Gabriels dissonance Condition.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by PenitentDemon

a 3 force reliever of fire withotu a vessel , whats SHE to do when she spots a cruel person? makes it hard to punish even a normal human.

Why, the Song of Fire, of course! ;)

[Acolyte]

"The dissonance vanishes once justice has been served," according to Gabriel's writeup. That's open to interpretation, but I would say that a full, sincere repentence counts as justice having been served ... they've effectively inflicted their own punishment!

Actually going to disagree with you for once, Rocket Man!

I think the Gabrielite has to do the punishing, and if someone just repents for some other reason, that doesn't let the angel off the hook. Now, if the Gabrielite was instrumental in that repentance (I imagine Elohim would be really good at that), that's fine, but if someone's human priest or therapist or parole officer or whatever convinces him to repent, the angel hasn't done any punishing yet. Mind you, only a dissonantly cruel Gabrielite would apply a hefty punishment to a repentant human, but some form of punishment would still be required.

[JCD]

Repentance includes the root word 'Penance'.

Penance is traditionally seen to involve punishment for one's action to atone. See Penitent from Medieval times.

So a repentant person would have 'made good' on the cruelty.

However, here is the rub which makes (in my mind) the point moot: Penance takes time.

A stepmother who was emotionally abusive to her stepchildren is NOT going to 'make right' in the time frame an angel would require to avoid dissonance. Penance would take a good deal of time to eradicate that which the cruel person did.

In this case, I would suggest that the Angel, seeing a person TRYING to repent, would find a way to insert themselves into the penance, so she could a) get rid of that pesky dissonance, b) make sure that the person didn't 'go cheap' on their punishment, and c) try to direct the person so they AVOID the mindset that made them cruel in the first place.

This goes into another discussion altogether: the educational nature of the punishment. A divorce attorney who enjoyed twisting the lives of his clients and the opposing parties of the divorce might get his leg broken by a Malakim. Ho Hum! There is nothing edifying or enlightening in that sort of punishment.

I would think it would be a much more artistic and of more importance in the long term for the angel involved to have the attorney feel an instructive lesson then merely a painful one. I personally would rule that an angel working toward a more elaborate form of punishment would be free from Dissonance as long as they were stridently working toward that goal.

YMMV.

[Acolyte]

In a mixed-Word game (ie, nearly all games of IN), though, the (divine) Fire dissonance restriction can be problematic to the game, and it's not always possible to handle background Fire punishing in a side/solo session or with emails between sessions.

For a game I ran, I worked out a system with the Fire angel (a Malakite who had switched from Destiny because he wanted to do more direct action) for when we started a session a few days after the last one ended. We rolled a die and consulted the following table (he had 4 Celestial Forces):
1 It's been CelForces days since you last punished someone. Get on it!
2 It's been CelForces-1 days since you last punished someone. You're on the prowl.
3 It's been CelForces-2 days since you last punished someone. Low pressure.
4 It's been CelForces-3 days since you last punished someone. Good luck.
5 You are mid-punishment (either the punishment is in progress, or you have a plan in place that will finish in the next 24 hours).
6 You have just punished someone. The next cruel person you meet will draw your gaze.

That way, "look, a mean person" only risks derailing the team nature of a session 1/6th of the time, but it's not as if the PC gets off without having a dissonance condition (the roll of 5 tended to be more disruptive, actually, but also very fun, for example a session starting with the PCs in the car of the human Servant of a Destiny PC, the opening line being the Servant's: "So, why do we have a schoolteacher gagged in the trunk, again?"). The player and I worked together on details, and it was fun to include references to the PC's actions in general group rumors (GM: "Everyone in the bar is talking about how someone beat up all the pimps on 6th and that the working girls have lowered their prices in thank you to the anonymous stranger." Non-Fire PC: "Dude, was that you again?" Fire PC: "Maaaaaaybe.").

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Acolyte

For a game I ran, I worked out a system with the Fire angel (a Malakite who had switched from Destiny because he wanted to do more direct action) for when we started a session a few days after the last one ended. We rolled a die and consulted the following table (he had 4 Celestial Forces)…

SUCH a good idea. So good. Totally stealing this when the time comes.

[PenitentDemon]

oh on a BARELY Related issue

on Lilim

Am I right the "No such thing as a free lunch" thing is not dissonance imposed.

e.g. is it dissonant for a Lilim Information broker to give a group of angels "No strings attached" informaiton first 3 or 4 times, then when they start to depend on her to ask for a "Harmless favor"

on a closer note

Mammons dissonance condition.

Is giving out "free samples" or "0% APR on this card first 6 months" Dissonant for servitors of the prince of greed?

[Methariel]

Originally Posted by JCD

This goes into another discussion altogether: the educational nature of the punishment. A divorce attorney who enjoyed twisting the lives of his clients and the opposing parties of the divorce might get his leg broken by a Malakim. Ho Hum! There is nothing edifying or enlightening in that sort of punishment.

I would think it would be a much more artistic and of more importance in the long term for the angel involved to have the attorney feel an instructive lesson then merely a painful one.

Well, I think here we're touching the difference between Divine Fire and Judgment. Gabriel's servitors don't need to be concerned how their punishment relates to the cruelty committed, while Dominic's have to find a punishment that fits the crime.

So Gabriel's servitors might dispense punishments that are too soft (although this won't happen very often) or overly harsh (given their general nature, this is probably the case more often), as long as they are not cruel themselves.

Dominic's servitors, on the other hand, will try to give a fitting punishment. This sort of punishment might lead to the punished trying to remedy his ways - and I'm sure, deep down in his cloak, it's what Dominic wants.

If we take the lawyer in your example, it depends entirely on the Gabrielite Malakite he's met by how he gets punished:

Malakite A might break his leg because of his cruelty, Malakite B might burn down his office (while making sure beforehand that nobody gets hurt), Malakite C might burn down the lawyer (with his office or not).

Servitors of Dominic probably see him violating the ethics of being a lawyer (yes, there are some! ;) ) and will try to get his admission to the Bar revoked, or an Elohite or Mercurian of Judgment might want to ruin the lawyer's marriage or relationship to the point of break-up and general nastiness. A Malakite, on the other hand, might still just break his leg - and make sure it hurts, while telling him: "That's what you get if you mess around with other people's lives. Get them to divorce decently, or I'll remember that you've got another leg. Or a neck."

All this doesn't mean, mind you, that a Gabrielite won't punish with educational effect. I especially can see Seraphim and Elohim trying this. But I wouldn't spare them dissonance. They're part of Divine Fire, it burns, it urges them to react quickly - or they'll get burned.

I hope that's been useful.

With best regards,

M.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by PenitentDemon

oh on a BARELY Related issue

on Lilim

Am I right the "No such thing as a free lunch" thing is not dissonance imposed.

e.g. is it dissonant for a Lilim Information broker to give a group of angels "No strings attached" informaiton first 3 or 4 times, then when they start to depend on her to ask for a "Harmless favor"

I'd allow this, sure. No dissonance unless the Lilim tries to call in a favor but fails.

In fact, I suspect that's how most Lilim of Drugs operate - "the first one's free..."

Originally Posted by PenitentDemon

on a closer note

Mammons dissonance condition.

Is giving out "free samples" or "0% APR on this card first 6 months" Dissonant for servitors of the prince of greed?

Oooooohhhhh... That one's a bit trickier.

To a demon of Greed, TANSTAAFL doesn't mean "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lilim"... :) If this is a PC demon of Greed, I'd look at the player's scheme very closely, and if there's no way for the demon to be sure (possibly mistaken, but has to be sure) that he'd get back more than the freebies cost him, I'd slap him with dissonance.

[PenitentDemon]

Ouch hmmn would make impossible for the demon in such a case, to personally approve each and every persons application for a credit card.

oh in such a case, think it would be ok as long as the demon made more profit in the end, if one or two INDIVIDUALS subjected to such a massive thing, managed to come out ahead.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Methariel

Well, I think here we're touching the difference between Divine Fire and Judgment. Gabriel's servitors don't need to be concerned how their punishment relates to the cruelty committed, while Dominic's have to find a punishment that fits the crime.

So Gabriel's servitors might dispense punishments that are too soft (although this won't happen very often) or overly harsh (given their general nature, this is probably the case more often), as long as they are not cruel themselves.

Yeah. Basically, Gabby's Servitors are walking karma. If you did bad stuff, bad stuff is going to come back to you. Possibly with spiky bits embedded in your kneecap.