IN> Painted myself into a logical corner

[James Walker]

 theheretik <theheretik at earthlink.net> wrote:
> My poor undead protagonist has to collect X number
> of souls to save his own. 
Given this sounds very Dark Humorous, how about an NPC
who works out the Fate of a given human is and then
designs a (completely bogus) ritual that incoprorates
that Fate? There's something amusing about a
completely pointless ritual involving pigblood,
pentagrams and skulls being a cover for the victim
insulting their tennage child's current crush...

> Can you keep a soul in a bottle?  
Sorcerers can, yes; it's a Focus ritual.

P.S. Sorry guys about not posting more [Asmodeus moth]
stuff, I'm having computer problems. I'll continue the
moment those are resolved.
> I am having so much fun writing this, you have no
> idea.
> 
> 
> Barbara Fuentes
> running "In Nomine Live: Night Boat", Strategicon
> Los Angeles, Saturday September 1st at 3pm.
> 
> 
> Want what you have, take what you're given with
> grace.
> 
> 
> > From: Elizabeth McCoy <arcangel at io.com>
> Subject: Re: IN> Painted myself into a logical
> corner
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:39:02 -0400
> To: In Nomine mailing list
> <in-nomine-list at sjgames.com>
> 
> At 3:06 PM -0700 7/23/07, theheretik wrote:
> 
> >1st--is there any book that covers
> ghosts/disembodied mortal souls in any kind of
> depth?
> 
> That would be the Liber Umbarum, available from e23.
> http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-3320
> The CPG would be the other one to look at, but it's
> not as detailed.
> 
> >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.  
> 
> Hmmmmmm. Liber Reliquarum has Force Catchers --
> mostly used on Kyriotates
> and Shedim. A modified one of those might be useful.
> 
> -- 
> --Beth, arcangel at io.com / archangel at sjgames.com  In
> Nomine Line Editor  
> http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ 
> 
> > From: "Jonathan Lang" <dataweaver at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: IN> Painted myself into a logical
> corner
> CC: 
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:37:06 -0700
> To: theheretik <theheretik at earthlink.net>,
> 	"In Nomine mailing list"
> <in-nomine-list at sjgames.com>
> 
> 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
> 
> > From: "Jonathan Lang" <dataweaver at gmail.com>
> Subject: IN> quasi-Saints and Tethers
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:01:46 -0700
> To: "In Nomine mailing list"
> <in-nomine-list at sjgames.com>
> 
> IIRC, CPG distinguishes between Saints and souls or
> dreamshades who
> have been given Vessels (i.e., quasi-Saints): that
> is, just being a
> dead soul with a Vessel does not mean that the rules
> for Saints apply
> to you.
> 
> LU mentions that a dreamshade that follows a Tether
> to Earth is
> treated like a ghost for the duration of his visit,
> with the Tather's
> Earthly locus acting as its anchor.  Blessed and
> Damned souls probably
> can't traverse Tethers (if they can metaphysically,
> they're almost
> certainly prevented from doing so by the Tether's
> keepers); but if
> they could, I'm willing to bet that their stay on
> Earth would follow
> the same logic as dreamshades: the Tether's locus
> would be their
> anchor for the duration of the visit, and the visit
> would have a
> length of no more than a day - probably less. 
> Meanwhile, spectres
> always have anchors, by definition.
> 
> So: a quasi-Saint always has an anchor while on
> Earth.  Is his ability
> to roam limited by it while he's in his Vessel?  For
> that matter, can
> he stay "past his bedtime" if he remains in his
> Vessel?  (I'm looking
> for canon answers, for curiosity's sake.)  This is
> primarily an issue
> for dreamshades; ghosts and poltergeists can (and
> often do) have
> anchors that their vessel could carry.
> 
> Come to think of it, ghosts and poltergeists can
> _already_ do this
> sort of thing: they have the ability to interact
> with physical
> objects; and the anchor is a physical object...
> 
> -- 
> Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang
> 
> > From: William Keith <wjk150 at email.psu.edu>
> Subject: Re: IN> Painted myself into a logical
> corner
> CC: 
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:09:46 -0400
> To: In Nomine mailing list
> <in-nomine-list at sjgames.com>,
> 	theheretik <theheretik at earthlink.net>
> 
> > My poor undead protagonist has to collect X number
> of souls to save 
> > his own.  He does figure out that this is a losing
> proposition, but as 
> > he signed a contract with a Balseraph he's simply
> trying to make the 
> > best of it.  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.
> >
> > Can you keep a soul in a bottle?  I will probably
> just keep contracts 
> > in bottles, but I was wondering if there was
> something more creative.
> 
> The Liber Canticorum has a lost Song called the Song
> of Soul Binding, 
> which rips the soul out of a mortal and binds it
> within an object as an 
> artifact.  The Song is lost... but perhaps for your
> game it could have 
> been kept around, or recently re-found.  Beth has
> mentioned Force 
> Catchers, and living beings can also be more
> laboriously turned into 
> living artifacts.  Ghosts, particularly, can be
> bound within Force 
> Catchers or bound by Sorcerous ritual.
> 
> On the other hand, presumably what the Balseraph
> wants is either souls 
> influenced to their Fate and then dead (killed if
> necessary, natural 
> causes if the undead cares to wait), people turned
> into Undead, or 
> people taking oath to become Hellsworn.  Of course,
> willingly causing 
> mortals to do these means that even if your undead
> returns to life and 
> lives his existence normally, upon dying he will
> probably plummet 
> straight to Hell himself; these are very selfish,
> Hell-serving acts 
> that will stain his soul deeply.
> 
> If he merely obtains control of contracts or souls
> physically, 
> re-achieves mortal existence, and then tells the
> Balseraph, "well, now 
> that I've got authority over these souls I release
> them again, ha-ha," 
> that will probably be the least Fated thing he can
> do.
> 
> William
> 
> 
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