Brain go OW

[Valles]

Well, see, I followed a link that led to a site with more than a little bit of fan-created In Nomine materiel. My mind working the way it does, I promptly found myself struck by an Idea, despite knowing no more about the system that I'd been able to glean from online sources.
It starts with a demon. Name of Elisabeth. Not impressive enough for a demon? Add the surname 'Bathory'. Andreaphlus wanted impressive, she gave impressive. But that's not the point.
Maybe she's a Lillim, maybe not. Either way, early on in her career she took a look around and decided that this 'ambition for its own sake' thing wasn't near what it was cracked up to be - so she set her sights someplace moderate and started working towards it. Calmly, conservatively, patiently. She's immortal, after all. No need to hurry.
She took up a hobby, to kill time until she got there. Music - hey, don't laugh. It was occasionally useful on the job and it kept her working efficiently in the meantime, and that was the point. Sometimes, humming a pleasant little ditty wasn't appropriate to the situation, so she also took to keeping a little list of those who had gone to particular lengths to irritate her, and idly thinking up punishments and vengences against same.
Nothing too out of the way, especially for a demon.
Then she saw a Prince she was temping for hand out some rewards one day and noticed that Capital-'S'-Songs were, in fact, music. And she was good at music.
So she started looking into the idea of - perhaps, eventually - figuring out how to create new Songs, herself. From scratch.
Hey, it was a way to kill time, which was the point.
Then she ended up working for Belial. She refuses to talk about the experience - forcefully, if neccessary - and he likely doesn't remember at all. By the end of it all, though, she had a much bigger grudge against him than is wise for anyone to hold against a Prince - for comparison, she hates him worse than a fanatic Narn hates the Centauri. By a large margin.
Being neither stupid nor suicidal, though, she simply gritted her teeth and got clear of Infernal Fire. Working for Gluttony wasn't much better, mind, but at least Haagenti wasn't... *snarl* Never. Mind.
Serendipity struck again. One particularly stupid demon did something to irritate the Prince, and found himself slowly ripped apart and eaten one Force at a time... savoring the meal, as it were.
And Elisabeth had an Idea.
Not that anyone noticed, of course. She was careful not to let it show. After all, it's not wise to let someone know you're planning to kill them, and any Prince - even one as agressive as the title of Infernal Fire implies - has a long, long ear.
So she bounced around hell for a while, going here and there and always being careful not to become too much of a go-to girl. Then she noticed that the more studying she did on the Symphony to try and figure out how to work her Idea, the more it started looking like everything was connected. Like everything fit[.
Well, it wouldn't do to let something unexpected crop up in the way of her revenge, so she followed the thread up... and came to a conclusion.
Heaven was going to win. Sure, humans were inherently ugly and corrupt and all that, and sure, all cooperation boiled down to enlightened self-interest in the end, but the goody-goodys were, well, good at it. All that sugary pap really did seem to help them coordinate better... and coordination, as she'd had personal reason to find out, was the basic requirement for victory, and, ultimately, survival, which was the point.
Well, okay then. She definitely wanted to be on the winning side, and, since it actually wasn't an emotional question (yet), could afford to wait for the best opportunity.
Then she stopped thinking small. After all, why limit herself to just one Prince? Having them all gone would certainly benefit Heaven, and the Universe in general, truth be told, and, since she was a part of that same universe, her as well.
And that was the real point.
======================================
A GM who wants to use Elisabeth in his campaign is going to have to make one choice right at the start: Is he or is he not going to allow her to stick a TacNuke up the collective ass of the status quo, then take her thumb off the deadman's switch?
If not, well, the Game comes sniffing around her haunts fairly regularly - no one who smiles like that can possibly be trusted - but up until this point she's either charmed her way around them (she's notably good at that, even for a Lillim) or fed them a completely logical and consistent line of reasoning that would leave someone who believed it no choice but to be loyal to Hell, so long as they accept the basic premise that strength is inherently an individual trait. The fact that they keep falling for it is one of the main justifications for her opinion that most demons are fundamentally stupid. Eventually, though, one of her interrogators is going to be very, very smart or very, very perceptive, and will try and call her on it - and she's not quite done with her Project yet.
That poor unfortunate will promptly find its component bits spread across every available wall, along with those of any unfortunate colleagues it brought along. Elisabeth's main distinguishing power is that she can create Songs - to whatever purpose she needs. If she doesn't mind being a bit random and never being able to repeat the effect, she can even improvise on the spot. To back this up, she's also got a truly stunning amount of reserve power stored, just in case of that rainy day.
Once the hunt is on, she'll trigger the deadman charge hidden under her Heart - destroying the thing - then head for the nearest Tether. Anything short of a Superior that gets in her way is likely to end up a splat mark.
Once she makes it to the corporeal world, she'll make a beeline for the nearest Angel of Flowers... and give herself up as a candidate for Redemption.
The survival rates for real independants suck, you see.
PCs might be involved in this in one of three ways - one, they're demons, charged with - somehow - stopping this unbelievably dangerous rogue. Two, they're angels assigned to getting her to Heaven with skills, knowledge, sanity and willingness to cooperate all intact. Three, they're angels assigned to make sure that the crazy demon doesn't send everything collapsing into chaos and destruction... Naturally, the difficulty of any of the above options can be adjusted by simply scaling exactly how much power she has left after shooting her way out of Hell.
The other course - the 'Let's make this Universe REAL Interesting' option, is that she's got her Project Finished. What does it do? Well, it creates a spell form that latches onto a Celestial. Permanently. Then it starts sucking them dry, force by force. Until... *pif* Did I mention that the thing is, as far as anybody short of Lucifer or The Man Upstairs is concerned, it's absolutely indestructable? If Haagenti swallows it, frex, it just shreds him from the inside out.
There is a cure, or more precisely, a vaccine, which will prevent a Celestial from ever becoming infected in the first place - after all, she's quite well aware that letting her name be associated with an unstoppable one-shot-kill Song is not likely to be conductive to her long-term survival, and has been very careful to make it easy to counter for someone who knows what they're doing and can work ahead of time. It just needs to kill the one Prince - Belial - and that's the only real point.
Elisabeth's priorities are actually fairly simple - she wants to survive, she wants to join the winning side (ie, Heaven), she want's Belial's screaming carcass rotting to death in the hot African sun (but will settle for just his death), and, if she can, she'd like to convince Mom to make the same decisions she did... and certainly would rather avoid killing her.
But she wants to survive first and foremost - that is the point of all this, after all...
Anyway, what about high-change campaigns?

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[katreus]

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). ^^;

[Bob Schroeck]

Yow. I love it.
I gotta get back into active MIBbing for SJG so I can run this at a convention...

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

[Valles]

---

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). ^^;

---

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.
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

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Uriel? Uriel?!
You do realize that she'd have to sneak into Heaven, somehow arranging not to get flash-fried by the environmental effects of the Light, and then climb Jacob's Ladder to the Higher Heavens even to find the guy, right? Going up there, even for a Superior, is the exact equivalent of being sent to the Principal's office in TFOS--you come back completely zonked out and with no clear memory of the experience, if you come back at all.
If she can do that, there's just no freakin' way a party of PCs could hope to impede her progress... and nothing significant they could do to help her, either.
--Sam
"Blood covers The City like a big red Afghan?"

[Valles]

Hmm? I thought he was in the Marches, somewhere... *shrug* Scratch that, then. Anyway, she does want to get ahold of a Superior-level target in need of a Soul-Killing before she lets the Nether Powers have any clue what she's holding onto - she's been working on this shit too long to screw it up getting careless, thanks, and she knows it can handle ordinary rank-and-file Celestials with no problem, and is almost certainly insufficient for the deadly duality... but in between? There the numbers get fuzzy.
Anyway, the basic version I'm thinking of, well, the PC party intending to stop or even slow her is definitely one of the following:
Very, Very Stupid
Very, Very Scared (after all, she'll only kill you - anything else is really a waste of effort at this point)
and had better be:
Very, Very Lucky
Very, Very Skilled
if they don't want to end up very, very screwed.
*shrug* Like I said, I don't really know the game.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[katreus]

I don't play this game (nor any role playing games for the most part) so it sounds cool, but
That being said, Valles, why not *write* a story for us non-players so we can enjoy the coolness that is Elisabeth. ^_^

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Uriel's loyal (and crazy) followers hang out in the Marches. At the peak of the Crusade, Uriel hizzownPureself was called upstairs... and never came back down.
Many angels believe he was somehow punished for going over the top. The Tsayadim tend to think he got promoted. Since Alan Rickman is dead, there's really no way to be sure without going up there and asking... and, well, it's kind of a risk.
--Sam
"I think I ran over a ninja back there."
"Just ignore it. It's not as if it were a collie or something."

[Herr Bad Moon]

---

Since Alan Rickman is dead,

---

He's not dead, he's just teaching Potions ---------------
-Jon
Being the Mariner hitting coach is like being the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.
-Poster on USSMariner.com
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"

[Bob Schroeck]

---

He's not dead, he's just teaching Potions

---

And the fact that he's still not anatomically correct is part of the reason why he's such a bastard to the students...

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

[Sirrocco]

Crossover! Crossover! It is too much!
Mind you, the "why is the metatron teaching Potions and acting like Snape?" question would have to be answered, but it could wind up being really funny.

[Kokuten]

"What, you think that _all_ of the assignments that She hands out are glorious and majestic?"Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Valles]

---

I gotta get back into active MIBbing for SJG so I can run this at a convention...

---

Guidelines for building her as an NPC - or a PC, for the really daring - is that she's as smart as the game system permits and quite adequately dangerous without actually being very powerful. Likewise, she has a lot of skills and literally every Song you can beg, borrow, steal, or make up... I guess in short that she's got her 'Thing', she's notably good at what I'd guess to be all the usual Lilim skills and a few that are only occaisionally found, and that, behind it all, she's been quietly studying up to be the nastiest, most effective opponent she can. Also, if I'm right in guessing that it's allowed for freelancers like her, she's good at finding ways to talk Superiors into giving her Attunements.
Again, emphasis on the Songs. This is a real point for GMs to give their nastiest creative impulses free rein.
Incidentally, if and when she actually ends up as a Bright Lilim, she's almost certainly going to go to work for Yves and not really change much otherwise.
Cool as a cucumber, that girl.
ETA: Oh, and, her preferred weapons are actually knives. They're quite dangerous enough, they're handy in the really close quarters that her work as a Lilim usually puts her into, and you can carry enough to throw them without worrying. She's disturbingly good at that last - good enough that a gun, frankly, would be redundant.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[drakensis]

---

Anyway, she does want to get ahold of a Superior-level target in need of a Soul-Killing before she lets the Nether Powers have any clue what she's holding onto.

---

You do realise that it would take her about 5 seconds to sell Furfur on using this to off Belial, don't you? The Demon Prince of Hardcore has a Need to destroy Belial - before Belial crushes him like a bug (they don't get along). Have him confront Belial and before he gets toasted, Elisabeth tags Belial with this thing of hers and hides behind Furfur.
End result? Belial is dead, so Gabriel is a lot happier (and likes Elisabeth) plus Hell is short of a fairly militant Demon Prince. Furfur (should he survive) can probably grab that corner of Hell, but will have to get it under control, so he's out of play for a while. Plus, Furfur's the perfect patsy - everyone would be wondering how the newest Demon Prince managed to take out one of the oldest, and not paying attention to that Lilim in the background.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[classicdrogn]

"Pay no attention to the Lilim behind the curtain."
I know, but it had to be said.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

---

You do realise that it would take her about 5 seconds to sell Furfur on using this to off Belial, don't you? The Demon Prince of Hardcore has a Need to destroy Belial - before Belial crushes him like a bug (they don't get along). Have him confront Belial and before he gets toasted, Elisabeth tags Belial with this thing of hers and hides behind Furfur.

---

I hadn't known that about them, actually - but yeah, it's a good plan, though it kind of misses the point of trying it out on something with a Superior's power that won't spill the beans to hell if it somehow manages to survive... She's not completely certain it'll work, see.
OTOH, the idea of having at least one Archangel ready to respond to her name with something along the lines of, 'Yay! Slayer of Belial!' before she actually makes a break for it has a distinct appeal.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[HoagieOfDoom]

---

Mind you, the "why is the metatron teaching Potions and acting like Snape?" question would have to be answered, but it could wind up being really funny.

---

"Look God, I didn't mean to drink that Tequila, it just slipped down my throat. It was an accident.
"Wait, you're sending me where to do what? Oh, bloody-"*********
Touched By His Noodly Appendage
www.venganza.org

[Bob Schroeck]

---

"Wait, you're sending me where to do what? Oh, bloody-"

---

At least Jay and Silent Bob aren't there.
Yet...


-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

[Logan Darklighter]

---

At least Jay and Silent Bob aren't there.
Yet...

---

...Well, I guess we know whos next on the list for that DADA class don't we ^^;;

[classicdrogn]

Eh, somebody already wrote the one where cannabis takes the wizarding world by storm, and the world fizxzles out because even for Voldilocks the whole main-torture-murder thing just harshes his mellow.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows