demon power?

[Petter Sandelin]

Sorcerer's soul, p. 14:
And without the rulebook's help, you personally must define:
...
what's meant by a demon power score.

I'm probably missing something here, but what exactly could be meant by it other than how powerful the demon is? There's an example below but I can't say it really helps me..

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Petter,

Good question. It comes down to "meant," in the sentence. In the case of Power, yes, functionally, it is raw power, or the degree to which the demon affects things in most of its most interesting ways.

However, by "meant," I am indicating how demon Power relates to the cosmos, or to the human mind, or to the social matrix - ie, how it relates to Humanity scores in a causal way. I didn't include it in the example, in which Humanity indicates sanity, but if I had, it would be something like: "Demonic Power indicates how much a demon's nature corresponds to a given neurosis or other characteristic degradation of sanity." So for this definition of Humanity, a little Power 2 demon might be cutely eccentric; a big-ass Power 10 demon is a terrifying hunk of psychosis, probably highly specialized in psychological terms.

Also, by "meant," I am attempting to provide a basis for the Customizing described in Chapter 4 of the core book - what does a demon look or sound like? Its Power is arguably the demon's "core" score, and considering how it manifests through appearance and use of its abilities, plays a big role in creating Premise during play.

Let me know if this helps at all.

Best,
Ron

[Petter Sandelin]

I makes perfect sense.. I was kind of thinking nothing can be added to "define what a demon is" but it does add stuff. I can even see it working now in my upcoming medival fairy-tale story(last session ended with initial concepts of the characters demons). Thanks!