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Old 05-18-2010, 08:09 AM   #11
ladyarcana55
 
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One great clue is if you resonate on them and get absolutely nothing.
Really? I thought that a Remnant is pretty much a person with amnesia? So although they have no relationships and such, they still have emotions, a sense of honor and whatnot?
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Old 05-18-2010, 08:19 AM   #12
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Really? I thought that a Remnant is pretty much a person with amnesia? So although they have no relationships and such, they still have emotions, a sense of honor and whatnot?
There's a pretty broad range of remnant personalities, in that they could be the homeless guy who mutters to himself on the side of the street, or they could be Michaelangelo (a rumor noted in the Eli supplement, IIRC). Either way, though, the rules specify that Perception-based resonances return no result on them. If you try to check someone for honor/truth/emotion etc. and you get no data back, you're most likely either hitting (a) a remnant, (b) someone with the Ethereal Song of Shields, or (c) a Superior!
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Old 05-18-2010, 10:02 AM   #13
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Does the result (angel, demon, ethereal) depend entirely on who's contributing those Forces, or is a former demon remnant only able to be remade into a demon again?
While a GM could easily rule otherwise, the basic canon is: only Archangels can make angels, only Demon Princes can make demons, and only Lilith can make Lilim. (Ethereal gods would make ethereals.) See also [spoiler] in FotM/Final Trumpet.

A GM who rules otherwise does open the door for Princes "scooping out the soul" of a captive angel, replacing the Forces so there's an amnesiac/partial amnesiac angel, and trying to condition it to do the Prince's bidding. Personally, I'd save that for a plot McGuffin.

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Quick question from the newb...
How does a Celestial know if someone they meet is a Remnant?
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One great clue is if you resonate on them and get absolutely nothing.
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Really? I thought that a Remnant is pretty much a person with amnesia? So although they have no relationships and such, they still have emotions, a sense of honor and whatnot?
They have (or at least act out) emotions and may have a sense of honor, but they have no soul to "display" these things. Don't think of them as a "person" with amnesia. Think of them as a very, very well-preserved zombie (not zombi; nuances here) that doesn't know it's dead. A shell, not a being. An imprinted memory of a dead person, stamped into flesh, going through the motions of life by rote (A mirror image of a ghost, in some ways.)

No Perception, no Will (or negligible amounts). No one is home.

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[...] the rules specify that Perception-based resonances return no result on them. If you try to check someone for honor/truth/emotion etc. and you get no data back, you're most likely either hitting (a) a remnant, (b) someone with the Ethereal Song of Shields, or (c) a Superior!
Yup!
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Old 05-18-2010, 10:40 AM   #14
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While a GM could easily rule otherwise, the basic canon is: only Archangels can make angels, only Demon Princes can make demons, and only Lilith can make Lilim. (Ethereal gods would make ethereals.) See also [spoiler] in FotM/Final Trumpet. (…)

Think of them as a very, very well-preserved zombie (not zombi; nuances here) that doesn't know it's dead. A shell, not a being. An imprinted memory of a dead person, stamped into flesh, going through the motions of life by rote (A mirror image of a ghost, in some ways.)
Ah, that makes sense. In some ways, it might even be easier to think of them less as a "person" or even "former person" than as a bundle of Forces that just happens to be stuck together and moving about.

In some plots, a remnant might also be kind of like the "black box" from a crashed airplane, rather than the plane itself. The plane is gone, but mining the wreckage for information (e.g., by transplanting Ethereal Forces) can tell you a bit how the plane fell apart...
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Old 05-18-2010, 12:51 PM   #15
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Ah, that makes sense. In some ways, it might even be easier to think of them less as a "person" or even "former person" than as a bundle of Forces that just happens to be stuck together and moving about.

In some plots, a remnant might also be kind of like the "black box" from a crashed airplane, rather than the plane itself. The plane is gone, but mining the wreckage for information (e.g., by transplanting Ethereal Forces) can tell you a bit how the plane fell apart...
That is a nice analogy. Or like an imprint in the sand of a seashell. It LOOKS like a sea shell but it isn't the real thing.
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Old 05-18-2010, 03:00 PM   #16
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Is there a way to know if it was an angel or a demon?
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Old 05-18-2010, 03:10 PM   #17
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Is there a way to know if it was an angel or a demon?
Oddly, they do actually keep their attunements, so if you see one doing something that ONLY a Servitor of such-and-such could do, that might be the best clue. Otherwise, I'd imagine the only way you could really tell would be mining the memories left in their Forces. (Which might not require transplanting them, if the GM decides the Ethereal Song of Draining still works on them.)
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Old 05-24-2010, 03:55 PM   #18
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Default Re: Remnant Questions

A Superior could probably tell which the Remnant was. Or if it was an ethereal remnant!
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Old 05-30-2010, 03:40 AM   #19
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Is there a way to know if it was an angel or a demon?
...I'd imagine the only way you could really tell would be mining the memories left in their Forces. (Which might not require transplanting them, if the GM decides the Ethereal Song of Draining still works on them.)
Whatever happened to good old-fashioned interrogation, physical evidence, documents and witnesses?
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Old 05-30-2010, 07:49 AM   #20
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Whatever happened to good old-fashioned interrogation, physical evidence, documents and witnesses?
Not impossible, but:

1) Since the Remnant itself doesn't remember what it was (or even that it was ever Celestial), interrogation won't do much except provide a frustrating afternoon.

2) In the case of determining if a Remnant was an angel or demon, the best "physical evidence" is liable to be any old attunements they still have and use, as mentioned earlier. (The best example being the Creation Remnant turning a bottle of water into wine, in the vignette found in the main rules.) Physically, their vessels look and act the same as anyone else's. And they can't take celestial form, so that identifier is out.

3) Physical documents and witnesses are possible if the celestial was made into a Remnant fairly recently, but may be hard to come by. You have to establish what its Role was, who else knew it in that Role, which of those people would have known its secret identity, and whether it had left behind any files, artifacts or other telltales that hinted at the truth.

So classic detective work has its place. But a would-be Sherlock may have his work cut out for him.
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