From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Fri Aug 7 15:19:52 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 PAA19539 for ; Fri, 7 Aug 1998 15:19:51 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id OAA27602 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Fri, 7 Aug 1998 14:03:41 -0500 Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 14:03:41 -0500 Message-Id: <199808071903.OAA27602@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 #902 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 Friday, August 7 1998 Volume 01 : Number 902 In this digest: Re: IN> Lillith Re: IN> Genesis stories :) RE: IN> Lillith IN> Why not take Dissonance to escape Geas? Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? Re: IN> Movies (I don't read books.) Re: IN> Why not take Dissonance to escape Geas? Re: IN> Genesis stories :) Re: IN> The Singular of "Lilim" IN> Plot Seed: The Tar Baby IN> IN- Genesis stories :) RE: IN> Genesis/ Lilith IN> Re:Tar Baby IN> How bad is dissonance? RE: IN> Plot Seed: The Tar Baby [none] IN> Tar Baby IN> Edelstein's rudeness. Re: IN> Plot Seed: The Tar Baby Re: IN> Why not take Dissonance to escape Geas? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 05:45:00 -0400 From: "Thomas J. Ladegard" Subject: Re: IN> Lillith Jo Hart wrote: > > And you should look at the stories about Adam's > >second wife, the one before Eve if you want some moral ambiguity. > > Neil Gaiman made that story up. Sorry Jo, but he didn't. When it came out I was intrigued and went to my local Temple at the time, up in Storrs, CT. for anyone who could possibly care, and did some research. It's there amongst the Midrash. It shouldn't be that hard for someone else to find, Temple Beth Israel had a very nice, but hardly exhaustive section on Midrash and oral tradition. - - Tom ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 06:18:21 -0400 From: Pete Overton Subject: Re: IN> Genesis stories :) >I think there is a story that Adam rejected the first one because he'd seen >her created from blood and sinews and was disgusted, so she was unmade, but >that's a variation on the Lilith story. AFAIK Gaiman made up the '3 Eves' to >try to draw parallels with the 3 fates and other triple-goddess imagery. I'd >be very surprised if that was in the Midrash. Well, barring any White Wolf interpretations, here is the version I heard. So God, you know, he's puttering around and creates Adam for His own amusement really and Adam sees all these animals in pairs and more than pairs sometimes (damn bunnies) and he says, "Hey, Almighty, you know I'm a little lonely down here, hey?" So God, He looks down from on high and realizes that the symmetry is a little out of whack when it comes to Man, so He says in a voice that tends to sound a lot like James Earl Jones, mind you, "Okay, man, no problem." So He whips up this woman made of Earth and Fire, this passionate young thing Adam names Lilith. Now, Adam of course being a typical man expects a few things from Lilith and Lilith, well heck, she isn't going to stand for this, being essentially a feminist at heart, so she says to God, "Hey, you know, thanks for life and all but I really want to follow my heart and see the world." So she rejects Adam and in most tellings God and wanders off into the wilderness to conjoin with demons or whatever it is that feminists do. So Adam looks back up to God and says, "Well, you know, thanks for the effort, Almighty, but she was a little randy, you know, how about a little behavioural inhibition?" (Adam was a closet psychologist, you know) So God thinks about it and returns soon enough and puts Adam to sleep (God was an anethesiologist before He became the Almighty) and plucks out a rib and adds some Earth and Water (water being so much more soothing and calm) and poof, a new woman. Adam names this one Eve after he wakes up and they get along pretty famously because Eve is made from a chunk of Adam and she is much more placid than that randy Lilith, who Adam says nothing about to Eve in his wisdom. I understand that Lilith is included in the Hebrew Bible mostly as a cautionary tale against headstrong women (pardon the observation but the Jewish culture isn't known for their female equality programs) and I assume her cavorting with demons is the natural result of turning away from God and Adam (usually in that order). Of course, not that Eve worked out much better with that whole apple thing, but you know, metamyth tends to be dramatic if nothing else. I admit that I first heard about Lilith from Vampire: The Masquerade (hey, hush, I was never theologically inclined) and went out and looked her up one day and found out the real story (apparently she did not Awaken Caine's powers, who would have guessed :). It sort of fascinated me because it sort of put a little frame of reference on how I could exist (at the time) within a Catholic framework. As usual, I apologize to anyone who might be offended by my opinion although I don't apologize for having it. Pete ============================================================= Pete Overton E-Mail: pover@golden.net ICQ#: 2192976 "There's no such thing as a soul. It's just something they made up to scare kids, like the bogeyman or Michael Jackson." -- Bart Simpson, "The Simpsons" ============================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:16:40 +0100 From: "Ellen Kakkaratchi" Subject: RE: IN> Lillith > > And you should look at the stories about Adam's > >second wife, the one before Eve if you want some moral ambiguity. > > > Neil Gaiman made that story up. No, he didn't. Let me quote from Robert Graves & Raphael Patai's Hebrew Myths, which I think in turn is quoting from the Zohar. "...(after Lilith had refused to have sex with Adam)...God allowed Adam to watch as He created a woman using bone, tissues, muscle, blood, glandular secretions, and covering her with skin and tufts of hair. Because he had witnessed her fleshy creation, Adam was repulsed by her. "God tried a third time and acted more circumspectly to include some of Lilith's seductiveness. Having taken a rib from Adam's side in his sleep, He formed it into a woman; they plaited her hair and adorned her like a bride, with 24 pieces of jewellery, before waking him. Adam was entranced." This third wife was, obviously, Eve. The middle wife was never named and we are never told what happened to her after Adam spurned her. Throughout the whole story Adam comes across as a petulant brat of the first order. For those of you interested in the roots of the Lilith myth and also it's modern day connotations, I would recommend 'The Book of Lilith' - Barbara Black Koltuv. It has a lot of interesting stuff in it for an IN GM, including stuff from the Zohar, Talmud, Bible and medieval folktales. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 06:41:01 -0400 From: Pete Overton Subject: IN> Why not take Dissonance to escape Geas? >Yes, I *know* that dissonance is painful and celestials are reluctant to >take it. But there are times when angels are expected to take dissonance, >then this is one of them. Well, okay, I made a comment on this before but I will do so again just to be a pain in the ass really. :) My favourite way to put this is sort of morbid and a lot of people really can't identify with it, but I unfortunately can and the pity should end there. In real life, I see only one major thing that us as humans have that could cause true Dissonance by the game term (and please note as usual I don't stick to mechanics much). That is the human instinct for survival. Now, I mean the *active* version, not the passive "have kids" version. On the verge of death, every human, no matter how prepared for it they are, are seized with a last minute fear as their minds bend to the will of their instinctual fear of CEASING TO EXIST. *EVERYTHING* is totally subordinate to the fact that you are on the verge of oblivion (rightfully or not) and you do NOT want to go no matter how ready you were a few moments before. This is Dissonance in action as I see it. To go ACTIVELY against this is almost impossible and would take *superhuman* levels of will indeed. This is how I see Dissonance for Angels (and Demons I suppose but I don't tend to think on them too much). A Mercurian does not just sort of live a philosophy of nonviolence, it is in their VERY BEING, and to go against that rejects each living particle of their very self. Obviously this could be a little restrictive for an RPG, but this is how I tend to see it. That "final gasp of life" that people have on their deaths, if truly resisted (and please don't start yelling at me that it can't be circumvented, I know this, it's an example) would cause about the only Dissonance we as mortals could get, because that last gasp is *so very ingrained in us* that to go against it is so against our nature. So, this being said, accidental Dissonance would probably be about 99% of all the Dissonance Angels would ever gain. To purposefully go against their nature and "just take a point of Dissonance" so contradicts the letter and spirit of the game that it pains me to hear it said. If players are saying "Oh, I'll just take the point of Dissonance and don't worry about the geas," then one of three things is evident -- they are not playing their characters properly, they do not understand the nature of Dissonance as anti-being, or penalities for Dissonance are too light. I subscribe to all three of these as a rule actually. ;) I'm so tired of hearing stories where players merely take a game penalty without a thought of the game concerns. It reminds me of those idiot stories out of Palladium where characters with high SDC would leap onto grenades, absorb the damage and continue on. Dissonance is the most HELLISH thing for a Celestial to pick up and it is FAR worse than mere health levels. With all of this in mind (I do not mean to aim this at you specifically, Miss Bartley, I just feel the need to rant about this periodically as I hear these things), I avoid geas like the plague as a rule as well. I am very wary of compulsion and geas tends to imply a gross compulsion of the highest order. But understanding the sheer nature of Dissonance, it answers the question in itself on why the character doesn't just take a point of it to escape a geas. I hope I did not sound to pissy, I just get rany, sorry List. :P >If after a brawl between angels and demons and >soldiers, the only people left conscious are a Mercurian and a Soldier of >Hell, people would expect the Mercurian to take some dissonance, if >necessary, to protect his fellow angels and the Soldiers of God from >having their throats slit by the Solider of Hell. That is where creativity would serve its best purpose. Okay, I tend to be pretty naive in these matters, I will admit, but it seems to me that the Mercurian could at least stall things. If you wanted to get technical you could claim the Angel thought first of his friends' defense and afterwards realized what he did and grieve over it which would open a whole good new plot over the Mercurian in conflict between his inherent nature telling him to do no harm and the fact that he had to act to save his friends. That is true Dissonance, not game penalties, but the guilt and horror of going against one's nature. Okay, okay, I'm shutting up, I'm sorry. I get a little pretentious on occasion for someone who doesn't say much on the list. :P Pete ================================================================= Pete Overton E-Mail: pover@golden.net ICQ#:2192976 "When others do a foolish thing, you should tell them it is a foolish thing. They can still continue to do it but at least the truth is where it needs to be." -- Dukhat, Babylon 5 ================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 14:07:27 +0000 (GMT) From: "The blue eyes, the leather, some guys just like leather" Subject: Re: IN> Fall of the Malakim intro, and a problem? >It won't give the Malakite dissonance, because, and I do quote: "A >Malakite will never suffer an evil to live when it's his choice." >David ordered him not to act, so it's not the Malakite's decision. No >dissonance! But what if he feels he needs to act and does so. That would be disobeying his superiors orders and will cause disonance. Starsurfer, Seraphim of Creation in service to Destiny, Angel of Words ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 14:15:16 +0000 (GMT) From: "The blue eyes, the leather, some guys just like leather" Subject: Re: IN> Movies (I don't read books.) >(TV) Quantum Leap > How can a Kyriotate's possession of an unwilling host possibly be >benevolent? If the Kyrio's name was Dr. Sam Beckett, who would argue? Samuel Kyrio of Destiny and his best friend Alberto Mercurian of Creation Starsurfer, Seraph of Creation in service to Destiny, Angel of Words ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:49:11 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Why not take Dissonance to escape Geas? Pete Overton wrote: > With all of this in mind (I do not mean to aim this at you > specifically, Miss Bartley, I just feel the need to rant about > this periodically as I hear these things), I avoid geas like the > plague as a rule as well. I am very wary of compulsion and geas > tends to imply a gross compulsion of the highest order. But > understanding the sheer nature of Dissonance, it answers the > question in itself on why the character doesn't just take a point > of it to escape a geas. If I can reconstruct the discussion from posts that are now gone, I think the situation Ms. Bartley described is a bit more complicated. It essentially pertains to a Bright Lilim taking dissonance from evading a geas invoked by a Demon Prince, and a really nasty geas, in fact. Again, in concept rather than with game mechanics, this amounts to the Lilim having a choice between two different ways she can violate her true nature, with the only third option being to have had the geas stripped by her new Superior. In game mechanics, I don't know if the specific geas would have resulted in dissonance (not having managed to pick up FotM yet (hopefully by tonight, honest)), but it easily might have. Faced with dissonance either way, the Lilim certainly should have the option to pick the one rather than the other. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 10:01:16 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Genesis stories :) After a pithy re-telling of the Lilith tale, Pete Overton wrote: > I understand that Lilith is included in the Hebrew Bible mostly > as a cautionary tale against headstrong women... Actually, that tale isn't in the *Bible* at all. It comes from a medieval collection of tales with Bible characters, called "The Alphabet of Ben Sira." There is no record of Lilith depicted as Adam's wife prior to that, though there are tales of the two of them having a fling, and thus producing the Lilim, after Adam was expelled from the Garden. (Eve had her own flings at the same time, and produced other demonic children, in these tales.) Here is the tale from "Ben Sira" -- - --- Soon afterward the young son of the king took ill, Said Nebuchadnezzar, "Heal my son. If you don't, I will kill you." Ben Sira immediately sat down and wrote an amulet with the Holy Name, and he inscribed on it the angels in charge of medicine by their names, forms and images, and by their wings, hands, and feet. Nebuchadnezzar looked at the amulet. "Who are these?"    "The angles who are in charge of medicine: Snvi, Snsvi, and Smnglof. After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Gen. 2:18). He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while am to be in the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: 'Sovereign of the universe!' he said, 'the woman you gave me has run away.' At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angles to bring her back.    "Said the Holy One to Adam, 'If she agrees to come back, fine. If not she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.' The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, 'We shall drown you in the sea.'    "'Leave me!' she said. 'I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.'    "When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: 'Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.' She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels' names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers." - --- You can read an interesting article about the tale, by a rabbi, on the Web at: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/950206_Lilith.html Before "Ben Sira," Lilith just seems to have been a she-demon, a blend of femme fatale and baby-killing wicked witch. Since then, she seems to have sometimes been identified with the Serpend in the Garden. Some medieval illustrations of the Temptation show the snake with a woman's head, and, on the Cistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo painted the serpent as half woman, a sort of snakey mermaid. In the Victorian period, Dante Gabriel Rosetti wrote a rather steamy poem about Lilith as Adam's old lover, jealous of the new-made Eve, resuming her old serpent form so as to work their downfall. It's recorded somewhere in the IN archives, and can be found on the Internet. It's title is "Eden Bower." Earl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 10:31:25 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> The Singular of "Lilim" MarkDEddy@aol.com wrote: > Technically, the (plural) noun Lilim is derivative from Lilith. You mean "lilim" is Hebrew for "liliths," more than one lilith, used as a common noun? > Lilith is derived from the "leili" form, as best I can tell. [...] > So, the common root would probably be "Lil." Ulp... The root concept here is "night," isn't it? Is that "lil" or something similar in Hebrew? (I have a black cat whom I named "Laylah" under the impression this was Hebrew for "night.") Earl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:15:19 PDT From: "Doug Muir" Subject: IN> Plot Seed: The Tar Baby >Hey Doug, > >I really like Bobby Jean and her other selves. Well, many thanks to you, Ellen, and to everyone else who wrote me off-list about her. A couple of points. Someone asked how to keep the players from focussing too quickly and completely on Bobby Jean. Distract 'em. Throw in some red herring NPCs around her... a surly and unpleasant bartender, a bass player who is ostentatiously religious and refers to himself as a "Warrior for God", a sleazy, sweaty manager who constantly wants to shake hands... it's not too hard to get players wondering if they're dealing with a Djinn, a Soldier of God, and some kind of Impudite (players seem to love jumping to these sorts of conclusions... say someone is "surly and apathetic" and they _will_ think Djinn... even though the mundane world is full of surly and apathetic people). Someone else pointed out that Bobby Jean isn't tough enough to fight most PC parties. Well... no. She isn't. Even with accesss to the Songs and skills of a captured celestial, she's probably no match for a group of determined PCs. But then, she's not supposed to be. She's a mystery, not a monster. If you think your players need some "bad guys" to go up against, throw in the rival investigators or the Sorceror. As to the person who asked if I would submit to Pyramid, ummm... I dunno. I wasn't really thinking about it ( Elizabeth? Is this something I should look into?) > I intend to incorporate the >Marches version of the encounter almost immediately into my campaign. If you want to do this, I recommend you trot down to your local comic book store and ask if they have, in their back issues, any of the Grant Morrison Doom Patrols. Grant Morrisson is a brilliant Scottish writer; Doom Patrol was a very odd super-hero comic book, which included for a while a character named Crazy Jane, who had MPD. There's one issue -- I think it's number 25 -- in which Jane is dying and someone has to enter her dreamscape in order to save her. The title of the issue is "Going Underground". The dreamscape is an endless subway system, connecting "stations" where the various personalities live. The explorer must ride the subway and meet, confront, and negotiate with them, while trying to find his way to the center... Highly recommended, and well worth the $3 to $5 that the comic shop would probably charge. The other Morrisson issues (from around #18 up to #50 or so) vary in quality, but the good ones are very very good, and include some material that could profitably be incorporated into an IN campaign... if you're interested, I can dig them up and make some recommendations. Cheers, Doug M. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:16:53 PDT From: "Doug Muir" Subject: IN> IN- Genesis stories :) > Well, barring any White Wolf interpretations, here is the version >I heard. [snip] Pete, this was truly amusing. Thanks! Doug M. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:33:31 +0100 From: "Ellen Kakkaratchi" Subject: RE: IN> Genesis/ Lilith > After a pithy re-telling of the Lilith tale, Pete Overton wrote: > > > I understand that Lilith is included in the Hebrew Bible mostly > > as a cautionary tale against headstrong women... > > Actually, that tale isn't in the *Bible* at all. It comes from > a medieval collection of tales with Bible characters, called > "The Alphabet of Ben Sira." There is no record of Lilith depicted > as Adam's wife prior to that, though there are tales of the two of > them having a fling, and thus producing the Lilim, after Adam was > expelled from the Garden. Actually there are various different texts about Lilith and the Lilim, but I know of the one you mean in which Adam is the father of the Lilim. He was fed up after the expulsion from Eden and happy to let Lilith seduce him. From this mating were born all the little evils of the world. In my favourite tale, Samael, the Devil, is the father of the Lilim proper. After Lilith had been chased to the Red Sea by those three unpronounceable angels you mention below, she hid in a cage and engaged in 'unbridled promiscuity' with Samael and had thousands of babies, the Lilim. In order to mate they needed an intermediary, a blind dragon called Tanin'iver. God became somewhat worried by this and had Samael castrated. Lilith quickly became unsatisfied and went seeking Adam who, in penance for the fall, was undergoing a period of celibacy. She mounted him while he slept and provoked nocturnal emissions. The 'little evils' of the plagues of mankind were born from this union. Some of the Lilim are named, which may be useful for this list: Igrat, Mahalath, Naamah, Nega, Lilidtha, Maskit, Asirta - all female. They were all daughters of Lilith and Samael and practiced sorcery, strangulation and seduction. Lilith also had a son from her union with Ashmodei, another demon. He was named Sariel, Sword of Ashmodai. > Here is the tale from "Ben Sira" -- > > --- > > Soon afterward the young son of the king took ill, Said Nebuchadnezzar, > "Heal my son. If you don't, I will kill you." Ben Sira > immediately sat down and wrote an amulet with the Holy Name, and he > inscribed on it the angels in charge of medicine by their names, > forms and images, and by their wings, hands, and feet. Nebuchadnezzar > looked at the amulet. "Who are these?" > >    "The angles who are in charge of medicine: Snvi, Snsvi, and Smnglof. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:44:21 -0500 (CDT) From: Martin Leslie Leuschen Subject: IN> Re:Tar Baby I like it. Note that it implies there are potentially untapped ways for humans to deal with celestials without celestial aid. This makes a good lead in for a "secret third faction of enlightened humans" type campaign. Regards, Martin Leuschen martinl@rice.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:49:18 -0500 (CDT) From: Elizabeth Bartley Subject: IN> How bad is dissonance? On Fri, 7 Aug 1998, Pete Overton wrote: > Now, I mean the *active* version, not the passive "have kids" version. > On the verge of death, every human, no matter how prepared for it they > are, are seized with a last minute fear as their minds bend to the > will of their instinctual fear of CEASING TO EXIST. *EVERYTHING* is > totally subordinate to the fact that you are on the verge of oblivion > (rightfully or not) and you do NOT want to go no matter how ready you > were a few moments before. > This is Dissonance in action as I see it. To go ACTIVELY against > this is almost impossible and would take *superhuman* levels of > will indeed. This is how I see Dissonance for Angels (and Demons > I suppose but I don't tend to think on them too much). A Mercurian > does not just sort of live a philosophy of nonviolence, it is in > their VERY BEING, and to go against that rejects each living particle > of their very self. The Habbalah and the Calabim both take dissonance as an *option*; the Habbalah can feel the emotions that someone reflected or take dissonance, and the Calabim can lash out again when someone resisted their resonance or take dissonance. If dissonance were as bad as you portray, there wouldn't be any point to having an option to take dissonance; no one ever would. Additionally, the Ofanites take dissonance by failing a skill roll on which they've invoked their resonance. The Balseraphs take dissonance if someone resists their resonance with a check digit of 6. The Lilim take dissonance if someone resists when they try to call in a geas. If dissonance were as bad as you portray, it would take an act of will run the risk of dissonance. But the Ofanites are portrayed as the sort of people who might use their resonance a fair amount, and the Balseraphs and Lilim are often portrayed as psychologically dependant on their resonance. And the Kyriotates and Shedim both take dissonance if a host is killed, and (with a few exceptions) both are *completely* dependant on hosts in order to operate on Earth. Dissonance can't be so bad that the fear of it completely cripples them. I believe that dissonance is painful, and that it's the sort of pain that gets worse the longer you anticipate it beforehand. It would *hurt* a Mercurian to shoot a Soldier of Hell if that was unexpectedly his only option to save his friends (friends are unconscious, Mercurian has a broken leg and is out of Essence,) but it wouldn't incapacitate him: the Mercurian could shoot until he ran out of bullets or went Outcast (which I'd rule *would* incapacitate him momentarily.) If that same Mercurian decided in cold blood to kill that same Soldier of Hell (this probably means the Mercurian's gone insane) and deliberately sets up an ambush, the Mercurian had better kill with his first shot because he's going to black out from the pain. I don't believe dissonance is so awful it's nearly impossible to take voluntarily. It *can't* be, there are too many resonances which rely on voluntarily _risking_ dissonance. > That is where creativity would serve its best purpose. Okay, > I tend to be pretty naive in these matters, I will admit, but it seems > to me that the Mercurian could at least stall things. Not necessarily. The Mercurian has a broken leg, ran out of Essence singing Songs, and had been on the ground shooting demons. The demons are all out of the fight now - unconscious or dead - and so are all of his friends. He has reason to believe that some of his friends, including at least one human, are alive but unconscious. The only people moving are the Mercurian and a Hellsworn. The Soldier of Hell is pointing a gun at a Soldier of God who's a close friend of the Mercurian. Mercurian knows this guy's human because he makes a disturbance when hit. When the Mercurian threatens, "Stop or I'll shoot" the Soldier laughs and says, "You can't." Say the Mercurian's a good enough shot to aim for the leg and hope the .45 impact stuns the Hellsworn. So what's the Mercurian going to do? > If you wanted > to get technical you could claim the Angel thought first of his > friends' defense and afterwards realized what he did I suppose that's possible, but it really seems likes a bad rationalization. The Mercurian doesn't realize he's shooting a human? Possible under some circumstances, but unrealistic under others? In the heat of battle, the Mercurian forgets that shooting a human is dissonant? Call Judgement, someone needs a reminder.... > and grieve over it He'll grieve over it whether he knew what he was doing or not. It is the nature of Mercurians to avoid violence against humans. > which would open a whole good new plot over the Mercurian in > conflict between his inherent nature telling him to do no harm and > the fact that he had to act to save his friends. That is true > Dissonance, not game penalties, but the guilt and horror of going > against one's nature. I think that this is a matter of individual personality, *not* of the Dissonance. A stereotypical Mercurian of War would probably react along the lines of "War is ugly. Too bad I had to do that. Now what do I do about the current situation?" (Current situation being the dissonance.) A stereotypical Mercurian of Flowers would probably react more along the lines of "Oh, how *awful*. What could I have done earlier so I didn't have to do that now?" But I don't think +any+ Mercurian would doubt that personally wounding a Hellsworn is preferable to having that Hellsworn kill -- oh, say two angels and five Soldiers of God. (Mercurians of Flowers might feel otherwise about actually *killing* a Hellsworn, since their Archangel is likely to be pissed.) > With all of this in mind (I do not mean to aim this at you > specifically, Miss Bartley, I just feel the need to rant about > this periodically as I hear these things), I avoid geas like the > plague as a rule as well. I am very wary of compulsion and geas > tends to imply a gross compulsion of the highest order. But > understanding the sheer nature of Dissonance, it answers the > question in itself on why the character doesn't just take a point > of it to escape a geas. I'd like to point out that in the example I was talking about, I was proposing that Mira should and realistically would have taken a point of Dissonance not to escape the geas (she did, after all, fulfill the geas) but to (1) avoid breaking the Heart of a friend with tons of Dissonance and Discord, and (2) save her own skin, since she should have *known* she would be killed when she returned the artifact. Elizabeth Bartley e-bartley@pobox.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:50:44 +0100 From: "Ellen Kakkaratchi" Subject: RE: IN> Plot Seed: The Tar Baby > > I intend to incorporate the > >Marches version of the encounter almost immediately into my campaign. > > If you want to do this, I recommend you trot down to your local comic > book store and ask if they have, in their back issues, any of the Grant > Morrison Doom Patrols. > > Grant Morrisson is a brilliant Scottish writer; Doom Patrol was a very > odd super-hero comic book, which included for a while a character named > Crazy Jane, who had MPD. There's one issue -- I think it's number 25 -- > in which Jane is dying and someone has to enter her dreamscape in order > to save her. The title of the issue is "Going Underground". Actually I must have this issue already as I was collecting Doom Patrol in those days. Next time I have a whole horde of energy, I search my many boxes. Thanks for the pointer. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:54:30 +0100 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: [none] >Lilith also had a son from her union with Ashmodei, another demon. Ashmodei is the Hebrew form of Asmodeus, FYI. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 09:09:40 PDT From: "Doug Muir" Subject: IN> Tar Baby >I like it. Note that it implies there are potentially untapped ways for >humans to deal with celestials without celestial aid. Right. Emphasis on untapped, but yes, I think these things should at least potentially exist. I don't like the idea that we *must* be helpless pawns in the War. >This makes a good >lead in for a "secret third faction of enlightened humans" type campaign. Wo. Now that would be a can of worms. But if you want to create such a faction, yeah, you could have the PCs run across them while investigating Bobby Jean -- the enlightened ones would be scoping her out as a wild talent and potential recruit. Doug M. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 09:36:56 PDT From: "Chris Crowe" Subject: IN> Edelstein's rudeness. Let me start off by saying that, since i started this thread, i'm going to finish it. Any further discussion is welcomed off-list, but i'm not wasting any more list space with it. >> >>>[clipping three posts worth of whining and complaining about people sending stuff to the list that he apparently didn't want to read]<<< Well Krowe, I'm not going to waste time addressing the rest of your post - -- someone who refers to himself in the third person and thinks that by posting uninformed flamebait, he's "honorable" and that anyone who disagrees with him is aligned with hell doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. << The 'he' I was refering to was you, genius. >> >>>I wouldn't jump to conclusions about that. I would assume that Beth would have handled it in private e-mail.<<< Wrong. See, I didn't break any rules. You may not _like_ what I said, but, well...too bad. << There you go being damn rude again. And you obviously DID break rules because i did the same thing you did and had Beth get very angry with me for it. But then i'm not David Edelstein, am i. >> >>>But I do think a public apology is still needed.<<< Pity. We all have to struggle with life's little disappointments. << Once again, rudeness from David. Anyone else seeing a trend? And did anyone else notice that David and whoever else said he didn't do anything wrong (I forget who it was and am not wasting the time to look) responded with more vindictive remarks and comments about my typos? What do my typos have to do with them being rude? Just wondering. So, like I said, this is the end of this. Any replies or additional comments send to those concerned or just swallow and keep quiet. No more of this needs to be seen on the list. The point was made when more people responded with the same attitude as me, so we all know what's up around here. Krowe Malakim of Destiny, Angel of Redemption Lord of XAOZ "What good fortune for those in power, that people do not think." -- Adolf Hitler, 1889-1945 "Love is a dirty trick played upon us to achieve the continuation of the species." -- novelist W.Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965 ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 12:08:52 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Plot Seed: The Tar Baby Doug Muir wrote: > The other Morrisson issues (from around #18 up to #50 or so) vary in > quality, but the good ones are very very good, and include some material > that could profitably be incorporated into an IN campaign... if you're > interested, I can dig them up and make some recommendations. There is a better way to get this issue, unless you're someone who likes collecting comics. DC published a compilation of the first nine(?) issues of Doom Patrol that Morrison wrote, titled "Crawling from the Wreckage". It retails for something between $15.00 and $20.00 (I'm not near my copy right at the moment). It's a bigger expense, but you get a lot more for your money, and the reading material is worth it. There is more material that could be used with IN (I did it with Call of Cthulhu) than just this one issue. Besides, you'll probably have to chase around from store to store trying to find one particular issue. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 14:41:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "York H. Dobyns" Subject: Re: IN> Why not take Dissonance to escape Geas? On Fri, 7 Aug 1998, Pete Overton wrote: [...] > On the verge of death, every human, no matter how prepared for it they > are, are seized with a last minute fear as their minds bend to the > will of their instinctual fear of CEASING TO EXIST. *EVERYTHING* is > totally subordinate to the fact that you are on the verge of oblivion > (rightfully or not) and you do NOT want to go no matter how ready you > were a few moments before. This, unfortunately, is false. Yes, people who die by violence (but not violence so sudden and total that they have no inkling of what's coming) have a tendency to die in terror. And a fair percentage of jumping-suicides change their minds on the way down (as established by interviews of survivors, and one reason why that is *not* an approach *I* would use if I decided to check out). On the other hand, the fact that it's a proportion implies that there's another fraction of that population who *don't* change their minds. Any number of soldiers have died "heroically" under circumstances that could not possibly have involved giving way to the last-second panic Overton asserts; they'd have screwed up whatever they were doing. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has documented the emotional stages of the process of dying, among the terminally ill. Provided the patient has time to work through the process, and has emotional support, the typical end stage is IIRC labeled "acceptance". The patient is calm and unconcerned, even up to the instant of death (or final unconsciousness, as the case may be). According to Lewis Thomas, massive trauma (injuries such as to be fatal in a matter of seconds to minutes) is often accompanied not by agonizing pain and terror but by analgesia and an odd calm. Call it a variant form of shock if you will; the point is, with a human, that the victim is dying and *knows* that he's dying, and is quite untroubled by the matter. People who have had near-death experiences tend, as a group, to lose their fear of death. Subjectively, at least, it's something they've already done once, and they see no reason to be afraid of doing it again. This calm confidence persists even into the final moments. So the fear of death is clearly not an intrinsic to human nature; it's too easy to overcome. It won't do as the "fundamental nature" of the human psyche in searching for a human analog to celestial dissonance. Probably there *is* no human analog to the celestial experience of dissonance, any more than one can find a human analog to the experience of a celestial exerting its resonance. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #902 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.