From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sun Jan 10 14:44:20 1999 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA27992 for ; Sun, 10 Jan 1999 14:44:19 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1a) id OAA16326 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sun, 10 Jan 1999 14:36:40 -0600 Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 14:36:40 -0600 Message-Id: <199901102036.OAA16326@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 #1090 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, January 10 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1090 In this digest: IN> Re: IN product quality and tethers Re: IN> Liber Servitorum Question (servants) Re: IN> Some questions about 'The Game' IN> Servants Re: IN> Destiny\Fate of Angels\Demons IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) Re: IN> Is the flavor text canon? IN> RE: in_nomine-digest V1 #1089 Re: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) Re: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) Re: IN> Re: IN product quality and tethers IN> The Game ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 12:31:02 PST From: "Martin Arnold" Subject: IN> Re: IN product quality and tethers First off, I should have added this after my last post about the Saatchi Collection ~g~ "All likeness to characters real or otherwise is purely coincidental - and meant in the nicest possible way! Especially when I noticed the name of the seneschal! ~l~" Anyway… David jumps into my thread on tethers… "We don't think -- we know." Of course you do…you guys wrote the rules! "It's quite amusing that you're telling people who WROTE the Tetherbook whether or not the options are diverse enough." These were personal observations made whilst writing my own campaign and whilst working with the information at hand regarding the setting. I'm not telling anyone how to play their game, afar from it. Besides how many tethers does a city like London have or need, do I want the setting 'overrun' with the supernatural. "You make many assumptions about how Tethers work and what determines whether or not a place can be a Tether, all of which are fine for your campaign, but incorrect canonically." I would have thought by now you would know my feelings regarding the canonical approach. Of course I'm making assumptions what else can I do? Maybe the tetherbook will be able to help me, but so far canon has very little on tethers IIRC. Page 59 of the rulebook only gives me the basics regarding tethers (presumably why there is a forthcoming book on the subject) so I have to assume and inevitably contradict canon. But that's fine - I like that! ~g~ "For example, a place that became a Tether as a result of a famous person or incident in the past doesn't necessarily cease being a Tether after its fame has faded." That first point is something I would like to discuss; why doesn't it fade away. Surely if the location of Oscar Wilde's arrest (to use an earlier example), the Cadogan Hotel, is long forgotten to the mortal masses, how can it maintain its power? "And not all Tethers are based on famous places." These, though, are what I'm primarily interested in. Martin IN quotes we'd all lie to hear: "Of course I have it; Gabriel did give me the horn you know!" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 17:53:44 EST From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> Liber Servitorum Question (servants) I know it's a bit under the wire, but how do want us to submit characters and their servants? Do servants count as seperate characters? I have a character who write-up as well as her servants is under the 625 word total. Is that okay? What should I do? I didn't see this problem covered in the rules presented on-line, at least to the list. :) Thanx!! - -Perry, Kyriotate of Flowers serving Creation and sometimes Tanniael, Archangel of Tea Perry M. Lloyd (spook_number_six@hotmail.com) "Remember, false hope is still hope." -Dilbert ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 09:44:40 +1100 From: "Patrick O'Duffy" Subject: Re: IN> Some questions about 'The Game' Neel Krishnaswami wrote: > Depends on the campaign. In my game, the character points Asmodeus > gives for Roles are most certainly a supernatural attunement. > > So when a demon of the Game wills a Role into existence, it is > trying to assert its independence from and immunity to God's > ordering of reality. It's place in society is what it is whatever > it says because everyone agrees. Think how in stories the evil > advisor to the king shows up and no one thinks to question where > he comes from or the motives behind his advice -- that's what a > Game demon's Role is like. Nowadays, the Game demon is more likely > to be a grey, colorless bureaucrat than an evil vizier, but the > principle remains the same. Just wanted to say that I like this a lot. It gives a whole new element to servitors of The Game (who I've never had much interest in), and is a very nice spin on things. Good stuff, Neel. - -- Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia ...my attorney kept screaming at them: "Shoot! Fuck! Scag! Blood! Heroin! Rape! Cheap! Communist! Jab it right into your fucking eyeballs!" HUNTER S. THOMPSON, "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 18:44:31 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Servants Dahak, (1) Please stop requoting the _entire_ text of the messages you are responding to. (2) I use CompuServe and receive the digest version of the list too, so I know that when you hit the "Reply" button, "RE: in_nomine-digest V1 #1087" automatically gets put in the subject line. Please delete that and retype (or cut and paste) the subject line of the actual message you are responding to. It makes it much easier to figure out which thread we're discussing. >>>This appears to be ditching the concept in the main rulebook that dealing with and recruiting new servants requires roleplaying as well as character points.<<< Absolutely not. These rules only describe what happens once someone _becomes_ a servant. Acquiring a servant definitely requires roleplaying. I think you misunderstood when I said that a master-servant relationship is a Symphonic connection in which the servant's will is suboordinated to that of his master. This is true, but that does NOT mean that any celestial can choose any human, spend character points, and say "You are now my servant." It doesn't work that way -- making someone your servant requires roleplaying AND the conscious or subconscious agreement of the servant (if he's a human). Again, this _is_ covered in the Liber Servitorum. >>>Minion "I want next Thursday off to visit my aged mother." Munchkin PC: I dominate his will and have him spend Thursday polishing my guns for an extra +1<<< That, you can do. Although if the munchkin PC put it like that, rather than roleplaying how he commands his servant, I would probably give the servant a bonus to resist. And if the munchkin PC continued to treat his servant as a mindless functionary, he's going to have trouble, because an unwilling, disloyal servant can cause problems no matter how thoroughly you're able to dominate him. >>>The second problem is that this rules out servants for angels totally. The only reason they are sent to earth is to stop the demons messing up humans free will.<<< See above. A human has to _agree_ to be a servant. (But there are some Archangels who frown on making humans servants nonetheless.) >>>The third problem is it makes the will war dominance somewhat less of a special and terrifying fate.<<< You misunderstand -- a servant relationship is not the result of a will-war. I said it was _similar_, I didn't say they are the same thing. >>>What was wrong with the idea that the level of the servant was the level of its need [but probably not Need] for what ever reason to do the celestials biding?<<< That's another way to put it, sure. >>>Another possibility [that I don't like all that much] is that in some cases the servant is working off a geas and that is what generates the will power loss.<<< There is a section in the LS about Geased servants. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 01:44:25 -0000 From: "Ramesh Satkurunath" Subject: Re: IN> Destiny\Fate of Angels\Demons - -----Original Message----- Anders Gabrielsson wrote on 09 January 1999 >IMO, it's quite possible for a human to meet both Destiny and Fate. For >example, if the (now snipped) person's Destiny was to write a great novel >about the human condition, he could still do that while withering away in >jail. > errrr.... I thought that "opinion" was canon: Predestination: Fate and Destiny (p67, IN) "Many people, of course, die without fallin to fate or touching destiny. And some seem* to reach their fate and destiny. Hemming was destined to touch millions as one of the most influential writers of his century - and fated to drunkenness, despair and suicide. Whether or not he reached that fate on his own is unclear." *Okay there is *some* doubt due to the word seem. Ramesh ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 21:52:26 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) Someone mentioned Asmodeus using the Song of Correspondence and the Celestial Song of Motion to yank Renegades to him at will. I'd like to point out why this it isn't quite that easy, and why it's _possible_ for a Renegade of the Game to remain on the loose (though very, very difficult). I will be going into some mechanical details. (This is partly to forestall future arguments that the Song of Correspondence makes going Renegade impossible...) All of the following applies to other Superiors too, of course. From a mechanical point of view, in order for Asmodeus (or anyone else) to snatch a Renegade with this trick, there are several requirements. (We can assume that Asmodeus knows the Songs of Correspondence and the Celestial Song of Motion at level 6.) (1) Asmodeus has to be on the same plane as his target. The Celestial Song of Motion can't transport things between realms. (2) Asmodeus has to use the correct version of the Song of Correspondence - -- at any given time, a Renegade may be in corporeal or celestial form, or in the Marches. (3) Every time he tries it, he has to spend Essence equal to the Renegade's total Forces -- minimum of 9 -- for the Song of Correspondence, plus 2 Essence for the Celestial Song of Motion. (4) Then target has to be within range of the Celestial Song of Motion -- CD x 10 miles. (Someone mentioned using the Song of Correspondence to also reduce the range to 0. Doing that would require _two_ performances of the Song of Correspondence -- one to target the Renegade and one to make the range between them 0 -- and would require Asmodeus to know the location of the Renegade. And of course if he knows the location of the Renegade, all this is moot!) Presumably, Asmodeus is a virtuoso with the Celestial Song of Motion, so he can take a penalty and increase the range, but he still has to at least be in the general vicinity of his target (e.g., within 100 miles, say), or else spend another very large sum of Essence to boost the CD to cover a massive area. (5) The Renegade then still gets to resist being yanked with a roll against Strength plus any Essence he has at the time. Asmodeus can overcome the Renegade's resistance by spending more Essence to boost his CD. (6) The Song of Correspondence makes a disturbance equal to the performer's total Forces. For a Demon Prince, that's a lot of disturbance. Asmodeus certainly isn't going to want everyone knowing that a Renegade has vexed and eluded him so thoroughly that it's become worth his time to _personally_ hunt him down and spend a ton of Essence doing it. Bottom line: yes, if Asmodeus is willing to spend a LOT of Essence to get you and doesn't care who knows it, you're got. But for a lowly 9-Force Renegade, Asmodeus would have to know the Renegade's approximate location, go there, and then spend a _minimum_ of 11 Essence to get him, and quite possibly a lot more. More powerful Renegades and/or less specific knowledge of the Renegade's location radically increases the amount of Essence it will take -- if it's a powerful demon and Asmodeus only knows he's somewhere on Earth, you could be talking about triple digits! 11 Essence is not a trivial expenditure even for a Superior (not if you have to multiply such expenditures many times during the day), and 100 definitely is not. Asmodeus is the most obsessive Renegade hunter of all, and even he would probably think twice about spending 100 Essence to retrieve a Renegade when it still might not even work. Multiply all these considerations by the number of Renegades on the run at any given time (for the Game, it's probably not a lot, but more than one), plus all the _other_ things Asmodeus has to spend his Essence on. That's why he has Servitors. It's their job to find Renegades so Asmodeus doesn't _have_ to spend his own Essence doing it personally. Now, if Asmodeus knows your approximate location, would he be willing to spend 11 Essence to jump down there and grab you? Maybe -- although he's still more likely to send Servitors to that approximate location and tell them to find you. So, if you're a Renegade, do you have to worry about your former Prince using the Song of Correspondence and Celestial Song of Motion to reach out and grab you, wherever you are? Yes you do. You have to constantly keep moving, try to keep anyone from even knowing what city you're in, spend some time alternating between planes if possible, try not to spend all your Essence...and live with the knowledge that if your Prince ever decides he wants you so bad he's willing to blow his entire daily budget of Essence on getting you, he can have you. So you have to hope you never cross that threshold of annoyance too. Keeping all these things in mind, and enforcing them in your campaign, is a good way to make being a Renegade _really_ suck. If Renegades become utterly paranoid, terrified of being recognized, feel compelled to spend Essence to keep dashing between planes or running to another city, but then fear the disturbance they've made and worry about being out of Essence when they feel a Celestial Song of Motion reaching out for them, if they realize they can never settle in one place and will have to move on as soon as other demons know there's a Renegade in the neighborhood, if they are going crazy trying to figure out how long they can frustrate their former boss before he goes over the edge and decides to GET them NOW, you're probably creating the proper mood for life as a Renegade. If you apply all that pressure several times over, you're creating the proper mood for life as a Renegade of the Game. There's a _reason_ why there are so few of them. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 05:19:15 -0500 (EST) From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Is the flavor text canon? On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, dahak wrote: > Apocrypha: Sacred texts either Jewish or Christian but are outside of > canon. Widely believed to contain esoteric knowledge. For example: The book > of James, Acts of Saint Peter, The Apocalypse of St Paul. From the Greek > for hidden things. The Fun bits. Funny. I checked my bible, and the Book of James is in there. Towards the back. > Like: Demon princes turning humans into demons. Elizabeth, Archangel of > Trent, has ruled. This never happens. Or Vignettes. Or Casca's Dark > Victory. *blinks* I didn't write it, but I'll happily take credit for it anyway. ;) (Now if Redneck would only get off his keister and write -more- of it. I'm still waiting for the DV Malphas and Haagenti writeup.) - -- Casca, Seraph of Archives (bertishg@db.erau.edu) "...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying...At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." -- Isaiah 6:2,4 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 06:04:01 -0500 From: dahak Subject: IN> RE: in_nomine-digest V1 #1089 Why not argue? Colin spends quite a lot of time doing so. My apologies. I appear to have an inability to get Vapusoft Outlook to do what I want it to. Is this better? Adam - -----Original Message----- >Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 07:45:42 -0500 (EST) >From: Eslin >Subject: IN> Discord and Rites (mildly off topic) > >On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, dahak wrote: > >> No one was suggesting that they were mutually exclusive. Especially in > > dahak, hon, far be it from me to argue with a battleship the size >of the Earth's moon :) , but is there any way you could possibly >*indicate* in your emails what parts you're quoting and what parts are >your own text? I get headaches trying to sort through it every time you >reply to someone else's mail. :) > > Many thanks, Es > >------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 12:50:04 -0000 From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) - -----Original Message----- From: David Edelstein >Someone mentioned Asmodeus using the Song of Correspondence and the >Celestial Song of Motion to yank Renegades to him at will. I'd like to >point out why this it isn't quite that easy, and why it's _possible_ for a >Renegade of the Game to remain on the loose (though very, very difficult). Actually I think the Song of Affinity (from the LR) was the one which made going renegade almost impossible (at least from a well-organised, anal type of prince). It's so easy to demand that all servitors sign a release form every time they go to earth and write a report every time they get back. to Hell Those reports could be used for faultless tracking via songs of affinity, methinks. I suppose you could try to destroy all your own paperwork before breaking your heart, but that couild be even more difficult that the heart-breaking. > >(1) Asmodeus has to be on the same plane as his target. The Celestial Song >of Motion can't transport things between realms. I think it's been said somewhere that superiors can manifest on more than one plane at once? > >(2) Asmodeus has to use the correct version of the Song of Correspondence >-- at any given time, a Renegade may be in corporeal or celestial form, or >in the Marches. Song of Affinity would soon tidy that up. > >Bottom line: yes, if Asmodeus is willing to spend a LOT of Essence to get >you and doesn't care who knows it, you're got. Note that any superior who wanted to get anyone (of less than superior power) could use the same trick to do that. So just how badly did your PCs annoy Kobal last time out? >Asmodeus is the most obsessive Renegade hunter of all, >and even he would probably think twice about spending 100 Essence to >retrieve a Renegade when it still might not even work. He only has to do it once and make sure the news gets around to get most of the demons who were considering going renegade to start rethinking. > >So, if you're a Renegade, do you have to worry about your former Prince >using the Song of Correspondence and Celestial Song of Motion to reach out >and grab you, wherever you are? Yes you do. You have to constantly keep >moving, try to keep anyone from even knowing what city you're in, spend >some time alternating between planes if possible, try not to spend all your >Essence... And if he has possession of anything you ever made, wrote or graffitied he can track you faultlessly anyway. jo ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 00:04:49 +1100 From: "Rafael Hart" Subject: Re: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) >From a mechanical point of view, in order for Asmodeus (or anyone else) to >snatch a Renegade with this trick, there are several requirements. (We can >assume that Asmodeus knows the Songs of Correspondence and the Celestial >Song of Motion at level 6.) >before he goes over the edge and decides to GET them NOW, you're probably >creating the proper mood for life as a Renegade. If you apply all that >pressure several times over, you're creating the proper mood for life as a >Renegade of the Game. There's a _reason_ why there are so few of them. > >-David These are quite good reasons, but i think that on a basic level, even if Asmodeus could grab back renegades in this manner, he wouldn't. If the renegade involved didn't have a chance, no matter how small, it wouldn't be a game. Rafael Hart = Every action has an equal and opposite government program. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 09:46:25 -0800 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN product quality and tethers At 12:31 PM 1/9/99 PST, you wrote: ... >That first point is something I would like to discuss; why doesn't it >fade away. Surely if the location of Oscar Wilde's arrest (to use an >earlier example), the Cadogan Hotel, is long forgotten to the mortal >masses, how can it maintain its power? ... >Martin > Let me try to explain. Hi. I'm nobody. Nothing I say has any official status, nor do I speak with any of the staff for the game on a regular basis. But I play it and that's as good an excuse to talk as any. As far as I understand it, Tethers are places where a particular concept, which is probably related to several Words, have made such an impression on Reality that it seeps through into another Realm. I'm only going to talk about the Corporeal/Celestial Tethers in this post. So a site of a huge battle, bursting with trauma, death, pain but also glory, heroic acts and so forth might be a possible site for a Tether. I would say it has to have made a big impact on the Symphony at the time. Whether humans as a whole noticed this, the Symphony itself hadn't seen something quite like it before, wasn't prepared to cope and something trickled through. There may or may not be a place for it to go. It might go spinning off into some part of the Symphony we don't understand, unless a large chunk of Celestial real estate (cathedral, principality) is present for it to trickle into. But it's there. Maybe in time, the trickle dries up if you don't do anything. I'm not sure. But if there's a place for it to go and someone notices, they can take that trickle and using Vast Unknowable Power create a Tether. Now that Tether is focusing the energies of One Particular Word. Whether it's the Word of The Battle of Omaha Beach or just the Word of War, or maybe both to some degree, I'm not sure. But creating the Tether has stabilized that trickle, focused the related energy and (maybe)allowed for the Light or Darkness of the place it was built to/from to channel into the area. Now, since it's this Thing that was solidified with lots of Essence and a Superior intervening, with a Seneschal who devotes literally their whole existance to it, it's likely not in danger of going away. The power probably relates to site itself, but in a greater way it's (maybe) a local conduit for the power of the Word that it serves. Sure, nobody remembers some obscure Tether to Andre from ancient times, but is there a lot of Lust in the surrounding area? Probably. And the related Essence is probably going on an elevator straight down to Andre. This is based of some reading of the list, some reading of the books and generally how I Think Things Should Be, but I have tried to specify when it's pure conjecture. But that's why, I think, Tethers which are unknown in and of themselves don't fade away. Sean ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 20:23:06 +0000 From: Peter Witney Subject: IN> The Game The man beat against the bulging metal door in vain. The falling roof had buckled it and, even if he could get past, the corridor beyond was blocked. Piles of rock from the ceiling had crashed through the supports and filled the only route out. It was hopeless and really, the man knew it. He was, after all, a bright up-and-coming civil engineer. But in the face of danger, intelligence often counts as nothing, compared to violent instinct. The door thudded dully, the pattern of palms becoming slower and slower, until finally he sagged sideways and slumped against the crumbled wall. With only the sound of dripping water and his own breathing left to distract him, he was able to hear the odd tapping of the fearsome figure approaching. Dressed in a long black robe with a cowl, face unseen, carrying a scythe. "I understand you like chess," said the figure. "So do I." A pause, deep breath. "And if I beat you?" "I'll leave you in peace. That is the usual bargain." The offer was like a branch to a drowning man and he grabbed at it. From school to college to office, he had played chess for years and he believed he had a good chance of winning. He nodded and, as if from nowhere, the figure whipped out a chess board and they sat down to play. In fact, as he found out, his opponent wasn't a master player at all. In barely half an hour, the game was over and he had won. The dark figure toppled its own king. "Your game." It stood up and left, walking into an odd mist and just seeming to fade out at the end of the tunnel. It was gone and the man was ecstatic. He had beaten Death, the Grim Reaper himself; he would live, he would live, he would... he realised... stay trapped in the tunnel. The door was still shut. There was still no way out. He would still die. He howled in fury and despair. Somewhere else, a few hundred feet above his head, the servant of Kobal accepted his essence reward. - -Just because you serve one superior, doesn't mean you can't make use of another's word and work. Peter Witney peter.witney@kobal.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1090 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1999 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.