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Old 07-28-2011, 04:05 PM   #11
tHEhERETIC
 
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

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I think David Edelstein's write-up sounds like it fits pretty well with your notion, though you may need to adjust some of the back story and Choir. Perhaps instead of being an Outcast Grigori who's still tacitly tolerated, he's the quiet, secretive Cherub you describe, still in good standing.

(One reason I personally like the idea that he's a Grigori, though: No Grigori Archangels are actually described by name in the canon -- just noted as "the Archangel of Song" -- and the Archangel of Death is never named either. Perhaps, just as the Seraphim Council believes that speaking the Outcast Choir's name disturbs the Symphony, it's considered bad form to refer to the Outcast Archangels by anything but their Words...)
Perfect--will crosspost the link to TPW. There's nothing in the history or choir that contradict what I need for story, and the mission actually takes out the need to involve Litheroy at all.

Much obliged.
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Old 07-29-2011, 12:09 AM   #12
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

In my own campaign, I drew on Jewish tradition when I designed a heretical Archangel of Death. His name is said to be Azrael, and his natural appearance is supposed to be terrifying--with hundreds of wings and eyes. (If that description doesn't scream "Kyriotate" to an IN player, I don't know what would! *LOL*)

I picture Azrael's servitors as quiet, aloof from the political infighting in Heaven, and determined to collect souls when the Symphony requires it--no later, no sooner. Saminga and his minions lead the list of his infernal enemies, but Azrael also dislikes Vapula (think of Dr. Frankenstein's original motive...resurrecting a dead loved one through science) and Beleth (who turns a healthy fear of Death into a mindless obsession).
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Old 07-29-2011, 12:38 AM   #13
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

I also did an Azrael, if that means anything.
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Old 07-29-2011, 09:14 AM   #14
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

As a side note on Matthias's write-up, responding to the Ofanim attunement (by which angels around them don't suffer Trauma): I kind of like the idea that no angelic Servitors of Death suffer from Trauma (much as angels of Purity couldn't Fall), as Death is simply not traumatic for them. Servitors of Saminga still suffer Trauma because their Word is all about playing up Death as the greatest and most terrifying evil, so that's kind of what they expect to feel like when they "die" themselves. Angels of Death have a different take on the Word, though, as a natural and inevitable process, and they feel that to their core.
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Old 07-29-2011, 09:06 PM   #15
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

I'd use Mathias' write-up for my heretical campaign, with three changes:
  1. His Choir would be Kyriotate, based on the traditional descriptions of Azrael; the idea that Death can attack from anywhere fits the Dominations as well.
  2. I agree with Jason's generalization about Death servitors being immune to Trauma, regardless of their Choir.
  3. I also agree with Orlin's reworking of the Vassal of Good Passage Distinction...allowing relief for unselfish deeds as well as pain for selfish ones.


All I'd need after that is a description of his Cathedral, and any PC who wanted a Death angel could play one. Thank you!
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Old 07-29-2011, 09:26 PM   #16
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

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All I'd need after that is a description of his Cathedral, and any PC who wanted a Death angel could play one. Thank you!
Is Heaven allowed to have a spooky old house that all the neighborhood kids dare each other to go peek into? :)
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Old 07-30-2011, 12:42 AM   #17
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

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Is Heaven allowed to have a spooky old house that all the neighborhood kids dare each other to go peek into? :)
I imagine a more dignified domain...a mausoleum with memorials to celestial heroes, those angels soul-killed while in good standing. It might be surrounded by a garden full of plants associated with death and burials in different cultures. Since most new arrivals to Heaven are souls of the dead, I'd place the whole domain fairly close to the Pearly Gates--just inside the walls somewhere. Does that sound appropriate to your version of Azrael too, Mathias?
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Old 07-30-2011, 01:03 PM   #18
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

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I imagine a more dignified domain...a mausoleum with memorials to celestial heroes, those angels soul-killed while in good standing. It might be surrounded by a garden full of plants associated with death and burials in different cultures. Since most new arrivals to Heaven are souls of the dead, I'd place the whole domain fairly close to the Pearly Gates--just inside the walls somewhere. Does that sound appropriate to your version of Azrael too, Mathias?
Good point -- but at the same time, remember that "dignified" and "solemn" don't have to be synonymous. There may even be a portion of Death's domain that looks a lot like a raucuous New Orleans jazz funeral, with a band strutting down the street playing "When The Saints Go Marching In." The Big Easy sent 'em out, the Big Pearly brings 'em in ...
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Old 07-30-2011, 04:13 PM   #19
Matthias Wasser
 
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Default Re: Servitors of Death with Songs of Fruition.

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I imagine a more dignified domain...a mausoleum with memorials to celestial heroes, those angels soul-killed while in good standing. It might be surrounded by a garden full of plants associated with death and burials in different cultures. Since most new arrivals to Heaven are souls of the dead, I'd place the whole domain fairly close to the Pearly Gates--just inside the walls somewhere. Does that sound appropriate to your version of Azrael too, Mathias?
I'm imagining a long street that extends from the Pearly Gates to Jacob's Ladder, starting out as a celebration of liberation from the flesh and continuing on as an enticement towards liberation from identity. The most fully selfless souls tend to just march from one end to the other, unaware that there are other parts of Heaven or that there are souls unsaved. Much of this street has been decorated as Rocket describes over time, but the underlying architecture is as the rest of the Cathedral - vast and situated between the Vale and Groves. It is a reminder of the inevitability of annihilation - an unending landscape of tombs, celebratory or mournful or both according to Heaven's judgment, not only for persons but for ideas, nations, species, ages, parts of the same. An angel can search here for an image of itself - a monument forming itself out of a floor of bone, but whether to indicate its end in soul death or Falling cannot quite be made out - for damnation is equivalent to annihilation in the Cathedral's logic; either way, such a thing can no longer be found in the symphony. Like the Library, the Mausoleum is a repository of knowledge - but while the Library seeks to be understood, the Mausoleum can only display that which no longer has a context to make itself explicable. Monuments to dead languages, philosophies, and cultures indicate that something was once here, but something that, if it could be described, would no longer be dead.
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