Demon: The Fallen

[cybertrixx]

illithidbix, being the wonderfully terrible person that he is, decided to make use of the sudden free time that comes from Easter Holidays and run a tabletop game a few weeks back. White Wolf's OWOD Demon: The Fallen is what fell out of the stack at the other end.

For those of you who don't know, D:TF is like other World of Darkness games, except you actually feel justified in behaving like a wangsty 14 year old or a cheesemonger when you decide to play it. It really needs little introduction (...as if I could resist the opportunity to froth about my favourite tabletop game...ha!) other than to say that PC's are escaped demonic refugees from a very cold, lonely and torment-filled abyss, dropped headfirst into possessing the recently vacated bodies of those who have given up on life (or have been given up on by life, conversely).

So far, so good. The hook that has illithidbix and I drooling is that the whole point of this 'Fall' business is that ol' Morningstar starts his rebellion because he's told to love humanity as he loves God, but in the next breath is told he must *never* reveal himself to them and break their ignorance of all the wonderful things created in their name. Humanity must remain as mindless animals, unable to reach their potential.

This doesn't sit well with the Morningstar, and after some angelic wangst and navel-gazing that matches quite a few Eidolon meetings I've been in attendance of at 'Strom over the years, half the host decides to side with dearest Lucifer and open humanity's eyes to the beautiful things that have been made for them at the Creator's command.

The rest, as they say, is history. There's Michael with his flaming sword, there's centuries of war and monstrous experiments creating half human-half angelic hybrids by Lucifer's host, who very quickly dive headfirst off the moral event horizon and become the demons we all know and love to inappropriately anti-hero-worship. Of course, they lose, and get their tails kicked into hell.

Cut to:

Suddenly, one of these aeons old spirits of unfathomable power, responsible for the construction of the world/life/humanity and then cast into hell for rebelling against the Creator, is torn from their prison and vomited into a very real, living body that makes no bloody sense at all from the inside.

A number of questions are generally raised at this point, somewhere along the lines of:

"I'm free, so why am I not getting my ass handed to me by an army of righteous angels? Where did they all go?"
"Where is Lucifer, and why wasn't the weasly snot sent to rot in the abyss with us?"
"Why did humanity grow up to be a right bunch of bastards?"
and of course:
"Are there any more of us out here?"

So, intro aside, illithidbix set me a deliberately vague writing challenge. And here is the result: (contains: brief mention of suicide, demonic possession, gratuitous self-indulgent wangst)



It's not every day that you get a second chance. We never dreamed of this.

And yet, here it is. Life, flesh, physical sensation. A thudding, monotonous heart beating in the chest. Your chest. Take a breath - your first ever - and feel the cold air rush down your throat. Stretch these fingers - your fingers, remember constructing the fundamental building blocks of these? - and feel the joints move. Gristle and bone gliding across one another. Wiggle these toes - your toes. Feel the overgrown nails scratching against the fabric of your bedsheets, setting your senses slightly on edge.

The steady chirrup of the cardiograph machine - whatever that is - meets your ears. Open your eyes - well, the one that's left - and look up at a white ceiling covered in geometric patterns. "Lights." says a voice somewhere in the back of the mind. Reach out and touch the voice - and it recoils out of reach. It's there, but not there. An echo of a person that once was, who once lived in this body.

My body now.

Take another deep breath, savour the burning fullness in the chest. Finally, when ready, sit up. Look around. "Hospital" says the echo of what was once a person. "Constructed of stone, steel, plastic - now there's a novel concept - and wood. Houses people. Sick people. Infirm. Dying. Comatose. Like me."

The shock of recall comes rushing forth as if on command. Gasping, sobbing, cold sweat. Finger on the trigger. Eyes closed. The taste of ABS and steel should be the last thing you remember - should - yet instead it's agonising pain and the metallic tang of blood.

One cannot help but chuckle. How can you fail to die so spectacularly, Julie? Yes, that's your name. Snatched from somewhere at the back of this mind. Hello, Julie. I'm Razakiel. I'll be your...well. That's just it. I am you, now. All of what I was - what I am - filtered down through a mortal mind. And not a tidy one, judging from the mess that's left inside here.

How can you make such a mess of the simple act of ending your own life? Not that I'm upset - quite the contrary. Your failure presented an opportunity I may otherwise not have been able to grasp.

Let out a sigh. Vibrations in the throat. What a strange sensation - expected, and yet still alien. I survey this shell, this vessel, for damage. Point-blank gunshot to upper jaw. Severe damage to bone structure. Lost an eye. Powder burns.

Could be worse. For a moment, I consider rolling back the damage. It is a minor expenditure of one's essence - just a fragment of one's power - and yet something stops me. I want to explode out of this body in a shower of blood and gore, to return to my full magnificence and step unfettered upon the Creation we lost so long ago - and yet the crushing reality of the situation presses down upon the self, urging caution.

...and with good reason. When we were sent - defiant to the last - into the abyss, the last sight that graced our senses was the Heavenly Host, all stern glares and terrible purpose. Yet...where are they now? They must have noticed our escape.

Sifting through Julie's memories, it soon becomes apparent. They must have left Creation behind when we did.

So, a true second chance. Reborn into flesh - wet, weak, soft, vulnerable, messy, dirty, awkward flesh that seems such a far cry from the perfect bodies we sculpted for Adam and Eve all those aeons ago, but flesh nonetheless - and able to touch, taste, hear, see and smell the world we built through senses attuned to it. It's beautiful enough to make you choke up, marred though it is by the crushing decay of the aeons that have passed without us to maintain things. What a novel experience - feeling emotion, passed through a filter of mortality as it is. It is utterly impenetrable, impossible to fathom much like my mercurial brothers and sisters who once tended to the deep, dark oceans of the world and watched humanity from afar.

Myself? I was born of stronger, sterner stuff than the shifting, mercurial oceans or the whimsical domains of words and ideas. My purpose lay deeper, more fundamental. I was forged to be a master of stone and steel, of atoms and interactions between them. Particles and the pathways between them - physicality, dimension, size and shape. These were the realms within which I worked to define the world. House Annunaki, Angels of the Fundament. Malefactors, Demons of the Earth. Toys and trinkets and machines to satisfy the wildest imaginings of the mortal heart, though it lie forever impenetrable and unknowable to us - these are our gifts to humanity.

A sigh to one side. Another in this ward is awake. This could be awkward. And yet - there were two others who crossed the veil alongside. Two other escapees. I let the name form in this awkward, fleshy throat. "Darshala? Can you hear me?"

A response, from the side. Though passed through the filter of a mortal's throat much as mine must have been, Darshala's voice rings clear. Angel of Perception, bringer of the Word of God. Once. Now, her title is Devil. "Yes. Where is Thiriel?" she asks tentatively.

An answer, from the other side. "Here, sisters..." whispers the Defiler in soft, sultry tones. Something about the voice makes this body's skin crawl.

It is not long before the body worn by Thiriel climbs out of her bed and stands shamelessly, stretching and yawning before us in the dimly lit room. Her surgical gown is discarded for the pointless indulgence in modesty that it is.

Yet, I cannot help but avert my eyes. There should be no reason to be ashamed of the human form, and yet I find her gesture lewd, inappropriate and obscene somehow. I feel the ghost of Julie recoil in the back of this body's mind, and a curious hazy heat falls upon my cheeks. I am eventually forced to ask her to cover herself, and yet all she does is smile and ask if she makes me uncomfortable.

I worked to construct the fundamental building blocks of these bodies aeons ago. Forged from the fabric of Creation, knitted together into elements and molecules, woven into threads of tissue and then passed to my brothers to be assembled into whole bodies - what possible reason could we have to be ashamed?

I turn and place my feet upon the cold floor. Tingles of sensation running up legs that haven't been used for months. Julie's cautionary voice at the back of my mind says "Careful. You're going to be uns-" and I'm already trying to stand, trying to stabilise myself on the steel pylon to the side of my bed, almost tearing the drip down from its mounting and bringing the cardiograph crashing to the floor.

It seems we have much to learn. There's a whole world out there to explore. We've just got to get out of this room. Find our clothes. Find somewhere to hide...

Oh yes, somewhere to hide. Our entry into this world came in two parts. One part, the part that led to where we are now, saw us reaching out from the cold, crushing abyss and grasping onto a spark of light somewhere far above.

But the spark of light we initially siezed did not come from the bodies we now inhabit. Oh no. A silver circle in a warded room. A ceremony of sorts. Summoning. Binding. Commanding. Chains - silver chains, writ into the very fabric of the self. Choking, inviolable commands being layered upon the soul. Another few seconds, and we'd have been...his?

The link snapped before it could be completed, and we found ourselves here. But we recognise a face. It belongs to one of the doctors. Our doctors. Doctor Goodwin.

Time to leave...

Comments

[beast-the-yeti.livejournal.com]

Ah, poor Razakiel.

I'd apologise for embarrassing you, dear sister, but I must admit that I rather enjoyed it.

--------------

:D Very nice. Certainly captures the moment of awakening and the wonderful way Razakiel views Creation (mmm Malefactors).

[dbsurfeit.livejournal.com]

White Wolf should be paying for advertising this good.

[draconas-rage.livejournal.com]

*Love, in the face, with bricks*

I love Demon, it was highly underrated, but then I think it needs the right GM and group of players.

[zaitan.livejournal.com]

Fantastic, I love it.

My group has just started some vampire after a changeling campaign, I wish I knew about D:TF before as I would have prodded them switch. In a similar vein, I would like to have a go at In Nomine although the game release I am currently waiting for is The Laundry. James Bond, the BOFH and Lovecraftian horrors in one setting.

[cybertrixx.livejournal.com]

It would seem we view the game the same way. If you get the right mix, it's staggeringly good. However, it's brutal and unforgiving to players and GM's alike - it really cuts your characterisation and roleplay style right to the bone, and differences in playstyles become vast, yawning insurmountable voids. I ran a game a while back with a mix of very different players who wanted very different things from the game, and it was...awkward...to say the least when half the group was wanting to be all touchy-feely with mortals, others wanted to go after headlighted bad-guy and kick him in the teeth, STR +2 AGG style, and others still wanted to hunt other demons and eat them for leet powers. Yeah.

We've ended up with a very touchy-feely bunch. Took us an entire session to get out of a hospital room. The rest of the 'hospital' dungeon looked far too intimidating so we ended up setting off the fire alarm and running away. Jeez Tom, forcing us to tank mortals in conversation is tough! =D

[adk104.livejournal.com]

All I could say to that is "less qq more pew pew".

Mortals are fairly easy to kite anyway.

[gracewing.livejournal.com]

Very nicely done, here's hoping it'll run 'oop North(er) at some point. =)