From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Tue Aug 4 10:19:48 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA09865 for ; Tue, 4 Aug 1998 10:19:48 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id KAA12518 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Tue, 4 Aug 1998 10:07:12 -0500 Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 10:07:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199808041507.KAA12518@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 #896 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, August 4 1998 Volume 01 : Number 896 In this digest: RE: IN> Lost Words? Re: IN> A new Archangel and plot seed. IN> Diabolical Artwork (Was: Funky Mushrooms...) Re: IN> roles and paperwork Re: IN> Angels going to GenCon IN> IN Admin: Danger Will Robinson, danger! IN> Shell Game, part I Re: IN> Shell Game, part I IN> YES, WE'RE HOME BUT WE'RE NOT LISTENING IN> Anti-Spam Spam IN> Roles Happen IN> Bluffing Seraphim IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't IN> Musings on Magog and just a Braindump Re: IN> Shell Game, part I IN> [ADMIN] CLIPPING WHAT YOU QUOTE IN> Mercurians identifying roles Re: IN> Roles and Celestial Detection Re: IN> How to Document Existence Re: IN> which Superior's Word suits you best? IN> Day 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 18:12:16 -0700 From: Mournblade Subject: RE: IN> Lost Words? - -----Original Message----- From: Doug Muir [SMTP:dougmuir@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, August 03, 1998 8:56 AM To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Subject: IN> Lost Words? The Angel of Macintoshes faces an uncertain future, but he took the job because he loves (and pities) the suffering end users, and is willing to risk horrible pain himself to make things a little better for us... So does this make Gates the Demon of Microsoft? Wow, he must be ready to challenge Lucifer himself by now. Mournblade "Some call us angels..." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 21:44:46 EDT From: Akumsa@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> A new Archangel and plot seed. Ohhh! Hand thought of that! just got to rearrange some words ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 22:03:03 -0500 From: Shadowstar Subject: IN> Diabolical Artwork (Was: Funky Mushrooms...) Er... http://www.best.com/~lyceum/shdwstar/hellplaygnd150.jpg For the larger, but better looking, diabolical picture... Valefor must've stolen the 's' for this version... *grin* - - Tafka J. = shadowstar@centuryinter.net # Balseraph Marquis of Fate, Demon of Delusions of Granduer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 22:04:18 -0400 From: eswhanu@juno.com Subject: Re: IN> roles and paperwork On Mon, 3 Aug 1998 18:07:56 -0700 Mournblade writes: > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Jayson Howell [SMTP:querent@yahoo.com] >Sent: Monday, August 03, 1998 8:29 AM >To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >Subject: Re: IN> Roles Happen (Re: IN> Roles) > > >Um..a squirrel in the park has a pretty difficult time trailing that >Infernal Virus Engineer into the Hospital where he is about to release >an >agent into the oxygen system I played a Servitor of Jordi that had no problem getting into a animal research firm once... With the Ethereal Song of Form, it was easy to sneak in behind most anyone, since most people don't look **down** when searching for someone or guarding something.. Considering that I was in a possum Vessel, even if they saw me, they would have probably called pest control first, rather than shoot me. Although the Soldier of Hell that spotted me was surprised to see me erasing their records on the computer before my character killed him (STR 9, Vessel 5). Brian Ward _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 21:18:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Graveyard Greg Subject: Re: IN> Angels going to GenCon - ---Shadowcat wrote: > > I will be there. I don't trust ANY of you celestials in my town. ;-) > > Shadowcat Last human priest of Bast. > > P.S. When will folks be hitting town? I'ld like for a group of us to get > tpgether at some point. > > All cats may look upon a king. > No comment on the Queen ;-) > > Shadowcat! Haven't heard from you in a while! :) Since that is yer hometown, I'll let you know. Apparently servitors of the Game have heard that I was coming to town, so they are trying to $%^& up my trip! :( Ah, well...if I don't get to go, I'll buy Fall of the Malakim... Graveyard Greg _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 00:20:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "Jesse L. Rooney" Subject: IN> IN Admin: Danger Will Robinson, danger! HELP! Somebody disconnect me from the list! Major Domo will not let me get off! My email addresses are: jrooney@zoo.uvm.edu or jrooney@moose.uvm.edu or jrooney@gnu.uvm.edu (it is just one account but different email progarms send it different ways.) Please take me off, I have more important things to do than download mail for 5 minutues and delete everything. (Like trying to figure out how to get off the Mage list.) - -Jesse ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 22:34:21 PDT From: "Doug Muir" Subject: IN> Shell Game, part I Well, a big "gosh, thanks" to everyone who wrote to me asking for details of how the "Shell Game" plot thread played out IMC. Okay, Kevin, Gary, Anneke, & co. -- you asked for it... Part I -- Background This plot was part of a larger campaign arc that I called "The Class of '45." It deals with the fate (or destiny) of seven particular demons. In January 1945, seven Hellborn demons were created simultaneously. This was not quite a normal process of Hellbirth; the seven were something of an experiment. They were all brewed up from the same bubbling vat of Forces... and each one was given one Force from a particular damned human soul that Hell had been playing with for some little while. The idea was to create a group of demons with certain shared memories and attributes from their human "parent". Ideally, this would allow them to adapt to Earth more quickly and easily, and also to work together with each other more effectively. The identity of the human soul-parent remains a mystery. He is, of course, quite irretrievably destroyed; his forces were dismembered to be grafted onto the embryonic celestials, with nothing remaining but memories and certain habits of thought. All we know is that whoever he(?) was, he was famous, wicked, intelligent, impressive (seven Forces!) and possessed of considerable organizational ability... and he died not more than five years before January 1945. And, oh yes, while unquestionably evil, this person seems to have had some redeeming characteristics, most notably a tendency to _think for himself_... because the demons grown from his dismembered Forces have an alarming tendency to do just that. In any event: fifty years have passed, and overall the experiment has not been considered a success. On the plus side, the seven did, indeed, adapt to Earth with unusual ease... at least some of the memories of the human predecessor were retained, giving them instant fluency in several major languages, and unusual military and organizational skills. All of them turned out to be quite clever and ambitious. Furthermore, some of them developed unusual twists on their normal Resonances (for instance, the Calabite developed the knack of finding the weak point in _non-physical_ structures... the most vulnerable spot in an org chart, for instance). On the downside, the seven did not prove able to work together any better than any other demons (though they did have an odd tendency to keep running across each other... as if their Fates or Destinies were somehow intertwined). And -- much more diisturbing -- all of them showed a dismaying tendency to strike off on their own and think for themselves. Today more than fifty years have passed. One of the seven is unquestionably dead -- caught offsides by Malakites in Indonesia in 1965, and quite efficiently shredded into demon-chuck. He left a legacy that may play a part in a future scenario (I'd like to send the PCs to Bali), but is not relevant to this one. A second one disappeared under mysterious circumstances in Central America around 1980. This one has been presumed dead, but actually is not quite; a Remnant of him remains in circulation, and will play a minor part in the campaign. Then about ten years ago, the Lilim of the group quite abruptly went renegade. After some time on the run from the Game, she applied to a tether of Marc for refuge. The Archangel agreed to give her a shot at redemption; she went through the excruciating process of having her geases removed, and is now working for him. The redemptive process cost Cateriel several Forces and much of her memory... but she was a sincere penitent, quite happy to escape, and is now an enthusiastic (if slightly chirpy) convert to Heaven's side. Marc put her to work on free-market reform in the former Soviet Union (which is trickier than it sounds, as there are some serious powers of darkness at work in the former USSR these days). She has showed a curious flair for the work -- speaks fluent Russian, for instance, though she can't remember where she learned it... Meanwhile, her Calabite "brother" brooded in Hell. A Servitor of Belial, his unusual talents had been exceedingly useful to his master on several occasions. By locating the weak spots in the Iranian military administration and exploiting them, he had more or less single-handedly added several years to the Iran-Iraq war. Unfortunately for him, his work had been almost entirely unappreciated. Belial wanted to set the Mideast's oil fields on fire; years of trench warfare were not really interesting for him, even if they did produce unspeakable human misery. And no one was impressed by subtlety in a Calabite... The breaking point came a few years later, in Chechnya. Gezezeb spent over two years freezing his tail off in Russia, finding the weak spots in the Russian Army's command structure and damaging them (and occasionally taking time to do more ordinary Calabite damage to equipment and weapons). The result was an outstanding success; the completely disorganized Russians were humiliated by a relative handful of Chechens, and the prospects for mass anarchy throughout the former USSR were vastly improved. It got him absolutely no credit with the boss. Belial's sole interest in Chechnya was the oil fields: he wanted them to *burn*, and was severely disappointed when they didn't. Gezezeb (who had been expected some serious kudos, if not a Word), got a transfer to Siberia and a pointed note about making the taiga forest burn, do you get that? It was just too much. His boss was treating him badly even by Hell's standards, his unique talents were going completely unappreciated... and there was something more. He had been thinking some very strange thoughts in the last few years. The poor suffering soldiers had started to seem strangely... real... and sympathetic. A Russia consumed by anarchy was a worthy goal, but he was starting to see all these *people* getting chewed up along the away. And trashing the Russian Army had felt weirdly, horribly _wrong_ somehow. And Siberia was actually colder than most parts of Hell. Gezezeb found a way to grab his heart, and went renegade. The next few years were very bad. *Everybody* was after the renegade Calabite. The Game, of course, and Belial. Gezezeb's fellow Calabim also kept a lookout for him... they had never liked him; his insistence that destroying _organizations_ was as important as destroying _things_ had not gone down well at all. Several angels also had particular axes to grind, based on Gezezeb's activities in the Middle East. And he kept running across his siblings from the Class of '45... The renegade was forced to keep moving to stay one step ahead of his pursuers. And although he came near destruction several times, a curious thing began to happen. He began to find that he _liked_ moving. His odd attunement helped him find cracks in organizations to slip through, and he came to enjoy the sensation of sliding away free. At the same time, he also discovered that he was free to indulge a previously forbidden vice... altruism. He had always, even from the beginning, had a (very well concealed) sentimental soft spot for certain types of people... the poor, the oppressed... and most of all, soldiers. In the past, he had used this sympathy of feeling to engineer bigger and better military disasters; the sentimantal aspect was restricted to occasionally trying to make sure that the common soldiers met relatively swift and painless deaths. But now he could actually *help* them... and the more he did, the more he liked it... and the faster he wanted to move... It was at this point that Cateriel found him. He was a horrible mess. A celestial sitting right on the edge of falling or rising is teetering between two stable equilibria, and must go one way or the other quickly, or die. Neither quite a Calabite nor an Ofanite, Gezezeb was irrational and massively Discordant, his forces wobbling unstably between motion and entropy. Cateriel judged correctly that there was no time to be lost; if his internal oscillations did not kill him directly, the growing disturbance to the Syphony would have the Game down on him within days if not hours. A call for intervention did not succeed (Marc was intently watching the Asian markets), so she decided to bring him to the very nearest Tether. Which belonged to Gabriel... Fast-forward a little here. Gabriel accepted the suffering demon as a candidate for redemption, stabilizing his Forces in the Ofanite configuration and announcing that he was, indeed, worthy of rising to join the Host. We'll skip the ensuing minor but intense political scuffle. This was _not_ a standard redemption, and Zeb (as he is now called) is _not_ universally accepted as a bona fide angel. Seraphic examination shows that he is sincerely repentant for much of his evil work, but he retains an alarming capacity for violence, a highly unorthodox world-view, and a strange and highly questionable attachment to some of his former comrades. Zeb is considered to be in serious danger of backsliding, and most angels are not inclined to trust him until he has _quite clearly_ proven himself. Zeb is a PC. The player wanted to play a newly-risen demon trying to make it as an angel, and having some difficulty along the way. It's stipulated that Zeb's trials, and Gabriel's rather rough redemption, have stripped a powerful demon down to a nine-Force starter character, and also sandblasted away much of his memory. The player's job was to play Zeb as sincerely wanting to join the Host, and to do and be Good... but possessed of certain drives and prejudices that were bound to cause problems. Zeb has also become *fanatically* devoted to Gabriel... perhaps because she was the gatekeeper of his redemption, perhaps because he sees her as a Superior who will accept him and care for him, or perhaps (as certain PCs would snidely suggest) because it's just one unstable nutcase Ofanite of Fire vibrating in tune with another. Zeb would be the character who got the scenario up and running. You see, he had a final debriefing with Gabriel -- after his exit interview with the Seraphic Council and the representative of Laurence, but before being assigned to Earth. And Gabriel said to him, "You were seven. Now you are less. But you might be seven again. Or one." When asked for an explanation, the Archangel said, "She rose. You have risen. One more may rise. And everything that rises may converge." "You mean... one of the others might be redeemed? Like Cateriel and me?" "Yes." "But -- which one? And when?" "The one who turns, and will not speak. And soon, or not at all." PHWOOMPH -- exeunt Archangelis. The PCs decided to investigate... Okay, this took a lot longer and went into more detail than I anticipated... so I'll continue the tale, again, if people express an interest. Doug M. dougmuir@hotmail.com P.S. The seven demons were all (to some extent) aspects of a certain, very interesting historical figure -- the brilliant but wicked and unfortunate human who got metaphysically dissected to provide the starter yeast for the seven demon-cultures. *I* know who he/she is -- I've been sort of a fan of this person for some time. The players, alas, are not historians, and so are not likely to figure it out. It was just going to be a sub-sub-plot for my own amusement. Now, though, I wonder if anyone on this list can guess who it was, based on the hints given so far. Any historians here? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 01:59:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Shell Game, part I I'm interested...this is absolutely fascinating; I'd love to steal^H^H^H^H^Hborrow some ideas from it for my game.... Please go on! - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Official Martyr of X-Day! ::: Visit #subgenii on irc.sorcery.net - it's a beautiful place ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 02:55:55 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> YES, WE'RE HOME BUT WE'RE NOT LISTENING >>>But some of us need the gratification. :)<<< Which seriously annoys many of us who don't. The only thing worse than bad fanfic posted to an e-mail list is bad fanfic followed by desperate pleading for someone to notice it. - -David, feeling dissonant today ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 03:07:02 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Anti-Spam Spam >>>OK that's two messages sent unsolicited. Please refrain from blamket mail across the net medium. Yours is the stuff spam is made of - and mine is the ire with which spam is born.<<< Yes, your ire is giving birth to more spam. When an e-mail list gets spammed, there is no action more useless than replying with a complaint TO THE LIST! The spammer isn't reading it -- all you do is subject the rest of the list to more irrelevant messages. The list moderator and/or other people who actually have a clue will be complaining to the _proper_ source. - -David (but I guess this message will have to be repeated every time the list gets spammed, because every friggin' time, someone thinks he's accomplishing something by hitting the "reply" button) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 03:55:13 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Roles Happen My take on Roles is this: Roles are a mixture of mystical creation and paperwork. You can't spin a detailed, high-profile human identity out of thin air, instantly. But they can't all be accomplished by forcing celestials to actually live an entire human lifetime in order to "establish himself" -- that's a long time for a valuable Servitor to spend acting like a mundane. _Some_ celestials might do that...a well-placed Servitor might accomplish a lot from his "childhood" all the way to his "adulthood." But most celestials, IMO, should be like TV or movie angels....they just appear when they're needed, and hardly anyone ever bothers to engage in the kind of mundane detective work that would blow their cover. They just don't. If someone has a high-profile Role, or a Role in a high-security area (say, Major General), then that Role has been created by a combination of actual corporeal "legwork" (the celestial probably had to at least spend some years serving as an officer, to have enough memories _himself_ to maintain the Role), and celestial ineffability. A few minds get fuzzed, a few documents appear out of thin air when they're needed, but people just don't bother tracing Major General Farkle's history all the way back to elementary school. He's _already_ a Major General, so everyone assumes the background checks have already been done. The level of his Role might determine whether he's just more faceless Pentagon brass ("Farkle....yeah, I've heard the name, can't remember what he looks like offhand...was he working Admin during the Gulf War, or something like that?"), or whether he's actually been around, _in_ that Role, long enough that he has Army buddies who remember serving with him in Vietnam. Now, you may argue that this isn't terribly realistic. All you need is someone in the military to start doing background checks on Major General Farkle, and eventually his identity will unravel, if he hasn't actually been on Earth since grade school. My answer is no, it's not realistic. It's cinematic, and In Nomine is a cinematic game that requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. The exact point at which you suspend it is up to you. Background checks of that caliber _just don't happen_ unless it's part of the plot...just like no one ever does background checks in "Touched by an Angel" when Monica shows up as a cop. That's the sort of nitty detail that _might_ be suitable for some campaigns, in which case you'll have to devise rules to suit. But it isn't suitable for most, and if you want to preserve In Nomine's feel of grand, cosmic themes working in the background as angels and demons face off in human roles, you won't be doing yourself any favors to insist that every Role has to have the kind of mundane substantiation that would really be required to give someone a complete, 100% bulletproof identity in a modern, computerized society. So you wink and let it go, unless you have a specific reason to add that complication into your plot. (Plot Seed: Demons of the Game are trying to "out" angels in the government....what do you do? Work hastily to cover up the holes they're exposing? Try to eliminate the demons? Or start doing the same to all the diabolical moles in Washington, until both angels and demons working the Capital are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and hoping Dominic and Asmodeus will come to an "understanding" soon....) As a corollary to the above: there is a certain point at which _my_ suspension of disbelief breaks. This is the point at which I would say a celestial _can't_ have a Role, unless he really _has_ lived the entire life to back it up. I'd put that at about the level of Microsoft CEO, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State, President, Pope...anyone about whom legions of journalists are constantly doing research and writing books. Your Archangel or Demon Prince might be able to say "I'm sending you to Earth tomorrow as Lt. Colonel Farkle, where you'll appear as a junior member of the Pentagon staff....I expect you to work your way up to Major General within a few years." But he can't say "I'm sending you to Earth tomorrow as Archbishop Bingham....we're going to groom you to become the Pope." No, if you want to push a celestial role up to that level, you need to start literally at the beginning. And Major General Farkle is never going to enter the national spotlight, he's going to stay a Pentagon drone, because his Role simply hasn't been built up enough to support becoming the next Colin Powell. (Now, in previous centuries, it might have been quite possible to "start" someone as an Archbishop and make him Pope...it was probably a lot easier for celestials to insert themselves on thrones in the old days.) - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 03:55:20 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Bluffing Seraphim Oooh, another debate over Seraphim. These are always fun. >;) >>>The Seraph can say "Stop or I'll shoot" without meaning that the Seraph will shoot the friend. If, immediately after the friend doesn't stop, the Seraph shoots something else, I wouldn't inflict dissonance.<<< I would. The Seraph is playing sea-lawyer, using semantic games to misrepresent the truth. He _knows_ what message he is sending, and how that message will be interpreted by its intended audience, and by any other reasonable person -- the fact that with some creative twisting he can make his false threat true is exactly the sort of thing a Balseraph would appreciate.... Considering that Seraphim can't even "lie" about their identity when maintaining a Role, the above example is clearly stretching the truth more than any non-dissonant Seraph can manage. One thing that should make Seraphim a little scary is that they _don't_ bluff.... - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 04:09:14 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't >>>I don't see how that follows. I think much of the difficulty comes different definitions of "circumventing your dissonance conditions". In any event, the Cherub analogy does not apply, as Cherubim get dissonance for betraying their friends, Superior, and beliefs.<<< But if a Cherub, for example, was _planning_ an action that would result in an object of his attunement being harmed, the planning itself would not cause dissonance, but it would definitely be acting contrary to his nature, and I'd say he was skating on thin ice. A Seraph who doesn't actually lie, but deliberately comes as close as he can to lying without going over the edge, is acting contrary to his nature. He may be able to keep doing that without actually suffering dissonance, but he is dancing on a fine line, and his Superior would probably become quite worried, if he were to notice. >>>I think the best way to resolve the issue of our definitions is for me to give a concrete example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Her solution was, when asked if she'd take the job, to ask about some details, and offer the response "That sounds reasonable". The GM didn't catch it as not actually being acceptance until I told him about it after the conversation was over.<<< Well, I'm not clear on exactly what she was saying was "reasonable." If the demon said "Here are my terms," and the Seraph said "That sounds reasonable," it could very easily be the truth -- the Seraph isn't saying she _agrees_ to them, just that the terms are reasonable. You could tell me that you'll sell me a house for $100,000, and I could very honestly tell you that that's reasonable....it doesn't mean I have $100,000, or any intention of buying a house. Now, giving that answer might lead the other person to infer the Seraph is going to take the job, just as my giving the answer above might give the impression that I want to buy a house...in which case you're right, that's exactly the kind of "misdirection" that a Seraph can do with relative safety. But that's not even close to lying. It's not even fast talk. >>>Suffice to say I don't think it's any different from her saying "I'm called Jenny".<<< There's a very large difference. One is giving an opinion, while the other is stating a fact. (If the Seraph said "That sounds reasonable" and _didn't_ think the offer was reasonable, regardless of whether or not she was going to accept it, then she would be lying.) >>>It seems to me as if you are attempting to distinguish between different varieties of Fast-Talk.<<< Umm, no. I'm distinguishing between Lying and Fast-Talk as defined in the rules. (In the real world, "fast talk" does not necessarily have the same meaning as it does in In Nomine game mechanics, and often is used to mean actually stating untruths.) - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 04:26:11 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Musings on Magog and just a Braindump >>>Mighty concise language, ancient Egyptian. Seems to have a serious vowel shortage, too.<<< Oh, it had vowels. But like modern Hebrew and Arabic*, the vowels weren't represented in the writing system...everyone was assumed to know what vowel sounds went between the consonants. Which makes it awfully hard to know _now_ just what the actual Egyptian word was. But yeah, it was pretty concise, like it's (probable) distant relatives, the aforementioned modern Semitic languages. Triliteral roots, so the same three consonants can mean "teacher," "student," "I/you/he teach/taught/am teaching," etc.... the difference is in the vowels. - -David * For any nitpickers who happen to know Arabic and are getting ready to correct me: vowels _can_ be fully represented in Arabic script, but are usually omitted. I don't know about Hebrew. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 11:17:36 +0300 From: Yossi Gurvitz Subject: Re: IN> Shell Game, part I At 08:34 AM 8/4/98 , you wrote: >I wonder if anyone on this list can guess who it was, based on the hints >given so far. Any historians here? Yup. I'm intrigued. Can't be Hitler (died in April '45), can't be Crowley (died in '47), *can* be Trotski (died in '40, ax in his head, and he spoke fluent Russian, and was highly connected to the Russian army). Please send me his identity, even by private e-mail. Awesome plot, if I haven't said it so far. Yours, Yossi ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 04:34:06 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> [ADMIN] CLIPPING WHAT YOU QUOTE >>>Yeah!<<< [followed by 3 pages of garbage] [followed by] >>>I'm sorry I couldn't help it,<<< You should have. >>>Incidentley I think I just found which Prince I would be most comfortable with.<<< I don't think there is a Demon Prince of Annoying, Inconsiderate Chowderheads. But you're up for the Word. - -David, longing for the days when only grown-ups could afford Internet access ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 09:48:49 +0100 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: IN> Mercurians identifying roles The way I've been deciding what information the mercurians get on other celestials is that it depends entirely on what the celestial in question was doing when it was resonated. If it was doing something purely related to maintaining its role, then he gets role-information. If it was doing something related to its celestial function then he gets celestial information. If they were doing both, then it probably depends on the level of the role and the check digit. The general idea is that if you keep your head down and stick tightly to your role, it will protect you. eg. Gertrude, cherub of judgement, has a role as a policewoman. She is spotted by a mercurian of stone as she is pulling in a few of his mortal friends for being involved in some trouble at a rally. She is just doing her policewoman job and he resonates her role. However, when looking at the scene on tape later, she recognises the mercurian's vessel from a description and is concerned that angels of his choir should not be throwing stones at windows because thats a touch violent. She calls him again to invite him to answer a few questions, intending to contact her triad. If he resonates her this time then he'll pick up the celestial allegiance. jo (The comment about seraphim & bluffing reminds me that one of my scarier NPC malakim has a vow, 'I will never make an idle threat') ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 13:37:09 +0100 From: Julian Breen Subject: Re: IN> Roles and Celestial Detection On Tue 28 July Matthew D. Gandy wrote: > This is a good use for Roles, actually--anyone targeted by an appropriate >resonance could resist with Corporeal Forces + Role Level, so that if the >defender >succeeded, the resonance would reveal Role information, not celestial >information. >I think this has probably been suggested before, but it certainly improves the >utility of high-Level, high-maintenance Roles that players don't want to spent >the >effort or the points on. On Wed 29 July, Andrew Frades wrote: >Or you can just assume (as I do in my game) that the Mercurian resonance picks >up >Corporeal stuff (i.e. roles) on the Corporeal plane. It gives Celestials a nice >reason to have roles at all, even just a low level low staus role. > >My ruling is always to err on the sdie of making it rather difficult to detect >direct >information about Celestials on the Corporeal plane. On Wed 29 July, Jasper Reijer Floor wrote: >Not in my campaign. You just get the info on the role. However, low level >roles are easier to pierce. However when one of my players tried this on a >demon they got only the knowledge that they were dealing with a well-known >reporter (basically, that role is written into the symphony, and as such >should resonate to angelic (demonic) attunements). Interesting (and quite reasonable) takes on the mechanics of Roles within the Symphony. Seeing as how a Role can be used by a celestial to muffle disturbance (and thereby 'disguise' itself) it seems to follow that it might also be usable to cause other celestials to 'misinterpret' their Resonances. After all, Resonances are not infallible anyway, and the corporeal plane is an area of the Symphony that is quite alien to celestials. If a Role can fool the humans, who are *meant* to be there, then why not those who aren't? Is something on this likely to make canon? - -- Julian jules@bigjules.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 09:17:15 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> How to Document Existence Jayson Howell wrote: > Get a birth certificate. > > That's it. > > You think it's harder than that? Somehow... I seem to collect a > steady paycheck... Ah, yes. But do you collect a paycheck as a member of a big city police force? Eileth, from Feast of Blades, does. You may recall that she went Renegade a little less than a year ago, and set up the Role as Amanda Kale just prior to that. It is only a Role/2, but the write-up does say that she has access to resources as a member of the force, certainly implying that she does more than wander around the city a pretend to be a cop while not actually having a connection. There really is no way to get from a documentless beginning, such as you propose, to being an established cop in a major US city in a year. Well, I suppose that if you have a lot of friends forging the paperwork and providing references, it might happen, but this is a Renegade. In addition to the oft mentioned background check, these kinds of police forces generally require at least a two-year degree in crminal justice and previous experience in either a small town force, the MPs, or some sort of armed security. There are other ways to make it, but they require at least as much background prep as the standard method. Granted, this whole character throws a wrench into most of the proposed ideas of role creation. It didn't involve her Superior (who doesn't know about the Role). It doesn't involve the participation of a large network of demonic buddies (it says she has plenty of connections in Alaemon's court still, but they can't go too far out on a limb to help a Renegade). The simplest thing to do might be is get a big warning label on her that she shouldn't be used as an example (why is it always the Lilim that end up in this situation? Just what kind of Needs did the people at SJG have to get Geased into allowing their write-ups to be extra-powerful?) But until we get some sort of explicit statement along these lines, your insistence that you get no paperwork with s Role strikes me as being quite implausible in canon. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 07:43:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Graveyard Greg Subject: Re: IN> which Superior's Word suits you best? - ----=|horsefly|=- wrote: > > earlier today, i said: > > oh, and just so this stays on topic, which Prince *are* you > > most comfortable with the idea of serving? me, i'd go between Dark > > Humor and Nitpicking. > i forgot Freedom. i *love* Freedom. > on the angelic side, i'd choose between Creation, Fire, and War. > anyone else? :) > -=|horsefly|=- Well, I like Creation, Protection, and Fire...Eli is a cool Superior (when you can find him), Gabriel is just hot (pardon the pun), and Zadkiel? Well, she's Zadkiel! Graveyard Greg _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 15:45:49 +0100 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: IN> Day 1 [Monday] Day 1 (GPO -- Dublin) I informed my faithful servant that in future we shall be assigning one of the traditional deadly sins to each of the days of the week, with a view to keeping that sin in mind for the entire 24 hours and seeking as many opportunities to pursue it as possible. I feel that this will be useful exercise for her dark faith and will encourage her into bad habits, and besides which it never does any harm to be seen to be doing bad. One can never be sure who is watching. Her reaction was to laugh and ask whether idiocy was one of those sins, as I obviously had assigned it to yesterday. I complimented her on building up a dismissive attitude towards authority, which would stand her in good stead in the afterlife, and made a mental note that I shall have to direct this new rebellious spirit towards some more profitable endeavour. Pride was evidently Sunday's sin, as should be obvious to anyone who has been to church recently, but I was reminded of my current predicament. Even on reflection, I am quite content with the wager as it stands, and three and a half months is plenty of time to gather the necessaries. I explained this to Claudette as we walked down towards the park. The terms are simply that on midsummer's day, we must each present ourselves to the Baron at a preselected location with as many items or artefacts as we can gather, that have been removed from corporeal tethers without their owners permission. I haven't told her that the preselected location is to be Notre Dame in Paris. We will cross that bridge when we come to it, and I have as yet no inkling of how Ranulf himself intends to manage the thing. I am quietly confident that despite the greater abilities of my rivals on a purely one to one basis, the advantage of my background, current role and contacts is one that will eventually prove very telling in the final instance. I doubt that any of them know as many tether locations as I do myself. The weather was brisk but not too damp so we spread C's coat out on the grass and settled to make some plans. I informed her grandly that I thought perhaps Avarice might be a suitably Mondayish sin, so I expected her to concentrate on acquiring enough of the filthy lucre during the day to pay for our next ferry trip. Her response was one with which I shall not soil my diary, except to note that I was moved to tell her that amusing pastime though it might be, Lust was the sin which I was reserving for tomorrow. Their strange morals surprise me occasionally, as I have never had much time for swearing. I feel that mortals should be encouraged to express their more visceral emotions in a more visceral way, but preferably without blemishing the English language, which is so much more expressive than that would imply. Blasphemy is of course another matter, but can still be roundly expressed without resort to crudity. However, blasphemy is a rather threadworn affair in the modern world, barely good for even raising so much as an eyebrow unless one resorts to rather exotic tactics. We may yet have the chance to do precisely that during the course of this tour, which I fully expect to take in a transglobal aspect. I find myself quite enervated by the prospect, much moreso of that feeling than the rounds of petty theft, insurance fraud and get-rich-quick schemes which I had been assigned to since first arriving on this plane had ever inspired. My first acquisition was a simple enough exploit, as I had been considering it for a while, since first being informed of the GPO tether here. A wind tether is an impressive first target in any case, and I intend to make sure that word of the trick is passed around my rivals. As I has said, I had been keeping an eye on the place for a couple of months through contacts so it was simple enough to inveigle one of the cleaners into doing my work for me. The post office clock is rather unwieldly, but since I intend to drop it off in London to have it tagged and have found someone else to take it there for me, I don't consider this to be a major problem. I don't believe it to be a true relic, but one sometimes does these things purely for the prestige. [Notes on the Dublin GPO (from http://www.letterpost.ie/hist.html) Dublin's General Post Office took its place in modern Irish history when it became the centre stage of the Easter Rising in 1916. On Easter Monday, April 24, Padraig Pearse and James Connolly led 127 men, including other members of the Provisional Government, to the General Post Office. Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from the front steps. The building sustained heavy damage from the British response to the Rising, but was successfully restored in the 1920s. ] ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #896 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.