New collaborative netbook idea - The Devil Himself

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Sagitta

degrades in the Light of Heaven like a Gamester noose (Asmodeus p26). Issue them to the troops searching every building in the city, and check for reports of disintegrating equipment.

(As a note, the intent was that they degrade when exposed celestially to the Light of Heaven -- and stolen nooses are not really that useful if you don't haul your captive to Heaven with you, overall. A noose in corporeal form could, by intent, be stored for an arbitrary length of time without suffering damage. As a GM, I wouldn't make it an indefinite amount of time, because I'm mean that way. But otherwise... A demon in vessel can withstand any Heavenly Tether (save, it is rumored, Notre Dame) just fine -- it's when they drop their corporeal form that they burn.

I will check the Nooses' text, though; it was never my intent that celestial gear become automatic Tether-detectors in that form. Just that they weren't all over the place in Heaven for thematic reasons.)

[Sagitta]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

A demon in vessel can withstand any Heavenly Tether (save, it is rumored, Notre Dame) just fine -- it's when they drop their corporeal form that they burn.

Ah, I've been mistakenly thinking it applies to demons in vessels too.

I will check the Nooses' text, though; it was never my intent that celestial gear become automatic Tether-detectors in that form.

Yes, I think you're right.
<mutters something about a Secret Rite>

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Sagitta

Ah, I've been mistakenly thinking it applies to demons in vessels too.

Page 51 of the Liber Castellorum goes into great, gory detail about how the Light of Heaven affects demons in Tethers, if that helps...

Page 59 of the core rules is a little less clear on why demons in celestial form don't go near Tethers, but it does specify celestial.

Heaven & Hell, p. 60 -- or, more accurately, the errata for it -- discusses the Light of Heaven in regards to celestial form.

It is therefore my sincere hope that I don't need to errata the Nooses to specify "celestial" more than referring to the Light of Heaven implicitly does... Please? *big puppyCherub eyes*

[Jonathan Walton]

Yo, dibs on China, but I don't really know about Nybbas taking over. Moe, can you talk more about your motivations and inspirations for that? I mean, Malphas I can totally see (considering the state of China at the time), but Nybbas?

Also, I think it's kinda cliched to have all the Archangels on the side of the victors of history. Surely David, Michael, Laurence and some of the other more militant Archangels would find some aspects of Japanese fascism very attractive. And since East Asian religions send some Essence to Heaven, as I recall, the expanded potency of State Shinto in Japan could be seen as an improvement. And I could see some Archangels thinking that expanding Japanese domination over China would be a great solution to the Civil War that's been destroying everything.

So, yeah, can we mix it up a bit? Seems like demons and angels are going to be active on both sides, trying to swing things "their" way, instead of the ways the mortals are driving towards.

I'm not really sure how the Celestial powers-that-be would respond to the Communist insurgency. The promotion of radical atheism would seem to mainly feed the spirits of the Marches, as humans send their essence to places other than Heaven. Seems like, too, Chinese traditional religion is going to be pretty weak in urban areas, aside from the ritual practices of criminal brotherhoods and secret societies. There was a pretty huge anti-superstition and anti-Christian movement that went on in the 1920s, before this. Chiang Kaishek was nominally Christian, but just nominally, and he didn't really do much to stop the promotion of radical secularism.

In rural areas, though, especially in places where the Communists haven't had time to radicalize the peasants, traditional religion is still a big deal. Thats a ton of Essence going somewhere, with huge potential for Tethers of various kinds. In fact, you'd think that a significant sub-goal of missionary activities in this era (and of military intervention in China) is trying to get a foothold there, Tether-wise.

[Moe Lane]

"Moe, can you talk more about your motivations and inspirations for that? I mean, Malphas I can totally see (considering the state of China at the time), but Nybbas?"

Mostly it has to do with the already-assigned role of Nybbas as one of the two DPs slapping around ethereals.

As for the cliche, as I originally conceived this it was all very high-contrast. The major villain is actually more Saminga than Baal, partially because of Delta Green (the throwaway bit where it's mentioned that a sect of ghouls worship Josef Stalin as their version of a harvest god had a certain resonance with me) and partially because of Weird War II (the throwaway bit there was that many Russians would have joined up with the Devil himself as opposed to Stalin). It can be fiddled with, but I have to wonder whether an unambiguous good-versus-bad scenario has gotten old enough to be retro. :)

As for East Asia in general... the situation is all kinds of messed up there, no? Possibly parties go to the Chinese front for the complicated moral questions.

Moe

PS: Good to hear from you, man.

[jesdynf]

God may have turned Disturbance off -- or it may no longer have any real negative effects, being just another noise. There's no other way to handle Celestial interference (and human awareness of the Symphony) on any large scale.

("You pull the trigger, and the bombs are freed of their braces... direct hit! Scratch one weapons factory. Okay, now roll for Role coverage... oh, bad break. Shoulda sprung for the Role/4, I guess. Let me see... Vehicles, factory workers, buildings, soldiers... looks like it's going to be about fifteen hundred points of Disturbance, chief. How many Time Hits do you have again? Oh, no Temporal Forces? Hmm. I'm not sure you'll like this next part...")

Which... yes, implies fairly deep changes of the Symphony's view of itself. Wonder how that affects Eli? Maybe his walkabout started earlier -- and has a more sinister aspect.

[Voort]

Two thoughts/options for Eli:

First, in a darker campaign I could see Eli abandoning the more violent Archangels and possibly running Heaven's efforts in China (while dropping slowly into Impudite-style tactics to oppose Media's efforts.)

Second, the sillier campaign sees Eli with fedora and whip, roaming the world to save precious artifacts from Baal's Nazi NecroArchaeologists (and you thought Hitler was obsessed with biblical artifacts?).