Renegade Balseraph of Kronos

[Edman]

These are pretty special. I imagine it can't be easy to be both a demon and an angel, especially with the Mercureans, Cherubs and Elohites. Mercureans and Cherubim are Choirs that really don't like to hurt people and Elohites just see that, objectively, it doesn't do anyone any good luring mortals to their Fate.

Particularily these BalAngels are likely to want to help humans even as demons and might be picked up by an unscrupolous Archangel - Michael for instance. It is much more valuable to have the perfect unique weapon than to redeem the darn thing and lose half of what he was capable of. Which leads me to the question - could he get Angelic Choir attunements? Discuss!

[Regis]

Originally Posted by Edman

These are pretty special. I imagine it can't be easy to be both a demon and an angel, especially with the Mercureans, Cherubs and Elohites. Mercureans and Cherubim are Choirs that really don't like to hurt people and Elohites just see that, objectively, it doesn't do anyone any good luring mortals to their Fate.

Particularily these BalAngels are likely to want to help humans even as demons and might be picked up by an unscrupolous Archangel - Michael for instance. It is much more valuable to have the perfect unique weapon than to redeem the darn thing and lose half of what he was capable of. Which leads me to the question - could he get Angelic Choir attunements? Discuss!

I think there's a flaw in this - specifically, in the opening statement. Balseraphim of Kronos are not both angels and demons. They are demons who lie to the Symphony and pretend to be Angels. The lie doesn't have to be a very good one, and they can be as evil as they want as often as they want, as long as they keep up the deception. Specifically, they keep it up by obeying the dissonance conditions.

In the end, there is nothing objectively 'good' or even 'nice' about the resonance of the different choirs. Being able to read relationships isn't necessarily a good thing, especially if the subject's Fate is to be torn away from the people they love the most. All Mercurians have to do is not be violent, and you can mess people up without being violent. And the Cherub resonance? The Balseraph attunes, but he's a Balseraph - it's his nature to lie, not to love. He may lie to himself and say that he loves the object of his attunement and wants to keep them safe, but in the end he's still pushing them towards the welcoming arms of Hell.

The only resonance that I can see a Balseraph having difficulties with (presuming that the Seraph resonance is prohibited) is the Malakim resonance. Why? Because Balseraphs will have a bitch of a time swearing oaths that they've convinced themselves will be no problem to follow, then realising that they have to follow through. That could get... tricky.

[banditangel]

I could see a delusional (or at least very mentally unbalanced) Balseraph of Fate going this route, but it's hardly going to be common. It'd create really interesting conflict, since they may very well *detest* the notion of "redeeming to be a Seraph."

So, basically, you have a Bal-Mercurian who wants to redeem in to a *real* Mercurian, and isn't willing to have their Mercurian nature stripped away from them. Despite the fact that they act and believe angelically, they're still cut off from the true Symphony, they're still fighting a deeply Selfish nature, and they're constantly being tempted by their *true* resonance as a Balseraph. And while they're happy to serve an Archangel, they refuse redemtpion.

Of course, Kronos is going to *smile* when he realizes where his wayward servant went. Because now every Archangel is going to get little "gift packages" from time to time, that have the exact same story, and are ticking timebombs just waiting for orders from Kronos (it's hardly dissonant for a Balseraph of Fate to go about pretending to have morals just to deceive the Heavenly Host!)

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Mind you, it's quite possible to have a regular Balseraph go this route, too - they want to help the world, they want to do good, but they simply cannot stand the notion that they have to give up... well, their very nature, effectively their soul in order to become a part of Heaven. I could see one sneaking his way in to a group of angelic PCs. As long as you avoid Malakim and Seraphim, you're really pretty safe (Mercurian's will pick up that you're good friends with a bunch of angels, which only helps reinforce the lie :))

If you want to get really seriously messed up, they could deliberately force-strip themselves in to a remnant to gain immunity to angelic resonances, but... yeah. Words sort of fail me, at that point.

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Also worth keeping in mind: Demons are inheritly selfish. We're not talking "a selfish person", here. We're talking straight-up neurological defect. Think chronic depression, autism, and the like. They might be highly functional, but they still deal with this constantly, and even on the best day there's still little things they can't quite get under control.

(I'm not sure quite how canonical this is, mind. GURPS In Nomine has "selfish" as part of the racial package, though, so I take it as heavily implied that it'd at least take a lot of time, and time away from The Game, to work that off. Trying to become selfless will put you on The Game's hit list ASAP :))

[Edman]

But servitors of Fate AREN'T cut off from the Symphony. Canon states that they hear it as well as angels. Mercurians can be vain and self-centered, granted, but the Cherub resonance is for caring (though Kronos might as well use Djinn so I don't see WHY he would Cherub up a Balseraph), but an Elohite will be painfully aware of the damage he's causing and he can't subjectively derive pleasure from it. Actually, isn't selfishness something inheritently subjective... I suppose he'd have to Lie to himself and convince himself that it is in everyone's best interests if he advances himself regardless of the costs as he's just so goddamn good - but somehow an objective demon an oxymoron.

[Acolyte]

Don't forget that dissonance (and the resulting Discord) isn't as bad for demons as it is for angels, since there's no risk of Falling (you can't roll and somehow Redeem, barring a Divine Intervention on your dissonance roll and maybe not even then) and less of a social stigma from their peers. So I would say Balseraphs of Fate with the Elohim resonance are less traumatized by acting illogically than true Elohim.

[banditangel]

Originally Posted by Edman

But servitors of Fate AREN'T cut off from the Symphony. Canon states that they hear it as well as angels.

Keep in mind, though, they're still hearing it with an infernal tint: Malakim of Fate swear their own oaths, not the mandatory Heavenly pair. I'd assume Elohim of Fate are equally twisted, and view "the best interest of the Symphony" through the lense of Fate, rather than Destiny.

Also, even Heavenly Elohim are still expected to obey orders. A Bal-Elohim might convince itself that Kronos really knows best, and it just doesn't understand the larger scheme, how this is really doing good. It'd still do all sorts of actual good when it didn't contradict orders, too.

If that still doesn't work for you: objectively, "disobey Kronos" is going to result in it's destruction - it will know it has a Destiny greater than that, so if it truly wants to do what's actually best, it'll bide it's time until it has a chance at redemption (and getting an Archangel to believe that you truly want to redeem will still be very tricky)

Keep in mind, they are Balseraph first and Elohim second. They can lie to themselves, and they can do it very, very well.

(I'd also mention: I think they'd flock to Yves for redemption - if they truly prove themselves over decades of hard work, they might just get to taste the resonance they lost once again)

[Jason]

I had a player in my group who was considering playing a Renegade Balseraph of Fate, and we ended up not doing it because we just couldn't figure out how the rules would work satisfactorily. Would the other PCs get to roll Will anytime he did something "angelic" to detect whether something was odd? Would this only come up when he used his resonance specifically to say "I'm an angel," or would he not need to use his resonance as long as people treated him like an angel and he went along with it? Would the Renegade earn Dissonance whenever someone found out that he is not an angel? Is emulating the Seraphim resonance entirely even possible for a Balseraph of Fate as long as he never uses his native resonance?

I do see a lot of potential for such characters to create zany situations in campaigns, anyway. One way to deal with much of the above, I thought, might be just to maintain two entirely different vessels and treat the character as essentially having multiple personality disorder, though the idea of a character with angelic and demonic abilities simultaneously is a fascinating one.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Jason

Is emulating the Seraphim resonance entirely even possible for a Balseraph of Fate as long as he never uses his native resonance?

According to Infernal Players Guide, that combination is very rare, because a Balseraph of Kronos who took the Seraph resonance would suffer dissonance every time he used his Balseraph resonance.

However, while a Balakite has to swear four oaths, one of them doesn't have to be "Suffer not an evil to live." (The IPG says some reverse it to "Suffer not an angel to live.") They are still dissonant if they violate those oaths.

The other curious one is a Baliotate. The Balseraph can't stay in his own vessel while using a Domination's resonance to possess others.

I don't remember any "detection roll." However, I'd be inclined to make it a Perception check by the angel instead of a Will roll to notice something wrong: "I feel a great disturbance in the Symphony."

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

I don't remember any "detection roll." However, I'd be inclined to make it a Perception check by the angel instead of a Will roll to notice something wrong: "I feel a great disturbance in the Symphony."

Ah, thanks for the tips. Also, I hope to steal that line for use with the NPC who enjoys responding to disturbances with, "Angel Sense Tingling!"

[Acolyte]

While using his various resonances, a Renegade Balseraph of Fate won't be detectable to angels under common circumstances. A celestial's resonance is the one thing that works normally without Essence fuel and doesn't ever create disturbance (ok, Calabim do, but not from the action of activating the resonance, only at the damage of something corporeal--they can for example use their resonance on someone's celestial form without disturbance). Now, I'm guessing this character might be a bit unhinged from whatever caused him to go Renegade, and might have picked up some Discord along the way as well, both of which might make him appear "odd" to other angels, but Discord isn't unheard of in the Host and there are CERTAINLY a large number of unhinged angels.

Now, he still gets dissonance every time he activates his Balseraphic resonance to lie and it is resisted well. This means that if he says "I am an angel" and pumps it with resonance and the angels resist (they've got decent Wills), he's in trouble. However, if he just says "I am an angel" without using his resonance and they believe him (possibly substituting a Fast-Talk roll for a declarative statement), that's not a cause of dissonance. But if you think about it, even angels don't go around saying "I am an angel" all the time. This guy can say "Hey! I don't serve Hell!" and he's being totally honest.

So a Renegade Balseraph of Fate with a non-Seraph resonance could probably pretend to be an angel to a group of angels, and the disguise would hold up reasonably well UNTIL he does something suspicious enough to get their full scrutiny, which his disguise probably wouldn't hold up to. A smart Seraph asking the right questions could get at the Truth. And there are plenty of ways for his behavior to be suspicious--he can't ascend to Heaven, he can't go into celestial form in a Tether or be zapped, he can't go into celestial form around them at all, he wouldn't really know very much accurate information about Heaven (remember, Nybbas controls the propaganda in Hell, which depicts Heaven as a goosestepping, freedom-hating, fascist state), he would know very accurate information about Hell, etc, etc.

With the Seraphic resonance, it's even more complicated. He can't use his own resonance without risking more dissonance and discord, and can't lie without using his resonance without that, either. He'd have to use a lot of Seraphic evasions, and if anyone forced him into straight answers, his True nature would be revealed even more quickly.

That said, if I were making a Renegade Balseraph fit into a party of angels, I'd probably pick a non-Seraph resonance (if he's smart enough, Elohite would be good because "Well, the easiest solution would be to just kill all the babies" doesn't sound as weird coming from an Elohite as any other kind of angel; Ofanite is good too, since all he has to do is demonstrate the use of the resonance and act impatient). Then I would have the Balseraph claim to be a Servitor of either a dead Superior (with something to back this up; the Song of Ice for a "servitor of Oannes" or the Song of Symphony for a "servitor of Raphael" or something), a Fallen Superior (easier since some of those guys are actually still around Downstairs), or Eli (of course), who "just doesn't feel at home in Heaven anymore" or perhaps "just got out of Trauma." Those explanations cover a lot of suspicious things, like not being up to date on Heavenly politics or possessing weird abilities.

To further cover his suspiciousness, he could pose as an Outcast angel (that would explain him not wanting to go celestial and inability to go to Heaven), but that's too risky since many angels won't associate with Outcasts and those that will talk to him will want him to get back in his Superior's good graces posthaste.

Then again, if this PC WANTED to Redeem, approaching a group of angels from the perspective of an Outcast might be a good way to gauge their reaction for when he eventually "comes out" to them all the way. The trap there is that lying reinforces his Balseraphness (for lack of a better word), whereas only the Truth can really lead to Redemption.

Interesting thoughts...