On the Origin of Malakim

[Acolyte]

Although Kyriotates use Will, and Lilim (generally classified with the demons) use Perception for their respective resonances. So it isn't a 100% thing as such.

Sigh. My point was not that there aren't exceptions to rules, but that if you call Malakim demons-in-angel form then you have to create a large new pile of exceptions, which is inelegant and thus not attractive to me.

As for Heaven not killing Lucifer outright, I'm guessing he remained an angel (and a Seraph, though a dissonant one) up until Michael kicked him out of Heaven (and the rest of the Horde changed over fully only when they followed him). If Lucifer had won, perhaps he would still be an angel, and history would have been very different. Michael might have ended up the rebel Balseraph.

You're right, I did forget about Raphael's "in" with the Symphony (though I would leave the blueprints to Jean, and call hers perhaps "illuminations"). Quibble away, although the APG lists Jean and Raphael being created about the same time and thus I'm not sure why one would trump the other (although I do like the fanon assumption that Jean and Raphael were lovers).

As for Lucifer doing some tricking, he could not have lied to them since lying is impossible in the celestial tongue (Balseraphic resonance avoids lying, but, again, Balseraphs get burned to cinders in Heaven). I was referring to the period shortly before the Fall where Lucifer fanned the flames of discontent in Heaven, creating an exclusive clique of discontented admirers, tempting beings with power should they join him, tricking Dominic by seducing Asmodeus into switching sides and letting the latter deceive his master (Superiors 1, page 41, Heaven and Hell, page 18), seeding Andrealphus's mind with the idea that Love brought pain just before Beleth and Blandine turned on one another (Superiors 2, page 9), manipulating Beleth's fears into hatred for Blandine (Superiors 3, pages 11-12, The Marches page 28), and convincing Baal that a Rebellion would cause God to see things their way (The Final Trumpet, page 24). The books also mention people he approached who rebuffed him (like Gabriel) or who he never approached at all (like Uriel, David, and Michael). Since it's obvious that Lucifer was planning a violent coup and used dishonest means to draft angels into his army and to keep his plans secret until the moment arrived, I'm comfortable with "tricked". The scheming and manipulative way in which Lucifer assembled his army and broke down the social order in Heaven shows that he knew the conflict would be ugly, and the books make it quite clear that he was using the angels that would become his Princes (nabbing Belial as a second-rate Gabriel, for example), not merely addressing their grievances.

...OF COURSE, that might all be Heavenly propaganda. I'm sure one can visit a theatre in Shal-Mari that will tell the story a bit differently. *grin* As written, the IN corpus has a slight bias toward Bright, High-Contrast games (although nowhere near as much as an outsider would assume given that the game deals with angels and demons); David's cruelty toward humanity is the exception that proves the rule among the Archangels. And there is plenty of good material for Dark, Backwards, Low-Contrast, or otherwise variant IN should you want to take the game in that direction.