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Old 11-14-2010, 06:29 PM   #1
Matthias Wasser
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Boston
Default a few starting demons

Here are a few pregens I have floating around - 9-Force demons located in Boston. Some have Skill+Ability totals that make more sense given house rules. If the three-shot for which they were written ever happens, I'll let you know.

Anauel
Habbalite of Greed

2 Corporeal Forces; Strength 4, Agility 4
3 Ethereal Forces; Intelligence 8, Precision 4
4 Celestial Forces; Will 10, Perception 6

Attunements - Habbalite of Greed

Skills – you are an intellectual and your task is intellectual; you have Fast-Talk and Knowledges (Economics and Philosophy) at 6, giving you base TNs of 16 in the former and 14 in the latter. You are also comfortable, if not expert, in the social graces of the best class of people, and possess Savoir-Faire at 1 level for a base TN of 7.

Vessel – as played by Judy Dench, level 1, +2 Charisma; “Anna Green,” lecturer at Harvard Business School, Role 5/Status 4. As a molder of the minds of the future captains of industry, you have great responsibility on your shoulders: it is the divine task of capitalism to uplift the strong and uproot the weak, and how can this be done if even its elites do not fully understand it? You moonlight as a business consultant, author, and occasional talk-show guest, but don't qualify as a celebrity yet, and really prefer dealing with the best business students to the vapid general public. In your true form you are a series of nested and cracked glass spheres which perform analog calculations by the hydraulic exchange of acidic gases.

Balam
Balseraph of Fate

3 Corporeal Forces; Strength 6, Dexterity 6
3 Ethereal Forces; Intelligence 6, Precision 6
4 Celestial Forces; Will 8, Perception 8

You fought alongside the Star of Morning on the day of the Fall, and would march knowingly under his banner to oblivion.

Attunements (uppercase A) - Balseraph of Fate (Cherub), Djinn of Fate, Fated Future

Skills – you understand that the stakes of this battle are truly philosophical, and have 3 ranks in Knowledge (Philosophy). You're also aware that the stakes can be somewhat baser, and that one with a truly glorious Fate will be threatened by the envious and the moralizing. You have a pistol and the knowledge to use it at 3 ranks. Base TN for either is 9. You are very old and have forgotten more than most will ever learn, but most of your other skills are less than critical in this age – how to speak Akkadian, for instance, or how to make a clay pot.

Songs
Corporeal Song of Healing (4) – sing a soothing song, heal your charge.
Corporeal Song of Shields (4) – sing a martial song, protect your charge.

Discord – Lucifer's holy light, a half-visible white-hot flame extends from you, making it... difficult... to hide your true nature. (4 levels of Aura.) If asked, you reply that you are an angel (a fallen one, yes, but to leave that unmentioned is a matter of mere modesty) tasked with ensuring that very special souls achieve the very best they can.

Vessel – as played by Christopher Lee, 3 levels. In your true form, you look rather like a Chinese dragon, long and red and stubby-legged, six eyes gleaming in bodhisattva-like desire for the liberation of all souls.

Decarabia
Impudite of the Game

2 Corporeal Forces; 4 Strength, 4 Agility
3 Ethereal Forces 8; Intelligence, 4 Precision
4 Celestial Forces 10; Will, 6 Perception

Attunements - Humanity, Impudite of the Game

Skills – you're a damned good lawyer. Take Fast-Talk at 6, for a base TN of 16; Knowledge (Law) at 6 and Lying at 4, for base TNs of 14, and Emote at 2, for a base TN of 8. Your friend Anauel would prefer that you take cases that advance individual rights, and as a person of intelligence you are of course inclined to agree – you might take it as evidence of treason not to – but mostly you love the art of the Game in the courtroom. If you're going to be on Earth, rolling around in money isn't bad either. The professorship lets you mold young minds, which is loyalty to the Revolution, and build up a network of contacts.

Vessel – as played by Sandra Oh, plus a decade or so, level 1, Charisma +2, “Harriet Nguyen,” professor, Harvard Law School, Role 5, Level 5. You're partner at a firm, too – not having to sleep, when you don't have Humanity activated, does wonders for your productivity, and everyone says you're a natural genius (which you are, of course.) If you weren't an Impudite, you might have enough class not to flirt with your students. In your true form you are a bit younger, sexless, and have beautiful black horns over red skin.

Gargarax
Calabite of Hardcore

3 Corporeal Forces; 6 Strength, 6 Agility
3 Ethereal Forces 2; Intelligence, 10 Precision
3 Celestial Forces 8; Will, 4 Perception

Attunements - Calabite of Hardcore

Skills – you specialize in hypertechnical guitar solos, and have Singing (interpreted generously to apply to your instrumental performances) at 6 ranks, for a base TN of 16. You've also got that rock-star charisma – Seduction at 4 ranks, for a base TN of 12. Your Calabite nature means anyone you sleep with probably spontaneously develops a few venereal diseases, or at least feels violently ill the morning after – nobody leaps to supernatural conclusions from this, of course. You can Fight at 2 ranks, for a base TN of 12. Sex and drugs and adoration and fights and stuff are great, of course, but all you really care about is exulting in the music. You might be pretty happy as an angel, actually, but probably no happier than you are now, and it's never occurred to you to jump ship.

Songs
Corporeal Song of Cacophony (4) – scream! You create a loud noise that drowns out everything nearby.
Celestial Song of Cacophony (4) – scream even louder! This creates disturbance.
Song of Thunder (4) – thrashing bass beats initiate this Song, which sends concussive shocks through everyone nearby.

Vessel – as played by Jeff Bridges c. the Big Lebowski, level 5; he is “A.J.,” but his stage name and the name of the black metal band is, of course, Gargarax. Role (musician)/6, Status/2. Like almost all Calabim, you wear ratty, disintegrating clothes, but at least you have an excuse for it. Thus far, no angel appears to have suspected that you or your band are actually demonic – that would be almost too corny to believe. In your true form you are a whirlwind of noise and electric arcs.

Discord
Like Beethoven, you can no longer hear your own music (Deaf/3.). You have enough remaining hearing that you can speak with people at close range.
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Old 11-14-2010, 06:31 PM   #2
Matthias Wasser
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Boston
Default Re: a few starting demons

Marchosias
Balseraph of the Media

2 Corporeal Forces; 4 Strength, 4 Agility
3 Ethereal Forces; 6 Intelligence, 6, Precision
4 Celestial Forces; 12 Will, 4 Perception

Attunements - Balseraph of the Media (Servant points illegally spend on Role instead.)

Skills – you believe that you have a deep appreciation of current events, philosophy, economics, history, music, sports, film, What Women Want... you don't, actually, but you believe you do, and in the greatest country in the world, isn't that what matters? You do have genuine skill at the medium, though: Artistry (Radio Programming) at 5 and Electronics at 3, for base TNs of 9 each.

Songs
Celestial Song of Charm (6) – hum your show's catchy little ditty; reduce a target's Will or Perception. You usually do this to prime someone for your Resonance.
Ethereal Song of Laughter (4) – whistle Yakkity Sax; everyone in range finds you funny.
Celestial Song of Laughter (4) – let out a musical, deep-throated laugh at your own jokes. You're always fat on essence at the end of a show.

Vessel – as played by Jeff Garlin, level 1, +2 Charisma voice-only, -1 in person; “Stephen Marchowski,” host of the “March Madness!” radio program, Role 4, Status 4. You're infamous and, among a certain demographic, beloved for your outspoken views on the government (“the socialist junta has me on seventeen separate lists, and any broadcast might be my last... we're just millimeters away from the bread line in this country, and you just know who's jumping to the head of the queue...”), pornography (“anything that can unite the feminazis and the Jesus freaks in hatred has to be a good thing... if you catch your son not looking at porn, send him to therapy, because pretty soon he'll be wearing a dress...”), civil liberties (“these fascists want to put our beautiful Constitution through the shredder and snoop on every aspect of your life... but as for the Muslims, they can't be reasoned with, they're even crazier than the Christians, splashing a little water on their beards won't hurt 'em...”), women (“women throw themselves at me because they're attracted to power... if you aren't going to make it big then I recommend prostitutes, sure beats some harridan clucking about the laundry...”), and... pretty much everything, really. Your favorite suffix is “-ofascists” and your least favorite people “morality police.” You know that Heaven is on to you, and that you've exposed their goons and threatened their fascist agenda, but no matter – their hands are tied, because whenever some Malakite busts into your studio and cuts off your head, it's only going to confirm all that you've preached. By that point you'll have advanced Hell's cause so much that you'll get a cushy management job sending other poor fiends to put in their time. In your true form your scales are red and gold, and you coil around yourself a thousand times, black wings spiraling above you, but on Earth you typically wear a pizza-stained tie and a suit from Macy's that you think is an Armani.

Nameless
Habbalite of Secrets

2 Corporeal Forces; Strength 4, Agility 4
3 Ethereal Forces; Intelligence 8, Precision 4
4 Celestial Forces; Will 8, Perception 8

Actually, “nameful” might be more accurate – for you go by Atatarxes, and the Wind Beyond the Mountains, and Barabantiel, and other names besides. All of these are lies.

Attunements - Habbalite of Secrets, Seal of the Confessional

Skills – you possess Lying and Knowledge (Occult) at 4 each. You are also familiar, in an academic sense, with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin – you believe that this is because they have faded over time, but you also suspect that you might not be as old as you believe. Whether or not you really were active over the last six millennia, and whether or not you really did train the sorcerers in Pharaoh's court as preparation for their defeat by Moses, and whether or not you really did stand at the Archangel Michael's side as he created humanity, most all of your earthly memories involve dealings with sorcerers, and your mindset is fundamentally medieval. The modern world is something alien to you – perhaps you just woke up from Trauma; it's hard for you to tell. Some secrets you've succeeded in keeping even from yourself.

Songs
Corporeal Song of Oblivion (4) – you sing a dirge, touching the subject, whom may thence be destroyed without Disturbance.
Ethereal Song of Oblivion (4) – you sing a lullaby-like tone at someone, erasing one memory from their mind. You don't remember ever using this on yourself, but...
Ethereal Song of Tongues (4) – you whistle for someone nearby's attention, a musical psst, hey you, to establish telepathy.

Vessels – You appear in a variety of forms: as an ancient, stooped man of apparently Middle Eastern descent; as an unappealingly beautiful young woman with mismatched eyes, green and yellow; and as an inauspicious white crow. Each has -1 Charisma, and none have any place in this world. In your true form you are a orrery built from rusty razors, slowly creaking along its course.

TQ88V
Shedite of Technology

1 Corporeal Force 2 Strength, 2 Agility
5 Ethereal Forces 12 Intelligence, 8 Precision
3 Celestial Forces 6 Will, 6 Perception

You were created just this year by Apophon, the Demon of Academics, Duke to Vapula, the Habbalite “Archangel” of Technology, as a tool in the struggle to purge MIT of angelic influence. Your patrons have a glorious vision of the Boston research hub as a site of investigation freed from traditional constraints, and while you find this vision appealing, you don't really care about it. There are other Technology-sponsored demons in the area working on the same project, and you're supposed to work with them and appear to them as though you're working, but mostly you just want to study. As a scientist and Shedite, you are intensely curious about humanity, especially their moral characteristics, which you are in an ideal position to observe and test up-close.

Attunements - Shedite of Technology

Skills – You come fully equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of Chemistry, Computer Operation, Electronics, and Knowledge (Physics) at 6, or a base target number of 18 each. Make sure to roll some risk dice! You know much less about human psychology and society, and are aware that they operate on a seemingly irrational basis, but are confident that with rigorous application of the scientific method you can discover the secret principles that make them tick.

Songs
Celestial Song of Form (6) – queuing up kafka.mp3 – as in “Metamorphosis” – begins a tune that goes through several movements, first frenetic, then military, then slow and ambient; sounding a bit different every time. The Song (which could be hummed or whistled by a human host as well) transforms your current physical form, typically the laptop. Your modus operandi, when you want to acquire a long-term human partner, is to steal her own laptop with a fully converted agent, download its contents, and place your permanent vessel where it was found, singing the Song. It is contrary to your mission, of course, to allow humans any hint of the supernatural, but sometimes you wave it in front of a host anyway, just to see how they react.
Celestial Song of Motion (6) – queuing up flightofthevalkyries.mp3 transports you or an in-sight object to the nearby location of your choice. Typically, you send your computer self to a new client.

Vessel – as played by a stylish silver Macbook... unless when you want to look like something else. It would be childishly easy to destroy – smashing it with a hammer or throwing it out of a window would do the trick. Be wary. In your true form, you are a floating cloud of eyes.
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Old 11-14-2010, 06:32 PM   #3
Matthias Wasser
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Boston
Default Re: a few starting demons

Qlippoqoxxes-Jezuthai
Shedite of Gluttony

4 Corporeal Forces; Strength 10, Agility 6
2 Ethereal Forces; Intelligence 2, Precision 6
3 Celestial Forces; Will 8, Perception 4

Attunements - Consume, Devour, Score, Shedite of Gluttony

Skills – normally, you're not the studious type, but when you heard you might get to visit the Corporeal Plane you raided infernal libraries for all the important stuff: cookbooks, pick-up artist blogs, the Cosmo Karma Sutra, and erowid.org. If anything, this left you with less understanding of the Corporeal world than you started with, but you did pick up Artistry (Cooking) and Chemistry at 3 levels each, letting you cook food and drugs at base target numbers of 7 and 5, respectively.

Songs

Numinous Corpus: Fangs
(6) – You sing a throaty, hungry song, and your host's mouth grows grotesquely large and filled with sharp teeth.

Discord – Fresh out of Hell and none too thoughtful, you will be on a complete sensory overload the second you get to drive around a real meat body. (The pleasures which exist in life exist in Hell, too, but are never quite “real.”) You are Gluttonous and Lustful at 1 level each and must succeed a TN 9 check in order to avoid indulging in physical pleasures when given the opportunity. You're here to take people on a wonderful ride of cigarettes, pornography, television, hookers, blow, and Chinese take-out; although it never crosses your mind to call yourself selfless (selflessness is evil, right?) you do think of yourself as a fun being to be around – your host provides you with a body, and you help the host enjoy all life has to offer. Win-win!

You have no permanent vessel, of course, but prefer either hosts who are total epicureans (they probably know where to have a good time!) or temperamental ascetics (poor creatures! You should show them how to live a little!) In your true form you are a floating blob of fat, pockmarked by gaping jaws and needle punctures.

Zepar
Impudite of Theft

3 Corporeal Forces; Strength 4, Agility 8
3 Ethereal Forces; Intelligence 4, Precision 8
3 Celestial Forces; Will 8, Perception 4

Attunements - Impudite of Theft

Skills – You know all of the following ten skills at level 2, and since your relevant attributes in all of them are 8, your base target number for each is 10: Acrobatics, Climbing, Dodge, Driving, Escape, Lockpicking, Move Silently, Running, Savoir-Faire, Seduction. Although you speak with a French accent, you do not actually know any mortal languages beyond English. You also claim to be a master fencer, but this too is false; and most of what you know about the workings of the criminal underworld comes from Hollywood.

Vessel – As played by Tom Cruise; level 1, sex appeal +3; you have parlayed this into Role/5 Status/4 as “Danton Zeppy,” daring jewel thief. Theft has sent you to Earth to glamorize its Word, a task you perform with absolute naïve joy. It fulfills your Impudite nature to be the subject of such gossip and adoration! You wear stolen Armani and Brooks Brothers even when they would be out of place, and typically have about fifteen Rolexes up your sleeve. In your true form you are rather more androgynous, goat-horned, and bat-winged, but still slender and beautiful.
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Old 11-14-2010, 08:36 PM   #4
Jason
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Boston, MA
Default Re: a few starting demons

Neat, thanks for the (N)PCs. I'm in the Boston area too, so I'm curious to hear how the adventure turns out. (Personally, I based my latest campaign in Philly because I used to live there and I know it better than my friends here, so I can mess with the geography without getting corrected...)
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Old 11-14-2010, 08:40 PM   #5
Jennifer
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Corporeal Realm
Default Re: a few starting demons

Interesting take on celestial forms. The interpretation of Habbalah as mechanical rather than humanoid is striking; it adds an extra thrill of horror. I'd worry that the Calabite's celestial form is a bit too close to an Ofanite's for comfort, though.
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Old 11-14-2010, 09:07 PM   #6
Matthias Wasser
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Boston
Default Re: a few starting demons

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jennifer View Post
Interesting take on celestial forms. The interpretation of Habbalah as mechanical rather than humanoid is striking; it adds an extra thrill of horror. I'd worry that the Calabite's celestial form is a bit too close to an Ofanite's for comfort, though.
That's quite deliberate - I dislike fallen Ofanim being the only demons that look nothing like their heavenly counterparts. Likewise I changed Elohim/Habbalah to be mechanical because I prefer Mercurians/Impudites to be the only humanoid ones, and Mercurians/Impudites to be sexless, &c. There are a few other deviations I edited out for clarity, like the Principate of Fate actually being the Principate of Enlightenment, and so on. I'm nitpicky!
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