Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > In Nomine

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-26-2020, 11:45 AM   #1
azurecobalt
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Default Projection Question...

Okay, I also asked this in the Facebook community, but I figured I'll ask here, too...

I'm running an In Nomine / Cyberpunk crossover campaign this summer (In Nomine set in the world of Cyberpunk 2020). One of the characters is going to be inspired by Poe from Altered Carbon - basically, a hologram. What the characters won't know is that the character is actually a celestial who lost all their Corporeal Forces in Celestial combat.

I'd like to simulate this using the Song of Projection, but there are two problems:

1) The Song of Project only presents the celestial form of the character.
2) It only lasts a few rounds.

Any ideas on how a vessel-less Celestial could project themselves "permanently" to appear as a "hologram"? Is there another Song (perhaps from Liber Canticorum)? Fudge it with an artifact? Thanks!
azurecobalt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-01-2020, 07:55 PM   #2
William
 
William's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan
Default Re: Projection Question...

1.) A Reliever or demonling may stay in celestial form indefinitely on Earth, although this being could not have ever been a fully fledged celestial.

2.) A celestial may remain in celestial form indefinitely within the bounds of a Tether if they are the Seneschal, or any celestial may if the Tether has the feature "Celestial Harbor." If the celestial is only to appear in a finite area, that area can be the Tether, although the locus may be a particular small portion. If they are to move around the world, they would need some small, portable material item anchoring a Tether that extends around for a short distance. The celestial would have to stay near the item. Not being material, they could not carry or move it themselves without expending considerable effort on Songs. If it is a cyberpunk campaign, perhaps a small drone could be tasked to carry it around.

A difficulty of this method is that most Tethers require human awareness of some Symphonically meaningful events to become and remain a Tether. A small object that moves about and is not known to most humans but maintains some kind of natural Tether potential would be a very strange item that you would have to create to spec for your campaign.

There is an exception, but it is hideously expensive of Essence: the Corporeal Song of Sanctity will hold a small wild Tether in place at the cost of 1 Essence per hour, assuming CD 6 with every performance. One might reasonably allow this song to ensure continued existence of the Tether itself as long as it continues being sung. If a relic of this Song were created which were sufficiently skilled to ensure CD 6 (a standard albeit costly feature), and were specially designed to expend 1 Essence per hour taken from the natural Essence flow of the Tether, you would essentially have a Superior spending 24 Essence per day (in opportunity cost) just keeping this celestial on Earth.

Few Superiors would make such a bargain. A dead Superior might be an option: if a small wild Tether to the Waters existed within some drop of water and it were bottled within the Tether-drone, and if it produced more than 24 Essence per day on net, then the "stabilization relic" might make some strategical sense. If you're going to be stabilizing the Tether anyway to net some Essence, and it happens to be a Celestial Harbor, assign someone to get some use of it. A dangerous ally would be an Ethereal; Heaven would want to deny any but the Hindus or Voodoun pantheon a rich Tether, so an Ethereal master of a useful Tether item might be willing to let Heaven use the focus as an anchor for such a relic if it netted some Essence out of the deal each day. (If the celestial is a demon then Hell can just force them to agree to it on pain of destroying the ethereal Tether.)

3. I feel like if what you want is the hologram part, you can circumvent the problem of not having Corporeal Forces altogether by simply giving the celestial a hologram Vessel. If hologrammatic AIs are known entities in the setting, then I think Heaven and Hell should be able to incarnate celestials in that form. Their Vessel is a hardware/software "body" and all the abilities to project a desired form and move about computer systems that such AIs normally have.

Such celestials would probably quite commonly either know or have relics for the Ethereal Song of Motion, which would allow them to manipulate objects without being able to touch them.

-----

Note that celestials in celestial form are very difficult for most humans to perceive. In a cyberpunk campaign, in addition to the small Tether item, you might wish to create a small, mobile relic emitter that the drone would also carry, with which the celestial can interact mentally, that does project a hologram.

Last edited by William; 07-01-2020 at 08:07 PM.
William is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:08 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.