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Archangel Beth · 08-31-2011, 06:44 PM

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE CELESTIAL BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

Ahem.

Derek, as near as I can tell, was a great GM for the handwave. The PCs were too busy hanging onto the safety bars of the roller-coaster, and/or too willing to follow the genre he set up, to ask inconvenient questions like these. GMs who use a different style frequently need to back things up a bit more.

Ways to discover angels include heavy reliance on Lilim, and Lilim of Lust are extremely useful in this regard. Angelic Needs like "infiltrate this hellhole" are kind of suggestive. Shedim playing host-hopping are also potential informants. But, in truth... LA is just too darn big; the demons have some chance of eventually finding angels, and presumably they've got some really great demons lodged in position to check IDs, credit cards, or other forms of getting along as a human... But what they really have is hype. (Hmmm. Nybbas' fine hand may be involved!) Hype, a demon-Tether-heavy area, and a Prince who thinks that it's his own personal extension of Perdition. About the only Archangel who could get a really good angelic network into the place is... Jordi, really. And Jordi doesn't give a hiss for the extremely human-focused stuff in LA. (Then there's Michael, but he'd probably use Saints. Laurence has a prayer with "role of a dead hero," but you gotta figure that the demons in the local town hall(s) are onto that.)

Mostly, the Archangels have ceded LA to Hell, and are just keeping it besieged. (In similar fashion, demons have ceded other cities to angels: most notably Notre Dame. Notra Dame? i kant spel gud know mor. I believe San Francisco is canonically angelic, and in non-canon, we gave Boston to angels for our games.) Heaven might be able to spend a lot of resources to uproot the demons, but it could turn the cold war "hot" in nasty ways, and take resources that would be better-used in places where the demons haven't gained so much memetic ground that the humans might well just keep on behaving Hellishly even without their Infernal instigators.

"Destroy" could be done with recourse to various Songs or threats to innocent bystanders ("go celestial or the hostage gets it"), much as we managed to nuke a would-be Seneschal in a game once -- but it would probably be easier to say that "destroy" is being used a bit theatrically and the more common result is "vessel-killed."

Does that help?

08-31-2011, 06:44 PM	#19
Archangel Beth In Nomine Line Editor Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Frozen Wastelands of NH	Re: Fall of the Malakim (?) available PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE CELESTIAL BEHIND THE CURTAIN! Ahem. Derek, as near as I can tell, was a great GM for the handwave. The PCs were too busy hanging onto the safety bars of the roller-coaster, and/or too willing to follow the genre he set up, to ask inconvenient questions like these. GMs who use a different style frequently need to back things up a bit more. Ways to discover angels include heavy reliance on Lilim, and Lilim of Lust are extremely useful in this regard. Angelic Needs like "infiltrate this hellhole" are kind of suggestive. Shedim playing host-hopping are also potential informants. But, in truth... LA is just too darn big; the demons have some chance of eventually finding angels, and presumably they've got some really great demons lodged in position to check IDs, credit cards, or other forms of getting along as a human... But what they really have is hype. (Hmmm. Nybbas' fine hand may be involved!) Hype, a demon-Tether-heavy area, and a Prince who thinks that it's his own personal extension of Perdition. About the only Archangel who could get a really good angelic network into the place is... Jordi, really. And Jordi doesn't give a hiss for the extremely human-focused stuff in LA. (Then there's Michael, but he'd probably use Saints. Laurence has a prayer with "role of a dead hero," but you gotta figure that the demons in the local town hall(s) are onto that.) Mostly, the Archangels have ceded LA to Hell, and are just keeping it besieged. (In similar fashion, demons have ceded other cities to angels: most notably Notre Dame. Notra Dame? i kant spel gud know mor. I believe San Francisco is canonically angelic, and in non-canon, we gave Boston to angels for our games.) Heaven might be able to spend a lot of resources to uproot the demons, but it could turn the cold war "hot" in nasty ways, and take resources that would be better-used in places where the demons haven't gained so much memetic ground that the humans might well just keep on behaving Hellishly even without their Infernal instigators. "Destroy" could be done with recourse to various Songs or threats to innocent bystanders ("go celestial or the hostage gets it"), much as we managed to nuke a would-be Seneschal in a game once -- but it would probably be easier to say that "destroy" is being used a bit theatrically and the more common result is "vessel-killed." Does that help? __________________ --Beth Shamelessly adding Superiors: Lilith, GURPS Sparrials, and her fiction page to her .sig (the latter is not precisely gaming related)