From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Jan 20 11:45:04 2000 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 LAA30400 for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:45:04 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id LAA06973 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:36:16 -0600 Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:36:16 -0600 Message-Id: <200001201736.LAA06973@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 #1502 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 Thursday, January 20 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1502 In this digest: Re: IN> Infinity Re: IN> Infinity IN> Those Krazy Kyrios! Re: IN> Infinity IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Galactica, and IN Space Thoughts Re: IN> Galactica, and IN Space Thoughts Re: IN> Infinity Re: IN> Those Krazy Kyrios! Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris Re: IN> Galactica, and IN Space Thoughts Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> What if In Nomine were true? Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> IN: Infinity Re: IN> Infinity Re: IN> Infinity Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Movies Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris Re: IN> IN: Infinity Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Movies Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris Re: IN> IN: Infinity Re: IN> Lilim are Demons Re: IN> IN: Infinity Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 05:20:46 PST From: "Erich Arendall" Subject: Re: IN> Infinity >From: David Edelstein >Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > However, in my own private "someday I wanna do this" notion involving > > Yrth (the GURPS Fantasy world), I postulated that the alternate world > > was "clean" -- no Princes, no Archangels, no Lucifer. No >interventionist> God. No ethereal gods. > >If you do that, you'll be establishing canonically that God is *not* the >omnipotent creator of the universe. > >-David I'll concede that in In Nomine canon God is the creator of the universe (and we'll make him omnipotent, too). The question is if God is the omnipotent creator of the multiverse? Did He in fact create every instance of every universe? ...Which probably wouldn't be a bad IN hook for a game. This makes Beth's Yrth idea sound imminently appealing. I may have to move sooner than I thought. :) - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Impudite of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, servitor of Kronos - ------------------------- Foaming at the Mouth http://rpg.net/news+reviews/sprite.html Touched by an Impudite http://www.insync.net/~sprite/ - ---------------------------- ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 05:28:26 PST From: "Erich Arendall" Subject: Re: IN> Infinity >From: "Erich Arendall" >>From: David Edelstein >>Elizabeth McCoy wrote: >> > However, in my own private "someday I wanna do this" notion involving >> > Yrth (the GURPS Fantasy world), I postulated that the alternate world >> > was "clean" -- no Princes, no Archangels, no Lucifer. No >>interventionist> God. No ethereal gods. >> >>If you do that, you'll be establishing canonically that God is *not* the >>omnipotent creator of the universe. >> >>-David > >I'll concede that in In Nomine canon God is the creator of the universe >(and >we'll make him omnipotent, too). The question is if God is the omnipotent >creator of the multiverse? Did He in fact create every instance of every >universe? ...Which probably wouldn't be a bad IN hook for a game. > Having read further down the posts I see that this question has already been covered. Please ignore & return to your regular reading. - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Impudite of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, servitor of Kronos - ------------------------- Foaming at the Mouth http://rpg.net/news+reviews/sprite.html Touched by an Impudite http://www.insync.net/~sprite/ - ---------------------------- ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 05:45:51 PST From: "Erich Arendall" Subject: IN> Those Krazy Kyrios! Okay, here's a question I've had to answer on the fly recently... I'm just curious to see if my answer was canon or not. Say Kyriotate A were to take a 3 Force person over (Kyrio A also has a 1 Force kitty and a 4 Force human elsewhere). Then, Kyriotate B comes along and (after a contest of will between A & B) takes the same person over. The question is, what happens to A's 3 Forces? Do they pop up into the Marches (which is what I did), are they shoved outside of the body to stare stupidly at it in Celestial form, or are those Forces right back with the others? Thanks! - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Impudite of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, servitor of Kronos - ------------------------- Foaming at the Mouth http://rpg.net/news+reviews/sprite.html Touched by an Impudite http://www.insync.net/~sprite/ - ---------------------------- ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 05:49:02 PST From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> Infinity >From: "Erich Arendall" > The question is if God is the omnipotent >creator of the multiverse? Did He in fact create every instance of every >universe? Hee. If not, then the Purity crusade will have to work overtime. Give all prospective worlds the 'purity' test, and if they fail, destroy them as not being part of God's plan :) jo ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 14:11:03 GMT From: "Krowe _" Subject: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming I have two problems that I want to toss out to you all and see what becomes of them. I have two very nicely written up characters for an upcoming IN game that are giving me a bit of a headache. The first is a Cherub of Purity who is one of the Tsayadim. I once wrote up the Tsayadim as a Minor Choir, but have come to the conclusion that it makes better sense for being Tsayadim to be a Distinction. My problem comes from what this Distinction should grant. I can fudge it by saying it gives this character an ability similar to a Cherub of Judgement, but that's a quick fix. I'm looking for any more detailed ideas you may have that would make sense for any Choir. The second is an Ofanite of Stone who was once a Servant of Magog, when he was the Angel of Fortitude. Has anyone written up stats on a pre-Cruelty Magog? I want to give him access to an Attunement or two and maybe a few Rites. Any ideas would be appreciated. - --Krowe ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:15:53 -0500 From: neelk@cswcasa.com Subject: Re: IN> Galactica, and IN Space Thoughts Gregory Gietzen wrote: > Walter Milliken" wrote: > >> I strongly suspect this would break relativity theory in some >> way, no matter what you did, and I don't even want to think >> about how to fix it.... > > I've been musing on this too, because this just shatters causality > all to Hell. The decision I had to come to was that the game > presupposes that physics-as-currently-understood-on-Earth is either > wrong or incomplete, in that God & angels & demons exist in the > celestial realm, etc. As such, you play the game at the risk of > having a coherent (again, as we know it) in-game system of physics. IMC, Disturbance was the result of angels and demons violating the laws of (meta)physics. They were not native to the physical universe, and their powers and existence here violated physical laws. This is why even though Heaven greatly outmatched Hell in terms of raw power, only as many angelic agents were sent to Earth as were needed to counter infernal activities -- too much celestial presence was bad for the structure of reality. Furthermore, the weird stuff prophecied in the Revelation of St. John the Divine was a literal description of what would happen at the end of time; when the forces of Heaven and Hell pulled out all the stops and went into the world in full force all the natural laws would break down. - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@cswcasa.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:27:33 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Galactica, and IN Space Thoughts Walter Milliken wrote: > If celestials can get around or communicate faster than light, then > maybe human FTL technology would be some form of celestial tech. > Can't you just see angels and demons cursing all the starships taking > the shortcut through the celestial realm...? According to what I read on SJG's own playtest files for GURPS New Sun, this is rather the situation in that setting. "Hyperspace" is called "Yesod," which is the cabalistic term for the world-behind-the-world, and Yesod contains a single solar-system-sized "ship" (also called "Yesod"), inhabited by beings with names taken from angel lore. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 08:35:50 -0800 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Infinity Erich Arendall wrote: > I'll concede that in In Nomine canon God is the creator of the universe (and > we'll make him omnipotent, too). Well, actually, in In Nomine canon that is an open question. > The question is if God is the omnipotent> creator of the multiverse? Look up the meaning of "omnipotent." - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 08:39:18 -0800 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Those Krazy Kyrios! Erich Arendall wrote: > Say Kyriotate A were to take a 3 Force person over (Kyrio A also has a 1 > Force kitty and a 4 Force human elsewhere). Then, Kyriotate B comes along > and (after a contest of will between A & B) takes the same person over. Actually, it wouldn't be a Contest. Kyriotate A only needs to make his Will roll to resist Kyriotate B. (Same applies when Shedim and Kyriotates are contesting possession of someone.) > The> question is, what happens to A's 3 Forces? Do they pop up into the Marches > (which is what I did), are they shoved outside of the body to stare stupidly > at it in Celestial form, or are those Forces right back with the others? They don't "go" anywhere...Kyriotate A is simply left possessing one less host, with 3 Forces he can now allocate elsewhere. Unless that host was his *last* host, in which case he will manifest in celestial form above the host he was recently evicted from. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:33:11 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris Azrael wrote: > Yeah, Kinda, all humans (possibly most animals, I don't know) begin > as female, with the female set of gonads etc..., then due to the > presence of the Y chromosome (if it is a "strong" enough) and the > hormones it produces the male "set" develops. So probably they are > contained in the Dna of your average human. I think that rule applies to all mammals, but I'm not sure it goes any further. Birds, for instance, have a system of AA and AB chromosomes, and the AA is the male. Also, I believe the embryonic gonads are undifferentiated, not female. If the embryo is genetically male, but something goes wrong so that it fails to produce male hormones, or fails to react to its own male hormones, the gonads then differentiate as female. I think. But I really wouldn't let embryology or DNA coding get in the way of the Song of Form. I don't recall if you can do this, but if you can use Form to disguise your vessel as, say, an aluminum hat-rack, biology isn't much to the point. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:40:40 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Galactica, and IN Space Thoughts Walter Milliken wrote (concerning relativistic Kyrios acting as celestial sub-space radio, to send information faster than light or backward in time): > I strongly suspect this would break relativity theory in some way, no > matter what you did, and I don't even want to think about how to fix > it.... No worse that it's already been broken by quantum mechanics. It's been fairly well established, now, that "quantum entangled" pairs of particles can influence each other instantaneously. The mathematical problem with FTL in relativity is that values for mass, energy, time-interval, and distance start becoming imaginary numbers all over the place. The quantum trick doesn't cause this problem because it doesn't involve a transfer of energy, just of "information" or "influence" or whatever you want to call it. As to the Kyrio trick, I bet it could be done today, if a Kyrio of Jean (which can possess artifacts) managed to possess, say, an ion (arguably an artifact if it was artificially ionized), and ride it through a particle accelerator at near-light speeds for a few hours or days. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 08:48:01 -0800 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Krowe _ wrote: > The first is a Cherub of Purity who is one of the Tsayadim. I once wrote up > the Tsayadim as a Minor Choir, but have come to the conclusion that it makes > better sense for being Tsayadim to be a Distinction. My problem comes from > what this Distinction should grant. If you want to follow canon, then the Tsayadim are neither a Choir nor a Distinction. It's just a name (Hebrew for "Hunters") that's been given to Uriel's Outcast followers. My writeup at http://amadan.org/Innomine/Uriel.htm is not canon -- yet -- but I believe there is a strong likelihood that it will be the core of whatever canon is eventually established. > The second is an Ofanite of Stone who was once a Servant of Magog, when he > was the Angel of Fortitude. Has anyone written up stats on a pre-Cruelty > Magog? I want to give him access to an Attunement or two and maybe a few > Rites. Rites stop working if the celestial who gave them has been destroyed, Fallen, or redeemed, so any Fortitude Rites Magog gave out before Falling are no more. (Though IIRC, the APG does mention a Malakite Angel of Fortitude who replaced Magog. However, Magog's former Rites wouldn't work through him -- the new Angel of Fortitude would have to bestow new Rites.) As for attunements, having been David's most powerful Word-bound Servitor, it's likely that the Angel of Fortitude was capable of bestowing a Servitor Attunement or two (but _not_ Choir Attunements). Whether they still work is up to you. As described in the GMG, if a Superior dies, Falls, or Redeems, his Attunements *might* still work, for a while, but they might eventually vanish, depending on how the Word does by itself. You could spare yourself a headache as a GM and simply say that since Magog was not a Superior, and he Fell about 3000 years ago, his Attunements have long since "expired." - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:50:28 -0500 (EST) From: jadasc@ma.ultranet.com (Jason Schneiderman) Subject: Re: IN> What if In Nomine were true? >Benjamin Acosta wrote: >> All this talk about personal beliefs on the list has got me >> wondering. What would you do if you found out beyond the shadow of a >> doubt that the content of the various In Nomine books were the actual >> TRUTH? I suppose I'd have to roll up my sleeves and get back to work. Jason Schneiderman, somewhat outcast Demon of Game Review, Balseraph of the Media (P.S. Flavor note: Do you suppose that Nybbasketeers refer to other Princes as 'DPs' the way that corporate folks refer to vice presidents as 'VPs'?) - --- jadasc@ma.ultranet.com (life) werther@hilander.com (play) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 06:50:12 PST From: "Erich Arendall" Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming >From: "Krowe _" >The first is a Cherub of Purity who is one of the Tsayadim. I once wrote up >the Tsayadim as a Minor Choir, but have come to the >conclusion that it makes better sense for being Tsayadim to be a >Distinction. My problem comes from what this Distinction should grant. I >can fudge it by saying it gives this character an ability similar to a >Cherub of Judgement, but that's a quick fix. I'm looking for any more >detailed ideas you may have that would make sense for any Choir. > Hmmm... What kind of choir were the Tsayadim to begin with? Got a write up available anywhere? Also, which Archangel grants the distinction? >The second is an Ofanite of Stone who was once a Servant of Magog, when he >was the Angel of Fortitude. Has anyone written up stats on a pre-Cruelty >Magog? I want to give him access to an Attunement or two and maybe a few >Rites. > Correct me if I'm wrong here, but since Magog was a servitor of Stone, wouldn't all the rites & attunements be David's? - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Impudite of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, servitor of Kronos - ------------------------- Foaming at the Mouth http://rpg.net/news+reviews/sprite.html Touched by an Impudite http://www.insync.net/~sprite/ - ---------------------------- ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:48:30 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> IN: Infinity Gregory Gietzen wrote: > If ANYONE goes back in time, and then returns to their own time, by > definition they have entered an alternate reality. If they did not, > they incur the wrath of Paradox (sorry, Mage: the Ascension there). [...] > The alternative lies in the premise of quantum histories, which > describe an object as the sum of all the POSSIBLE occurrences in > its existence. A third alternative is that anyone going back in time is free to TRY to alter past events, but they are certain to fail. Several SF stories have been written on this premise, and they avoid both parallel timelines and paradox. It's the method we use in the SF RPG I now play in. It's also the conclusion reached, at one point, by Kip Thorne, noted relativity guru, who did a quantum-mechanical analysis of the situation, with a simplified model involving a single particle that drops through a time-twisted wormhole, popping out and colliding with its earlier self, thus preventing it from entering the wormhole. Paradox. Also, in quantum wave mechanics, self-negating interference. So the quantum probabilities adjust so that outcome simply never happens. Celestials wouldn't be constrained by quantum mechanics, but there's still simple consistency. Dramatically, it's frustrating to not change the past when you want to, but, hey, drama thrives on conflict. You also have a prime opening for the old try-to-cheat-the-oracle motif, beloved of so much folklore and mythology. Only this time, the "oracle" is your own knowledge of the future you try to avoid but can't. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 07:06:09 PST From: "Erich Arendall" Subject: Re: IN> Infinity >From: David Edelstein > > The question is if God is the omnipotent> creator of the multiverse? > >Look up the meaning of "omnipotent." > Don't be patronizing. :) All terms are relative, and that includes 'all powerful'. My question was, when concerning God is omnipotent a relative term to this universe or towards the multiverse. One universe is a pretty large space and encompasses quite a bit unto itself. To say that God is the omnipotent creator of the universe is one thing, to say that God is the omnipotent creator of the multiverse is quite another. The former implies that yes, God is the head honcho of this universe, but that there are other universes which may be completely different and have other origins altogether. The latter statement does seem concurrent with canon, though, so this has become more of a defence (or a theological discussion) than a question, although I'd be happy to continue the discussion off-list if anyone else is interested. :) - -Erich S. Arendall "Shadow Sprite" Impudite of Critical Failures at the Worst Possible Time for Players and the Best Time for GMs, servitor of Kronos - ------------------------- Foaming at the Mouth http://rpg.net/news+reviews/sprite.html Touched by an Impudite http://www.insync.net/~sprite/ - ---------------------------- ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 09:29:18 -0800 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Infinity Erich Arendall wrote: > All terms are relative, and that includes 'all powerful'. That's not correct. An absolute is an absolute, by definition. "Relatively omnipotent" is a contradiction in terms. If God is only "all-powerful" in His own little (or big) universe, but not in the rest of reality, then He is not all-powerful. > To say that God is the omnipotent> creator of the universe is one thing, to say that God is the omnipotent> creator of the multiverse is quite another. Obviously. But the whole premise of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being is that He's EVERYWHERE. He created EVERYTHING. He has domain over all of creation. Saying that creation is actually divided up into a multitude of alternate universes, and God is only part of one of them, is saying that God is finite, and therefore not omnipotent. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 10:28:58 -0500 (EST) From: jadasc@ma.ultranet.com (Jason Schneiderman) Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming >If you want to follow canon, then the Tsayadim are neither a Choir nor a >Distinction. It's just a name (Hebrew for "Hunters") that's been given >to Uriel's Outcast followers. Speaking of Hebrew... a little help, perhaps, from those knowledgable. I'm looking for a word that translates to "dolls" or "puppets". The closest I've found is "BuBoT", which sounds a little sillier in English than I'd like. Anything else that's similar? Jason - --- jadasc@ma.ultranet.com (life) werther@hilander.com (play) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 10:46:23 -0500 (EST) From: werther@hilander.com (Jason Schneiderman) Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming >Speaking of Hebrew... a little help, perhaps, from those knowledgable. >I'm looking for a word that translates to "dolls" or "puppets". The closest >I've found is "BuBoT", which sounds a little sillier in English than I'd >like. Anything else that's similar? It occurs to me that the word need not be Hebrew - convincing Latin or Greek would work, too. Singular and plural, if you please. :) Thanks much. Jason ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 10:58:49 EST From: BillionSix@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Movies In a message dated 1/19/00 12:07:09 PM Central Standard Time, esp.horsepie@btinternet.com writes: << chris walken's gabriel - saminga >> Oh, that is so wrong! Saminga is an over the top Overlord style villain! The kind who goes Mwahahahahahaha! for no obvious reason. Don't get me wrong, I love the big, dumb jerk. Chris Walken is just COOL. He's quiet and sinister, and very clever. Not Saminga at all. Reverend Brian A. Rogers ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:09:11 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming At 9:50 -0500 1/20/00, Erich Arendall wrote: >Correct me if I'm wrong here, but since Magog was a servitor of Stone, >wouldn't all the rites & attunements be David's? Not if he were Word-bound -- he'd have Servitor Attunements and Rites he could give out. However, any angelic Magog Rites would be defunct now -- they require the grantor to be there (and, I presume, on the correct side). (To use SJ's analogy of Rites to a telephone number, you'd get a "This number has been disconnected" when using a Rite from a Fallen Word-bound angel. It's fairly clear this must happen, since Rites are Word-related, and Words are lost in a Fall.) Any of Magog's former Servitor Attunements would still work, though. Since he wasn't an Archangel, there wouldn't be any Choir Attunements -- those *would* be from David. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:19:23 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming At 9:11 -0500 1/20/00, Krowe _ wrote: >The first is a Cherub of Purity who is one of the Tsayadim. I once wrote up >the Tsayadim as a Minor Choir, but have come to the conclusion that it makes >better sense for being Tsayadim to be a Distinction. My problem comes from >what this Distinction should grant. As far as I know, it's merely a label, and doesn't give any special abilities. It's just the name for the Purity Servitors who went Outcast in the Marches to continue Uriel's crusade after he was called upstairs. I seem to recall that the Tsayadim retain the Purity ability to avoid Falling (similar to Malakim), but I may be remembering that from David's Uriel writeup on the list -- I'm not sure if that's full canon or not. You'll still need to come up with Uriel's Cherub attunement, and there's no canon one. David has a nice (currently non-canon) writeup of Uriel at http://www.amadan.org/Innomine/Uriel.htm which may be useful. >The second is an Ofanite of Stone who was once a Servant of Magog, when he >was the Angel of Fortitude. Has anyone written up stats on a pre-Cruelty >Magog? I want to give him access to an Attunement or two and maybe a few >Rites. I think there was one posted to the list here in the last month or so, in the flurry of reversed Superiors posts we had. I suggest searching the list archive at SJGames. As I noted in my other post, only Servitor Attunements will still exist; no Rites or Choir Attunements. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:25:45 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris At 9:33 -0500 1/20/00, Earl Wajenberg wrote: >But I really wouldn't let embryology or DNA coding get in the way >of the Song of Form. I was mostly bringing that up as an indication that sex-changes might be *easier* using the Song of Form, since they're more "natural" -- the variation on the theme for the vessel is one that's easy to reach. > I don't recall if you can do this, but if you >can use Form to disguise your vessel as, say, an aluminum hat-rack, >biology isn't much to the point. I probably wouldn't allow that. I'd have to reread the Canticorum version, since I recall that it included some clarifications. If you *can* make such radical changes, then they should be *very* expensive in Essence. I don't think Form was really intended to allow such major changes as even species -- it's more of a hyper-disguise mechanism than anything else. I'd tend to limit it to relatively superficial variations on the existing body structure. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:35:09 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> IN: Infinity At 9:48 -0500 1/20/00, Earl Wajenberg wrote: >A third alternative is that anyone going back in time is free >to TRY to alter past events, but they are certain to fail. Several >SF stories have been written on this premise, and they avoid both >parallel timelines and paradox. It's the method we use in the SF >RPG I now play in. > >It's also the conclusion reached, at one point, by Kip Thorne, noted >relativity guru, who did a quantum-mechanical analysis of the >situation, with a simplified model involving a single particle that >drops through a time-twisted wormhole, popping out and colliding with >its earlier self, thus preventing it from entering the wormhole. >Paradox. Also, in quantum wave mechanics, self-negating interference. >So the quantum probabilities adjust so that outcome simply never >happens. Another variant is the one I use, which also has a quantum-mechanical basis (though definitely not a rigorous one!). I stole the notion from James P. Hogan's book "Thrice Upon a Time". This unifies the "probability universe" model with a single timestream, and is fairly tractable with regards to paradoxes. Basically, all the possible universes exist as solutions to the wave-function, but only one is "real" at a time. Paradoxes in this model would then look similar to a quantum resonance (if I recall the chemistry term right), where a single electron acts like it's associated with multiple atoms at once, but it's really only in a single place when you try to look at it. I.e., in the timestream model, you'd have two "real" universes, but could only observe one at any given "meta-instant". Basically, it would appear to oscillate chaotically, in some sort of weird meta-time. Hogan's book is a useful exploration of the notion, if a bit on the lightweight, fluffy, side. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 08:40:46 PST From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming >From: jadasc@ma.ultranet.com (Jason Schneiderman) >> >Speaking of Hebrew... a little help, perhaps, from those knowledgable. >I'm looking for a word that translates to "dolls" or "puppets". The closest >I've found is "BuBoT", which sounds a little sillier in English than I'd >like. Anything else that's similar? > That's correct. Bubah is a doll; in plural that is bubot (it takes the -ot ending rather that -im, because it's a feminine noun). I've no idea what the word for puppet is, offhand. jo ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 08:41:32 PST From: "Jo Hart" Subject: Re: IN> Movies >From: BillionSix@aol.com >Chris Walken is just COOL. He's quiet and sinister, and very clever. Not >Saminga at all. > I could imagine him as Kobal very easily. jo ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:51:48 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming At 10:46 -0500 1/20/00, Jason Schneiderman wrote: >>Speaking of Hebrew... a little help, perhaps, from those knowledgable. >>I'm looking for a word that translates to "dolls" or "puppets". The closest >>I've found is "BuBoT", which sounds a little sillier in English than I'd >>like. Anything else that's similar? > >It occurs to me that the word need not be Hebrew - convincing Latin or >Greek would work, too. Singular and plural, if you please. :) Thanks much. There's a useful Greek and Latin dictionary online at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/enggreek?lang=Greek (That's the English->Greek URL, substitute "lang=Latin" on the end for the English->Latin lookup.) As near as I can tell from the Perseus data, the only useful word is "neurospastos", which seems to have been borrowed into Latin from the Greek. This is a marionette-style puppet with strings. There are other words that have doll or puppet as a secondary meaning; most of them have "girl" or some variant as the primary meaning. This includes words like "pupa", which I suspect isn't any improvement on "BuBoT".... There are Greek and Latin words specifically meaning "wax doll": plangon in Greek, and planguncula in Latin. (The Latin plural would be plangunculae; I don't know Greek, so I can't give you the plural for that one.) - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:52:14 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris Walter Milliken wrote, concerning using Song of Form to turn your vessel into an aluminum hat-rack: > I probably wouldn't allow that. I'd have to reread the Canticorum > version, since I recall that it included some clarifications. If > you *can* make such radical changes, then they should be *very* > expensive in Essence. > > I don't think Form was really intended to allow such major changes as > even species -- it's more of a hyper-disguise mechanism than anything > else. I'd tend to limit it to relatively superficial variations on > the existing body structure. In other gaming contexts, I've made transformation more expensive or difficult by using taxonomy. It went something like this: 1 - different identity, but same race, age, and sex 2 — different age, sex, or race but the same species (e.g. man to woman, black to white, old to young) 3 — different species but the same class (e.g. human to wolf) 4 — different class but the same phylum (e.g. human to frog) 5 — different phylum but the same kingdom (e.g. human to insect) 6 — different kingdom but the same biosphere (e.g. human to tree) 7 — out of the biosphere (e.g. human to rock or machine or alien) Re-distribute strength, endurance, and agility points to reflect the new shape. Human to aluminum hat-rack would be a #7, the hardest, and presumably you'd pour all your points into endurance (unless you can talk the GM into being an animated hat-rack). Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 11:54:27 -0500 From: Doctor TOC Subject: Re: IN> IN: Infinity Earl Wajenberg wrote: > > A third alternative is that anyone going back in time is free > to TRY to alter past events, but they are certain to fail. Several > SF stories have been written on this premise, and they avoid both > parallel timelines and paradox. It's the method we use in the SF > RPG I now play in. Modesty seems to have prevented Earl from mentioning it's also the approach used in his rather spiffy "Time Riders" supplement for Space Master, which I very highly recommend for anyone even *thinking* of roleplaying time travel in any genre. Though it's been out of print for a while, you can still find it for a reasonable price if you look. It pops up regularly on Ebay too. :-) Doctor TOC - -- The Reverend Doctor "The Other Chris" ICQ # 4814586 Time War RPG - http://jump.to/TimeWar The TOC Files - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/wilhelm/148/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 12:01:28 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Lilim are Demons At 12:16 -0500 1/19/00, Whistling in the Dark wrote: >At 12:00 PM -0500 1/19/00, Earl Wajenberg wrote: >>If Lilith redeemed, maybe she could make only Brights. > >This is my take. I've actually postulated Lilith selling a Lilim to >an Archangel, creating the Lilim on the spot from forces the >Archangel provides, and presenting the Lilim, fresh but still >demonic, for immediate redemption. No money back if the Redemption >fails and the Lilim is destroyed, of course.... This is the way I'm handling it in my campaign. Like a normal Demon Prince, Lilith can't make angels because any Force she manipulates is "tainted" by her nature. So she can't make Brights directly. However, in our (non-canon) "Superior soap opera", she has made a few "proto-Brights" using essentially the process above -- if she starts with "fresh" angelic Forces, the resulting Lilim is more likely to have selfless tendencies. A similar mechanism applies to Lilim created at a Prince's request in our campaign -- Lilith takes Forces directly from the Prince, which leaves a sort of "Word-imprint" on them. Thus, the Lilim created from those Forces has a strong affinity for the Prince and his Word, and is very likely to bind herself to him, when given her choice. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 12:00:00 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> IN: Infinity Doctor TOC wrote: > Modesty seems to have prevented Earl from mentioning it's also the > approach used in his rather spiffy "Time Riders" supplement for Space > Master, which I very highly recommend for anyone even *thinking* of > roleplaying time travel in any genre. Thanks, Dr. TOC; your check is in the mail. > Though it's been out of print for > a while, you can still find it for a reasonable price if you look. It > pops up regularly on Ebay too. :-) That's nice to hear. I wonder what it goes for. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 12:13:36 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Requested Input & Brainstorming Jason Schneiderman wrote: > It occurs to me that the word need not be Hebrew - convincing Latin or > Greek would work, too. I'm not sure what your purpose is, but there's "homunculus," Latin for "little man" and the term for the tiny androids said to be created by alchemists. But I don't think homunculi exhibit the passivity suggested by "puppet" or "doll." The golem (pl. golemim) is, of course, the well-known Hebrew robot with clay hardware and magic software, and it *is* generally without will in the manner of a puppet. If "golem" conveys the wrong image, you could try adding a diminutive suffix or prefix to it -- "golemette," so to speak. I know very little about Hebrew, but I was once trying to coin a Hebrew term for "little angel" (since I don't like the term "reliever"), and my father said: "Diminutives are not used much in Hebrew, and the cases cited in my grammar are rather doubtful. The Hebrew diminutive seems to be the suffix -on, but it is definitely attested only once, in 'ishon, meaning pupil (of the eye) The work seems to be a diminutive of 'ish, man, so that pupil is "mankin" or "little man." So you could use golemon/golemonim, or even ishon/ishonim (the Hebrew equivalent of homunculus/homunculi). Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 10:32:58 -0700 From: Tim Groth Subject: Re: IN> Numinous Corpus Familiaris >I don't think Form was really intended to allow such major changes as >even species -- it's more of a hyper-disguise mechanism than anything >else. I'd tend to limit it to relatively superficial variations on >the existing body structure. Well superficial may be the wrong word, it only changes appearance but it changes those appearances in away as to make it a perfect disguise (ie the gender of the vessel actually changes). This makes it a very good thing that humans can't use celestial songs, as you'd get into the head ache of the sudden psychological changes if an individual became a member of another gender (i'd wager that the hormones would change too because of the equipment and the fact that it says the 'flesh becomes malleable as clay' which seems to imply the actual biological change theory). If a celestial turned from a male vessel to a female vessel and managed to get themselves pregnant with the song of fertility would they be stuck as a woman. It says that they can't abandon the vessel until the child is born, and swapping its gender is close to abandoning the vessel (at least in terms of the effects it has on the child within it). Anyway just a weird thought that came from htis thread. And for the record humans do start out female in the womb, various male hormones are what causes development of male plumbing from the female version. And I just thought of a new question, does the celestial song of form merely mold the flesh like clay or do the genes match. For instance if a black man was made into an asian man by a celestial with it (I don't know why they would do this, they just decided to) would any children the transformed man fathered in the time of change inherit genes appropriate to the natural appearance or the transformed appearance. Finally I've been under the impression that any of the ornamental numinous corpus could be done with the celestial song of form, and anything doable with song of form has an ornamental numinous corpus. The trade off being duration for versitility, since nc have durations rated in the hours while the song of form has it rated in minutes (even a cd of 6 with 6 celestial forces only has the celestial song of form lasting 36 minutes, while a cd of 1 on a nc lasts for an hour). So one could do any change with ornamental numinous corpus, perhaps it would require numerous ones but it could be done. Now it begs the question why is your Superior teaching you all these trivial songs, or is the character picking them up from those that know them. This would seem likely for a human who had a transformation kick, "Just one more song and I can turn into a wolfman." That reminds me, it says that you can build nc into vessels (somewhere in the GMG) and in FotM Jordi is shown to be able to reconstruct the human body as if it was a vessel. I can see Jordi inflicting Lycanthropy on mortals, and doing other things to that effect. If Jordi can do it other Superiors probably can, but not as well (Jordi being the one who creates the most variety of vessels). 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/ ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1502 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.