From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Tue May 9 17:48:23 2000 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA27533 for ; Tue, 9 May 2000 17:48:23 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id RAA29086 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Tue, 9 May 2000 17:45:07 -0500 Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 17:45:07 -0500 Message-Id: <200005092245.RAA29086@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 #1617 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 Tuesday, May 9 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1617 In this digest: Fwd: Re: IN> House combat system - comments wanted. Fwd: Re: IN> Re: Fixing humans Re: IN> Followup to New supplements Re: IN> Followup to New supplements Re: IN> New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) Re: IN> Followup to New supplements Re: IN> New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote IN> Re:New superior(Barsabel) IN> Condemn someone to Hell! IN> Art (Re:New superior(Barsabel)) Re: IN> New superior(Barsabel) IN> A friendly Hello, and various things of note... Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote IN> Re: New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Re: IN> A friendly Hello, and various things of note... Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Dissent! (Re: IN> New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote IN> Admin - posters list! (Re: Cool Lilith Quote) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 06:56:58 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Fwd: Re: IN> House combat system - comments wanted. >Subject: BOUNCE in_nomine-l@lists.io.com: Non-member submission from ["Mark Grundy" ] > >From: "Mark Grundy" >Subject: Re: IN> House combat system - comments wanted. >Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 20:33:52 +1000 > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Shane and family >To: >Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 11:38 PM >Subject: RE: IN> House combat system - comments wanted. > > >> On 4 May 2000, at 6:05, Robert Veneman-Hughes wrote: >> > >> > Yeah, sure - I don't understand how you determine *what* level of damage >is >> > done. >> > >> > -Robert >> >> Oops. Okay, this should be fixed now. >> >> Specific question for folks: should Essence spent by the attacker and >> defender to improve their CD instead improve or reduce the potential >> category of the wound? >> >> Eg: Joe shoots at Bob, and Bob has a Dodge/10. He can spend 4 Essence to >> get a Dodge/12 with a +2 to his CD under the old system. Under my system, >> do people think that +2 should still improve his CD by 2, or should it >> reduce any potential Wound by two categories? > >I'm currently running with Feng Shui rules, because the check digit is too >arbitrary for my groups' tastes. So, if you spend Essence, it increases your >chance to succeed, and the outcome of the success. > >MG > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 06:58:06 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Fwd: Re: IN> Re: Fixing humans >Subject: BOUNCE in_nomine-l@lists.io.com: Non-member submission from ["Mark Grundy" ] >From: "Mark Grundy" >Subject: Re: IN> Re: Fixing humans >Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 20:38:32 +1000 >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 3:20 AM >Subject: IN> Re: Fixing humans > > >> Sean McCarthy wrote: >> > >> > The names of the skills elude me, but essentially you might have >> > child brawling, which is really great for beating up other children >> > in gang fights. You may even have the highest possible skill and be >> > a terror to your enemies. But that skill is counted at (IIRC) half >> > value if you face an adult who has the Real(tm) skill in that area. >> > >> > Perhaps, if the goal is to allow humans to have a chance in the >> > system while still showing Celestials to be So Much More, we could >> > devise some multiplier to skills or stats or both (Say +1/3 or +1/2 >> > total...or maybe just double value for skills) and allow humans to >> > use that when celestials aren't involved. This gives humans a >> > chance of successful die rolls while still keeping the scale.. >> >> What I plan to do in my future IN games is to upgrade humans a lot, >> and upgrade celestials a little. > >I'm currently running with three different game systems in In Nome: > >* A game system for angels and demons (Feng Shui rules, based roughly on In >Nom stats and character sheets) >* A game system for humans (Feng Shui rules, with no regard for In Nomine >game system) >* A game system for superiors (probably isn't worthy of the name "game >system".). More to do with tarot cards and dramatic resolutions than >anything. > >I like doing it this way because then you get three different perspectives, >and game systems to support those perspectives. The problem is (of course), >if you run human and celestial PCs in the same game, you have to decide >whose the "external" perspective is -- because the game mechanics needs to >be chosen to make them common. Currently, if celestial and human PCs are >playing, the celestial's mechanics dominate. I compensate as GM by giving >the humans "vignette" scenes where they get to strut their stuff. > >Best, > >Mark > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 08:31:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Followup to New supplements > I doubt that... it'll no doubt be hard enough just trying to fit in all > the Ethereal info! They're gonna NEED all 128 pages just for the concept; > you can't cram an entire plane of existence into 60-70 pages. I've been saying that for years. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emily K. Dresner -- http://www.nodonut.com/zenith Read No Donut -- Gaming, Politics, Conspiracy, Computers, and other fun stuff at http://www.nodonut.com/. Hitherby | Vapula does not have secret police. He has small scuttling robots with many eyes that hide amongst lab equipment and report everything to a small scuttling robot Vapula. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 08:35:37 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Followup to New supplements Aaron Medwin wrote: > Just what are the Tsayadim, anyway? There are quite a few references to them> as former servitors of Purity, but are they a Choir of their own(a minor> one, like the Menunim), or are they just a group of Outcast angels?> The latter -- Uriel's loyalists. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 09:58:38 -0400 From: "A.Hamilton" Subject: Re: IN> New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) > This one is about Novalis, actually, and no, I didn't > make her Fall. She's too cool to make fall. > > So, what have I done? Check out As others have said, you made me cry. And I don't usualy cry. And not at work. > I think that it works, but I found it highly > distasteful. Right now, I could use somebody telling > me whether or not what I did to my favorite Archangel > seems a logical extension to the previous stuff. Not > whether or not it was a nasty thing to do to a nice > girl: I already know it was. Just whether it was > valid, artistically speaking. Having read the other stuff (and really, really liking it) I think it is a valid extension. While Bright, theres a sense of urgency to the War that seems missing from the Canon version. Changing Novie in such a way..adds to that. Heaven now seems..united. Knocked out of their complacency by what their internal strife allowed to happen. The littlest lamb was hurt, and now the Sheppards are mad, ready to act. And man, the dialogues. Those were excellent at conveying a couple things. First, that even though she went through all she went through, she's still concerned and worried about her fellow Superiors. Still trying to care and protect them, by assuring them that it will all be over soon, and things will go back to how they are supposed to be. That demonstrates her selflessness. Second, there's a Brightness there. I mean, Hell did its worst. And it backfired. I don't know, but it gave me the impression that things are snowballing toward Hell's defeat. Then again, I'm an optimist. :) > Thanks for reading! Thanks for sharing it. Anytime someone writes something for a game that stirs that much emotion...well, kudos. > Morgan, FAW A.Hamilton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 14:08:37 +0100 From: "Liam Astley" Subject: Re: IN> Followup to New supplements From: O. S. Kerr > > (I personally love those books with two front covers and > > half the insides upside down). > > Yuk! I remember a few from the 70's... hard on the > alphabetizing librarian that lives in my heart... hogshead have been bringing out a few "double-enders", so to speak. john tynes' puppetland/powerkill is the only one i've got, a couple of nice little games for a few quid liam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 07:14:57 -0700 (PDT) From: "O. S. Kerr" Subject: Re: IN> New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) One or two things... What was Hell's reaction??? I was looking forward to Andre's two cents, especially... :) O. ===== ** Lead Playtester for Storyteller: The Colon ** ** I minored in behavioral psychology. Tragic irony and human suffering are just hobbies. ** __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 10:25:08 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Jonathan B Lotzer wrote: > Found a really cool quote in Barlowe's Inferno (a art book) I have some nits to pick on Barlowe's commentary. (Is this the same Barlowe who did "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials"?) > Lilith, I believe, is the victim of biblical character > assassination. Actually, she doesn't show up in the Bible at all. > In an era when there was a growing shift from matriarchal to > patriarchal religions, Lilith went from being something of a > Mother Goddess symbol to a discredited harlot-demon in an > alarmingly short period of time. I wonder what era this is supposed to be? So far as I know, Lilith first enters monotheistic literature in the form of some speculations in the Talmud, though she may well have circulated in folklore for a long time before that. I don't think the Talmud goes back any further than the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, which is around 550 BCE, thousands of years after the supposed shift from matriarchal to patriarchal religion. And that's the very earliest possible point. Of course, monotheistic literature is a narrower field than that of the supposedly patriarchal religions in general. What the Akadians and Babylonians, say, were doing with Lilith's tale, I have no idea. > Was she created as Adam's wife merely to become a demon? The tale of her being Adam's wife only dates to the Middle Ages. See http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/950206_Lilith.html for a rabbi's commentary on that tale. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 15:27:12 +0100 From: "mink" Subject: IN> Re:New superior(Barsabel) David, thanks for letting me know about the sorcery guy. i dont have that book. i used Barsabel as a superior in my game, thats wy there are distinctione etc. the player was a Kyriotate called Bazrak. Thanks all the same! Also, whilst im here... about the artwork.. dont get me wrong, i like the smif stuff. but you dont get to see enough of the angel. perhaps, if any one has some just angelic pics they could point me in the right direction to download them. when i had an offanim in my group they wasnt happy cos all they were was a wheel of fire. all the other players had vaguely great looking celestial forms. in the end i let him evolve his shape to that of a human made of flames and great wings of fire, they were a lot happier after that, they put a lot more in to the game when the thought they looked real cool celestial form. }:-) Colgarothialmes, Demon of Damnation, Shedite with a few to many hands idle... (-:{ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 15:07:49 GMT From: "Erich S. Arendall" Subject: IN> Condemn someone to Hell! This is how all my Malakim are going to warn demons that they're on to them from now on... :) http://www.hellforsale.com/ - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Demon of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, Impudite of Kronos - ------------------------- Touched by an Impudite http://www.impudite.com Go Directly to the Blog http://www.impudite.com/abt-blog.asp ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 12:42:16 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Art (Re:New superior(Barsabel)) At 3:27 PM +0100 5/9/00, mink wrote: >perhaps, if any one >has some just angelic pics http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/Art/official/ http://www.indy.net/~lcowper/InNomine/segues.html remember not to violate copyrights heniuosly... - --Beth, catching up as she can, typing with a baby (iolanthe) in her lap and no computer desk -- the keyboard shares the lap, and the trackball sits on a pile of GURPS books. I want the computer desk back! Moving is a hassle. (PS: may be typing with 1 hand, or even toe! Please forgive capitalization.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 18:51:51 +0100 From: "Liam Astley" Subject: Re: IN> New superior(Barsabel) From: mink > all the other players had vaguely great > looking celestial forms. in the end i let him evolve his shape to that of a > human made of flames and great wings of fire, they were a lot happier after > that, they put a lot more in to the game when the thought they looked real > cool celestial form. actually, i find the ophanim one of the more interesting celestial forms. angels aren't human, and i don't see the point of having them look like people with wings. it seems kind of dull to me. i prefer the weirder ones, like seraphim and ophanim, and those cool alternate ones earl wajenberg posted a while back liam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 14:03:37 -0400 (EDT) From: "Philip J. Moyer" Subject: IN> A friendly Hello, and various things of note... Hello! I'm Philip Moyer, and I've been lurking the In Nomine web-digests since 1997, enjoying the varying and thoughtful discussions that have gone on here. Through the list, I feel that I've gained some form of personal enlightenment into the workings of In Nomine (or is that personal insanity? I never could tell these things...) thanks to the insightful and funny writings of the regular posters. And now, after all this time, I finally feel ready to throw my hat into the ring and give something back to the In Nomine community that has entertained and educated me for so long. So, without further ado, I present the story "Resurrection", a story of _In Nomine 2070_, an online psuedo-campaign I run with a little help from my friends: http://www.jurai.net/~pmoyer/IN2070/Prose/mariel.res.html The _In Nomine 2070_ psuedo-campaign site itself can be found at: http://www.jurai.net/~pmoyer/IN2070/ It's constantly in development, but then again, what web site -isn't- constantly in development? Stay tuned in the months ahead as the world of IN 2070 gets fleshed out. And finally, some of my dabblings into In Nomine-themed artwork can be found at: http://www.jurai.net/~pmoyer/PMArt-in.html Enjoy! - --- Philip Philip Moyer----------------Qapla'-------------pmoyer@jurai.net "To boldly go where no one has gone before!"-Capt. J. L. Picard "Roads? Where we're going we don't NEED roads!"-Dr. E. L. Brown "If it can be dreamed, It can be done."- ReRob Mandeville "Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow Connection, The Lovers, - ---------- The Dreamers, and Me."- Kermit The Frog ------------ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 19:40:57 +0100 From: Omentide Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote > > Lilith, I believe, is the victim of biblical character > > assassination. > >Actually, she doesn't show up in the Bible at all. Yet in some texts Lilith is mentioned as the first wife of Adam. She is cited as the epitomy of wantonness and wilfullness, the reason why all women are inherently evil witches, and as such demonised. Lilith is frequently depicted with owls at her feet, giving the image of a creature of the night. The fact that owls are also associated with wisdom is conveniently forgotten. The wisdom becomes lost, the image of night and darkness remain. > > In an era when there was a growing shift from matriarchal to > > patriarchal religions, Lilith went from being something of a > > Mother Goddess symbol to a discredited harlot-demon in an > > alarmingly short period of time. > >I wonder what era this is supposed to be? So far as I know, >Lilith first enters monotheistic literature in the form of >some speculations in the Talmud, though she may well have circulated >in folklore for a long time before that. I don't think the Talmud >goes back any further than the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, >which is around 550 BCE, thousands of years after the supposed >shift from matriarchal to patriarchal religion. And that's the >very earliest possible point. Regarding the shift from Matriarchal to Patriarchal religion this happened over a huge period of time. Matriarcal beliefs and polytheism existed well for over a thousand years beyond the above date, and in some instances through to the modern day. Athena as the patron of Athens and Artemis spring to mind as obvious examples which carried through untill well after the birth of Jesus. Oh, and Catholicism with the whole veneration of Mary bit. Mary is a goddess in all but name and the mother of Christ. I accept that the veneration of Mary is restricted in the sense that Catholic Christianity is a Patriarchal belief but Mary is an incredibly important figure, without which the spread of Christianity would have been greatly reduced. Do not forget that the veneration of Mary as a "real" Goddess continued into the dark ages and was only finally put to rest as a large scale belief less than 1,000 years ago. Ultimately history (and really old history and stuff which was not written down which is often seen as myth) is written by the victors. With each shift the tales move to reflect the change. Lilith gets written out, just as in Celtic myth the pagan stuff becomes progresively reduced over time until we get the Norman Chivalric Christian Athuriad. > > Was she created as Adam's wife merely to become a demon? No, she simply became inconvenient to the retelling of the story. Inconvenient when those in power want to insist that a prefect being such as God cannot create something imperfect, written back in to belief to demonise women when necessary, and then once again removed. Ashley. Ashley and Hilary omentide.omentide@virgin.net http://freespace.virgin.net/omentide.omentide ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 14:04:53 -0500 From: Jonathan B Lotzer Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote *grins* Sorry, it struck me as cool, not necessarily cannon or historically accurate. And yes, its the same Barlowe. Jonathan B Lotzer Earl Wajenberg wrote: > Jonathan B Lotzer wrote: > > > Found a really cool quote in Barlowe's Inferno (a art book) > > I have some nits to pick on Barlowe's commentary. (Is this the > same Barlowe who did "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials"?) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 12:11:34 PDT From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote >From: Omentide >Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote >Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 19:40:57 +0100 > > >> > Lilith, I believe, is the victim of biblical character >> > assassination. >> >>Actually, she doesn't show up in the Bible at all. > >Yet in some texts Lilith is mentioned as the first wife of Adam. She is >cited as the epitomy of wantonness and wilfullness, the reason why all >women are inherently evil witches, and as such demonised. No offence, but you sound as though you're quoting from some badly researched book on Wicca & feminism. Earl is right -- Lilith isn't mentioned in the bible. Feel free to give references of the texts if I'm wrong, but AFAIK the Lilith story is only referred to in one section of apocrypha, which is thought to be less ancient in authorship than the Torah itself. The name Lilit is mentioned in Isaiah, but only in passing, and it admits of alternative translations. I don't think you can prove your conjecture, here. I also hadn't thought that women were demonised in the old testament. There are plenty of examples of strong female leaders and heroines. It can be quite mysogynistic, but women aren't demonised. > >Lilith is frequently depicted with owls at her feet, giving the image of a >creature of the night. Frequently depicted by who? The main reason for this is that the reference to Lilit in Isaiah can also be translated as 'nightjar', so the medieval tradition casts Lilith as a creature of the night. Hence night birds. >No, she simply became inconvenient to the retelling of the >story. Inconvenient when those in power want to insist that a prefect >being such as God cannot create something imperfect, written back in to >belief to demonise women when necessary, and then once again removed. > >Ashley. > > Ashley, you've been reading too much Robert Graves :) The White Goddess is a good book, and an interesting conjecture, but a work of well-researched theology it ain't. jo ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 13:14:19 -0600 From: darkelf Subject: IN> Re: New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) > > Now, about now I usually do my "any feedback is > appreciated" spiel. This time, I _really_ need it. I > did NOT like writing this one. It is not Bright at > all. > Whoa. > > I think that it works, but I found it highly > distasteful. Right now, I could use somebody telling > me whether or not what I did to my favorite Archangel > seems a logical extension to the previous stuff. Not > whether or not it was a nasty thing to do to a nice > girl: I already know it was. Just whether it was > valid, artistically speaking. That's...wrenching. Wow. Very, very cool. Kat, quite at a loss for words - -- Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain! - -- Mr. Weasley ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 16:04:16 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Omentide wrote: > Yet in some texts Lilith is mentioned as the first wife of Adam. Yes, the first such text is the tale of Lilith in "The Alphabet of Ben Sira," the medieval tale I mentioned in my previous post. See: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/Topics/Lilith/alphabet.html My point was that she isn't mentioned in the Bible, so it's dubious to say she's the victim of "biblical character assassination." Actually, the *word* "lilith" appears exactly once, at Isaiah 34:14 Wildcats shall meet with hyenas,      goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose,      and find a place to rest. There shall the owl nest      and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow This is a description of the devastaion awaiting Edom. Unfortunately, since the word appears only once in the Bible, it isn't clear what's meant by it. See the discussion at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/Topics/Lilith/isaiah_dsc.html This might be the origin of "lilith" as the name of a demon. >>> Was she created as Adam's wife merely to become a demon? > > No, she simply became inconvenient to the retelling of the > story. Inconvenient when those in power want to insist that a > prefect being such as God cannot create something imperfect, > written back in to belief to demonise women when necessary, and > then once again removed. As far as I can tell, the figure of Lilith has not gone in and out of the limelight, but has steadily gotten more publicity. She starts as a relatively minor demon-figure with only a few mentions in the Talmud: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/Topics/Lilith/talmud.html (A little Web-surfing reveals the Talmud was written in late antiquity, through the 3rd to 6th centuries.) She then gets a huge boost with the idea that she was Adam's first wife, in the "Alphabet of Ben Sira," in the Middle Ages, and goes on to get amulets written against her as a demon of crib-death, becomes consort of Samael and general Queen of Hell in medieval/renaissance Kabbalah, and generally gets to be the femme fatale deluxe in Judeo-Christian folklore. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 20:22:34 GMT From: "Erich S. Arendall" Subject: Re: IN> A friendly Hello, and various things of note... >http://www.jurai.net/~pmoyer/IN2070/Prose/mariel.res.html This was simply brilliant, Philip. Shame on you for keeping it hidden for so long! >The _In Nomine 2070_ psuedo-campaign site itself can be found at: > >http://www.jurai.net/~pmoyer/IN2070/ > Love the site design, and the general idea of the campaign. Damn. Why can I never find these games when they're just getting started? While I'm not tired of running games, I'd like to *play* one again! Still, thanks for taking the time to come out of lurk mode and join us. I think I speak for the rest of us when I say "more! more!" - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Demon of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, Impudite of Kronos - ------------------------- Touched by an Impudite http://www.impudite.com Go Directly to the Blog http://www.impudite.com/abt-blog.asp ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 15:11:35 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Omentide wrote: > Yet in some texts Lilith is mentioned as the first wife of Adam. Medieval Jewish mythology, IIRC. > Lilith is frequently depicted with owls at her feet, giving the image of a > creature of the night. The fact that owls are also associated with wisdom > is conveniently forgotten. The wisdom becomes lost, the image of night and > darkness remain. Sorry, but I think Earl is right -- Lilith's earliest appearance in mythology was as a demoness. The bit about being Adam's first wife, and trying to tie her to various "Mother Goddess" archetypes came much later. > Regarding the shift from Matriarchal to Patriarchal religion this happened > over a huge period of time. This is a highly debatable theory without much evidence to support it. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 22:15:03 +0100 From: Omentide Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote >Sorry, but I think Earl is right -- Lilith's earliest appearance in >mythology was as a demoness. The bit about being Adam's first wife, and >trying to tie her to various "Mother Goddess" archetypes came much >later. I think Ashley made it pretty clear he was talking oral tradition. Which is impossible to prove either way and mostly depends on who your teacher is. Would it be reasonable, in this instance, to resort to Gematria? > > Regarding the shift from Matriarchal to Patriarchal religion this happened > > over a huge period of time. > >This is a highly debatable theory without much evidence to support it. But SO much fun in a gaming context. If I may quote from last Saturday's session (subtitled 'we don't want your steenking bronze'). "And what is this new-fangled idea of "fatherhood" of which you speak? The gods occasionally gift mortal women with children. Men have nothing to do with it." Hilary (Sorry, impossible to post from our individual accounts without incurring list-dissonance). Ashley and Hilary omentide.omentide@virgin.net http://freespace.virgin.net/omentide.omentide ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 23:07:05 +0100 From: Omentide Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote >>>Actually, she doesn't show up in the Bible at all. >> >>Yet in some texts Lilith is mentioned as the first wife of Adam. She is >>cited as the epitomy of wantonness and wilfullness, the reason why all >>women are inherently evil witches, and as such demonised. > >No offence, but you sound as though you're quoting from some badly >researched book on Wicca & feminism. Earl is right -- Lilith isn't >mentioned in the bible. Never said she was quoted in the bible. No offence taken. I am not quoting wicca or feminist stuff. I have no reason to do so, I do not believe in that stuff. Newage when pronounced correctly rhymes with sewerage . No offence intended in this either. >Feel free to give references of the texts if I'm wrong, but AFAIK the >Lilith story is only referred to in one section of apocrypha, which is >thought to be less ancient in authorship than the Torah itself. The name >Lilit is mentioned in Isaiah, but only in passing, and it admits of >alternative translations. Point taken. >I also hadn't thought that women were demonised in the old testament. >There are plenty of examples of strong female leaders and heroines. True, much of the demonisation came later, the Gospel of Paul (though not strictly a gospel at all) is a prime example. The witch hunts and some of the Dominican bits are a later example. How much came earlier is conjecture. Without access to the Vatican Library (which is not normally granted) the ashes of Alexandria, etc, we are all working on conjecture. >Ashley, you've been reading too much Robert Graves :) The White Goddess is >a good book, and an interesting conjecture, but a work of well-researched >theology it ain't. Graves is best consinged to the grave which is where his work rightly belongs. As of course is modern versions the bible, but at least the old testament is a damn good folk tale. The problem is that like all good folk tales far too much gets lost with each and every rewriting and translation. We do not know what was written 2,000 or more years ago let alone that which was simply handed down as oral. All we have is the modern(ish) translations. Just as wicca can be interpreted as a modern translation of far older material so to can rewritings of the original judeo/christian myth. Personally I would prefer the tales remained in their original forms And please, I am not attempting to flame any belief. Ashley. Ashley and Hilary omentide.omentide@virgin.net http://freespace.virgin.net/omentide.omentide ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 17:25:16 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: Dissent! (Re: IN> New Heretic Superior (Yup, another one) You know, I'm gonna be ornery (just 'cause I do it so well) and tell you why I *didn't* like the Malakite version of Novalis. (The list has also been boring lately, so....) No offense to Maurice, it's well-written and it does work. So I'll apologize to him in advance before I deliberately go into rant mode. This is more a criticism of the whole concept and the implicit attitudes it entails than of the writeup itself. (And I'm also not claiming either Maurice or anyone else who liked the writeup necessarily holds all the attitudes I lash out at below.) I also realize that it was written up purely as an exercise in creating alternate Superiors, and that it takes a lot of twisting to turn Novalis into a Malakite. That said, duck and cover. If Novalis as a Malakite transformed by violence is touching, it manages to be touching by resorting to a cheap, overused tactic: "Kind, gentle chick gets raped and brutalized, which really pisses her off, so she turns into an ass-kicking hot mama who's going to redeem herself by jumping up and down on the corpse of her attacker(s). They're gonna be REEEAAL Sorry they messed with Her!" I guess I've seen this too many times, especially in fandom-related fiction and particularly in player characters, to be that impressed by it as a premise anymore. It was already tired when Red Sonja made it a staple of fantasy and sci-fi. Of course, to complete the stereotype, Malakite Novalis becomes a redhead with (ooooh!) a permanent scar. WHY do these women who turn into vengeful ass-kickers always become _sexier_ after they've been raped? That's really a rhetorical question: the answer, of course, is that we have this popular notion that being victimized (especially if you're a woman) is somehow ennobling. You can get all your fanboy rocks off in one curvaceous package -- she's hot and sexy, she's also a scary ass-kicker (so you can think of yourself as pro-woman 'cause you're identifying with a "strong female character"), but she's also been raped, so you can feel sorry for her (and I personally think that there's a subliminal desire with these characters to "put her in her place" -- she needed to be forced into submission *before* she could become an ass-kicker), while getting a vicarious thrill at the same time. There's another, even more serious problem here, though. The writeup essentially repudiates everything Flowers stands for. The whole point of Novalis is that she represents infinite kindness and mercy, the willingness to forgive ANYTHING, the belief that ANYONE can be redeemed. The embodiment of Peace and Love as fundamental elements of the Symphony. Surely Novalis has seen people -- men, women, angels, even her own Servitors -- be raped and brutalized in unspeakable ways, countless times before. And it's never changed her message. She holds that bright hope, that faith in human (or celestial) nature that no matter what awful perversions we're capable of, we're also capable of surviving and overcoming them WITHOUT resorting to violence, anger, and vengefulness. As the most empathetic of Archangels, I also think that Novalis has already experienced the pain and suffering she experiences bodily in her alternate writeup, because she literally feels others' pain. If she's seen people she loves get raped, tortured, and degraded, I think it hurts her just as much, if not more, as if it happened to her personally. What's the message in the writeup we get here? That when it happens to HER, Novalis says "Screw that, I'm gonna GET that SOB and make him PAY!" Essentially, it proves Novalis to be a big, fat hypocrite. If Novalis was true to her Word, and was to be depicted as a TRULY strong character, she wouldn't change a bit. She'd be traumatized, certainly, but she wouldn't abandon everything she'd stood for for millenia. Here, she takes all her old principles and throws them out the window because SHE wants personal vengeance. I wonder how that makes all of her Servitors whom she counselled NOT to turn angry and bitter and NOT to seek vengeance after suffering horrific things feel? Malakite Novalis is Hollywood morality. The message she conveys is: "It's all well and good to twitter about peace, love, and understanding because it sounds sweet, but when you actually want to DO something about the problem of Evil, the only solution is to grow up and start whuppin' some ass." Some other Archangels (notably David, but also Laurence and Michael) probably do adhere to the above philosophy to some degree, but that's why In Nomine is an interesting game. We get to see the dynamics of several vastly different, yet still angelic, points of view competing. Novalis, David, and Dominic are all equally holy, but they approach the problem of Evil from completely different angles, and their views really can't be reconciled. Yet they all work. Turning Novalis into a Malakite (at least the way it's done here) condenses it all into one view. It writes off Novalis' contribution to the debate by pretty explicitly saying that her methods don't work in the theater of the real, that she's just a fluffy adolescent until she gets some reality beaten into her and joins the grown-ups who know that violence really IS the only answer. Now, personally I'm just not highly evolved enough to buy Novalis' philosophy. I'm more of a Dominican or a Michaelite. But the fact that I'm not personally capable of turning the other cheek or unlimited forgiveness doesn't mean I think it should be dismissed as unviable. I've always thought that Novalis is really one of the most Christian of Archangels, even if she doesn't explicitly embrace that religion. The degeneration of Novalis into a raped Malakite is much like the degeneration of Christianity into "Praise God and pass the ammo!" Novalis represents a much deeper message than that, and I would hope that even if one doesn't accept the Flowers philosophy, it would deserve better treatment than to get shat on like this. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 17:27:48 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Cool Lilith Quote Omentide wrote: > I think Ashley made it pretty clear he was talking oral tradition. Which > is impossible to prove either way and mostly depends on who your teacher > is. Would it be reasonable, in this instance, to resort to Gematria? If written tradition shows Lilith being regarded as a demoness thousands of years ago, and her image changing to "Mother Goddess/Bride of Adam" only in later centuries, I think it's unlikely that oral tradition was different. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 18:58:05 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Admin - posters list! (Re: Cool Lilith Quote) At 10:15 PM +0100 5/9/00, Omentide wrote: >Hilary >(Sorry, impossible to post from our individual accounts without incurring >list-dissonance). Ah, but it's not, anymore! Here's the boilerplate... The one you're looking for is the in_nomine_posters-l -- send the s u b s cribe command for that from the account you want to have posting abilities. - -- Welcome to the in_nomine-l mailing list! Please save this message for future reference. Thank you. If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, send the following command in email to : unsubscribe Or you can send mail to with the following command in the body of your email message: unsubscribe in_nomine-l your@address.here If you ever need to get in contact with the owner of the list, (if you have trouble unsubscribing, or have questions about the list itself) send email to . This is the general rule for most mailing lists when you need to contact a human. - ---- And as a bonus... You can send mail to majordomo@lists.io.com which will _subscribe_ you! Just use the same formula and remove the "un." Lists you can un/subscribe to: in_nomine-l in_nomine-digest in_nomine_posters-l All of those allow yo to post to the list from the address you subscribed. If you try to subscribe an address other than the one you are sending the message from, the list admin will have to complete the majordomo instructions manually. The posters-l doesn't send you any email -- it just puts the address on a list that says, "This Person Is Allowed To Post." (This enables us to bounce spam without turning away those who read at one address and post from another (or several others), or who read from the digest on the web pages.) - --Beth, catching up as she can, typing with a baby (iolanthe) in her lap and no computer desk -- the keyboard shares the lap, and the trackball sits on a pile of GURPS books. I want the computer desk back! Moving is a hassle. (PS: may be typing with 1 hand, or even toe! Please forgive capitalization.) ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1617 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.