From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sun Oct 5 11:13:10 1997 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 LAA12423 for ; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 11:13:10 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id LAA08935 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 11:06:05 -0500 Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 11:06:05 -0500 Message-Id: <199710051606.LAA08935@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 #385 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 Sunday, October 5 1997 Volume 01 : Number 385 In this digest: Re: IN> On Playing Evil Re: IN> On playing demons Re: IN> Short Jean Thoughts Re: IN> How I See Demons Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim (fwd) Re: IN> On Playing Evil IN> Re: Revelations Re: IN> On playing demons Re: IN> Thoughts on playing demons...and angels. Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim (fwd) Re: IN> [fluff] WW vs. IN Re: IN> [fluff] WW vs. IN Re: IN> Prince of a guy IN> Eyewitness account of an Outcasting ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 16:24:00 +1000 From: Jason Mulligan Subject: Re: IN> On Playing Evil David Edelstein wrote: > Why does it bother me if someone gets off on roleplaying rape, murder and > parking in no-parking zones? > > Let me ask you-- why do you think someone *would* enjoy doing those things, > even in a game? Hmmm....a huge sector of the computer game industry is totally devoted to those people who either at least enjoy killing indiscriminately. Look at Doom and it's children for the greatest example. - -- Jason Mulligan "The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd!" - Edmund Blackadder ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 10:41:56 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> On playing demons > > Actually, I'm noticing that demons, on the whole, seem to have > >broader ranges than the Angels...you can GET some odd takes on the Choirs, > >but it takes a little more doing... > You haven't seen the Seraph of Creation in service to Destiny I think that qualifies as, "A little more doing." I find, even with my take on Angels, that I have an easier time making a Calabim interesting WITHOUT making it a Calabim of the Media in service to Death. (Who's probably pushing for televised executions. Hm...) This may very well be a quirk of my personality, and not intrinsic to the game, but I think it's there... > I think that if they resist, you can't use your resonance on > them for their CD hours... (Or Minutes, for Calabim; with Alright; hours for Balserphs, nothing for Djinn, minutes for Calabim, nothing for Habbalah, days for Lilim invoking a Geas, nothing for Lilim perceiving a Need, days for Shedim possessing, nothing for Shedim influencing, and hours for Impudites charming or stealing. Looking at it, I concede; it averages to hours. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 10:44:51 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Short Jean Thoughts > > Jean: the Angel of Lightning, who assumed Technology into his Word more by > > fiat than by merits. Yves gave Jean official control over the teaching and > The Ofanite started screaming that it was HIM who had gotten it in the > first place! Well, let that be a lesson from Vapula...ALWAYS keep a backup copy. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:47:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Gregory Littmann Subject: Re: IN> How I See Demons > > > I'm not getting your point here. Why do you need selfishness for focus? > > Whenever a problem springs up, everyone selflessly pitches in to deal with > > it. Where's the difficulty? > > Because you'll end up with a "gift of the magi" scenario. I don't know what that is. :( > > > A friendly Elohim of Flowers might be more useful to talk him down. > > Your wiccan is probably worse off being left to the mercies of his > > "friendly demon" than being cut down by a twisted Malakite of the Sword. > > I don't know about that. Not all demons are out to screw over humans on > principle. Although most are more than happy to take out malakim since > they are a major threat. Please note that I'm not saying that all > demons have to really be nice, just that some aren't nasty at all. They are all at least consumed by selishness and would all like to see you damned to Hell. That's pretty bad. > > > Death ain't so bad compared to what the Impudite is likely to do to you. > > Your earthly fate is of not much importance compared to your eternal > > afterlife. > > Depends also on your take on Hell and Heaven. Heaven didn't sound that > appealing to me in the In description. The fate of humans has been left pretty open. But Heaven is at least supposed to be pleasant. > > > Discrepences between different groups which are each trying to do what is > > right provides a great basis for exploring moral issues. The best form > > that demons can take is defenders of the view that there is no such > > *thing* as right and wrong. > > That's certainly one valid position. Another would be that all beings > should be allowed to act as they please, instead of following one set of > directives because "God said so". Isn't acting as He pleases just what God is doing? > > > That's nice, but you see, I don't think that the demons are the bad end. > > > I know this may come as a shock to you, but I'd rather have the IN demons > > > running the show than the IN angels if I had to have one of them running > > > the real world. > > > > Forget this world in and of itself. Think about Hell! > > Okay. Now what? It still doesn't change my opinion. Hell as described > in the book has some pretty pleasants places. Shal-Mari, for instance. Most of Hell is much worse than Shal-Mari, and even Shal-Mari isn't exactly an enjoyable way to spend eternity. > > > Can't you get this through disputes between the superiors? I could even > > see an attempt to turn up the focus on morality by taking the demons out > > of the picture altogether and just have the various heavenly factions vie > > for their personal preferences. > > I don't think that this would go over well with a fair sized chunk of > the players (at least judging from this list). If all you have is a > bunch of powerful beings manuvering for control of the earth with a > clear-cut opposition that is different, it would be too similar to > certain WW situations, which they don't want. Actually, it is my impression that in WW, the opposition is usually in the gray too, which seems closer to *your* preference. Greg. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 11:00:18 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim (fwd) > Oh, dear. I'm going to have to work on a In Nomine/IOU game - Well, if you make it a PBeM, let me know... > at that level, but just order we haven't understood) If the same is > even moderately true of the Celestial and Ethereal in your ( In > Nomine game (it is in mine) then symmetry at that level is not a > given. In essence, you're looking for true symmetry like the Greeks > did with earth, air, fire, and water - at the totally wrong level. Hmm...I confess, I DO have a tendancy to keep my mythology mythological...(by which I mean, when I'm playing around with rules for things like Angels and Demons, I enjoy giving them `laws' that make sense from a..literary standpoint, but don't necessarily give a whit to science. Like, say, the idea that Heaven and Hell actually require a certain balance to coexist...and that this balance is almost purely on a conceptual level, since they obviously don't have to have, say, the same number of people...) > > ('Course, as a devout Mortijinglist, I firmly believe that the > > universe exists for the sole reason that it's so darned unlikely, > > but..) > I have a feeling I'm going to regret this, but...Mortijinglist? Well...you're in some luck; I won't go into great detail here, because it's not strictly list-appropriate. Briefly, though, Mortijingle is the Lord of Death and Humor, and embodies the irony inherent in the universe. ___ _ | | | |HE |_INTKIN|_\--------------------------------------lintking@xpert.net| | (Inhume In Humour!) ALL HAIL MORTIJINGLE! (Or else.)| | High Priest : jIg nOIr mELt (mnj) | | http://www.a-ztech.com/lintking/jnmmnj/index.html | |_______________________________________________________________________| (Check out the URL, if you're interested; in addition to being our Gaming-Humor magazine, it has some more on Mortijingle...including a writeup of him as an IN Superior in, if I remember right, the June issue...also, in the August and October ones, some applications of Murphy's Law to IN.) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:57:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Gregory Littmann Subject: Re: IN> On Playing Evil > >>>> *Getting off* on fictional badness is what bothers me. > > > > O.K.. Why does *that* bother you?<<< > > Why does it bother me if someone gets off on roleplaying rape, murder and > parking in no-parking zones? > Let me ask you-- why do you think someone *would* enjoy doing those things, > even in a game? > There is something linquistically odd going on here. "Doing something in a game" is a metaphor. "Doing something in a game" is *not* a way of doing something, as "Doing something in a house" or "Doing something on Tuesday is". This may seem pedantic and perhaps I am being overcaution, but the distinction is so important that I am very afraid of it being blurred. I *don't* like to murder people in any shape or form. I sometimes like to pretend to murder people. I sometimes find fictional murder (which is no more a type of murder than a wax apple is a type of apple) interesting. I honestly don't know why, but then, I find it baffling that fictional things should be interesting at all, or why pretending should be fun. Indeed, to some degree it doesn't *matter* why I enjoy it, unless my doing so leads me to perform real evil acts - which it doesn't. Nor do I see any evidence that playing villains leads other people to perform evil acts - - and if it does, it's time to ban almost all movies and plays. Greg. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 13:03:49 -0400 From: David Paul Subject: IN> Re: Revelations > > >I must have missed that. Which book? Librum Reliquarium is the only > > >other supplement I know of at te moment. > > > > Fall of the Malakim. It's up on the New Products list. It was > > there for a day a few months ago, and promplty taken down. Now, > > that and Rev 5 are listed. What the heaven are you talking about? I haven't seen anything like that on any of the IN pages. - -- David Paul janus@ioa.com - ----------------------------------------------------- Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home. -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 13:03:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Gregory Littmann Subject: Re: IN> On playing demons > > > Ah, but how do you know if it's any better for them in the upper > Heavens? How do you know that it's not all one big Perdition > there, with humans being sucked for Essence while they obsess over > singing Seraphim? Maybe, over time, the last vestages of their > personalities erode, and they get mined for Forces, a la Saminga. > > In Nomine doesn't say what happens to humans in the > upper Heavens. I don't. But if any celestial seriously thinks that Heaven is worse than Hell, then if they have a shred of decency they will reject *both* sides and work to bring down *both*. > Adjust the colors, reverse them -- at least humans *exist* in Hell, > and are mostly still self-aware creatures. Would you rather have > your individual personality eradicated entirely, washed away in > the Light, or would you rather hang around Shal-Mari and bus tables? Personally, I'd prefer obliteration - and almost *anyone*, I would think, would prefer obliteration to somewhere in Hell *other* than Shal-Mari. But any celestial that knowingly supports a regime that does *either* to souls is worse than any Nazi that ever lived. > > (I know what *I'd* pick, if that were the choice...) O.K.. Its still not a choice you should have to make. Greg. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 13:07:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Gregory Littmann Subject: Re: IN> Thoughts on playing demons...and angels. > > > Proposition: One reason demons don't get played: look who they have to work > for. > Demon Princes are supposed to be the equivalent of Archangels in stature. Why > do more than half of them sound like buffoons whenever they open their > mouths? (I'm personally bothered by Nybbas most of all: he's the originator > of media spit'n'polish; why would he choose to sound like a jargon-spouting > underling?) Need Saminga even be mentioned? Greg. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 19:29:46 +0100 From: "cd skogsberg" Subject: Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim (fwd) Donald G Bixler wrote: > > Why, break out the whips, cuffs, and whipped cream of course. (Not to > > mention the chocolate pudding. Mmmm. Chocolate pudding with whipped > > cream.) > > What? No costumes? ;'} If that 'tickles your fancy', how can I stop you? > > cd > > Calabite of Furfur currently on loan to Haagenti. > > Oops da Ogre, Soldier of Cthulhu "Hey Yves, read _this_ book!" > mudgb4@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu Now, next question, class. How many are working on adding the Mythos (there is only one...) to IN? cd Either Calabite of Furfur or Ofanite of Beth. - -- "And it has come to pass that the Lord of the Woods, being ... Seven and nine, down the onyx steps ... (tri)butes to Him in the Gulf, Aza- thoth, He of Whom Thou hast taught us marv(els ..." - H. P. Lovecraft, _The Whisperer in Darkness_ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:35:46 -0600 (MDT) From: Kingsley Lintz Subject: Re: IN> [fluff] WW vs. IN > >AB> ...Or do I have to get out the bullwhip and leather? > >GIF! GIF! > So, what's it worth to y'all for such a thing to appear on, say, > the INC? Subject: Re: IN> [fluff] WW vs. IN On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, Kingsley Lintz wrote: > > >AB> ...Or do I have to get out the bullwhip and leather? > > >GIF! GIF! > > So, what's it worth to y'all for such a thing to appear on, say, > > the INC? Well, I sent MY offering in... > Um... I'm not sure what the rules on mass geasa are... am I affected by this just by being on the list (if this deal goes through, that is) or do I actually have to agree to it myself? Just wondering... I don't much like being under obligations I didn't ask for. :-) alberich@iglou.com | Mark Kinney | http://www.iglou.com/nations "Oh, we've got a bigger dressing room than the puppets? How refreshing!" -- David St. Hubbins, "This Is Spinal Tap" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 97 00:30:37 PDT From: "Chris Jackson" Subject: Re: IN> Prince of a guy > Oops da Ogre, who still likes the idea of Yves reading the Necronomicon > mudgb4@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu He was probably behind that one too. That's what *really* pushed Gabriel over the edge . . . ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 10:45:55 -0500 (CDT) From: Austin George Loomis Subject: IN> Eyewitness account of an Outcasting [From William Blake's _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, the fifth and last Memorable Fancy. Punctuation and spelling as in the original.] "Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire. who arose before an Angel that sat on a cloud. and the Devil utterd these words. "The worship of God is. Honouring his gifts in other men each according to his genius. and loving the greatest men best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God. "The Angel hearing this became almost blue but mastering himself he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling, and then replied, "Thou Idolater, is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of ten commandments and are not all other men fools, sinners, & nothings? "The Devil answer'd; bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him: if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murderd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments: Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse: not from rules. "When he had so spoken: I beheld the Angel who stretched out his arms embracing the flame of fire & he was consumed and arose as Elijah. "Note. This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular friend: we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have if they behave well. "I have also: The Bible of Hell: which the world shall have whe- ther they will or no." Would anyone care to guess at the Choir of the ex-Angel? (The Band of the Devil is fairly fairly obvious, I suspect.) Austin Geroge "Energy is Eternal Delight" Loomis, MiSTie #84029 ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #385 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.