10-19-2009, 12:00 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Madison, WI
|
[heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
With all the recent talk about alternate campaigns that favor the Marches, I've brainstormed with a few players about the gaps in my original Gray Celestial concept. Here are a few hole-fillers that seemed worth keeping, along with a little new material--
Any constructive criticism, new ideas, or stats you'd like to suggest for any of the above? Feel free!
__________________
Ingeborg S. Nordén Last edited by ISNorden; 10-19-2009 at 12:48 PM. Reason: chronological error fixed |
10-19-2009, 12:07 AM | #2 | |
Petitioner: Word of IN Filk
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Longmont, CO
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Quote:
I can especially see the Elder of Imagination custom-creating these spirits by encouraging just the right dreams in certain dreamers ...
__________________
“It's not railroading if you offer the PCs tickets and they stampede to the box office, waving their money. Metaphorically speaking” --Elizabeth McCoy, In Nomine Line Editor Author: "What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger" |
|
10-19-2009, 01:22 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Seattle
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Unfledged-- Liminal sounds a bit too clinical for me. "Wisp" itself is a pretty good name, or some word that suggests a fleeting thought. "Spark" possibly.
Sentinel-- I like my Dwarves better, but this is interesting. Dead Elders-- It's likely that killed-by-Purity ones would have had the more martial Words; diplomatic, ideation, and peaceful Worded Superiors wouldn't have gotten caught that way. Some Words that deal with the defense or promulgation of ideas and stories would be nice. Legend-- I'd make a Superior of that for sure; if I had to think of a historical figure that embodied your view on the Word, my mind runs very strongly to Snorri, who preserved the Norse corpus (while restamping it with his own views), or looking further back someone like Herodotus or Pliny. Malakim counterparts-- possibly call them Valkyries? Or Rocs, if you imagine them as birds, although the original concept of Griffons as seen by the peoples of Greece (metal bladed birds who reflected the light of the sun beyond the endless grassy fields of Eastern Europe) might work as well. They might have the ability to compel people to tell stories (thus protecting the Marches by ensuring that legends are retold), or grant bonuses to people they've inspired with stories.
__________________
“The world is going to Hell in a hand-basket, but I’ve got Good News: I saved my soul by switching to Heaven.” —Baruel, former Djinn of the Media, now Cherub of Destiny and the Angel of Good News |
10-19-2009, 09:40 AM | #4 |
Petitioner: Word of IN Filk
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Longmont, CO
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
As far as Legend goes, I would make it the responsibility of several Elders. Having one Elder that's the match of Yves or Kronos strikes me as a bit too powerful for all but the most ethereal-centered campaigns, and maybe not even there. If the Grays had someone who was that big a gun, they wouldn't need to be as cautious as they often have been.
Luck, Glory and Memory are probably more than adequate for now to oversee Legend. That said, the unexpected rise of an Elder of Legend could be one heck of an adventure or campaign seed, the sort of thing that would throw the courts of Heaven and Hell into a frenzy. EDIT: Also, I take it that you mean the "Gray City" is a few centuries younger than the Outcasting of the Grigori, since you've stated that the exiles were among the city's founders.
__________________
“It's not railroading if you offer the PCs tickets and they stampede to the box office, waving their money. Metaphorically speaking” --Elizabeth McCoy, In Nomine Line Editor Author: "What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger" |
10-19-2009, 11:34 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Boston, MA
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Quote:
Why not just reassign the Word? Perhaps the commonly assumed answer would be that anyone with that Word is automatically a high-priority target of both Heaven and Hell. Perhaps the spoiler-ridden answer, though, would be that the Elder of Legend would have been just as irreplaceable as either Yves or Kronos. (There is a spoilerish reason that they are so irreplaceable, as discussed in Heaven & Hell and Superiors 3...) Alternatively, as Rocket Man suggests, it would be fascinating to run an adventure in which "Legend" emerges as a Word and a concept along with the figure who will represent it. |
|
10-19-2009, 01:24 PM | #6 | |||||
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Madison, WI
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Of course, if the candidate had to be a Gray Celestial...I'd use the name of some cultural spirit associated with storytelling, presumably because the deity who originally had that name died in the Purity Crusade. Some possibilities: Anansi (West African, though his spider-form matches only two Ensembles that aren't so appropriate)...Taliesin (Celtic, a reincarnated bard)...Calliope (Greek, the Muse of epic poetry)...or Saga (a seer-goddess and Odin's drinking partner; her name is unrelated to the story-word in Old Norse but it's still a decent pun). Quote:
Shengshi would probably feel close ties with the new Ensemble; even though he's a Sentinel himself, the Elder of Survival shows Roc-like tenacity in defending the Marches. Letting them inspire mortals as you suggest is a very appropriate attunement, too. In fact, the Elder of Legend--whether one is alive now or not--might have become the first Gray Roc after the Purity Crusade nearly wiped out the City of Refuge.
__________________
Ingeborg S. Nordén Last edited by ISNorden; 10-19-2009 at 01:29 PM. |
|||||
10-19-2009, 02:01 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Quote:
|
|
10-19-2009, 02:30 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Seattle
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Dead Superiors-- I like the Tribe a lot, and it not having been filled might point to the general displacement of indigenous family-unit-based political entities by largely city- and nation- based ones (either as a cause or an effect). Inspiration would have been a very Earth-focused (or at least Vale of Dreams-focused) Word, because it requires lots of contacts with humans; this could explain why the Elder was killed in the Crusade, and it remains unfulfilled because it fits into the Wordsphere of several other Elders you have, all of which might have simply moved in to take what they needed from it and left the Word itself free as a reminder (like Raphael in canon Heaven, whose sphere of Knowledge was absorbed by Destiny, Lightning, a little Creation, and a little Fire, with the rest falling to Raphael's previous Servitor Sophia). A few other possible Words might be Heroism (or just Deeds), the Story (which probably would have been refilled), or Pride (definitely killed by the Purity Crusade). It might also be interesting to have a Grey who went bad and needed to be put down by the rest of the Elders (as happened with Legion and Makatiel). Loki's a classic example (I don't know where he is in your heretical setting), but anyone holding a Word like Trickery or Cunning or Deceit (or better yet, Conceit, with its literary implications implying the framework for a story) might be liable to turning into a bad apple.
Legend-- Since this Elder might or might not be a manifestation of the Symphony (like Yves and Kronos), you might go with something even older and Marches-related; Primus, Aetherius, Origin, or Font. And this being doesn't have to be on the power level of Yves or Kronos; even as a manifestation of the Symphony, it would be through the lens of the Marches (remember, God created a world where the dreams of trees and mountains and later animals and humans CREATED new beings with their own motivations), which is far more obsessed with the accumulation of vibrant and vivid stories, not getting souls to one place or another. This Elder might be limited by his ability to know potential Legends for only great (or destined-to-be-great) people (leaving the weaker Legends totally outside of the realm of his insight and making his insight focused on people Heaven and Hell are likely to already focus on), his inability to leave the Marches, the fact that he changes as the Marches changes, or something like that. Perhaps he does get killed and the Marches just respawns him (Who's to say that that wouldn't be the case for Yves and Kronos), perhaps slightly different (like the Doctor *grin*). "Roc" dissonance requirement ideas-- Kill an Ethereal, perform violence against an Ethereal, allow a story to go untold, take a set of Ethereal-appropriate vows, allow an angel or demon in the Marches to go unpunished, fail to defend something they have sworn or were assigned to protect, etc
__________________
“The world is going to Hell in a hand-basket, but I’ve got Good News: I saved my soul by switching to Heaven.” —Baruel, former Djinn of the Media, now Cherub of Destiny and the Angel of Good News |
10-19-2009, 10:33 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Madison, WI
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Quote:
Thanks for the info--the name escaped my mind; but De Troyes and Mallory would both be good examples of humans serving the Elder of Legend.
__________________
Ingeborg S. Nordén |
|
10-19-2009, 11:22 PM | #10 | |||||
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Madison, WI
|
Re: [heretical] More Gray Celestial expansions
Quote:
Quote:
An Elder of Pride or Trickery probably would go bad and turn on his fellows; Loki (and other cultures' trickster gods) would fight on the traitor's side back in the day. (Since you asked, BTW: in my campaign, Loki is still alive but bound in his cave until Ragnarok.) Arete, Champion Elder of Heroism, would have been one of the first to fall in the Purity Crusade because he was going all-out to defend the City of Refuge. Most of his former servitors now follow Hrodmarr, the Elder of Glory. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Ingeborg S. Nordén Last edited by ISNorden; 10-19-2009 at 11:22 PM. Reason: quote source identified |
|||||
Tags |
ensembles, gray celestials, heretical, house rules, marches |
|
|