changes necessary for a backwards campaign

[Matthias Wasser]

These are less about getting rid of anything that looks excessively bad for Hell or good for Heaven than they are about getting rid of things that don't make sense in a world where Hell is fighting fundamentally for freedom. This also applies to any campaign where it's meant to be ambiguous or very low-contrast, but for the sake of being extreme I'll assume throughout we're trying to convert to a high-contrast backwards.

1) Fate and Destiny. Fate, one presumes, is the best outcome for the individual in question, holding everyone else's actions constant. What's Destiny? A life of maximum effort for minimum gain? (Wonky, but maybe.) Acting so as to most promote tyranny? (Not formal enough.) The life that most benefits the Symphony as a whole? (Works for very low contrasts, obviously, but not otherwise.)

2) Habbalah. If God is a lie and/or villain, why does a whole Band think they're serving Her (and being such jerks about it?) My preference would be to drop the whole sadism/delusion thing, say that Elohim only experience emotion by absorbing it from others and Habbalah only get it from manually setting it for themselves, and make the weirdness of that the new focus of the Band's identity.

Alternatively, Elohim are sort of like Malakim: the inability to privilege their own position inscribed into their nature, they're incapable of seizing freedom for themselves, even if they recognize that freedom is best for creatures in general. Thus, Habbalah have a noticably "angelic" mindset, phrasing everything in terms of how it benefits the Symphony, and viewing freedom as an outcome rather than a process: they torment the weak to make them strong, when another demon would be predisposed to say it's their business whether they want to be slaves or not.

3) Saminga. His entire schtick is that he's a dumb movie villain. If you want to keep him you could move him to Heaven, I guess. I'm not entirely certain what Belial is doing in this universe, either (make him about abandoning oneself to emotion?)

4) Marc and Mammon. Right now, Trade is "everything the audience is expected to like about capitalism" and Greed is "everything the audience is expected to dislike about capitalism." You could just switch the names around, but as much as default Marc would make sense as a Randian hero in backwards In Nomine, default Mammon doesn't make sense at all as a backwards villain. Simplest option is to nix Trade. Alternatively, Trade could be about the paternalism of philanthropy, workplace hierarchy, the bourgeois morality that demands one "contribute to society" in order to have a life for oneself, the dependence of the individual on society created by expanded trade networks and the complex division of labor, &c.

5) Kronos and Yves. Kronos is organized aesthetically around the idea that one's Fate is her doom, against which freedom is a futile struggle. Reincorporate/resolve the character "Kronos" into Yves, rename the Word of Fate into the Word of Enlightenment, put Lucifer in charge of the corresponding organization, and call it a day. And replace all the time-related Atunements, I guess.

6) Renegades and the Game. Nix everything about Renegades being well, renegades, and just say that demons don't need to serve a liege - they can just work with one for the right price. Asmodeus still brutally hunts traitors, of course.

I'm sure there are others, and with better solutions than I've proposed; I'm mostly just thinking aloud.

[Dalillama]

7)Shedim. They're really, really hard to make into something that's not repulsive.

[Rocket Man]

As far as Belial, in a backwards campaign, he's a necessary force of destruction, who clears away the old so that there's room for a new generation to express itself.

[Matthias Wasser]

Originally Posted by DAlillama

7)Shedim. They're really, really hard to make into something that's not repulsive.

Nah.

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

As far as Belial, in a backwards campaign, he's a necessary force of destruction, who clears away the old so that there's room for a new generation to express itself.

That's Wind's schtick, and it's a selfless one. The Wind is the Republic of Virtue and Smashing the Four Olds, or at least it is if you want Heaven to be badass, and it's not self-indulgent at all.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser

That's Wind's schtick, and it's a selfless one. The Wind is the Republic of Virtue and Smashing the Four Olds, or at least it is if you want Heaven to be badass, and it's not self-indulgent at all.

Ah. but if we're talking backwards, then Wind's shtick is really to keep things too stirred up for any individual's will to make a difference ... the minute you start to assert yourself, the world turns upside down and you're blown off on the breeze again. Belial (in my understanding of a backwards world) sends the fire that cleans off the slate, that levels everything of the old order, specifically so that free minds and wills may write something other than the Heaven-dominated theme.

Or at least, that's the big scale view. Belial himself simple enjoys burning and breaking, free from the restraint that says you must only do this at the Symphony's call. But in the long term (as Hell would see it), his destruction is not only an expression of will, but the means by which others may express their will and individual voice as well.

[robkelk]

Fate and Destiny: One's Destiny is the ultimate expression of one's ability to be selfless, holding one's own needs to be of less importance than the needs of the many. One's Fate is the ultimate expression of one's ability to be selfish, putting one's own desires above the desires of the many. This pair of definitions works in both a regular and a Backwards game - it just depends on whether community or freedom is more important in the overall scheme of things.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser

These are less about getting rid of anything that looks excessively bad for Hell or good for Heaven than they are about getting rid of things that don't make sense in a world where Hell is fighting fundamentally for freedom.

Note that you can also pull a trick along the lines of the last page of To Reign in Hell (Steven Brust; excellent book) -- where the demons are fighting for human freedom, to keep humans from being absorbed by the Heavenly Hivemind... But the only way to do that is to make them selfish and not necessarily very nice. (This may not suit your game, of course! "So, either this guy can be an axe-murderer, and die a free Hellbound soul, or he can be a priest and do wonderful things... Pick which one, demons." Not necessarily the kind of thing all people would find useful!)

Anyway, here's how I'd probably address things. Not, obviously, canon!

1) Fate and Destiny. Fate, one presumes, is the best outcome for the individual in question, holding everyone else's actions constant. What's Destiny?

Maximize the "Faceless Cog" thing -- a destiny becomes something that benefits others at the cost of the individual. The housewife who sacrifices her dreams for her family (bonus points if she "stands by her man" even if he's emotionally or physically abusive!). The soldier who throws himself on a grenade, potentially -- but more-so, the one who Just Follows Orders. Self-sacrifice. Crucifixion not required, but always stylish.

2) Habbalah. If God is a lie and/or villain, why does a whole Band think they're serving Her (and being such jerks about it?)

Backwards Habbalah serve the true intent of God. They are making humanity strong so that humans can't be absorbed by the Heavenly Hivemind. They know that what's broken can sometimes mend even stronger -- scars are tough, don't feel the pain so much... They're fighting a War here, and they don't have time to coddle the humans who are Heaven's targets for victimization via assimilation and subjugation. (And with luck, even the ones who do get sucked up into the Hivemind may have a few seeds that will poison the whole Host. An angel can hope!) Basically, think of backwards Habbalah as a bit like forwards Malakim of Stone...

3) Saminga. His entire schtick is that he's a dumb movie villain. If you want to keep him you could move him to Heaven, I guess. I'm not entirely certain what Belial is doing in this universe, either (make him about abandoning oneself to emotion?)

Saminga just never was the same after some Archangel ripped Forces off him... (Or perhaps he never was the same after the Seraphim Council Word-bound and elevated the mysterious Archangel of Death!) But Sammy's still dedicated to the cause -- steal the humans away from Heaven as quickly as possible, before they can be corrupted!

Belial, likewise, is a little cracked from having to deal with his prophetic opposite number. She keeps whispering in his thoughts, trying to draw him back into the Heavenly Hivemind... It makes a poor Prince just have to break things to keep from listening, to drown out the way his former Superior's words whisper from the flames they share...

4) Marc and Mammon.

Robber baron Marc! Sacrifice yourself building this railroad, peon -- it's something much bigger than you are, after all.

Mammon, meanwhile, reminds humans that they deserve a slice of the pie as well. Why should those fat cat corporate presidents get the fruits of your labors, while you eat dirt and your children starve? Poverty isn't going to be rewarded in the afterlife, boyos -- it's just more of the same, only the foremen have feathers.

5) Kronos and Yves.

Yeah, just swap these two, attitudinally. Though you might want to keep the time-related stuff -- Kronos may be about hindsight, that the angels should have had about this plan cooked up by "God"/the Seraphim Council secret controlling society.

The Game one looks reasonable to me. It's all about teaching people to bend the rules, rather than march lockstep into Heaven's grasp...

[Jason]

There were some really great suggestions along these lines in a thread titled In Nomine, minus the angels (for a campaign I've been running which is low contrast and blurry to the point of maybe being backwards). See also this thread on "Backwards" In Nomine, which had some great input from others on specific bands and Words.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

Backwards Habbalah serve the true intent of God.

Actually, I should expand on that. It's possible that you will want to make the Symphony/absent God still... pro-human, in some way. It's also possible that Habbalah are simply still cracked -- into believing that the Symphony/God is not an uncaring "be a cog in the machine and let power flow to me" kind of thing. They may believe that they serve God's true intent of Free Will... and they may be wrong -- a tragic and noble "Choir"!

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

Actually, I should expand on that. It's possible that you will want to make the Symphony/absent God still... pro-human, in some way. It's also possible that Habbalah are simply still cracked -- into believing that the Symphony/God is not an uncaring "be a cog in the machine and let power flow to me" kind of thing. They may believe that they serve God's true intent of Free Will... and they may be wrong -- a tragic and noble "Choir"!

Or they just have another interpretation of "God" ... not the tyrannical "Creator," but God as a Truth that lies in the self. They'd still probably look a little kooky in their theology to other demons, but there are ways to swing it that still basically come down to the conclusion that there is such a thing as good, and it isn't in Heaven.

Incidentally, "Backwards" In Nomine kind of reminds me of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series (The Golden Compass and the rest). I'll explain in a spoiler tag in case you're not familiar...

Spoiler:  

In this series, God, the angels, and even the Fallen angels are all real. The Fallen even make no secret to mortals (the few who actually figure out how to communicate with them) that they're trying to strike back at God for "revenge." At the end of the day, the Fallen aren't really any more inherently moral than the angels who still hang with God (who's just a withered old husk of an angel, barely aware of his surroundings anymore). The real victory for humanity is in charting its own course, ditching eternal afterlife for satisfied dissolution at the end -- into the Symphony, as it were.