Friday, January 27, 2012

My Solo Demon Game Character

Well, Adam ran me another session of a Cyberpunk Demon: the Fallen solo game and boy was it awesome! I'm playing an Eminence 5 Radiance Devil called Shaitan. Infamous, as you'd imagine, though he was never as important as the Koran would later make his namesake out to be. S/he was originally the only Namaru who wasn't given any piece of God's plan and instead wandered around, double checking other Fallen's work and making suggestions about whether, maybe, God's plan could be interpreted like this.

Generally, his assistance wasn't needed and a lot of the other angels were, obviously, a bit disturbed by his presence as it implied the possibility of failure on behalf of the First House. Anyway, the Fall happened and Shaitan joined the Silver Legion but in a goody two-shoes way that, alongside with previous history, meant s/he was annoying a Malefactor Overlady who decided to try an experiment with several fallen (Shaitan included). Shaitan was the only one who survived the process (that s/he's aware of) which involved embedding weaponry ripped from a Devourer into her body so s/he'd be a better military asset. Pre-abyssal torment was the glue as it meant s/he resonated with the Devourer's maddened, agonised state better so they forced her to sin until they were all nice and cemented.

S/he rebelled the first moment s/he got and joined the Ebon Legion as they were the only ones who'd have her. S/he then cobbled together a band of misfits, worked for the Ebon Legion, was unpredictable and bucked orders on occasion (getting busted down to Fell Knight) and then made great successes on occasion (getting raised back up to Lord / Lady). Her particular pecadillo was to make the Silver Legion suffer. Anyone s/he could get her hands on would suffer horribly if s/he had the chance. S/he would also set people against each other or trick them so that they commit a sin that would undo them in the end. Such as tricking one person into betraying their liege in such a way that the liege would find out and punish the underling.

A big part of it was a suicide wish but that aside ... there's a lot of people who hate her. Ordinarily, she'd be a little too large to fit into a host at the time she came out but Lord Grifiel had previously torn off her wings so she fit just fine. So she comes out in 2010 as a low-torment Ravener, gets quickly recruited and hidden by Gipontel until she officially joins the Cryptics and cements her low-torment attitude, goes through some merry adventures, ends up Tyrant of the city and playing some pretty high-level politics (as Eminence 5 characters are wont to do), and then gets bumped out of space and time with her two changeling pals (nWoD changelings, it's kinda a mash-up) for 50 years.

In the present day, it's a post cyberpunk world (not quite as much of a crapsack world) where a war between Fallen and Mages set the Mages into exorcising an entire city (Washington) which weakened the pit walls enough with all those returning fallen that the gravity isn't so strong as to prevent the Lords and Ladies from walking the land. The trouble is that they still barely fit, so their minds are still rattled by oodles of Torment with maybe only the lowest of the Lords and Ladies having a chance to come out at Torment 8. They make a concerted effort to scatter the existing Infernal Courts and then take up their own personal tyrannies of the fallen who were fool enough to pledge vassalage to their old liege lords. The remaining free fallen (of Fell Knight and lower status) are now in hiding.

So now my infamous Lord Shaitan (who's form used to fluctuate between a youthful male and female visage, hence my gender trait shifts) is now in a world that alternately fears and hides from those of his standing -- or currently serves other Lords and Ladies who are oodles more powerful than him because of the very thing that keeps him human (dilute and diffuse memories, loss of an additional trait). While he's managed to pay off his infamy to some extent by some lucky pushes for Cryptic projects that helped the faction survive the LoLa (lords and ladies, see what I did there) such as a giant Cryptic University bastion; he's still technically a LoLa and there's loads of people with grudges who can now kill her off for her rank and say they "didn't know he wasn't like the other LoLa's". Oh yeah, and there's no way s/he could fight off LoLa attention as they're more badass than s/he is.

Thank goodness for Augs, as the only thing that currently lifts me up from the usual Hunter masses is my Faith-powered healing, immunity to mind control / possession, and ability to use the few relics in my possession (sneakers that flash a bright pulsed light designed to dispel creatures disrupted by light; an enhanced knife; enhanced riot armour; a ring that can pop me from the Realms into the Living World but not the other way around; a ring that lets Belphigor find me {long story}; and a rod that records up two different bodies and lets me change my form to one or the other).

Adam has ruled that as I have a new host so long as I don't use any Lores or my Apocalyptic Form, I don't have that Demon Smell about me to Awareness. Of course, certain mage sights could still figure out what I am, among other things, but it's not as obvious. Talk about deep cover! And I'm a merc, to boot.

I've gotta admit, it's really tricky playing a supernatural character and using bugger all of their powers. There's always that temptation especially after two years of playing the same character. The trick, I think, is to simply put all those extra goodies out of mind. Of course, due to my Eminence, once it gets out, everyone will know about it, but preventing that until I get some tasty, tasty Augs will be vital.

I'll let you know about the really cool ways Adam has blended Cyberpunk with Demon: the Fallen with what is largely new World of Darkness later on. The last adventure was really neat, involving me taking out five gangers with cheap, chop shop augs (one of whom was Claimed) with nothing but sedative needles, the Transfiguration Rod, and a stolen pistol.

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