Input on Seattle Tethers

[Valadrim]

For the game that I will be running I have decided that the greater Seattle area can support about sixteen tethers. I was hoping you might give me some input as to where these tethers might be located. This is what I have so far.

David: Mount Rainier, Olympic Mountains
Dominic: Washington State Supreme Court, Olympia
Jean: Microsoft Redmond Campus, Redmond (I know make your jokes now)
Laurence: St. James Cathedral, Seattle
Marc: Pike Place Market, Seattle
Novalis: Seattle Japanese Garden, Seattle
Yves: University of Washington Library, Seattle

Asmodeus: Washington State Capital Building, Olympia
Belial: Site of 1889 fire, Seattle

I want to find a happy home for the following but I can't think of a good place to put them.

Michael
Andrealphus, Baal, Kronos, Malphas, Nybbas

If I have done my math right that makes 15. Can anyone think of a Superior that Seattle just screams for the inclusion of that I have overlooked?

[baddog]

Michael, Boeing field built lot of warplanes in ww2 or bremerton naval ship yard, kronos, the house where kurt cobain died. Baal, ft Lawton cemetery an Italian pow was killed during ww2 and is buried there. Malphas, the king county council chambers the division between urban Seattle and rural king county can get heated or the state capitol, western vs eastern washington makes the seattle / king county split seem tame. Nybbas, Nintendo hq in redmond or queen ann hill in seattle where the local tv broadcast towers are.

As for other superiors Janus, again boeing field, Seattle was known as jet city in the past. Saminga, the green river for the green river killer.

I'll try to think of more later.

[Rocket Man]

Given public perceptions, I'd actually put Vapula at the Microsoft campus in Redmond. A friend and I have talked on this subject and agreed that we'd put Jean at the Space Needle instead.

[Valadrim]

I have done some more work on my tethers, I thought that I was perhaps going too far in just including famous sites as tethers and I added a few more mundane ones as well. Let me know what you think.

David: Mount Rainier, Olympic Mountains
Dominic: Temple of Justice, Olympia (Yup, that's what the building that houses the Supreme Court is called)
Jean: Microsoft Redmond Campus, Redmond (Going to fall to Vapula???)
Laurence: St. James Cathedral, Seattle
Marc: Pike Place Market, Seattle; Microsoft Monetary Exchange, Redmond
Michael: Beneath overpass where a homeless man stood up to a gang of criminals that was terrorizing his family living there, Seattle
Novalis: Seattle Japanese Garden, Seattle
Yves: University of Washington Library, Seattle

Andrealphus: 3rd Avenue and Washington Street, Seattle (Site of a very popular brothel from the turn of the century)
Asmodeus: Legislative Building, Olympia (His tether is actually on the executive side of the building where much of the gubernatorial game playing is hammered out.)
Baal: Site of a gang shooting, Parkland
Belial: Site of 1889 Seattle Fire, Seattle
Kronos: a Tacoma public middle school, Tacoma (The staff's chronic abandoning of hope for the troubled youth at the school has done more to help children reach their fate than many of Kronos' demons have.)
Malphas: Legislative Building, Olympia (This tether is on the legislative side of the building)
Nybbas: Seattle Times Office, Seattle (While print isn't the flashiest media, this century old institution gets his demons into Seattle)
Saminga: A stretch of SR 99, near Auburn (Where Gary Ridgeway found many of his victims.)

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Given public perceptions, I'd actually put Vapula at the Microsoft campus in Redmond. A friend and I have talked on this subject and agreed that we'd put Jean at the Space Needle instead.

Yeah, I thought about the Microsoft thing for a bit. My current feelings are, irrespective of popular perception of Microsoft and the anti-trust issues that have surrounded it, Microsoft started as a very noticeable and very good thing, and this initial sudden shift in the Symphony created a tether which Jean took advantage of. Perhaps Lightning has been overly neglectful of how Microsoft could impact other parts of the Symphony, but it still continues to be a powerful site for Lightning.

I figured the inclusion of Jean, and the non-inclusion of Vapula was one of many ways that I could keep the brightness on this setting relatively high (something important if I want to drag my fiance into this game). The other principal method I am employing to keep the setting bright is by having 2/3 of the Angelic tethers in Seattle proper, while the demons only have 1/3 within the city limits, with the rest being a bit scattered about.

While discussing Microsoft, it occurs to me that it could easily fit Marc as well. Microsoft is one of the first (possible the first I would have to check) business to include a fully functioning monetary exchange in their office. I could easily see Jean's tether being in the break room where the robotics club meets, and Marc's being inside the exchange itself. Actually I think I will do that. Marc will have an Aging tether at Pike Place, and relatively new one in the monetary exchange. I don't think that will effect the balance of power too much, and it makes sense to me.

Also it will make it so much more interesting if the seneschal or Master of the Machine falls, and Vapula makes a grab for one of the Microsoft tethers, if Marc has a tether that is in the same building. I think I like this idea because it starts the game out relatively light, but will put the players in a position to either keep it that way or allow things to turn worse with the conflict over the tether.

The other place where I think conflict will be interesting is that The Game, Factions, and Judgment all have tethers on the Capital Campus. I imagine that Dominicans must have a rough time being under constant observation from both Factions and the Game. Everyone loves triads that by way of necessity have become more paranoid and skilled at obfuscation than is typical, right? And then these triads have to drive past four demonic tethers to even get to Seattle where the players, and most other Angels will be; I like it!

So with just this short discussion of tethers, have I made an interesting setting? Is there any changes you think I might want to make to tell a better or more interesting story? ...something inside me is a little sad that I didn't make room for Kobal, but all of my other placements seem to make more sense, and I don't want everyone to have a tether. Perhaps I don't need Baal's little friends running around. I don't know, what do you all think?

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Valadrim

Marc will have an Aging tether at Pike Place, and relatively new one in the monetary exchange...

Something else to think about is that Pike Place over the years has become less of a market and more of a tourist trap -- it's possible Nybbas may have been eroding it for some time.

Likewise, it's possible that the Seattle Times is actually a Tether to Litheroy -- or that the Post-Intelligencer was before that paper's untimely demise.

[robkelk]

With the sheer number of Starbuck's outlets in Seattle, one of them's bound to be a Tether to Gluttony... or, if you think their coffee is overpriced and/or pretentious, to Dark Humor.

[Valadrim]

Originally Posted by robkelk

With the sheer number of Starbuck's outlets in Seattle, one of them's bound to be a Tether to Gluttony... or, if you think their coffee is overpriced and/or pretentious, to Dark Humor.

My favorite joke when I am in Seattle with my friends, is that I suggest if we get split up we just meet at the Starbucks.

There are a lot of great sites in Seattle that could be a tether, I did look for a first Starbucks, or the corporate office as a possibility. But I ultimately felt that no one Starbucks location was metaphysically significant enough for a Tether. Starbucks might be an interesting word for a celestial, however I don't see the Seraphim Council handing that one out ever, and frankly given the social and economic policy of Starbucks, I feel disinclined to see it as infernal in nature...Although the more I think about it the more insidious it seems.

"Don't worry about the plight in the world around you fair consumer, we will do it for you! Continue to buy from us, and we will support fair trade and good causes around the world. Don't become involved, don't care on any meaningful or personal level, buy from us; we will do it for you!"

I will have to give this some thought.

[ISNorden]

Originally Posted by Valadrim

Starbucks might be an interesting word for a celestial, however I don't see the Seraphim Council handing that one out ever, and frankly given the social and economic policy of Starbucks, I feel disinclined to see it as infernal in nature...Although the more I think about it the more insidious it seems.

"Don't worry about the plight in the world around you fair consumer, we will do it for you! Continue to buy from us, and we will support fair trade and good causes around the world. Don't become involved, don't care on any meaningful or personal level, buy from us; we will do it for you!"

I will have to give this some thought.

Sounds as if the Demon of Starbucks is either a Djinn or a Balseraph; the latter would at least do a decent job of pretending to care about good causes. As for his Prince, Greed is my first choice: the coffee itself seems less important than the prestige and image that comes with it.

[Acolyte]

There's an amazing fountain in Seattle Center that is at LEAST a site of great potential for a Tether to Children (or Music, if Israfel ever bumps over the line into Archangel status). This is especially telling as Seattle in general isn't the most kid-friendly place. And the Space Needle is in Seattle Center, which is pretty awesome (the history of its amazing, successful, and fatal-accident-less construction points to angelic involvement).

I wouldn't put a Tether at Pike Place at all. If anything, I'd say Flowers for the open market or call it Infernal and give it to Haagenti (the first Starbucks is there...but that's an even cheaper shot than Microsoft and I wouldn't go that route myself). But Pike Place, while a popular destination, doesn't give off a strong unifying vibe other than crass exploitation of popularity for a little profit (it's not terrible as the produce is nice, but otherwise nothing special). In any case, a single act of terrorism would be enough to TOTALLY reshape the Tether in people's minds, so if it were a Tether there would have to be a really good reason why the other side hadn't strapped a bomb to a Malakite/Calabite and sent him in on a busy Sunday afternoon with a group of Asian tourists.

You've ignored the International District, where I imagine (with this geographical distribution of Tethers) there is a lot of angel/demon conflict (possibly the disturbance from this regular conflict is preventing Tether formation...maybe there are the ruins of a Tether within).

Also of interest is UW, which is pretty huge and probably has the typical combat feeling of Destiny/Lightning vs. Technology/Lust/Dark Humor. A lot of drugs run through or get used in Seattle, so fitting in a Drugs Tether wouldn't be out of the picture--though you might be safer in saying there's a big Tether in Portland or Vancouver (BC, not WA) and just some demons of Drugs in Seattle.

I hugely second that Mt. Rainier one. St. James is actually rather unimpressive as far as big-city cathedrals go, and I wouldn't put a Tether to the Sword there. I like that underpass Tether to War, though--that's a great one to drop into any particular city, but it's got a nice touch.

As for Redmond, if there was a Tether to Jean, at the very least it's under huge attack. Microsoft doesn't stand for stunning innovation in the minds of humanity as it once did (as disgusting as it sounds to say it, Apple's probably closer to the Word of Lightning in the mind of your average American, even PC users), and stands instead for a bloated and failure-ridden OS that everyone has to use anyway...definitely Vapula's at work there. I never went over to Redmond myself, so I can't suggest specific locations, but I imagine the setup as a rapidly weakening Lightning Tether and a steadily growing Technology one, both within the corporate establishment of Microsoft and thus unable to truly assault each other without risking harming themselves (like that Dreams/Nightmares hospital in L.Cast. or wherever it was). In your current setup (which I like, by the way, with Seattle more "good" and Tacoma/Olympia more "bad", as a nice setup for adventure), this dual nature of Redmond would represent a significant coup for the demons that Heaven is really worried about--that would make Seattle besieged on two sides by Hell.

Speaking of the sides, I suggest a (possibly hidden) Tether to Mammon on Bainbridge Island--native Seattlites seemed to me to have a deep dislike of the supposedly preppy, rich, and arrogant people who live on "The Island" (which I did hear Bainbridge people say, as if there weren't a bazillion other islands around).

Given how much crime there is in Lake City, I'd be willing to bet some demons have set up shop there, just north of Seattle, hoping to further tighten the net around the city. I doubt there's an actual Tether there of substance, but it could make for an important point of adventuring for the game.

In a city as wildly animal-friendly (and ecologically-minded) as Seattle, I'd suggest including a bizarre urban Tether to Animals. Certainly not the flagging zoo; possibly in one of the larger parks, like Green Lake. Possibly just a random alley where a human gave up his life to save a stray dog or something. That would be a good monkey wrench to throw into the game.

You might work in Kobal at one of the city's recycling facilities, where the vast majority of the objects the well-meaning citizens of Seattle dutifully recycle are instead thrown away for a myriad of reasons, all of which come down to the fact that even subsidized recycling is a business. Or where that guy saved his dog's life and died, heehee.

This does sound interesting. I'd love to talk with you more about it.

[Valadrim]

Originally Posted by Acolyte

There's an amazing fountain in Seattle Center that is at LEAST a site of great potential for a Tether to Children...and the Space Needle is in Seattle Center, which is pretty awesome.

One of my central premises that I will not move from is, "Not everyone gets a Tether." I am at the point now where if I want give someone else a Tether, I will take away a Tether from someone else. Something I am particularly loathe to do in the instance of a Superior who I don't have a write-up for (such as Christopher). The Seattle Centre is pretty neat; I have a Mercurian of Stone who hangs out there when he can. I am not adverse to new Tethers developing in response to the actions in game, and this will be something I will look at, thank you.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

I wouldn't put a Tether at Pike Place at all...while a popular destination, doesn't give off a strong unifying vibe other than crass exploitation of popularity for a little profit... In any case, a single act of terrorism would be enough to TOTALLY reshape the Tether in people's minds, so if it were a Tether there would have to be a really good reason why the other side hadn't strapped a bomb to a Malakite/Calabite and sent him in on a busy Sunday afternoon with a group of Asian tourists.

I love it, I pictured Pike Place Tether as having formed early this century, eeking out an existence based upon its presence is Seattle (which, even if superficial, cannot be denied). But I agree it lacks a lot of what I would expect from a powerful and secure Tether. As such I will definitely consider blowing up a bus of orphans or something there...ooh! I know, if I can do something horrifically ironic I can introduce that Kobal Tether that I have been hoping for. Anyone who has ideas for hilarious tragedies please submit them!

Originally Posted by Acolyte

You've ignored the International District, where I imagine (with this geographical distribution of Tethers) there is a lot of angel/demon conflict...

It is true, I haven't really looked at specific neighborhoods at all, and that is something I should fix, even though I don't believe I will plant any more Tethers anywhere (not until in game action makes them at least). What I really need is a good Seattle map.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Also of interest is UW, which is pretty huge and probably has the typical combat feeling of Destiny/Lightning vs. Technology/Lust/Dark Humor.

Again, due to my desire to not fill the city up to its eyes with Tethers, I avoided sticking more than one Tether at UW. But yes, it will be populated with soldiers and celestials of all of those parties. Demons of Drugs is a good idea that I will consider adding on when I collect the appropriate Superiors book (which might not be for a while). I feel like In Nomine is rich enough of a setting without me trying to include everything on my first run.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

I hugely second that Mt. Rainier one.

Thanks, the Seneschal (I don't have his name in-front of me) is an Ofanite of the Mountain. I like the idea of an Angel who spends all of his time physically inside the mountain, and also enjoy the idea that he (rightly so) believes that there is no need to specify which mountain (everyone knows). Stone is going to be rather aloof in this game, there are two Mercurians who keep themselves very busy in Seattle, and an Elohite that teaches in Tacoma while coaching sports, helping to harden students against the grim realities of life.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

St. James is actually rather unimpressive as far as big-city cathedrals go, and I wouldn't put a Tether to the Sword there.

I guess I just don't know where to stick it then. I know I want to have one. I liked the fact that some of the fund raising for the cathedral took place in the old armoury, and with anything as old as St. James (as far as Seattle goes at least) I feel inclined to give it a pass. The Seneschal is a Mercurian, and I was planning to highlight the community and humanitarian works of the diocese to help justify its ongoing and significant presence. I am forced to admit complete ignorance to how St. James impacts Seattle in real life, but as I doubt it is full of Angels in real life I feel justified in making it "better" in my game than might be the case.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

I like that underpass Tether to War, though--that's a great one to drop into any particular city, but it's got a nice touch.

Thanks, hey I am glad you are here because I can't remember the exact location I am thinking of. Going South on I-5 you come to a place where ahead of you, you see a large wooded hill on the left(with medical research facilities on top??) and below you there are lots of (presumably) homeless people staying under the suspended highways and highway ramps for shelter (particularly when it is raining). I want to say this happens more or less around the Boeing Airfield, but I could be wrong. Do you remember what exit this is?

Originally Posted by Acolyte

As for Redmond, if there was a Tether to Jean, at the very least it's under huge attack. Microsoft doesn't stand for stunning innovation in the minds of humanity as it once did...and stands instead for a bloated and failure-ridden OS that everyone has to use anyway...definitely Vapula's at work there. I never went over to Redmond myself, so I can't suggest specific locations, but I imagine the setup as a rapidly weakening Lightning Tether and a steadily growing Technology one, both within the corporate establishment of Microsoft and thus unable to truly assault each other without risking harming themselves (like that Dreams/Nightmares hospital in L.Cast. or wherever it was).

Actually you hit it on the head; during the course of the game there will be a push from Vapula to capture the Microsoft Tether. Vapula has more demons in town than any other Prince who has no Tether, and they are very interested in what they can do with Microsoft (I mean look what the humans have done without much pushing). They will, however, be at a loss of how to take the Tether considering that Marc has a Tether in the same building. This confusion will quickly turn into action when the Seneschal (or non-word bound leader) Falls.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

In your current setup (which I like, by the way, with Seattle more "good" and Tacoma/Olympia more "bad", as a nice setup for adventure), this dual nature of Redmond would represent a significant coup for the demons that Heaven is really worried about--that would make Seattle besieged on two sides by Hell.

I am a big fan of it too. The it give the players a chance to start off easy. Finding a Calabite of Fire in an urban area where Angels outnumber demons, before they can get involved in something more political like undermining Nybbas in that same city, or something much more dangerous like confronting demons on their home turf in Tacoma/Parkland/Olympia. The Redmond falling to Infernals would change the game from North=Good, South=Bad, to Seattle=besieged island.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Speaking of the sides, I suggest a (possibly hidden) Tether to Mammon on Bainbridge Island--native Seattleites seemed to me to have a deep dislike of the supposedly preppy, rich, and arrogant people who live on "The Island" (which I did hear Bainbridge people say, as if there weren't a bazillion other islands around).

I almost want to say I have enough unpleasant surprises, but if my players are doing well and their characters get entrusted with more responsibility and resources a Tether on Bainbridge might not be out of place.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Given how much crime there is in Lake City, I'd be willing to bet some demons have set up shop there, just north of Seattle, hoping to further tighten the net around the city. I doubt there's an actual Tether there of substance, but it could make for an important point of adventuring for the game.

Thank you for the idea. Again I really should spend some quality time with a map of Seattle and figure out where the details lie (I would like to think that the broad strokes are coming into focus). If you have any Seattle-centric adventure seeds I would love to hear them.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

In a city as wildly animal-friendly (and ecologically-minded) as Seattle, I'd suggest including a bizarre urban Tether to Animals. Certainly not the flagging zoo; possibly in one of the larger parks, like Green Lake. Possibly just a random alley where a human gave up his life to save a stray dog or something. That would be a good monkey wrench to throw into the game.

You know, that is a good idea. I was planning on having Jordi's servitors be essentially irrelevant to the story at hand, but having them spend all of their time attempting to get a Tether started is a great thing for them to be up to as my PCs ignore them and vice versa.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

You might work in Kobal at one of the city's recycling facilities, where the vast majority of the objects the well-meaning citizens of Seattle dutifully recycle are instead thrown away for a myriad of reasons, all of which come down to the fact that even subsidized recycling is a business. Or where that guy saved his dog's life and died, heehee.

I have always found it deeply ironic that the amount of resources expended in the recycling process exceeds the amount reclaimed. And that every time some smug Seattleite glares at me as they pull my plastic bottle out of the trash and into recycling they are actually killing the Earth.* (It should be noted that aluminum recycling is a net gain due to the vast amounts of electricity involved to manufacture it the first time around)

However I like my Pike Place idea better. Please send your hilarious disaster ideas now!

I will keep everyone posted about my game as it goes.

*Apparently not true, whoops.