'm not going to go into the details here, but I will say that a lot of people didn't like any sort of fixed numerical relationship, so it's left up to the GM, with some suggestions about effects on the campaign of Tether frequency." I'm surprised people didn't like numerical details. Why is that? Is it not a helpful yardstick? "Still, London is a big (and old) city, and an influential world capital, so it's likely to have a lot of Tethers relative to other places." I have been looking through the books again, and I have come up with a few more. Some of which are quite interesting. For instance the Freud museum (on the site of the place he lived in until he died, complete with his couch!) I have as a tether to Lust (it was either that or Dreams!). "Personally, I'd probably have one from each major Superior in a city with the size and history of London, in my campaign." That's the goal; and it seems very realistic - although I haven't anything for Blandine or Beleth yet. Maybe the Millennium Dome will tether to Dreams, I'm not sure. David: "If we (In Nomine writers) have to assume that anything we suggest, discuss or speculate about on this list had better appear in canon or else people are going to complain that we "changed the rules" on them, we'd probably stop participating. (In fact, complaints like that are probably why many writers _don't_ participate here.)" You don't have to assume anything, but to me the tether concept is a grey area I am trying to feel my way around. For instance can a city be a tether, a country? In posting the Saatchi collection I wondered if the Turner Prize (a rather infamous modern art prize given to people who pour concrete inside houses, frex) might be a weird kind of tether. How about the Nobel Prize? No doubt some lucky celestial(s) are attuned to it or Wordbound to it. The possibilities are endless, so how about some parameters; can I expect them in the LC then? It doesn't matter whether its canon so long as it goes some way to explaining about tethers. Jason: "Tether-dom isn't a matter of black and white." Aint that the truth! "There's no such thing as a comprehensive list of tethers." Could you expand on that? Richard: "I believe I have the Divinity chart in my files somewhere. if there is interest (and if I have the permission of the SJ people), I can post it. If I don't get permission, however, don't even bother asking me to e-mail you one in private." Well, pending copyright edict, I'd be interested. It might come in handy! Er, has it? Martin ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:39:51 -0600 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers Walter Milliken wrote: > Right now, there's no official canon on celestial population, either. > The published books seem to imply that the number of celestials assigned > to Tethers is very small (often only the Seneschal is mentioned), and > also there are only a few celestials mentioned for each of the cities > covered so far, with the implications that there aren't a lot more who > *aren't* mentioned. Not to bring up an old subject or anything, but Fall of the Malakim implies quite the opposite. Many more and our two celestial hunters will never accomplish the assigned task of knocking off all of their targets. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:49:46 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS At 3:51 AM -0800 1/13/99, Steel Angel wrote: >Eslin wrote: > >> Ramesh, the advanced Resonance tables are in a few cases > (Kyrio!) >> some of the most broken parts of IN; heck, even I noticed it, and most >> of the things other people think are bugs in IN mechanics I think are >> features. :) > > Just what do you believe is wrong with the Kyrio advanced resonance? In its current form, it intrudes on the Choir Attunement of the Kyriotates of Destiny, and is #2 for Up Against The Wall when the APG finally sells out and I can make a 2nd ed of it. (I have a couple of replacement tables which allow some limited stuff, but none of this "access everything" nonsense -- Shedim are limited by having to "ooze" or make a lot of noise to possess someone, and they have to corrupt anyone they stay in for a day -- they can't just hop in silently and hop away again, like Kyrios can.) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:49:40 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) At 9:41 AM -0500 1/13/99, David Edelstein wrote: >>>>Is there a page reference for this limitation? I can't find it or >anything like it.<<< > >I don't think it is explicitly stated anywhere. It's going to be in the errata. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:49:38 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> ADMIN: Don't Go Off Topic (Re: Re:IN product quality and tethers (some how got change to VtM)) At 3:24 PM +0000 1/13/99, Ramesh Satkurunath wrote: >Kevin Walsh wrote on 13 January 1999 > >On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 05:52:00PM -0500, Walter Milliken wrote: >>> > (It's the same principle >>> >I guess as the V;tM rule about how many Vampires exist in a city.) >> >>That rule was rather ill-considered in my opinion, since it appears to >>have been designed for American conditions. I have trouble with the idea >>that Dublin should only have 10 Vampires, since it wreaks havoc with any >>games one might want to play there. And then you get to the propotion of >>Mages... > >erm.. I'm not sure this is the place to discuss WoD but... It's not. Unless you're using a White Wolf example to illustrate what you're talking about in IN, don't talk about WW/WoD here. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:50:08 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Shedim redeeming Your high redemption rate for Shedim reminds me of a line from C. S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce," in which damned souls from Hell can come to the outer borders of Heaven. There, they can redeem, if only they will renounce their pet sins. The bulk of the book shows several very different characters failing to do this, and one or two doing it. A saint tells the narrator that some of the damned are so far-gone that they no longer look remotely human, and have come vast distances across Hell only to spit out their resentment of Heaven in a single burst of ecstatic hate -- and yet such more often redeem than the self-righteous ones that can still fool themselves into thinking they are in the right. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:59:58 EST From: Samovar3@aol.com Subject: IN> The Creation of Lilim Looking through Lilith's extended write-up, I decided that I wasn't satisfied with the explanation of why only Lilith could create Lilim. The "secret ingredient" of Lilith's nature just didn't work for me. So, I wrote up a non- canon version and decided to post it to the list. All comments are welcome. The facts: The Daughters (and Sons) of Lilith, more commonly known as the Lilim, are a Band of demons that are solely generated by the Demon Princess of Freedom. They are created with 9 Forces, unlike most demons. Unlike their opposites, they are able to Redeem, becoming Bright Lilim. Their resonance remains the same if they Redeem. First, let's look at the generation (or the birth) of a lilim. No other Demon Prince can create one, supposedly because of the "secret ingredient" that Lilith adds, forces that have absorbed her nature. Yet, I think that Vapula, the experimenter par excellence of the Symphony, could probably figure out a way to cut up an exisiting lilim into fledgling ones. In canon, he doesn't do this because then no free lilim (an important resource of Hell) would hire themselves out to him, and Lilith would probably make an example out of him. Yet, this doesn't explain why Archangels can't make Bright Lilim*. They don't need to crack open any of the rare Brights in Heaven, they could take a normal demonic one and twist her apart until they figure out the process. I don't believe that Laurence, David, Dominic, or Michael would have any ethical problems with doing this, though they may declare it to be beneath them. So, let's take another view of it. Lilith is human. She's referred to as being an honorary demon and still technically human (in the main rulebook and her extended write-up in Fall of the Malakim) so her humanity is logically the factor that allows her to create them. Because of the nature of the Lilim's resonance, the geas, Demon Princes are too selfish to understand the concept of an equal (or reasonably so) trade while Archangels are too selfless to really understand the concept of binding a being to uphold his or her end of the deal. So, only someone who truly understands everything behind geasing can create a lilim. So, what about Lilim making other Lilim? Since they are attached to geases in a way that no other (except dear old mommy Lilith) can understand, why can't they spawn off another Lilim? The write-up in Fall of the Malakim seems to imply that Lilith "hardwires" them so they can't. Well, few celestials can create another one. Archangels and Demon Princes can, and perhaps very, very powerful word bound celestials (18+ Forces) on the verge of attaining Superior status can as well. Given a single Lilim so powerful, she could theoretically create another Lilim. This is where Lilith's deviousness comes in. Because Lilith is so close to her Daughters, the Lilim tend not to reach such high positions in Hell. Even if a lilim became so powerful, to create a sister would mean losing 9 Forces. A loss of power that large would make it difficult to remain in the position of power that the lilim attained. After all, in Hell, nobody gains a position of any real importance without having hordes of enemies. In Heaven, the Bright Lilim aren't completely free of their origins. One disadvantage is that they're Hellborn, so there probably is some prejudice against them for that. Another is that there are so few of them that the number of them which become Word-bound can probably be counted on one hand. Finally, Lilith never seems to become truly upset if a lilim goes Bright. Who knows what kind of hold she has over the lilim, even those few Redeemed ones. Seraphim can listen to the Truth of a response to this, but even the Symphony becomes muddled when involved in the business of a Demon Princess. *- Lilith can make Bright Lilim. If she does, Asmodeus will turn a great deal of his resources to hunting her down. The only way around this is if in return for creating a Bright Lilim, she has a geas (or a number of geases) on an Archangel. Not many Archangels are willing to suffer a geas, so Lilith doesn't create Brights. S. Flanigan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 99 14:02 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> RE: tethers >Walter: "If the location were now a museum, for example, it might hang >on." > >I had pretty much lumped all museums under destiny (and Fate of course), >like the libraries and video stores. The only exceptions are the really >big or bizarre ones. But even they would still be linked as repositories >of knowledge. I do this because it's easier! Libraries and museums and such aren't really Tethers to Destiny, per se - -- only Yves himself (and occasional rare individuals) can use L-space (to steal Pratchett's term for it). So libraries and museums can be Tethers to other things, if appropriate. This is most likely with specialized libraries. Museums tend to be specialized, anyway. For example, in my Boston campaign, the Museum of Science there is a mostly-unused Tether to Jean. Other museums in the area could easily be to Creation, War, the War, Freedom, etc. >Walter: "There will probably be another Cycle of some form started >sometime in the not-distant future, they may wind up there." > >I do recall something about a Creation Cycle, revolving around Eli? >Maybe this was a hallucination after too much creamed mushroom. Sounds like. Eli plays a fairly major role in one of the two Cycles I know of that are currently up for consideration, but I don't think either fits the description you give. >"It was also entirely a non-canon discussion, based to some extent on >data on the "known" cities in canon (primarily Austin, TX, at the >time)." > >I wasn't aware whether it was canon or not. I picked up on it because it >gave me some useful guidelines to work with. You must understand that I >am only trying to feel my way around this concept. Canon is what Elizabeth and John say, and to a much lesser extent, the other writers when they talk about stuff they've written for forthcoming (or published) books. >I have been looking through the books again, and I have come up with a >few more. Some of which are quite interesting. For instance the Freud >museum (on the site of the place he lived in until he died, complete >with his couch!) I have as a tether to Lust (it was either that or >Dreams!). I might have picked Kobal, myself.... > For instance can a city be >a tether, a country? Theoretically, yes. But the event that formed the Tether would have to span the entire area. The largest Tether on Earth is mentioned in the main book, I think (Jordi's hidden area in Africa). Beyond the Earth, there are two astronomical Tethers mentioned in the book -- Gabriel has one to the Sun (more technically, it's probably just the photosphere, or possibly the core area where fusion actually takes place); Jean has one that's the whole of the Io flux tube at Jupiter. >In posting the Saatchi collection I wondered if the Turner Prize (a >rather infamous modern art prize given to people who pour concrete >inside houses, frex) might be a weird kind of tether. How about the >Nobel Prize? No doubt some lucky celestial(s) are attuned to it or >Wordbound to it. The possibilities are endless, so how about some >parameters; can I expect them in the LC then? Generally something that abstract (or small) isn't going to be a Tether. The book discusses a whole lot of stuff about how, why, and where Tethers form, and I think it will answer most of your questions. BTW, out of 128 pages, about 70 are general information on Tethers, both from the IN world-view and the GM's and players' viewpoint. The remainder include a few pages (I think about 10-15) of smallish adventures, and the remainder are actual Tether examples, 3 per major Superior. >"There's no such thing as a comprehensive list of tethers." > >Could you expand on that? I don't know what Jason meant, but the Tethers in the book aren't intended to be a complete list, and in fact one Tether for each Superior deliberately doesn't have a specific location. Also, it's explicitly suggested that GMs modify or drop Tethers in the book if they don't fit their campaign, so it's not necessarily possible for a player to know who has what Tethers in a given campaign. Of course, GMs will do that anyway, but sometimes it's worth mentioning to help squelch munchkins who whine "but it says *right here in the book* that the Pentagon is a Tether to Malphas" (which it isn't, BTW). Future canon will probably assume the existance of the Tethers mentioned in the Tetherbook, but I doubt this will have any major impact on campaigns that happen not to use those Tethers. I think canon will probably try to avoid proliferating many more Tethers, though there will probably be a few new ones if we wind up covering other cities in any detail in future books. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 14:05:14 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements On Wed, Jan 13, 1999 at 02:33:23PM +0100, cd skogsberg wrote: > I *still* feel that the original Bastard Operator From Hell[1] is a > *perfect* Calabite of Technology. I mean, his way of working: > I know people who are Calabim of Technology. I remember a quote along the lines of "Electronics is cool. You get marks for breaking things". > His attitude: > > "There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user > off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting > their REAL earnings to the IRS" > And that's exactly the way he talks as well. Though he didn't quite do that, he just deleted the Inquisition files on him. I'll stop making DCU in-references now. Seriously, I think a great character archetype has been missed by having no Calabim of Technology. Methinks Djinn of Technology are a poor substitute. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "In our revolutionary court we are guided not by articles of the law and not by the degree of extenuating circumstances; in the tribunal we must proceed on the basis of considerations of expediency." the Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:26:32 -0800 From: "B.H." Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > At 3:51 AM -0800 1/13/99, Steel Angel wrote: > In its current form, it intrudes on the Choir Attunement of the > Kyriotates of Destiny, and is #2 for Up Against The Wall when the > APG finally sells out and I can make a 2nd ed of it. ... What's #1? > > (I have a couple of replacement tables which allow some limited > stuff, but none of this "access everything" nonsense -- Shedim > are limited by having to "ooze" or make a lot of noise to possess > someone, and they have to corrupt anyone they stay in for a day -- > they can't just hop in silently and hop away again, like Kyrios can.) > Aaahhh.... When you make the second edition will you post the changes so those of us who bought the 1st edition don't have to buy the same book twice? > --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor > GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ - -- Brian A.H. "I am Don Arturo de Los Angeles. I am the greatest reader of all time. I have read over a million books in my lifetime, and their pages flow through my mind like summer days..." Phoenix Clan Purifier*Gaijin*Shugenja*ABC Geeky Shugenja Man*Totoroan L5R(1.1) PX+ S(LA) G++ R Y+ C+ E+ M-- T-- D++ K U+++ L5R(R1.3) GP++ (PR+++ CC++) RP+ GT:! P+ PX/LN+ S++ G+++ R Y+ C++ CG++ U+++ J---- ABC(1.0) PX/ABC++(ic, anyways. =)) S(LA) Y+ A++ D++ BO/OC!N!++++(nosebleed) P+++ U++ ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1094 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1999 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.