Weblog Licentiae Moeticae

Scramble (Technology)

Scramble (Technology)

A demon with this attunement can at a touch disable any mundane machine that weighs up to 500 pounds. The damage will not appear to be supernatural, and may be repaired normally. Vaputech devices require one Essence to disable, and may not be repaired normally - this attunement was actually created to help Servitors of Technology avoid unnecessary dissonance - and actual Infernal technological artifacts require 3 Essence, plus an additional amount of Essence equal to their Fragility modifier. Angelic artifacts are not affected by this attunement, although research continues.

Papers, Please (Theft / The Wind)

Papers, Please (Theft / The Wind)

A celestial with this attunement always knows what mundane documentation would be necessary to get past a particular checkpoint - and more importantly, where to get it. If a forgery skill is available in a particular campaign setting (Artistry: Paperwork would make for an acceptable makeshift), the celestial may add his Ethereal Forces to either the roll or the CD. If a forgery skill is not available, the celestial may make a Precision roll at -2 (plus his Ethereal Forces) to put together something that will pass muster for long enough.

This attunement works on mundane documentation only. The Game charges double the normal bribe (the extra is called the "stupidity fee") to anyone trying to use this attunement to sneak by one of their checkpoints.

Bad Death (Death)

Bad Death (Death)

A demon with this attunement can determine what type of death a mortal fears most. The information will come in the form of a vision of the target's death: the demon must be in physical contact with the target in order for the vision to be transmitted. If the demon actually manages to kill the target in a fashion consistent with the vision, he gains 1 Essence.

Servitors of Saminga with this attunement quickly learn to keep quiet about it: Dark Humor, Fate, the Game, Nightmares, and the War all have a use for a demon with this sort of ability, and none of those organizations are particularly known for being gentle about their requests for aid.

Perfect Betrayal (Factions)

Perfect Betrayal (Factions)

This attunement may only be used on humans. With a successful Perception roll the demon may determine the one person who the target most wishes not to betray, and for what reason. The demon then has one week to somehow arrange matters that the target does consciously and freely (Shedite possession does not count!) betray that person; the person being betrayed may or may not be aware of the betrayal, but the target must. During this time, the demon is not subject to word-dissonance from Factions, unless he fails; if that happens, the demon will take the 7 points of dissonance all at once, and at the end of the week. Should he succeed, however, he will instead gain seven notes of Essence.

Possession of this attunement is widely considered to be evidence that the lucky demon is on the short list for a Distinction - which means that many, many Servitors of Factions will be prepared to arrange matters so that the holder has several opportunities to demonstrate his prowess with it.

Slush Pile (The Media)

Slush Pile (The Media)

A demon with this attunement is able to swiftly and infallibly sift through a pile of raw media artifacts - sitcom pilot tapes, screen treatments, unpublished manuscripts, preliminary sketches, or anything else both related to entertainment and unfinished - and pick out the item that best suits his current needs. Note that this power is indifferent to intrinsic merit: if the demon needs a pseudo-clever piece of facile garbage, he'll get the best example of it available.

With a successful Will roll, the demon may grant this ability to any other entity in his presence: the effects will wear off once either a choice has been made, or else five minutes have passed. Lilim of the Media have discovered to their pleasure that doing this is usually good for at least a Need/2...

Unchained (Freedom)

Unchained (Freedom)

It is said that because Lilith has no permanent Servitors, she has no Band or Servitor attunements. This is in fact true: but she does have human employees, and with them she has negotiated a unique Advantage. She gives them the ability to have their body and mind obedient for their desires... for a fair price, of course.

A signatory to the Unchained arrangement is able to temporarily triple her Will attribute, with no cap. It takes 1 Essence to activate, and lasts a full 24 hours: it may be maintained for an additional Essence per day, but at the cost of considerable mental strain (2d6 Mind Hits per day after the second continuous day activated). It takes at least a full 24 hours for human brains to recover from such exceptional mental focus; many signatories spend a bit too much time trying to optimize their time Unchained...

Slice of Time (Fate)

Slice of Time (Fate)

A successful Will roll allows a demon to use this attunement to stop time completely around him - this previous statement does not ring at True to either a real Seraph, or one of Kronos' fake ones, but it's close enough (the demon is merely speeding up his mental perceptions very, very quickly). Unfortunately for the demon, this attunement does not allow him to move around freely, or indeed at all: he cannot communicate or interact with the corporeal plane at all, and any attempt to use a supernatural ability will cause the attunement to end immediately (this attunement does not work when the demon is in celestial form). The demon can still see and think, which means that he can still assess a situation, make non-interactive skill rolls, work out a snappy comeback, or obsessively plot his revenge...

GMs concerned that players will use this to slow down the game are encouraged to start charging 1d6 Body Hits per minute of real time spent by the players after the first five minutes (representing the stress on the vessel).

Wrong Page in the Hymnal (Dark Humor)

Wrong Page in the Hymnal (Dark Humor)

This attunement is a metaphysical equivalent of a time bomb. The user may target any other Song user; by spending two Essence the demon may ensure that the next Song performed by the target will be replaced with a "random" choice (which is to say, usually a highly inappropriate and/or ironic one). If there is not enough Essence to power the new Song, the target loses all of his existing Essence and takes 2d6 Mind Hits instead. Repeated uses of this attunement on someone who has not yet performed a Song (or a regular mortal) have no effect. However, it should be also noted that every time that this attunement is invoked the user will also have one of his future Song uses similarly randomized - and, where appropriate, performed on himself - only not necessarily the next time he performs a Song, and there is no one-use cap on the user.

It should be noted that Kobal never gives out this attunement without also gifting the lucky demon with the Celestial Song of Hunger/3.

Mannasodium Glutamate (Gluttony)

Mannasodium Glutamate (Gluttony)

This is as close as Haagenti is ever likely to get to actually producing something like manna. Demons with this attunement can dust at will food items (one pass can do an entire industrial-sized jug of stew, or an entire buffet line). The food will become not precisely tasty, but merely difficult to stop eating (Will Roll +2 to resist); it will also lose about half of its nutritional value, double its calories, and triple whatever particularly harmful substances are in it. This should have no real game effect, unless a character has taken an appropriate Vulnerability Discord/Disadvantage, but anybody who eats Mannasodium Glutamate-tainted foods for any length of time is going to end up both overweight and undernourished. Haagenti, of course, finds this last bit hysterical, and has no intention of telling Kobal that a human came up with the concept first.

This attunement was created as sort of a party favor for Haagenti's celebration of his first thousand years as a Prince, so it is unknown whether it will be issued after the festivities are over. He is somewhat more likely to give out this attunement to demons not of Gluttony than usual; there is also talk of this being an actual prize for several of the epic-level eating contests planned for 2009.

Burning Armor (Infernal Fire)

Burning Armor (Infernal Fire)

This attunement is always on: it manifests as an almost invisible (-4 to Perception rolls, normally, but see below) covering of pale blue flames that act as hidden armor, with a negative modifier to hit and Protection equal to the holder's Corporeal Forces. The demon may boost this by spending Essence: each Essence spent will raise either the modifier or the Protection by one point for five minutes. Any attack made against the demon will manifest a blue flash of flame; this has no real game effect, but others will not need to make Perception checks to notice the flash. The armor does not do damage on its own.

Belial came up with this attunement some time around 1000 AD, for the Legion War. He has either not yet noticed that a demon with Burning Armor glows (automatic detection) to anyone with heat vision, or else has not yet worked out how modify the attunement to spoof infrared goggles.

Obfuscate (The Game)

Obfuscate (The Game)

This attunement allows a Gamester to become not even remotely noteworthy. With a Will roll, the demon will more or less fade into the background for the next five minutes; if he is not attempting to hide, others will notice him, but will not really care while the attunement is active. If the demon is trying to hide, he adds his Ethereal Forces to his Move Silently rolls, and will always be able to make a Move Silently roll to avoid notice, no matter how absurd the conditions (maximum penalty -10). Keeping this attunement active past the first five minutes costs 1 Essence and another Will roll (at a cumulative -1 per minute) per minute.

It is rumored that this attunement also allows the holder to somehow thoroughly "lose" paperwork, but no self-respecting Servitor of the Game would ever admit to not knowing how to do that already without supernatural aid.

Resupply (The War)

Resupply (The War)

This attunement allows a demon to quickly find available, useable ammunition for his personal mundane weapons, in one of two ways. "Passive" mode will simply let the holder know if a supply of ammunition for any mundane weapon that he is wielding or carrying is within five yards of him (passive mode will ignore the demon's own ammunition, but not that of his colleagues). "Active" mode allows the user to specify a particular type of ammunition, and will provide both direction and distance (up to 100 yards), but requires both a successful Perception roll initially, and one Essence per minute of active mode (minimum 1) to activate. Switching from active to passive mode is instantaneous, but the demon must still reroll (and spend the Essence).

This attunement is relatively new, as such things go (less than two centuries old, in other words). Baal is noticeably uninterested in updating the name to reflect modern fads...

Love Shack (Lust)

Love Shack (Lust)

This attunement allows a demon to imbue a particular location (no larger than a standard sized bedroom) with the more seductive aspects of Lust. While active, the area will appear more... well, Andrealphans avoid using the word "romantic" like the plague it is to them, but it's the best word that would fit. A seedy, dingy hole in the wall with a stained mattress for a bed would appear to be, somehow, an alluring boudoir; a place with actual ambiance might end up resembling something out of a bodice ripper. The end result is a +3 to any attempt at Seduction, and +1 Essence from any Rite involving sexual activity, done on the premises. It costs 6 Essence to set up originally, and 1 Essence per week to maintain.

Note that the demon with the attunement does not have to be involved further in order for the bonuses to take effect; for that matter, note that the above does not say "any Infernal Rite." And yes, Dominic has every intention of asking Eli why his most notorious Rite is apparently able to draw on Lust's resources...

Pumpen (Various)

Pumpen (Any Archangel created before 1600 AD)

There might be a civilized, even sterile way of putting this, but there is not much point: this attunement allows an angel to force a demon to more or less continuously fart for the next day. Technically, the demon only farts whenever he uses a supernatural ability, but the attunement is merciless in defining "supernatural:" even use of a human language counts, unless the demon in question learned it completely on his own. The constant farting is worth a -3 to reaction rolls; more importantly, it causes a point of disturbance every minute, which will increase by 1 every five minutes until the demon either goes an entire hour without doing anything "supernatural," or else flees the corporeal plane entirely. This attunement only works if the angel has unquestionable proof that the target is a demon, but otherwise there are no other restrictions.

Dream Harvesting (Nightmares)

(I am, by the way, away from my books.)

Dream Harvesting (Nightmares)

This attunement can only be used on a victim after his or her dreamscape has been successfully moved to Beleth's side of the Marches. Once this has happened, with a successful Will roll the demon may remove one dream fragment from the dreamer's dreamscape and bring it out with him or her. This fragment will be stabilized and survive indefinitely on the ethereal plane: until it develops an actual Will score it will obey who ever symbolically "owns" it. The demon may easily sign over the ethereal to anyone he or she chooses. Typically, an ordinary human nets 1 Force ethereals; add a Force for every natural one (or potential one) that the human possesses above 5. The human victim suffers no ill effects from this, except of course for spending all night in Beleth's realm, and of course potentially revealing him or herself to be a ongoing resource...

Mainlining (Variant use of Calabite resonance)

(H/T: Randy Finder of the IN List for the idea.)

Mainlining (use of Calabite resonance at -6*)

This use of the Calabite resonance is in some ways a "perversion" of it. The demon can actually heal Body Hits (animate or inanimate) done to others by transferring the damage to himself; this damage will heal normally. Doing so causes dissonance, unless the demon either has the Selfless or Merciful Discord; dissonance gained by Mainlining seems to manifest as either these two Discords, or else Addiction (Mainlining). Mainlining either works, or it doesn't: either way, it doesn't generate disturbance. Calabim who have used this technique report that the sensations felt during Mainlining are exceptionally painful, but not especially repulsive.

I am declaring May to be a Month of Content.

Suggestions welcome.

Saul, Remnant Seraph of War

Saul
Remnant Seraph of War

Corporeal Forces: 3 Strength: 6 Agility: 6
Ethereal Forces: 2 (3) Intelligence: 2 (6) Precision: 6
Celestial Forces: 0 (4) Will: 0 (8) Perception: 0
Vessel/2 (Male)

Skills: Dodge/6, Large Weapon/6 (sword), Move Silently/6, Small Weapon/6 (knife), Survival/1 (urban)

Songs: Might (Corporeal/3), Healing (Corporeal/3)

Attunements: Seraph of War, Ofanite of War, Malakite of War, Howl, Proficiency (Sword), One on One, Sure-Footed

Role: "Saul" (Street Bum/6, Status/1)

Relics: The Brooch of Midael. (Relic: the Celestial Song of Solace/6, self-powered, Celestial Artifact destroyed when destroyed, can be worn in a hidden way, brief activation; total, 18pt)

Cryptozoological Entity: Grassleapers

Name: Grassleapers
Also Known As:

Type: Vaputech-Spawned Abomination

Corporeal Forces: 4 Strength: 8 Agility: 8 Body Hits: 48
Ethereal Forces: 0 Intelligence: 2 Precision: 0 Mind Hits:
Celestial Forces: 0 Will: 0 Perception: 2 Soul Hits:
Toughness/2
Charisma/+3, Humans

Skills: Dodge/4, Fighting/4, Jumping/6
Songs: None
Esoteric Abilities: Once per combat, a Grassleaper can shoot a stream of "tobacco juice;" if successfully it hits (roll versus Fighting) the target is at -3 to all rolls for the next minute.

Primary Attack: Mandibles/12/1/0/0/0
Secondary Attack: Twin .50 caliber Machine Guns/TN as per user/+6 (+12)/Accuracy/400/100 (16) (note that this represents stats for one Machine Gun)

Appearance: Grassleapers resemble terrestrial grasshoppers, except for being both large enough to comfortably seat a human; they also typically sport twin machine guns mounted forward.