Prince of Annihilation Harmon.
| Psychic Power | Godlike |
| Strength | Seriously High |
| Endurance | Extremely High |
| Combat Ability | Godlike |
| Presence | Godlike |
| Additional Powers | Logrus, Sorcery, Ritual Magic, Pattern |
| Current Status | Wouldn’t you like to know? |
This whole ‘dying then coming back as a demon’ thing is really very cool. And you know, if my ex wife Lintra and my kid Armin can manage it, really how hard can it be?
Hmmm…. I know someone who thought that might be the case.
Well, I guess someone ‘MAY’ have confirmed that Harmon’s ‘Get out of Death’ Card was indeed played, rather than just a theoretical possibility.
Looks like House Discordia now needs allies even more than they did before.
Oh, he may be a Demon, and you might have high enough initiation with Logrus to command demons, but I pretty much doubt that anyone on here has a Psyche stronger than his, which means your not compelling him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.
It’ll be interesting to see how many, if any of Harmon’s kids get caught up in this whole situation now given that as with any Demon, Ex Chanicutt Head of House Harmon is now, and has always been a Demon, even when everyone knows he wasn’t but now always has been.
That’s the part where your head begins to ache from trying to get your mind round that fact.
Sergi, you might want to pass this possibility onto your Grandfather given the recent chat about the man. I’d have done it the day we were talking, but the timing wasn’t right given how things ended.
Well, fudgesicles!
Is cheating death these days really as simple as just accepting demonic superpowers? I certainly don’t advocate going demon, but I am kind of curious as to what the downsides are to taking out a ‘life’ insurance policy.
Does anyone know of any drawbacks beyond demons being bad and the Host wanting to smite you?
You lose your soul. It’s a quantifiable thing. I did the research. I even figured out how to do soul surgery with the aid of a Creator. In a moment of stark sanity, I burned all of that research. There is a way to get around the soul burn, other than avoiding the use of demonic powers, but Spikards aren’t exactly plentiful.
All of this is without a huge amount of personal experience and pretty much all second or third hand.
Let’s see, in a bullet point form:
a. You lose your soul bit by bit in most cases. That means overtime (or maybe very quickly) your morals are gone, you aren’t the person you were previously and effectively your a bit like a gun.
b. Anyone with superior psyche and pretty impressive Logrus can basically order you about to do anything they want you to do, and your compelled to do ‘exactly what they say’.
Now, this is why Demons tend to get good at twisting deals because they get narked off by being forced to do stuff.
Also, if your making a demon do something, it’s probably because you don’t want to do the thing the Demon has to do. Thus demons tend to get shit, immoral or just downright dodgy things to do with no choice.
Probably also may explain why they are prone to Evil as time goes on, as given that if the Demon use Leyline magic, they take Soul Burn, it’s pretty likely that when compelled, they’ll have to use leyline magic to do some stuff and take the burn themselves.
c. There’s a Fallen Angel just for you, who’s entire point is to corrupt demons, Mephistopheles, I believe, which by definition, means Demons don’t start Evil necessarily….. but look at the people who become demons, mostly not prone to be good people as a starting point.
I believe there is other stuff, but that seems like enough to be going on with…..
You know, not wanting to derail this conversation in another direction, but as those of you who have had a bit of a hack around this wiki will have realised, you can get it to tell you who authored the pages, and the posts and comments.
So, has anybody noticed that while nearly all the entries in the Librum Demonicae, and all the other Libri for that matter, are written by this Aurellis GM bloke, whoever he is, you should take a note of who wrote Harmon’s entry. Yep. You didn’t need three guesses after all. Harmon himself, apparently.
So for anybody who doesn’t think that is a slightly concerning fact, let me be the first to persuade you that its perfectly safe, and a lot of fun, to go and stand in the middle of the Santa Monica freeway in the fog, because nothing bad could possibly happen to you there at that time.
I leave the obvious to other people as often as I can….
I think that GM stands for General Moderation. It’s a collective address for a bunch of folks in the spec ops IT department. I met several of the IT people when I was working on the FAQ. They’re a great bunch who do a wonderful job keeping the site free of broken links and spambots.
Well, Demosthenes, it seems the collective spirit is not to be roused, not even when this Harmon fellow starts replying in that Aurellis GM bloke’s stead in internal mail.
It seems that Harmon has been accepted much as the Don has when he has posted. Although, the Don has never previously gone so far as to co-opt the Aurellis GM.
Anything goes, apparently.
We are each known by the company we keep.
Given previous incursions in St. James Spec Ops, the involvements of many of its operators in the multiverse at large, and current events…should we be asking whether the notion of a Spec Ops force charged with protecting St. James’ interests has any current meaning?
I’d agree with the sentiments that somethign is wrong here and that some of the ‘actual’ members of Spec Ops should be checking into their own back yard as I don’t have access anymore (not just assume everything is ok even with a Demon and the Don appearing on here).
I would also make the point that Locke and Demosthenes are likely also to be non Spec Ops members, so anyone think there isn’t a problem in Spec Ops right now?
If they’ve gotten at the General Moderator, then I’m not sure what more is to be done. It wouldn’t be the first time our bureaucracy has been usurped by a hopefully benevolent dictator. I just hope it took more than a nice bottle of Whisky this time.
Even if the home office is being neglected, I take comfort in knowing our strength has never been in centralized direction. We splinter easily, but we rally well.
A demon, I suspect, isn’t a benevolent dictator.
When a door is left open, anything may enter in.
When a path is made, there will be someone to walk it, even if it is long abandoned by those who first explored the route.
Actions, thoughts, intentions, deeds, associations…these open doorways and pathways, either in a positive direction or otherwise. It may be that we choose in the end not to go to a place, and there is merit in that; but there can be a consequence for dwelling too long and too hard upon negative directions that persists even after one decides to turn aside.
This is particularly true when those who tread the paths are creators or demi-creators themselves.
What is a demi-creator?
I have no idea.
I am also pretty sure that even though I know that all the words Locke has used in the above piece are in a language I supposedly speak and understand, I have no idea what the point Locke is trying to make might be.
Are you saying ‘It is an information system. If you build it, they will come and exchange information’ whether they happen to be the ones you built it for or not?
Otherwise, you lost me, mate. Maybe I’m spending too long dwelling on the negative consequences of trying to figure out what you are talking about.
He’s saying be careful what doors you open. Even if you use them wisely, others may not.
As for the notion of a demi-creator, it is a scary one as far as I’m concerned.
Then don’t even think about a Hemi-Semi-Demi- Creator.
Demosthenes the point echoes your own: That it is a valuable practice to give thought to the source of information and to the security of the platform it is presented on.
My thesis in the metaphysical sense is that our actions and inactions invite forces and results in our lives. So if a Prince of Annihilation is suddenly hanging out on the same chat board with you like he’s one of the gang…it could be worth asking how you ended up keeping company.
A demi-creator is simply anyone with the ability to create a local reality. Even ordinary humans have some limited capability for this in simply living their lives. Corneilians have a considerably larger ability for this in creating shadows, conjuring articles, or changing the substance of reality in their proximity.
Then there are Creators who do this on a larger scale and become authorities over a multiversal structure.
But all that might be too abstract for folks.
In concrete terms, maybe a first step in this instance would be to come up with an explanation of why an entity that was not offered a log in has access to your system for conversations and is using your information sharing assets…followed by an action plan for seeing that it isn’t repeated.
To expand:
Whether it is the construction of an information wiki, an information technology system, a local reality, or a multiverse the users seldom give thought to the system they use. Sticking to the information technology/wiki example in hopes of not losing anyone, people often inhabit or interact with systems with little idea of how they work, who else uses them, what happens to their information or meta information. Even developers may create utilities or applications on a platform with a very shallow (or no) understanding of the supporting infrastructure that they are built on top of.
In technology this means that people routinely fail to consider or are cavalier and unconcerned about the vulnerabilities their activities create on the system. As a result, the systems are open to anyone who takes the time to really look at how things are organized or work. Some of these exploits become major news, in other cases system resources may be diverted quietly for years for purposes not originally intended. But even the newsworthy hacks don’t manage to do much more than generate a bit of noise and outrage. That quickly fades until the next episode.
While that happens, more information and capability is built and developed for the use of those who come in and take advantage of it.
To broaden the scope for a moment, and to address the larger metaphor that Demosthenes claims to have missed…
The attitudes and behaviors of humans with respect to technological tools is directly paralleled to what is seen with Corneilians and their affect on the multiverse.
Sit with that a moment.
With Corneilians power generally comes far in advance of actual knowledge. One may argue that even when knowledge is gained, it may not be operationalized.
Most Corneilians have not the slightest idea of the underpinnings of the multiverse, nor of its history, nor of the affects of other acts of creation or instantiation…but this in no way inhibits them from using their powers or creating things.
Even small local acts of creation or invention can leave pathways or potential futures that are open to negative exploitation.
In some cases things have gone wrong, maybe even horribly wrong, and a patch is put in place. This doesn’t tend to prompt much in the way of larger introspection, investigation or thought…just temporary relief, and the desire to grab a beer before going back to business as usual.
Behind the scenes, there are the few that either have taken the time to gain some understanding, or who have merely happened on a way to operate on the gaps or behind the scenes. These individuals exist to take advantage of the advantages generated by the inattention, ignorance and sloppiness of the rest.
I am saying that whether it is an information system, or the creation of a multiverse (which arguably is an information system but I’ll leave that as an academic debate we can enjoy later), that there are going to be:
We could go up a level of meaning and talk about metaphysical issues and the notion that our negative actions, deeds and explorations may leave an opening that is exploitable, feeds or attracts sentience that has given itself to “evil”. Or that it may be the case that even if the individual that heads down that dark path turns back…that there is some residual opportunity left for forces of the Dark even if the individual has chosen a better path.
In answer, anyone think that perhaps someone in Spec Ops may have been co-opted?
Maybe part of that IT section?
Those still in Spec Ops, I’d suggest you head over and do some checking, also just in case those Demon statues out front aren’t quite what they used to be…..
While I can’t guarantee that no one in Spec Ops IT has been co-opted, it seems unlikely. Spec Ops IT is staffed as is most of Spec Ops by very competent humans. They do a great job with ordinary problems, but they can’t secure the wiki against anyone with access to superhumanly competent computer skills. The wiki is not and never has been secure. Any information posted is and always has been available to anyone willing to go to the trouble to access it. Frankly, even if the network itself could be made totally secure far too many people have remote access to protect tbe information. All it takes is a bit of spying or social engineering against any single user to get access to all the information on the wiki. Never post anything you wouldn’t be willing to say to your worst enemy, because if they want to they can read it.
Keeping your secrets in this medium is a good idea. That said, I think it does a good job of spreading information that is sensitive but readily available through other means to someone who really cares.
I don’t mind saving our enemies legwork if the benefit is easing our people into the larger world.
[OOC: Chiming in here just to say that this is a ridiculous thread of conversation, in my opinion. Out of character comments are interspersed here and there in this forum, sometimes with no indication that they are OOC. Also several players who have no real Spec Ops or Keys affiliation have made comments here as well. To treat it like an IC forum where we can all chat in-character about relevant events is one thing, but to treat it like it’s meant to be kept omega level encrypted seems silly, not to mention exclusionary to players with neither affiliation. Of course…maybe all of this is just for funsies. In which case…carry on. :-)]
(ooc: Just for funsies, send a message to the Aurellis GM. See who responds.)