[Phoenix42]

Okay, I just realised I have an hour to kill, so I thought I might let off some steam (in a good way) and write a bit of stuff about our roleplaying group here in Mainz, Germany - I'm not sure what use it can be to anyone else, but it might be helpful to people new to In Nomine who are trying to customize the standard setting, and are looking for ideas. Heck, it might be useful to some old hands, you never know... At any rate, it's something different (I hope - probably somebody got there first ;) ), and it's my shot at a historical take on In Nomine. I have attempted to mix historical fact with the "Truth" of the War between Heaven and Hell. Also, I am trying to give In Nomine a wider range, seeing as by default it is very US-centred. So one could also see this as an attempt to retell both a part of German/European history from the Celestial perspective as well as vice versa.

June 1945, shortly after the end of World War II in Europe. The players (in our group a Cherub and Ofanite of Fire, an Elohite of Eli in service to Yves and a Mercurian of Yves) are assigned to Mainz, Germany.

Quick info on Mainz:
The city, which has been around since Roman times, lies on the confluence of Main and Rhine rivers and is (today) the capital of the State of Rhineland Palatinate (which, incidentally, is the most Catholic federal state in Germany).
It is also only a stone's throw away from Wiesbaden, the capital of Hessia, and only 30 minutes drive from Frankfurt, the banking capital of Europe, where Marc and similarly minded superiors (like the demon of Financial Crisis, I'm sure) are constantly active.

Tethers
Mainz of 1945 harbours several powerful tethers - one being its Cathedral, the Mainzer Dom, a Tether of Laurence (no surprises there). The Archbishop of Mainz, historically, was one of the most powerful bishops in the Holy Roman Empire, so while the Cathedral now is mainly of symbolic importance, it still has a lot of historical weight behind it, which even on its own would be enough to create a tether, quite apart from the Dom's impressive qualities and it's large Catholic membership.
Another tether is literally across the road, the Museum of the Printing Press, commemorating Johannes Gutenberg's invention of said device in Mainz, arguably one of the most powerful tethers of Yves in the world (Gutenberg was not actually the first guy to come up with the idea of printing with movable letters, but he got the credit, so Tether they go...). However, the war has taken its toll. The cathedral miraculously escaped the city's firebombing, but the museum was not so lucky. However, the Seneshal, a very old (and somewhat grumbling) Kyriotate of Destiny, hid the principal printing letters away and thus maintained the tether's integrity. However, in 1945, he will need assistance in rebuilding the Tether's standing....

However, the area also houses some other, less positive tethers. The firebombing of Mainz by the allies in February 1945 not only devastated a large part of the historical inner city, but also burned a convent in the city to the ground. The nuns hiding from the raid were trapped in the cellar and asphyxiated/burned to death. Naturally, servitors of Belial moved in to secure the site, and have almost managed to get it consecrated...

Across the Rhine river, in Frankfurt, a Blandine tether is experiencing difficulties. The clinic in which Dr. Alzheimer first discovered (back in the early 20th century) that old people whose memory was deteriorating were indeed suffering from a disease rather than simply old age, and that this mental degradation could be cured, has been a tether since then - it gave hope to the dreams of the distressed, and made a step toward improving their mental health. Sadly, Alzheimer and his colleagues had no way of treating Alzheimer's Disease; in lieu of it, he and his followers attempted to treat the patients with care and respect, trying to give them comfort in their condition, trying to use coaxing and subtle psychoanalysis to help them. This approach was generally applied to the patients of the hospital.
However, the 1930s saw a rise in the use of psycho-pharmaceuticals. One of the reasons in Germany was, tragically, that the Nazis outlawed traditional psychoanalysis on the grounds that its founding fathers were Jewish. The servitors of Beleth (with a little help from Fleurity) gladly stepped in to fill the vacuum. In the course of Nazism and the war, they managed to take a part of the Blandine tether and pervert it to their cause. In essence, this gives rise to the split tether of Blandine/Beleth described in the Liber Castellorum.

Meanwhile, something even more sinister is brewing across the river from Mainz, in Wiesbaden. The allies have moved in and taken control of the towns - certainly an improvement - however, in taking over the local tax offices, an American clerk makes a fateful mistake; he draws a demarcation line between what is to become the French zone of control (and thereby, later, the distinct federal state of Rhineland Palatinate) and the American zone of control along the Rhine, thereby severing the two cities of Mainz and Wiesbaden. Even worse, by doing so, an area directly across the Rhine from Mainz, Mainz-Kastel, becomes American-controlled (and thereby Hessian), despite the fact that it previously belonged to Mainz. An innocent enough mistake, but for the next 60 and more years, long after Americans and French have left, this will lead to a bitter rivalry between the cities, the inhabitants begrudging each other their situation and slander going back and forth at every possible opportunity, right down to vandalising cars with the other town's registration numbers (I kid ye not). If Malphas wasn't involved in the "mistake" to start off with, he certainly profited from it. The tax offices in Wiesbaden have become a Tether of Factions, and a powerful one at that: Not only has this small line changed a regional structure, and poisoned the inhabitants' minds for decades to come, it also draws the line between the French and US zones of occupation for the next four years, completely altering the way these two otherwise neighbouring regions start into a new era. And needless to say, Malphas will be generally having a lot of fun in Germany for the next few decades...

Okay, the hour's up... I see that there was more than I thought to this - next up will be what everybody who took the time to read this is probably asking themselves: "Okay, so it's 1945 - Where are the Nazis?" - Well, more of that later...