The Songs of Traffic

Tags

David, In Nomine, Janus, Jean, Lilith, Songs, Traffic, Valefor, Vapula

In the build up to a new campaign, one of my players asked me for an ability to help them manipulate traffic. Since there is no canon ability that fits, I decided to make one up.

The Song of Storms (Liber Canticorum pg 56) seemed the most similar to the desire effect for the Song of Traffic. I have drawn heavily from the existing song to design this one. Since the Song of Storms is flagged as potentially overpowering in the hands of a new character, I would carry that warning over into this new song as well. Do not let new characters have access to this song without giving the matter careful thought, and don’t give the song out at all if you suspect min/maxing.

Sixteen Things to Do With Downtime

Tags

Bureaucracy, Downtime, I Did That, In Nomine

Downtime, n. – A temporary break from active adventuring. Typically encountered between modules or arcs of an ongoing campaign.

Every GM has their own way of handling down time – but generally speaking it is used as a chance to heal up and cash in on earned experience points. Sometimes this is a purely administrative matter, sometimes there is as much roleplay between arcs as during them. Generally speaking, I encourage a mix. I like to have every player give me a list of things they’re doing during their downtime and also run a couple of scenes with each of them (more if they manage to get themselves into trouble).

Abaddon, First of the Calabim

Tags

Abaddon, Calabite, In Nomine, Lucifer, Renegade

Christian’s Combat with Apollyon (an alternate name for Abaddon)

According to the canon of In Nomine, Abaddon is one of the main regions of Hell. A blasted wasteland, where Saminga has built his bone citadel, but which has otherwise been left untouched by the other Superiors.

That is, in itself, rather significant. If there’s one thing that has been established inside of In Nomine, it’s that the Superiors are constantly jockeying for position, yet one of it’s provinces was left empty for millenia. Saminga was one of the last of the “old Princes” to be named.

But it should also be noted that Saminga has a thing for death and the dead.

According to the Abrahamic traditions, Abaddon is not just a place of perdition, but also an Angel of Destruction (or more recently an Angel of the Pit).

So perhaps Abaddon is not just a place in hell, but the very body of the Fallen Angel Abaddon.

Angels in The Darkest Dungeon

Tags

Crossover, Cthuhlu Mythos, Darkest Dungeon, In Nomine, Location

For those of you who don’t follow early release video games, Darkest Dungeon is a brand new (still under development) eldrich horror game that pulls heavily from the old four-man party dungeon crawler genre. It still has some rough edges, but I’m sure those will all be filed down by the official release. In any case, playing it gave me some new ideas on how to incorporate location-based eldrich horror into In Nomine.

Azrael, Archangel of Death

Tags

Archangel, Azrael, Blandine, Grigori, In Nomine, Outcast, Saminga, Tsayadim, Uriel

Thanatos as a Winged Boy

Outcast Grigori

In every moment of every day the world dies and is born anew.

Contemporary angels would be excused for not knowing the name of Azrael. Ever since the expulsion of the Grigori, Heaven has only referred to him by his title: The Archangel of Death.

In spite of the imposing Word, Azrael is rather pleasant and approachable, valuing each day as if it might be his last. The other Archangels occasionally wonder at his adoption of the pagan philosophy of Stoicism, but Azrael finds that it fits his duty and outlook as the witness of endings.

Scarred Angels

Tags

Amber, Character Advancement, Don't Rest Your Head, In Nomine

So I’ve been thinking about character advancement lately and I realized that there are only two games where I actually like the character advancement model: Amber and Don’t Rest Your Head. Unfortunately, characters in Amber relies on simple character sheets with only a handful of items to track and there are fairly large point gaps between each advancement. In other words, it’s almost the exact opposite from In Nomine. That leaves Don’t Rest Your Head. In many ways the DRYH character is even simpler than the Amber character… at least to begin with. However, characters in Don’t Rest Your Head can literally advance towards anything so long as their progress is story driven.

Titivillus, Demon of Typos

Tags

9 Force, Asmodeus, Balseraph, Gremlin, Haagenti, In Nomine, Kobal, Meserach, NPC, Nybbas, Typos, Vapula, Wordbound

Balseraph of Technology (for now)

Titivillus was forged by Meserach, the Demon Prince of Sloth. He began as a simple Gremlin, tasked with introducing small errors into the written word of God, thereby corrupting the lord’s message to mankind.

Even as a demonling, Titivillus was particularly industrious. Of course, in the Courts of Sloth that practically guaranteed that he would never see a promotion. When Haagenti devoured Meserach near the beginning of the Second Millenium, Titivillus was one of the few demons who jumped ship to join with Kobal.

Under the Prince of Dark Humor’s guidance, Titivillus’ pranks finally managed to earn him a degree of notoriety, and in the late 13th Century he was granted his Word. A century later Titivillus left Kobal’s service to Mammon’s, and a few centuries after that he left Mammon for Vapula (where he helps program automatic spell-checkers).

No one is quite sure how the Demon of Typos has managed to flit from one superior to another without provoking their ire, but it means that he has amassed an array of Rites and Attunements well in excess of what one would normally expect from a demon of his relatively low standing and power.

In Nomine: Friendship is Magic

Tags

In Nomine, Liber Neglecta, My Little Pony

Last month I was contacted by the artist who designed one of the logos I used back when I first started this blog. I had believed the work to be in the public domain, it turns out that I had been mistaken. It is apparently fairly common for Jerimiah Theis to have his work get pirated and then attributed as stock art. I got snookered this time, but will try to be more vigilant in the future.*

The piece in question was a custom Cutie Mark, styled after the identifying marks from the My Little Pony franchise. This got me thinking, the Mane 6 from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series actually do a decent job of illustrating a number of different Angelic Choirs.

April in Review

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Liber Neglecta

Top 4 Posts in April 2015

• A Word on the Grigori
• Might & Valor (Michael & Ba’al before the fall)
• The Light of Heaven (includes rules for new Choir, The Ohr)
• Makatiel, Demon Prince of Disease