Some hesitations about Kyriotates of Janus.

[Erijhon]

Hi, mates!

I am hesitating a bit with Kyriotates, which seems to be pretty normal by the Kyriotates' section size of the FAQ, haha!

In general, I understand their mechanics, although, some Superiors' choirs attunements mislead me a bit.

The most controversing one for me is Janus' Kyriotates. They can assume a gaseous form in the Corporeal Realm, without the need of possessing a host. In exchange, the angel can't physically interact with the Corporeal Surroundings and it moves with at 25% of its normal speed.

That lets me understand the Kyriotate takes "air" as its "host", what makes him hard to be perceived and unable to manipulate physical materials, even by "blowing" on them, as he has no "wind-like strength" due to the speed restriction.

Even though, it comes to my minds the following:

1 - I assume that its "gaseous" form makes him inmune to physical damage, in general.

Assuming it is physical gas (therefore it is not insubstantial), I come to think that fire, cold or some other physical energetic forces (like corporeal song of fire or thunder) might physically damage or affect the angel in gas form, how would you calculate its body hits?

It's very controversial to me, as air is "infinite" on earth, then I would think it can never be "destroyed" as long as gas form can be taken. Even if "destroying a gas vessel" could be ruled or roled, it would just force the Kyriotate to go Celestial for a moment, and then become gaseous again (he would "possess" another amount of gas).

Does it make any sense to you to "house-rule" gaseous body hits, or would you just role the angel in gaseous form is physically inmune to damage, although it can still be affected by conditions like stunned, blinded or confused?

2 - Would the angel in gaseous form be inmune to celestial damage as angels in hosts/vessels are?

3 - I assume that, as the gaseous form can't speak or verbally communicate, and has no especific physical form, it can't perform any vocal or gesture ritual to cast songs on level 1 and 2, as they require physical ritual. Although, what with songs over level 3 that can be casted mentally? I would allow gaseous form Kyriotates to cast songs mentally, applying song level modificators, do you agree?

[Whitelaughter]

The first thing to note is that the attunement is word for word identical with Shedite of Theft, so anything you decide should apply equally to both attunements.

From a practical perspective, anyone attacking the character is going to ignore body hits, and focus on something that can do some serious damage - Mind hits. It's simply the go to way to take out possessors: Ethereal Entropy or Numinous Corpus Tongue are simply more effective.

A spritzer loaded with Addictive drugs is another obvious way to hurt with the celestial.

The assumption that it is a physical gas is a major one - if so, why can a character with superhuman levels of Strength not blow a piece of paper? If you are making this decision, you should reward players for creative uses of what can be done with a gust of wind (certainly the Archangel of Wind should!)

Damaging air is a lot harder than it sounds. Burning will turn O2 into C20, sure...but the celestial can possess either, so isn't likely to care. Cold? Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of −196 °C (77 K), oxygen's is −183 °C (90 K), argon is -185.8 °C, so freezing air is a nightmare.
If the character was trapped in a sealed room, and you went with a low tech vaccuum - frex pump in boiling water, seal, wait for it to cool - you could force the character's 'vessel' to expand through the room, but given Kyrios can operate with Forces on different planes of existence, this is unlikely to worry them - possibly it would upset a Shedite. Or make it nostalgic for before it Fell, which might be even more productive!

A Song of Thunder though is straightforward - the stunning effect affects everyone within range, and is resisted by Will. This would definitely work.

Correct on your 2nd and 3rd points. However note that there's nothing to stop a Kyrio from using a possessed body elsewhere to perform the required rituals for a Song.

Happy GMing!

[Erijhon]

Thanks a lot, Whitelaughter!!

Doubts cleared!