From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Dec 8 19:26:31 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 TAA03416 for ; Wed, 8 Dec 1999 19:26:30 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id TAA25711 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 8 Dec 1999 19:18:26 -0600 Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 19:18:26 -0600 Message-Id: <199912090118.TAA25711@lists.io.com> From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #1453 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 Wednesday, December 8 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1453 In this digest: Re: IN> Virtual Tethers Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Re: IN> Virtual Tethers Re: IN> What Demons are Really After Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation IN> INCREASE BUSINESS SALES! Re: IN> Virtual Tethers Re: IN> Virtual Tethers (was Re: Boom) Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation IN> Re: IN:> Eli's Angels Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Re: IN> What Demons are Really After Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation IN> More Morals Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation IN> The IN Crowd RE: IN> More Morals Re: IN> More Morals Re: IN> What Demons are Really After IN> Re: What Demons Really Want IN> Posession and resonances... RE:IN> Moral Ambiguity IN> Reliever of Creation ... Re: IN> Reliever of Creation ... Re: RE:IN> Moral Ambiguity RE: IN> Reliever of Creation ... Re: IN> Posession and resonances... Re: IN> Reliever of Creation ... Re: IN> Posession and resonances... Re: IN> Reliever of Creation ... IN> Campaign write-ups RE: RE:IN> Moral Ambiguity Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 09:29:09 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Virtual Tethers > > So if > >someone tries to bring people to their destiny via IRC <...> > > Yes but really, how likely is that? :) > Considering that most of IRC consists of channels like #BSDM and #HotRearAction, not particularly likely. Destiny would have their work cut out for them just trying to get people to communicate in something that has a passive resemblance to English. IRC -- not a good place to hook up with angels. Shuggoths, maybe, but not angels. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 09:42:27 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Azrael wrote: > > > The argument is over why she was rewarded. > > I didn't know that Uriel was female, is this canon or just > speculation? Since gender is a matter of wardrobe, for celestials, I think it's just a fashion statement. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 09:47:33 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Virtual Tethers How about this? -- Cyberspace Tethers run from the Celestial to the Ethereal. Cyberspace is a (very new) region of the Ethereal, out in the Far Marches, but not very far out. The kick is that, though the Tether doesn't touch the Corporeal Plane, it can be *accessed* from the Corporeal. You can, for instance, ascend by logging into the Tether website, then using the Dreamwalker attunement or equivalent Song as if the terminal were a sleeping mortal and the Tether were their dreamscape. Your vessel then dozes off over the keyboard, you pop into the Ethereal end of the Tether, ascend, and your vessel vanishes. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 10:16:06 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> What Demons are Really After Matt W. wrote: > The want to just create evil does *not* drive a demon. The selfish > desire for a better life than the rest of my peers and to remain > intact and breathing, that is what drives them. Demons aren't evil. > They are just self-centered and selfish. To be "self-centered and selfish" *is* to be evil, in all the major ethical systems of the world. Even something anti-theistic and deliberately rebellious like Objectivism, which talks of the "virtue of selfishness," does not approve exploiting others for your own gain, which is certainly the degree of selfishness of most demons. You seem to think that "evil" is a desire to wreak havoc for its own sake. That desire is very rare, and is not the cause of most of the obvious evil in the world. In Christian ethical theory, which stands in the background of IN, "selfishness" is very close to the basic nature of evil. According to St. Augustine, one of the first Christian ethical philosophers, evil is not a drive in itself, but a distortion of a good thing -- it is taking the *legitimate* drive of self-interest and wrongly putting it ahead of the interest of everyone else. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 08:29:30 -0700 From: "Ben Glickler" Subject: Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation > Of course, there are a lot of other ways of shoving him in. Any ideas? So, you're basically saying Lucifer is an Elohite of Stone? :-) In the In Nomine universe, it's probably far better to leave the accusing/testing up to the Malakim and the Stonies. Tinkering this much with Lucifer dramatically alters the playing field. Of course, if you're running on a heavily Judaic game, you could have God, his Archangels, and his angels in a war against the ethereal gods. Uriel's crusade probably would not have happened; angels would spend a lot of time defending Israel; pagan gods would be working hard to subvert humanity (or fighting against an oppressive God for a right to be worshipped); angels could never, ever Fall. I imagine Christianity would confuse the angels (or they would be confused by the refusal of Israel to accept it), and Islam would really drive them nuts. What was Gabriel thinking?! Alternatively, since Islam was a nicer religion for the Jews to live under than Christianity, it may have been a divine *plan*, until very recently, when Things Went Very Wrong. > = Matt W = > + Balseraph of Dark Humor + Ben ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 99 07:33:27 EST From: merchantaccount@proview.com Subject: IN> INCREASE BUSINESS SALES! HELLO: THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR TELECHARGE MERCHANT ACCOUNT. IF YOU HAVE NO INTEREST IN THIS INFORMATION, PLEASE CLICK DELETE. THANK YOU. 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They must be a US citizen with a checking account held in a US bank, cannot be on the terminated merchant file list, or ever convicted of credit card related fraud or financial related felony. For application and more detailed information, please call 24hrs 1-888-588-3715. Remember most purchases are made by creditcard. I have used Telecharge for over 2 years and my sales increased over 40% the first month! I WILL PERSONALLY GIVE YOU THE BEST MERCHANT ACCOUNT RATES AVAILABLE! WE ALSO OFFER OTHER TYPES OF MERCHANT ACCOUNTS. ACT NOW! ACT WITHIN THE NEXT 14 DAYS AND RECEIVE $25.00 OFF ANY MERCHANT ACCOUNT. Thank for your time and consideration. if we have reached you in error, and you would like to be removed re@dcemail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 08:39:21 -0700 From: "Ben Glickler" Subject: Re: IN> Virtual Tethers > How about this? -- Cyberspace Tethers run from the Celestial to > the Ethereal. Cyberspace is a (very new) region of the Ethereal, > out in the Far Marches, but not very far out. This makes an awful lot of sense. Online chatrooms, websites, and the like have changed the way many people think and dream, and when you change the way people think and dream, you're rewriting the Ethereal plane. How much essence do you think has been invested, for good or ill, on various chatrooms? And have you ever dreamed in ascii? No, eBay didn't crash; it was attacked by a group of Ethereal bandits. It would, of course, require a greater friendship between Jean and Blandine. And I bet Nybbas, Beleth and Vapula are all very interested in this phenomenon. One could name a major webpage or two that Nybbas has his hands in. I wonder how many Forces the Demon of ICQ is worth... ...and Linux doesn't use daemons for nothing. :-) "There's no time! We have to bring the server down *now!*" > Earl Ben ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 10:43:10 -0500 From: John Karakash Subject: Re: IN> Virtual Tethers (was Re: Boom) Walter Milliken wrote: > > At 20:15 -0500 12/7/99, Benjamin Acosta wrote: > >Are Virtual Tethers possible? > > I suspect the Tether itself would center on the database forming the web > site (or even page); since this could be replicated on many caches, it > would probably either wander randomly among them, or *all* the copies would > be part of the Tether (basically making it forked at the corporeal end, > rather than the other end). In the latter case, any individual copy would > probably be a *very* weak Tether. I think the best bet would be whoever has the 'best' connection. Sorta like there's a natural tether in the biggest hurricane(?) on the planet (and Jupiter's Red Spot when there are no storms on the planet). - -- +============================================= + John Karakash - geek, writer, cook + Code mangler for EMC CLARiiON + mib2300 +============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 10:41:26 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation Ben Glickler wrote: > I imagine Christianity would confuse the angels (or they would be > confused by the refusal of Israel to accept it) If it's IN where Judaism is simply true (or very close to true), the angels won't be confused by Israel's refusal to accept Christianity. I'd imagine they'd regard it as many Jews do -- a paganizing heresy of Judaism, compromising monotheism with its divine messiah. Laurence and Dominic would have to be re-written some. At the very least, Laurence would have to favor Catholicism for utilitarian reasons, rather than because he believes it to be true, or he'd have to be very eccentric for believing it to be true. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 07:44:09 -0800 (PST) From: Wade Trupke Subject: IN> Re: IN:> Eli's Angels From: "Wade Hursman" >Do Angels of Creation in service to any other >Superior, get the choir >attunement for that Archangel automatically? Or >do they have to earn it? It's my understanding that such a character is still a Servitor of Creation, and, as such, would need to do something special in order to get any attunement, rite, or distinction from his/her/its/hir current 'boss'. That's how we play it in our (infrequently run) campaign, where my Ofanite of Creation in service of the Wind would love to get that '80 mph wind' rite from Janus. Wade (err... the other Wade, I guess) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one place. Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 11:26:28 -0500 (EST) From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Richard Gant wrote: >On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Azrael wrote: > >> > The argument is over why she was rewarded. >> >> I didn't know that Uriel was female, is this canon or just speculation? > >Uriel is a sexless being. Just like all of the other Archangels, Angels, >Demons, and Demon Princes (except Lilith, who was created female). They >don't typically identify themselves as either sex, since that's a human >condition. The only reason we do is because "it" sounds wrong. (Try it >out: "The argument is over why it was rewarded.") > >I suspect that Neel referred to Uriel as female for the heck of it. Basically, yeah. In C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy there's some speculation about gender among the angels. There, angels might be 'masculine' or 'feminine' without actually having any sex; they could have the archetypal characteristics of the feminine or masculine. This idea was at the back of my brain during campaign gen, and even though the angels IMC were really sexless (and could and did appear in any sex vessel they wanted), I used this idea to help personalize the archangels. Uriel reminded me somewhat of Artemis from Greek myth, and so got tagged as a she. Neel ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 08:49:14 -0700 From: "Ben Glickler" Subject: Re: IN> What Demons are Really After Being selfish and self-centered -- and not caring about humans around them, making them sociopathic -- is a pretty bad combination. Add to this dissonance conditions based on their band, and you've got some pretty nasty entities. It's a hard sell to prove that Habbalah, Shedim, Calabim and Balseraphs aren't evil. It's hard to prove that Impudites aren't really close to being evil. > = Matt W = > ++ Seraph of Revelation ++ Ben ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 10:48:05 EST From: MarkDEddy@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation In a message dated 12/7/99 10:21:29 PM, si2au@onr.com writes: >Of course, there are a lot of other ways of shoving him in. Any ideas? > >= Matt W = >+ Balseraph of Dark Humor + > Actually, the easiest way is to use the Adversary's title, which is *not* Lucifer. It's Satan (Shai'tan is the Arabic, IIRC). The Adversary existed in my game as an Elohite of Judgment, but you could make him an Archangel as well. I'm going to go into a speech that I've repeated at least twice in the past, so bear with me. Lucifer is not Satan. The Light One and the Adversary are two different entities in the source text (what those of us who are Christians refer to as the Old Testament of the Bible). The Adversary, who has a starring role in Job, is heaven's prosecuting attorney, and does a very good job of it. Lucifer, a Latinate translation of the term 'Son of the Morning' from Isaiah, is a thoroughly fallen creature, described as being the 'King of Tyre,' a former 'Guardian Cherub,' who once 'walked among the Heavenly Lights' (the latter two terms are described as being of uncertain meaning in the Hebrew). My thesis as to the identity of the 'Son of the Morning' is based on an interesting archaeological note: Tyre, at the rough time period Isaiah was writing, had no kings, only princes. There was only one being described as a king in Tyre, Moloch (Molekh?), the King of Fire, and head of the pantheon of Tyre. There is evidence that children were sacrificed to Moloch by being burned (in all fairness, the children could have been dead of natural causes before immolation) in a furnace which was built into the image of Moloch in his main temple in Tyre. But to bring this kicking and screaming back to topic, I think that the In Nomine universe could probably deal with an Angel of Temptation, Satan, who isn't necessarily actually fallen, or even in danger of falling. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 11:24:46 -0500 From: "J. Michael Smith" Subject: IN> More Morals Yeah, well, time to ramble some more. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how many In Nomine GM's don't like the ambiguity stuff. Let me just tell you where I'm coming from, both as a GM and with my players though: My players and I are, to put it mildly, irreverent-towards orthodox religion and in general. As people, they'll listen to good advice, but they won't take orders from X simply because X is in charge (although they will listen when I make a ruling as a GM, thankfully.) They also aren't power gamers. This shows up in their characters, our play time, and the way I run the game in general. I'm starting up a human centered campaign now-the most mixed group I've ever had with a demon, an angel, two humans, and a soldier. The mix was my request. (My reasons need to be kept relatively confidential as some of my players read this list.) I thought at the time, "Shit, who wants to play a lousy human in that group?" The first player to make a character made a human. I also have a very interesting Soldier/Djinn relationship. I have given the soldier's player the option of starting with either six or seven forces-whether or not she would like to enter the campaign as a rookie or as a veteran. She still hasn't decided yet. My players simply don't like it when I use the "Angels are good because they're angels" line. They like it more when that's the party line, but it isn't always true. I like it more too. I read a lot of Spawn (Undead essentially goes grey renegade), Preacher (Man on a search for God-so he can have a stern word with him about responsibility), Mark Twain (Letters from Earth), and James Marrow-and it works it's way into the game. My views on the greater things have tended to be thus- God-His refusal to stop a war and his general inaction make him as bad as Lucifer. He's too disconnected from the world he created, and no longer really suited for the position of supreme being. He's also a lot less powerful and a lot more vulnerable than the party line, but he's still more powerful than anything else around. Lucifer-Rebelled against God because he (like my players) didn't like the idea of authorities. He saw no connection between being the creator and right to rule. Rebellion occurs as Lucifer's distaste for God's disconnectedness grows. At the time, Lucifer's cause could have been argued as just, but you become what you hate. Lucifer slowly became the image of God that he hated so much, an authority that forces obedience with power. Angels-The selfless servitors of God. They believe, with unwavering faith, that they are on the side of good. They want to do good. Unfortunately, God isn't really giving them advice on how to do this. They're meddling in the dark, and they're making mistakes. The road to hell is too well paved with good intentions. Demons-The irreverent, selfish servitors of Lucifer. Some resent Lucifer as much as Lucifer resented God. But there really isn't enough power to oppose him. And selfish intentions can often bring about selfless results. Some of the smarter demons actively recognize a link between helping others and helping themselves-unfortunately Lucifer and the Demon Princes keep them from really acting out of this form of enlightened self-interest. Humanity-Mostly good but with some evil elements. Humans will probably suffer the most from a war that they don't even choose to have. Oh, and a note on "good" demons-usually they just have enough discipline to properly channel their resonance and dissonance- Calabim channel they're destructive tendencies into "break the bad stuff, break the bad stuff." Habbalah channel they're need to punish the weak into "good people are strong. evil people are weak." Impudites are ruled by the first law of robotics in any case, and best exemplify the "enlightened self-interest" listed above. Lilim are the same way. And don't say that a demon must always follow his base nature and desires. We all have them, and we all have enough discipline to suppress, channel, and control them. The same can be true for demons. Probably more, but I have class... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 12:15:04 -0500 (EST) From: Neel Krishnaswami Subject: Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity Tim Groth wrote: > >On the other hand you can run a campeign where servitors of Gluttony >provide food to the hungry, where Dark Humour points out the problems with >modern society and where Lust, well Lust's just fun. > >Basicly Hell's evil can be presented as secondary to their Rebellion, a >seperation from the morality of Heaven which is probably hypocritical (why >say they are special and forbid them this?). They will still be selfish >but they will have the capacity to actually truly like some people. There was a demon of the Game IMC who argued that Hell was full of evil people only because the Lord had stacked the deck. She claimed that Hell was trapped in a war with Heaven, and since God took the souls of the good (angels and humans), the Pit had to make do with the bad. So if there was a human with a great Destiny and a terrible Fate, the damned had to make sure he designed biological weapons instead of curing cancer simply to make sure he ended up in Hell -- otherwise his talent was lost to them. And the Game was cruel because God had filled Hell with monsters and madmen, and the only way to control them and keep them from ruining the chances of the true rebels was the rigor of the Game. She would agree that this was all very bad -- but we already live in an unjust universe, and that means that sometimes injustice is the only way to make a better world. - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 12:11:39 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Lucifer, Archangel of Temptation Very interesting data about Lucifer = Moloch. Thank you. MarkDEddy@aol.com wrote: > The Adversary, who has a starring role in Job, is heaven's > prosecuting attorney, and does a very good job of it. Just to keep the Adversary/Satan from looking too angelic, here are a couple of things I've heard about the Adversary position in a mortal court of ancient Israel: The standard court situation was a hearing held at the city gates before the ruler of the city, and was a civil trial rather than a criminal case. The ruler of the city acted as both judge and as defense. This is the position metaphorically held by God -- ruler and judge, but also defender. The adversary is the plaintiff in the case, acting as his own attorney. Thus he is someone setting himself in opposition to both the defendant and the defense council, and he is someone with a grudge against the defendant. The defendant is humanity, in the metaphor, and the adversary is, of course, the Adversary, ha Satan. So "Satan" in the root metaphor is not just an impartial D.A. He is someone arguing against the ruler/judge/defender (=God) because he has a grievance against the defendant (=us). The metaphor is still legal, not military, but Satan is still something more like an enemy of God and Man. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 11:25:08 -0600 From: "Greg Bilbruck" Subject: IN> The IN Crowd Hello, I just wanted to introduce myself to the IN crowd (sorry... it's a bad pun but I had to get your attention). My name is Greg Bilbruck and I have just been introduced to In Nomine. I was scanning the late-night game lists at WebRPG last week and popped into a quaint, little gaming room entitled "In Nomine" (fancy that!). The gentleman in that room told me of the general themes of IN and mentioned that he was preparing a list of interested players for his upcoming Angelic campaign. He pointed me to the IN website and asked me to read "A Bright Dream" and "A Dark Dream" (at http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/Core/). After reading those stories, I *had* to play the game. I played In Nomine last weekend for the first time on WebRPG and I am hooked. I went to Steve Jackson's website on Monday and bought the following four books to start my collection: SJG3301 1 In Nomine SJG3320 1 Superiors 1 SJG3307 1 Angelic Player's Guide SJG3312 1 Liber Canticorum I'm tracking that UPS package hourly... I can't wait until it arrives! I HUNGER to play the game. *** My Quest *** To find more In Nomine Angelic Campaigns. Sorry diabolical fans... I enjoy smiting evil. If you have an open slot in your Angelic on/line campaign (or local campaign if you live near Tulsa, Oklahoma), please send me an Email message. *** My Challenge to you *** Evangelize In Nomine!!! Get new players involved in the game through on/line forums like WebRPG. The more copies of IN that SJG sells, the more supportive they shall lend to the In Nomine product line. *** A Plug *** If you haven't tried WebRPG, consider it. It's a great place to meet and play RPG's over the Internet (with options like: room chatting, whispering, dice macros, private dicing to the GM, maps, miniatures, online character sheets, etc.). You can download the program for free at www.webrpg.com. To those at SJG... BRAVO!!!! GREAT GAME!!!! Keep up the good work!!! Best wishes, Greg Bilbruck corporeal vessel for Gregory, Seraph servitor of War and Angelic Evangelist of In Nomine (Hey, don't look at me that way... I'm a Seraph so you know that I must be speaking the truth! :) aka ++ Holy Avenger ++ (at WebRPG) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 12:20:23 -0600 From: "Greg Bilbruck" Subject: RE: IN> More Morals My views on the greater things have tended to be thus- God-His refusal to stop a war and his general inaction make him as bad as Lucifer. He's too disconnected from the world he created, and no longer really suited for the position of supreme being. ************************************* In Nomine is a fanatasy game and you have a right to decide how to interpret all of the characters in your campaign (God included). However... this stance about God's indifference seems illogical. Observations/Assumptions: * Ancient religious texts seem to indicate that God made us so that he could have fellowship with beings that were created "in His image" * Being made "in His image" can not possibly mean that God has two eyes, a nose, two ears, and a mouth... for an infinite God would not be limited by a physical description. * Instead, being made "in His image" must mean that we have been given freedom of choice and minor creation abilities (in the form of reproduction). It seems illogical that God would intervene every time that He disagrees with what humans do on this planet (to quote you: "His refusal to stop a war and his general inaction"). If God intervened whenever we made poor decisions, we wouldn't be free... at best we would be sheep restricted to one pasture... at worst we would be mindless robots. Whichever is the case... we wouldn't have freedom of choice (which seems to be the most fundamental trait of being made in the image of God). Just my 2 shillings... Greg Bilbruck ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 12:32:49 -0700 From: "Ben Glickler" Subject: Re: IN> More Morals > My views on the greater things have tended to be thus- > God-His refusal to stop a war and his general inaction make him as bad > as Lucifer. He's too disconnected from the world he created, and no > longer really suited for the position of supreme being. > > ************************************* > > In Nomine is a fanatasy game and you have a right to decide how to interpret > all of the characters in your campaign (God included). [ snipped theological comments ] More importantly, in terms of the In Nomine game itself, while God is ineffable and aloof, the Seraphim Council most certainly is not. Furthermore, there are Archangels who simply want to better humanity. Novalis. Eli. David, in his own way. Yves. If you wish to inflect your own rebelliousness against religion and authority in the game, you need to do some moderate rewriting of many of the Archangels. On the other hand, I like to use the game to explore this rebelliousness. The reason many people dislike insititutions of authority or religion are hypocricy and corruption -- interestingly, the two traits of Hellish leadership. In Nomine is a nice game because authority is not defined as necessarily corrupt. When you work for Laurence, you know you're working for the good guy. Unless, of course, you rewrite him. Ben ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 13:43:39 -0000 From: "Liam Astley" Subject: Re: IN> What Demons are Really After From: Matt W. > The want to just > create evil does *not* drive a demon. except, of course, for shedim liam ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 13:19:55 -0800 From: "Glenn D. Brown" Subject: IN> Re: What Demons Really Want Matt W. suggests that while Lucifer and the Princes are EVIL, the average Joe six pack demon just wants to survive and be relatively more comfortable while he's doing it. IMHO, this is a dichotomy that isn't supported by canon. According to the section on the Demonic Mind in the IPG, all demons, including Lucifer, are taking an enormous gamble by opposing God. That's why the two primary factors which make up the demonic mindset are the need for self preservation and the need for self deception about their chances of surviving. The Princes are as driven by the struggle for survival as any other demon. After all, the GPG points out that there are more dead demon princes than living ones. Lucifer believes in evolution, and that the struggle for power only begins when you become a Prince. The moral difference between a Prince and the average demon isn't qualitative, its quantitative. Both Princes and ordinary Demons are motivated by selfishness. The difference is one of scale. Great and powerful beings motivated by selfishness can produce great evils. Small and comparatively weak beings motivated by selfishness produce smaller evils. According to canon, the reason Saminga wants to create Zombie Earth isn't because he follows some profound philosophy of Evil created by Lucifer, its because he prefers zombies to humans because zombies do what he tells them to do, and humans don't. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 08:23:02 +1100 From: Chris Rose Subject: IN> Posession and resonances... Hey gang .. If a human is possessed (Song of posession/Kyriotate/Shedite), who's information shows up when they get resonanced ? (eg: Shedite posesses human, Mercurian resonances human and rolls check digit 6 - Does the resonance inform the Mercurian that this person has a wife who he loves very much and 2.3 kids who adore him, or that he fears his Prince and has Gamesters on his tail ?) Got a Mercurian in my game who's about to go up against a Shedite of Corruption, and she's very wily with her resonance checks ... Thanks Chris Chris Ofanite of Lightning Angel of Phone Tech Support "Do What Thou Wilt, but Be Cool" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 15:46:46 -0600 From: "Trent" Subject: RE:IN> Moral Ambiguity "The main book writes 'em up as the biggest Lucifer-worshippers." I guess you are trying to suggest that Lucifer is a bad guy? Sigh. Trent Ofanite of Doubt Doubt Everything and what you have left is the Truth. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 08:42:30 +1100 From: Chris Rose Subject: IN> Reliever of Creation ... Do Relievers have dissonance conditions? If not, how (if at all) does a Reliever of Creation get Dissonance ? (If not at all, I'm gonna use the Young Angel rules from the APG, and make up a Reliever of Creation, and _never_ fledge .. he just realises he has soooooooo much free will teh way he is ... and an 8 force reliever is pretty tough anyway ...) Chris Ofanite of Lightning Angel of Phone Tech Support "Do What Thou Wilt, but Be Cool" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 15:03:18 -0700 From: Tim Groth Subject: Re: IN> Reliever of Creation ... Relivers just have their Superiors dissonance condition. They lack a resonance to give them a forced nature. A related question, is a Superior needed to fledge or just the 9th Force? Timothy, Angel of Rambling If you have a hankering for waffles or chicken i know the place for you: http://d106-h032.rh.rit.edu/~tim/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 15:07:37 -0700 From: "Ben Glickler" Subject: Re: RE:IN> Moral Ambiguity > "The main book writes 'em up as the biggest Lucifer-worshippers." > > I guess you are trying to suggest that Lucifer is a bad guy? Sigh. I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not -- but the excellently-written Game Master's Guide is very clear on Lucifer's evil. > Trent Ofanite of Doubt Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 09:10:32 +1100 From: "Leath Sheales" Subject: RE: IN> Reliever of Creation ... Chris wrote: > (If not at all, I'm gonna use the Young Angel rules from the APG, > and make > up a Reliever of Creation, and _never_ fledge .. he just realises he has > soooooooo much free will teh way he is ... and an 8 force reliever is > pretty tough anyway ...) How's he going to get a vessel? Eli isn't around much and any Superior who is going to invest in a vessel for a Reliever (who isn't bound as a amiliar, of course), is going to expect the Reliever to fledge *real soon*. If the little spirit doesn't, the Superior will take the vessel off it and give it to someone else with more 'potential'. Relievers don't have any Dissonance conditions, but neither do they have a Resonance. Also, by the time a Reliever has reached 8 Forces, their personality has pretty much shown what Choir they'll fledge as, and they're probably looking forward to it. In summary, if it was my game, any Superior who gave you a vessel would be expecting you to spend most of your XP on getting that last Force. If you weren't, depending on the Superior they may simply think you're shy and stick the Force on you as encouragement. Leath. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 17:12:22 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Posession and resonances... At 16:23 -0500 12/8/99, Chris Rose wrote: >Hey gang .. > >If a human is possessed (Song of posession/Kyriotate/Shedite), who's >information shows up when they get resonanced ? I thought this was in the FAQ, but it's not, at least directly. There might be a clarification in the IPG's Shedim section. There is a FAQ entry on Seraphim of Yves for this, though -- they get *both* names. I would generally say that on a CD of 6+, a Mercurian would certainly get the information that the person was possessed; I'd probably give data on both the host and Shedite. For lower CDs, there might be more ambiguity in the results; I wouldn't give much of a hint for a CD 1, for example. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 17:17:27 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Reliever of Creation ... At 16:42 -0500 12/8/99, Chris Rose wrote: >Do Relievers have dissonance conditions? Certainly not Choir ones, they may not have a dissonance condition for the Superior they serve, either -- I don't recall if it's become hard & fast canon that dissonance is linked to having a Heart. >(If not at all, I'm gonna use the Young Angel rules from the APG, and make >up a Reliever of Creation, and _never_ fledge .. he just realises he has >soooooooo much free will teh way he is ... and an 8 force reliever is >pretty tough anyway ...) Well, that's possible, but he's probably also giving up access to Rites, Choir Attunements, and having a Heart. That's a fairly reasonable trade-off. And he'll likely get flack about playing Peter Pan, instead of taking on more responsibility -- even Creationers see that as important, I'd say. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 18:10:17 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Posession and resonances... At 8:23 AM +1100 12/9/99, Chris Rose wrote: >Hey gang .. > >If a human is possessed (Song of posession/Kyriotate/Shedite), who's >information shows up when they get resonanced ? Song of Possession -- the possessor's data. The possesser is wearing the vessel/body like a suit. The human ain't there. Kyrio -- ditto. Shedite.... The Shedite is in control, so I'd say it _tends_ to be the one who gets resonanted on. (The human is generally going along with what the Shedite says, on autopilot.) You could give her doubled resonance results -- "He's Alex Jones. And Arglebrak. At the same time." That might at least drive her mildly nuts trying to figure out how to get Arglebrak out of people's heads. (Malphan Shedim, however, drive the hostmind entirely away -- I'd figure it's _definitely_ the Shedite who gets hit with resonances...) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 18:15:12 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Reliever of Creation ... At 8:42 AM +1100 12/9/99, Chris Rose wrote: >Do Relievers have dissonance conditions? If they're A: bound to a Superior. (Reliever of X.) Or B: a familiar. (And maybe not even with A, if you go by the theory that dissonance is contained in Hearts. If you haven't heard that one, I'll ramble about it later.) >If not, how (if at all) does a Reliever of Creation get Dissonance ? If he's a familiar. Otherwise, hey, be cool! Why should kids have to be restricted? >(If not at all, I'm gonna use the Young Angel rules from the APG, and make >up a Reliever of Creation, and _never_ fledge .. Peter Pan syndrome... O;> At 3:03 PM -0700 12/8/99, Tim Groth wrote: >A related question, is a Superior needed to fledge or just the 9th Force? Depends on the GM. I would say just the 9th Force... - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 00:19:55 +0000 (GMT) From: Rhodri James Subject: IN> Campaign write-ups Those interested in such things (i.e. session write-ups) might like to take a peek at http://www.wildebst.demon.co.uk/RPGs/ wherein my deathless (or at least undead) prose may be found. This was what my particular group of reprobates did with my poor innocent scenario over the summer; sadly because of various commitments we won't be starting up again until at least Easter. Apologies to everyone from whom I've theived -- er, drawn inspiration -- especially to Maya for turning Etecius into a stuffy Elohite of Lightning! - -- Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste herder to the masses If you don't know who I work for, you can't misattribute my words to them ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 18:31:00 -0600 From: "Trent" Subject: RE: RE:IN> Moral Ambiguity "I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not -- but the excellently-written Game Master's Guide is very clear on Lucifer's evil." Wrong. Unless the section changed radically during playtest there should be all kinds of ways of portraying Lucifer including with Style, Pride, Deviousness, Humor, Sympathy, and yes even Evil in the section tilted Lucifer's Personality (page 112). But Evil is no more of a requirement than Humor. Trent Ofanite of Doubt ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Dec 99 10:40:56 PST From: "Azrael" Subject: Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity > Uriel is a sexless being. Just like all of the other Archangels, Angels, > Demons, and Demon Princes (except Lilith, who was created female). They > don't typically identify themselves as either sex, since that's a human > condition. Well they do identify with one particular sex, and they express preference for vessels/appearences in this sex, i.e. Novalis, Yves, David. It is the sex that we associate with them, I was asking is this the official canon view ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Dec 99 11:04:22 PST From: "Azrael" Subject: Re: IN> Moral Ambiguity - ---------- > > "The main book writes 'em up as the biggest Lucifer-worshippers." (Calabim) Er, no the main book writes up Shedim as the biggest Lucifer worshippers. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1453 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1999 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.