Quote:Surviving. Heh. I think you're underestimating her impact - see, at the moment, her 'Gee, I really wish' plan involves sneaking a sort of bomb-device into a full meeting of the Infernal Council, or whatever it's called. Set the thing off, and every Celestial in the room gets tagged. And then, probably not very long later, dies. Lucifer won't, of course, but he'll look pretty shaky by the end of it - he'll be no more than an 'ordinary' Superior, for all intents and purposes.
Heee. Elisabeth sounds *awesome*. And that would probably be a feather in her cap if she got her mother to her side of the thinking (and incidentally, increase her chance of surviving probably). ^^;
How do you think that would affect Hell's performance in the corporeal world and the Marches? Even without having Haagenti eaten, Saminga gone to dust and that miserable scumsucking SHITSACK Belial up in a puff of smoke, Vapula, Baal, Kobal, Kronos...
The way this Song works, it doesn't matter how powerful the user is - you just pay the Essence, and, barring a miracle, it latches on and a few minutes later you have a dead demon's forces floating around in front of your face. Or, waiting an hour or two, a Superior's.
And, honestly, even in the 'moderate' scenario, there are still going to be plenty of people baying for her blood - besides being effective and just about impossible to get rid of, well, you've heard the joke about life being like a card game where there are no lights and you can't look at the cards and you have to deal with a dealer who won't tell you the rules and who smiles all the time?
She smiles like that.
What makes this so entertaining for the PCs is that she's spent a tremendous amount of effort storing up spare essence, since, after all, she knew that, sooner or later, she'd be in just this position. For a while, at least, she'll have plenty of power. Enough to be drastic or devestatingly subtle, whatever she chooses.
The other catch? She creates Songs, remember. Creates them - completely new, not limited to rulebook effects. She also likes to recreate any effect she heard about and thought might be useful. And she's been building her skills and repetoire for pretty much her entire thirteen-hundred year life.
Frankly, even without her hoarded power and bottomless Song resovoir, she'd probably outgun most PCs.
On top of that, though, she's clever, subtle, and smart. Stopping her won't be a matter of 'find. smash.' Oh no. It's more like the less pursuer-friendly aspects of every comedic and action chase scene ever filmed, combined. And she's worked for pretty much every Prince there is, over the centuries. And, except for Belial, they have all, without exception, been actively pleased with her work. Think about the breadth of skill and mental flexibility it would require to adapt to all those conflicting options. Fear.
Incidentally, her specific plan in the 'nobody's forcing my hand' version of the scenario, where she has her Project ready and working, is to first test it - and, hopefully, locate a suitable hideout for the worst case scenario - on Uriel, who deserves it more than anybody else who's not actively serving Hell.
The final and most important thing you need to remember about Elisabeth is that she is really, truly a demon. She has no Dissonance or whatever, no deep-seated qualms - her decision to switch sides has no emotional motivations... She doesn't do good because it's good, she does it because it's more profitable, in the long run, than any of its alternatives. Exposure to heavenly agents and such tends to produce specific effects, so she fully expects that she'll eventually start to, but in the meantime... *shrug*
The wildcard to keep any of the War faction from just Smiting her? Well, besides the fact that none of them short of their Archangels would likely survive the attempt? She's recognized that the equation of Good with 'Enlightened Self-Interest' applies all the time, not just when its convenient.
Hey, buddy, she's doing the right thing, okay? Lay off the reasons - you've got bigger fish to fry.
Ja, -n
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"