When Demons Attack

[Neal]

Having designed a handful of towns for my game, the one thing that troubles me is dealing with Demon Attacks.  I appreciate that the nature of the attacks is left deliberately open, the better to accomodate a variety of play styles and story purposes.  But I'd like to hear some other GMs' examples of these attacks to get a better sense of what folks are doing with this idea, and to jog my own creativity into unaccustomed gears.

Here are my own examples...

I've got one town where an incestuous relationship between an uncle and his niece is the central Sin.  She got pregnant and the child was stillborn.  The Demon Attacks take the form of clouds of flying insects that hover near the place where the body was deposited.  I determined that the mother's guilt is exacerbated by this hideous reminder, these blowflies and gnats and mosquitos that make her child's resting-place a horror to her.

In another town, a man took to hard liquor and accidentally killed his brother on a remote horse trail.  The smell of that horse trail -- the skunkweed odor, like rank sweat, and the faint stench of a stagnant river eddy -- seep into the town.  It permeates, giving even the sweet local butter a whiff of armpit and brackish bilgewater.

Finally, in a town where a man drowned his employer in a frog pond, there have been plagues of frogs.  They're everywhere, flattened in the streets, hopping atop cracker barrels at the general store, and even turning up in the cradles of infants.

I know most of these seem pretty low-key, more like nuisances than genuine "attacks," but I didn't want my game to be Dogs Versus Demons, either.  I wanted the Demonic Attacks to be signposts, not beacons.  I didn't want to burn down churches or blight crops; I wanted something more atmospheric and creepy.  We'll see how these are received, and whether or not I've succeeded.

How have y'all handled this aspect of the game?

[oliof]

Those are great colorful ideas for demonic attacks. But, as I just wrote elsewhere, as I see it, the demonic attacks should be something that endangers the integrity of the community. They need not be demons attacking, it just needs pushing part of the results of the sinful behavior in a way that will lead to the next level of sin.

I only GMed High Rockton. There, the central sin is a young lady who thinks she is the right one to match up pairs, instead of listening to the wisdom of the elders. Amongst other things, this leads to one particular guy being avowed to a young lady who does not really love him and tries to improve that by consummating marriage a little early before the real ceremony. The effect is that his sex crave is awakened and if nothing is done against it, he will probably going to rape some poor girl shortly afterwards.

Note that the original sinner has nothing to do with the acts of the guy who will do the bad things that eventually will lead to hate and murder.

Regards,
    oliof

[lumpley]

The key to a demonic attack - which yours are all lacking, Neal - is that it pushes people to sin more. The demons want for the sin to become habitual, or else for someone else to sin in response to the sin, and ultimately for the sin to inspire false doctrine. Their attacks are always geared toward those three goals, in substance.

The demonic attacks may be accompanied by special effects like you describe, or they may not. Certainly don't mistake the special effects for the attack.

If it helps, instead of writing "Demonic Attacks: the crops get the blight," write "and then the most unlucky possible thing happens: the crops get the blight."

-Vincent

[Spooky Fanboy]

I know most of these seem pretty low-key, more like nuisances than genuine "attacks," but I didn't want my game to be Dogs Versus Demons, either.  I wanted the Demonic Attacks to be signposts, not beacons.  I didn't want to burn down churches or blight crops; I wanted something more atmospheric and creepy.  We'll see how these are received, and whether or not I've succeeded.

How have y'all handled this aspect of the game?

Everything Vincent said, and...

If I read you correctly, you don't want to deflect the players away from the human conflicts in the town by risking focus on the Demons, right? So how do you play Demons so that they don't draw away from the human element?

Here's what I'd do, and I think it's supported by the rules:

Demons are laaazy. They fall somewhere, in the categories of initiative and creativity, between cattle and water seeking it's own level. They don't even bother with names, appearances, or any of that: it's too much trouble. They don't have to be anything but lazy, either, because humans do all the hard work for them. They just settle nearby, feasting on the Sin and misery, only stepping up when it's absolutely clear that doing so has a bigger chance of payoff than not doing so. If they do become active, it's only because of Sorcery or the Dogs specifically calling them out. Until then, they're background radiation, entropy, bad luck, unfavorable circumstances.

Let's take one of your examples:

I've got one town where an incestuous relationship between an uncle and his niece is the central Sin.  She got pregnant and the child was stillborn.  The Demon Attacks take the form of clouds of flying insects that hover near the place where the body was deposited.  I determined that the mother's guilt is exacerbated by this hideous reminder, these blowflies and gnats and mosquitos that make her child's resting-place a horror to her.

Now let's extend this so that the Demons use those insects to pass on a plague, one that causes pregnant women to miscarry and infants to die, with the only link being an unusual rash in an...uncomfortable area of the body. This will cause despair and hot tempers in the town, maybe even leading to False Doctrine, which is good for Demons. But notice also that the Demons were typically lacking in creativity: they took their plan of attack on this Town completely from the cues of the uncle and niece, stretching the symbolism a little bit to sneak in. Without the Pride and Injustice that started this, they wouldn't even try doing that much.

Point is, without human effort, for good or evil, the Demons wouldn't get a damn thing done. It's human conflicts that drive everything in the game, including the Demons. So you're right to play up the symbolic and subtle nature of Demon intervention, but you shouldn't worry that's all the game will end up being about; without Sorcery, or the Dogs' players demanding to go head-to-head with one, you wouldn't even know they are there.

Now, if that's what your players want...I don't know what to tell you. 

[Neal]

If I read you correctly, you don't want to deflect the players away from the human conflicts in the town by risking focus on the Demons, right?

Right.  And I like your "lazy demons" idea.  I hadn't thought of them that way.  I guess I think of demons more in the way I think of neoconservatives -- doing the most evil possible while maintaining the highest degree of plausible deniability, until they are exposed, when they employ all the cronies they can muster to destroy the just and the righteous.

Thanks, too, for all the responses.  I should have gone further in one of my examples, I suppose, because in the case you cited -- the incestuous stillbirth -- the Demon Attacks do lead to greater sin: Sister Elise (the mother), driven half-mad by the state of her baby's grave, takes a hayhook to the child's uncle while he's in the outhouse.  (And a hornet's nest appears in that outhouse, with hornets ranging into the late uncle's home to sting and annoy all and sundry).

But y'all have hit on my primary problem, I think.  Aside from the example of Sister Elise and her uncle, I've been having a hard time envisioning Demon Attacks that, in themselves, push folks toward more and greater sinning.  Except for the above example, I guess all my Demon Attacks were pretty much special effects that made the town less livable, and the sinning itself just carried on apace, perhaps made just a tad easier by the disagreeableness of everything.

Point is, without human effort, for good or evil, the Demons wouldn't get a damn thing done. It's human conflicts that drive everything in the game, including the Demons. So you're right to play up the symbolic and subtle nature of Demon intervention, but you shouldn't worry that's all the game will end up being about; without Sorcery, or the Dogs' players demanding to go head-to-head with one, you wouldn't even know they are there.

Yes, I'm focusing on the human end of it, and perhaps I'm doing so to such a degree that the Demon Attacks don't really matter so much.  They end up seeming extraneous, I suppose.  Frex: "In Chokecherry Ridge, plain-looking Sister Clarissa gets all high-and-mighty when gorgeous Brother Cleanth starts courting her, and the two end up knowing one another in an adult fashion, and then he blows town with nary a word and she runs off and has the baby in secret with Old Lady Latimer, who tells her it ain't the will of the King of Life for a youngern such as herself to have to raise no chap all on her own, and she introduces Clarissa to Crazy Elsie, and the three start working old-timey charms to get Cleanth back for what he did, and if the Dogs never come, well, they're going to turn their sights on some of the other philanderin', no-account menfolk in Chokecherry... etc."

Now, in the case of Chokecherry Ridge, I can have the demons attack by ratcheting up the lustful feelings of the youth of the town (though that feels artificial, given the mood of the game I'm trying to run).  Or I can have the demons strike the baby with a wasting illness, or render him halt or blind or addled, or just strike him dead to remove Clarissa's strongest impulse for compassion.  But the linear progression of this backstory seems not to need demonic attacks.  That is, unless I'm misinterpreting the demonic attacks at a pretty fundamental level.

I'd still like to see some more examples of concrete Demon Attacks from other games, along with the contexts that spawned them and how they worked into the story.  I think that would help me work out how demonic attacks can be used as vital parts of the game.

[Neal]

The key to a demonic attack - which yours are all lacking, Neal - is that it pushes people to sin more. The demons want for the sin to become habitual, or else for someone else to sin in response to the sin, and ultimately for the sin to inspire false doctrine. Their attacks are always geared toward those three goals, in substance.

Okay, this helped.  This is covered in the rulebook, I know, but it's been for me like trying to pick up Jell-O while wearing mittens.  I know it's there; I can see it there; but grasping it and putting it where it needs to be is a different matter.

Still, I did some work on the towns I cliff-noted above.  I think I've brought them more in line with the hierarchy of wrongness, while still preserving the mood I want for my game (which may change, of course, based upon player reax).

So, in the town where the man turns to drink and kills his brother, I've decided that the Demons Attack by making him hide his sin from the other townspeople.  His lies are becoming more elaborate and harder to maintain, and they've grown to involve forgery of a letter from his brother, as well as hiring a migrant laborer to give false witness to having seen the dead man in another town.  If the Dogs can't sort this out, he'll be moved to commit even greater sins to keep his secret hidden.  I may also decide that he's already slipped into False Doctrine, arguing to himself that lying to one's brethren is less a sin than permitting oneself to be judged wrongly.  After all, no one will believe at this late date that the killing was accidental, so no one could possibly judge his actions with real justice.

In the Frogtown example, I had intended the frogs to bring with them a vague irritability, something that could lead to more conflict, shorter tempers, and so on.  In the rewrite, I've reduced the frogs to the level of special effect and added two other instances of Sin, one in the form of a long-suffering husband who horsewhipped his nattering shrew of a wife, and the other in the form of a boy who pushed his sister down a well to keep her quiet about his smoking.  The theme running through the town is that everyone seems to want someone else to shut up.  All this amid a deafening chorus of frogs.  Reworking this town made the backstory fit better with the special effects, and actually made the special effects work better in their own right.  Not only that, but the Demon Attacks seem to work as you describe them (though I've been tempted to reverse-engineer a hierarchy in the two cases mentioned above).  We'll see how it works out in play.  Personally, I can't wait.

If it helps, instead of writing "Demonic Attacks: the crops get the blight," write "and then the most unlucky possible thing happens: the crops get the blight."

I think this was part of my problem.  To me, the "most unlucky possible thing" isn't necessarily what would work best.  I mean, it would be pretty unlucky for a town to be situated in the path of an army of renegade Paiutes.  It would be quite unlucky for Corporal Forbes to come visiting, leaving half the town dead in his wake.  And anyway, I'm drawn to the idea that the Demon Attacks have some connection with the Sin that produced them, and with the Sins they in turn produce.  I prefer your other method of explaining Demon Attacks, as a practical way to perpetuate and escalate the sinning.

I note, too, that one thing which has been holding me back is that I've been tempted at every turn to "reverse-engineer" the Demon Attacks back to an originary Pride (and usually, this succeeds).  In each such case, there was usually plenty of material to generate parallel Pride-Injustice-Sin hierarchies without introducing Demon Attacks at all.  I'm still not sure what to do about those cases.  My impulse is to run them as written and just let the players imagine Demon Attacks wherever they will.  Another impulse, less favored, is to lop off everything in the secondary (and tertiary) hierarchies before Sin and let them stand that way.  I'm still not sure which way I'll go.

[Sydney Freedberg]

The theme running through the town is that everyone seems to want someone else to shut up.  All this amid a deafening chorus of frogs. ....

I love this touch. Note also that the rules say Demonic Influence rises through play, as the players discover more and more levels of "What's Wrong" -- so your frogs presumably get louder every time demonic influence gains a die.

[Neal]

I love this touch. Note also that the rules say Demonic Influence rises through play, as the players discover more and more levels of "What's Wrong" -- so your frogs presumably get louder every time demonic influence gains a die.

I like that (and thanks for the compliment, by the way).  I had just put the finishing touches on Frogtown (Fiddler's Hollow, actually), and now I have to go back and toss in a reminder to myself to ratchet up the froggy noises.

In the final version, I took the husband with the horsewhip (Brother Nahum) further than before.  Seems after whipping his wife and locking her in the root cellar, he sort of came into his full manhood.  He feels pretty good about finally wearing the pants in the family, and his boasts have gained the attention of a few other men in the town.  Three in particular have gotten together with him to discuss the duties and rights of husbands.  Together, they've formed a cult, and Brother Nahum has even managed to silence the wives of a few other men in the town, women who've had the temerity to criticize his treatment of his own wife.  One of these shrews lost her voice to a throat tumor, while another stepped on a nail and came down with lockjaw (which not only shuts a person up, but ironically makes them extremely sensitive to noise).

Needless to say, when the Dogs arrive, they'll have their hands full; a town that had been stalled at the Sin level now has a full-blown Sorcerous Cult, moving steadily and swiftly toward Hate and Murder.  And only a few people will be willing to speak out, for fearing of losing the power of speech entirely.

Man, I can't wait to run this town tomorrow!  I'm actually quite glad I had problems with the Demon Attacks; otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten these ideas.  I probably would have simply said "the frogs get into the well water and it goes foul."  This is much better.

[Neal]

Okay, I thought I would add one more entry to this thread, since I ran the town in question, and it worked.  The town itself is described in its own topic, but I'll say here that I followed the advice given above, painful as it was at first.

First, I dispensed with parallel hierarchies and just ran the one originary Sin (Brother Jonas concealing Brother Bart's accidental death to keep from 'fessing up to his iniquities, then compounding his sin with more lies).  I had planned to reverse-engineer two other hierarchies, but I refrained, setting those aside for future towns.  It turned out to be the right decision.  The one hierarchy gave me plenty of material for the session.

As Sydney suggested, I ratcheted up the "frogginess" of Fiddler's Hollow with each new level of badness the players discovered.  This worked better than I had hoped, as one of the players actually chose to engage a group of bullfrogs "big enough to knock over a full milkcan" with an honest-to-goodness conflict.  He was in a root cellar, rescuing Brother Nahum's wife, and the frogs were everywhere, watching him, hopping clumsily against his boots and knees, lurking heavily among bags and crates and stacks of cordwood.  He cursed them and began to lay about with his knife.  Bingo, conflict: I used the Demonic Influence (3d10 at that point), and tossed in a Free d8 to represent the larger frogs, as well as a Free d6 to account for the close confines of the root cellar.

The players also took initiative in another way with regard to the frogs.  When I commented that the frogs were getting louder, the players had the PCs move about the town, seeking the least froggy place to talk.  "We'll go out to one of the fields so we don't have to shout over the frogs."  I hadn't imagined the frogs as a tool for driving the PCs around the geography of the town, but that's how it worked out.

I was surprised that one of the more exciting conflicts turned out to be the one between the Dogs and the branch steward, Brother Isaac.  Isaac was already frazzled, exhausted, and overwhelmed with petty complaints from the townswomen, and the Dogs got on his last nerve by questioning his Calling.  He bristled, and they initiated a conflict with him.  It actually got to fisticuffs (with one of the Dogs Taking the Blow from a knock to the jaw) before another Dog whipped out his Colt and the steward backed down and confessed he had lost control of his charges.

The long and short of it is just this: the advice above worked.  Nahum's cult was a result of Demon Attacks, and that's all I had to say.  The long-standing humiliation he'd endured at his wife's hands was his own backstory, and it came through when I played the NPC, but I didn't need to write another flowchart of iniquity and sin to get there.  It was enough for the players that the Demons had unleashed pent-up hatreds and ill-will.  There followed conflict and judgment; enough said.