The Marquis, plus Angel Rant

[Ron Edwards]

I ran across this great comic at the local store:

The Marquis: Danse Macabre
by Guy Davis, published by Oni Comics

It's currently in graphic novel format and it's so, so, Chapters Two and Three in The Sorcerer's Soul that it couldn't get any more so. I highly recommend it.

Hey, that reminds me. Before The Sorcerer's Soul was published, that's all you heard from people: "Where are the angels, Ron? The angels, the angels! Wherrrrrre?" So I publish what I consider to be a truly kick-ass, never-done-before section on angels, with New Rules and everything.

Then? Silence. No angel play. No angel talk. No nothing.

Well?

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

Hello Ron,

Well, I don't know if this will satsify you or not but I REALLY like the Angelic rules and I try to use them wherever possible when thinking about Sorcerer.  So here are my two uses so far:

1) In my Gothic Fantasy setting I have the concept of a True Innocent.  This is more of an adaptation of the Grace mechanics than a use of the angel rules whole sale but here it goes.

Someone is who is Truly Innocent has *NEVER* commited an act that
would call for a Humanity check.  If a True Innocent takes an action that requires a Humanity check, regardless of outcome, they are no longer a True Innocent and all of the following rules regarding them cease to apply. There is no way to ever regain True Innocence.

If a character ever takes an action that calls for a Humanity check
and the target of that action is a True Innocent they lose a
number of Humanity points equal to the roll's victories rather than
just a single point.

Similarly, if a character ever takes an action that calls for a
Humanity gain roll and that action is taken on behalf of a True
Innocent they gain a number of Humanity points equal to the roll's
victories rather than just a single point.

A True Innocent can be identified with an opposed roll
of Sorcerer's Humanity vs. the Innocent's Humanity. In terms of
Premise this reflects the fact that the more emotionally self
absorbed and insane you are the less likely you are to see the human beings around you for what they truly are.

Like Angels, True Innocents have a Grace score which they can bestow upon others. Unlike Angels, they can bestow and renig this Grace at will. They also do not lose Grace as the Sorcerer loses Humanity.

Also, I do not see the Truly Innocent's Grace as being something
supernatural. The idea I'm going for is that the Truly Innocent are
the rare jewels of true emotional sanity among the tormented
landscape. Their hearts are so pure that the sparkle in their eyes
and the never waining smile on the lips can inspire even the most
suffering of individuals to moments of compassion.

Note, this definition of Innocence is distinctly different from say,
that of Little Fears or even that of The Enchanted Pool. Innocense
is not something that can be taken away from you. An Innocent can be
raped and tortued and exposed to all kinds of mindnumming horrors and
still remain Innocent in the face of it all. It is also not a contradictory or different definition of Humanity for this setting.

Humanity is STILL emotional sanity and zero Humanity still
represents an angst ridden emotionally tortured soul. An Innocent is
someone who, despite whatever they may have been through, has managed to remain true to themselves and the world around them.

2)  I hope this next one doesn't violate The Forge's policy about licensed products.  Once my Werewolf game concludes I'm thinking about trying to convince my weekend group to play Sorcerer.  In fact, I think I'm going to put my foot down and basically say, I'm going to run Sorcerer next, if you're interested show up, if you're not interested I wish you much luck in finding a group playing a game you're interested in.  

There is however, one small compromise I'm willing to make.  I'm thinking about returning to my Deadlands campaign.  I will use the Deadlands setting and I will allow the players to return to their old characters.  HOWEVER, I will insist that we convert everything over to Sorcerer, which for Deadlands is drop dead easy because Deadlands and Sorcerer share an assumption about the source of arcane power.  Almost, everything of arcane nature in Deadlands is inspired, created or channeled through entities called Manitous (demons).

The one hitching point is The Blessed.  In Deadlands The Blessed peform Miricles (which are just spells) and the key difference from them and the other arcane "spellcasters" is that The Blessed don't suffer any negative effects if they botch their roll.  The trade off is that The Blessed have to follow some kind of dagmatic law about behavior.  If they commit any of these 'sins' they have to make Faith roll.  If they fail, they lose a point of Faith and thus their powers become weaker.  Sound familiar?

I'm thinking of allowing my Blessed characters to have a starting Angel rather than a starting Demon.  However, they don't get to design the Angel, I do.  What they can do is tell me what their Angel's goal is.  It's sort of like picking a patron Saint.  I don't like the option of treating Angels just like demons, that's boring to me, so I'm again dealing with the Grace mechanics but this time in full as described in The Sorcerer's Soul.  These Blessed characters of course will still have a Lore score and are still capable of interacting with demons in the usual way.  These interactions just piss the Angel off.

There is also a couple of changes both from the Deadlands concept and from the Sorcerer concept.  The Blessed in this conversion no longer really has to worry about an exact dawgmatic law.  That whole interachange is handled through the regular Humanity mechanics which of course has a uniform definition for everyone.  The change for Sorcerer is that Angels are portrayed as rather autonomous in The Sorcerer's Soul.  There's no way to ask or order an angel to do something.  They're just sort of there guiding you along some mysterious unknown path.  Since in the Deadlands setting The Blessed can perform Miricles at will I'm thinking of allowing this mechanic.

A character with an angle may 'order' their angel to do something by making a Humanity vs. The Angel's Grace roll modified for how much the act complies with the Angel's goal.  If successful the Angel will try to complete the request to the best of it's ability.  Since this roll is based on Humanity and not on Will it makes the interaction both more thematic and lends itself more to a concept of 'appealing' or 'praying' rather than ordering.  If you've been 'good' the Angel will hear your pleas.

I think that covers it.

Hope this was interesting.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

Wow! OK Jesse, this is going to be very cool. I'll look forward to it. The way you have found to make the Blessed interesting is especially cunning, as I regarded them as hands-down the most annoying, boring elements of the Deadlands setting.

Quick note: the no-license-games policy only applies to the Indie Design forum. Otherwise, mix, match, talk about any game you want.

Best,
Ron