IN> Painted myself into a logical corner

[theheretik]

Thank you.  Beautiful, and dead on.  If I had the twenty bucks, I'd pick up Umbrarum yesterday (looks forlornly at checkbook).  If you're *ever* in Los Angeles, or want to play IN online, I'd so love to have you.

The ship is a Relic--not a stretch to make it an Artifact.  And as they say--a boat is a hole in the water you pour money into.  Or in this case, souls/Essence.

#2 is actually what the Balseraph/Saminga + Asmodeus promised--pick up living where he left off, to try to regain salvation (despite having sent so many souls to their doom).    Disintegrates?  Will have to reword the contract where it says "Death and Damnation".  And the way the internal theology works, he *can* redeem himself in one lifetime by grace/faith, but impossible by mere good deeds.  That is the objective that the PC guardian angel (Kyrio/Jean) will have to accomplish, likely with help from the other angel involved (Ofanim/Yves).

However, this could involve 'forgetting' to tell the PC's that their souls are going to be pureed to restore his own.  :X  Then again, is puree preferable to Hell?  That could be his selling point...

Hellsworn works--print up a batch of tiny contracts for the players to find.  Or try to get out of.  :)

-----Original Message-----
>From: Jonathan Lang <dataweaver at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jul 23, 2007 4:37 PM
>To: theheretik <theheretik at earthlink.net>, In Nomine mailing list <in-nomine-list at sjgames.com>
>Subject: Re: IN> Painted myself into a logical corner
>
>Note that Liber Umbrarum is primarily about spectres: ghosts,
>apparitions, poltergeists, and will'o'wisps.  It doesn't have much of
>anything to say about walking corpses, nor about Blessed or Damned
>souls (nor Dreamshades, for that matter).
>
>theheretik wrote:
>> My poor undead protagonist has to collect X number of souls to save his own.
>
>Is he aware that his soul isn't going to end up in Hell?  Seeing as
>how he signed with a Balseraph, I can understand if that little detail
>got left out; but still... (Remember: when an undead "dies", its soul
>disintegrates, never to be seen again.  By anyone, Hell included.)
>
>> What I've run against as an adventure-writer is--where do you keep a soul?
>> He's on a boat, but I don't see it housing that many people,
>> especially as they're not Damned properly speaking until
>> they're dead.
>
>Not Damned, no; but if they've signed a contract with a demon, they're
>Hellsworn, which is almost as bad.
>
>Are you going for soul-theft?  If so, you're going to need a unique
>Artifact (probably of unknown origin) to accomplish it.  You _could_
>use this Artifact as a way around the "disintegrating soul" problem as
>well: figure that he's somehow come across an item which can be fed
>souls; once it has acquired X souls, it tears them apart and uses
>what's left of the raw material to rebuild undead soul.  I can see
>three possibilities at that point:
>
>1. The undead continues on as an undead, only now with an intact soul.
> Metaphysically, this runs in the face of how the undead are
>described.
>
>2. The undead's body comes alive again: he is now either a mortal once
>more or a quasi-Saint (a human soul in a living Vessel, effectively
>immortal).
>
>3. The undead dies, and his newly-repaired soul moves on according to
>the rules for the death of a mortal.  That is, the status of his
>destiny and fate determine where his soul goes, unless the
>newly-repaired soul counts as Hellsworn or he manages to anchor
>himself to the corporeal or ethereal realm, becoming a spectre or
>dreamshade respectively.  (The latter two options merely postpone the
>inevitable, while the former kind of defeats the "save his soul"
>angle.)  Chances are good that he's met his fate, so Heaven (destiny,
>no fate) and reincarnation (no destiny, no fate) are almost certainly
>out; that leaves dissipation (destiny and fate; and very ironic,
>seeing as how this is what the artifact was supposed to prevent) or
>Hell (fate, but no destiny; arguably not an improvement) as the only
>remaining "normal" destinations available.  Not very promising...
>
>Of the three options, #2 seems to be the only one that provides a
>decent "out" for the undead's predicament while remaining more or less
>within the spirit of the game.  Even then, the rules for his soul's
>ultimate destination still apply: when his newly-resurrected body or
>vessel finally dies, he probably won't have a lot of good choices.
>The best result for him would be the soul-in-a-vessel angle, which
>means that he's unaging - meaning that he can prevent his death
>indefinitely if he's careful.  Now all he has to do is to figure out a
>way to undo his fate, so that the more acceptable afterlife options
>(Heaven or reincarnation) become possibilities once more.
>
>-- 
>Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang


Barbara Fuentes

What did Eli say?
A lot of it didn't make any sense.
Yeah, that sounds like him.