tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post6686077262799438966..comments2024-03-29T07:35:51.362+00:00Comments on Fabled Lands: Dealing with demons - part 1Dave Morrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-87788260175595937742017-11-23T19:01:28.338+00:002017-11-23T19:01:28.338+00:00Sure, I get all that. I suppose that if I have a ...Sure, I get all that. I suppose that if I have a problem with the above system, it's that there's too much system. A simple, reliable (if lengthy) spell/ritual is fine for more standard spells (Amber rod and silk cloth? Check. Gestures mimicking a violent rain dance? Check. Incantation calling the names of thunder? Check. Lightning Bolt spell is a go.), but summoning a demon, even a minor imp shouldn't in any way be standardize. Every time this is done, it should be a unique, unpredictable event. Every summoning cracks open a door that should never be opening. Every time a demon is summoned, Great Cthulhu's slumber gets a little bit lighter. There's the risk that the door will open too wide for too long and the demons will flood in, bringing their Hell to the mortal plane.<br /><br />So, for me, you don't learn "Summon Imp." You learn "Summon Geezer the Imp to the circle drawn on the Fifth highest of the Mountains of Ganesh on Monday September 14, 3007 AD between the hours of 1 AM and 2 AM." And once you've used that spell, it's pretty much useless. If you want to summon Ganesh or some other Imp, you need to figure out a different ritual. From scratch. Again. <br /><br />Also, there is no real Demonology skill. There's general Occult knowledge which covers what people think they've figure out about demons. That's skill you'd use to summon a demon. And anybody can use it, even non-magic users. Because Demons WANT to be summoned, because every time it's done, they get a chance to wreak havoc and bring the hours closer to the time of Hell on Tekumel.johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-42457542769397517742017-11-22T10:27:26.464+00:002017-11-22T10:27:26.464+00:00Except that really isn't how demonology works ...Except that really isn't how demonology works in Tekumel. You can't bind super powerful demons so they become some kind of uber magic item permanently available. And in any case, players shouldn't be held back by artificial rules because it makes life easier for the GM. It's all about the story and the role playing. In this case, it also depends on how demonology, if it exists in a given world, works. Also, it's not like most 'demonologists' can suddenly summon the most powerful demons just like that. It takes time, you build up to it, the campaign itself levels up, as do the other characters and NPCs so you're not summoning mighty demons to clean out an orc infestation style of thing, it's all part and parcel of a higher level campaign. If a player who's at a low level tries to summon a mighty supernatural being - well, the chances are he's going to fail his demonology roll and that's instant death in most systems. No, let the players run with it. If they fail, they fail, if they succeed, and you have to think how to make things more challenging for them, well, do the work. You're the GM.Jamie Thomsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10901707229406988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-31385302397391716202017-11-22T06:53:47.810+00:002017-11-22T06:53:47.810+00:00I guess the main object I have to Demonology in PC...I guess the main object I have to Demonology in PC hands is what I call "The Airwolf Effect." Airwolf was a TV show that ran in the 80s in the US. A pilot played by Jan-Michael Vincent was hired by a government agency to retrieve Airwolf - a highly advanced jet-propelled attack helicopter from Libya. He does this but keeps and hides that chopper stating he'll only return it if his brother who went MIA during the Vietnam War is found. As a kind of side-deal, he occasionally does favors for said agency using Airwolf.<br /><br />The upshot of all this is that most episodes of Airwolf involved some kind of capability by the bad guys to present a reasonably credible threat to a powerful attack helicopter. So all kinds of people got easy access to attack helicopters, rocket launchers, jet fighter planes, etc.<br /><br />If I have a party with a powerful demonologist (or even a weaker but reckless one), I have to consider my own version of Airwolf. If the demonologist calls up "Urrgh the Destroyer" or what ever an there's nothing in the scenario that can deal with that, he romper-stomps through the adventure with boring ease. On the other hand if I set up something that can challenge "Urrgh" (perhaps Blarrgh the Annihilator) and Urrgh doesn't get summoned, the folks getting romper-stomped will be the party. I can always split the difference, but then I have to come up with a reason why, say, a group of rum smugglers just happened to have a holy artifact that can repel or banish powerful demons. Like that.<br /><br />So, generally I deal with "The Airwolf Effect" by mostly disallowing Airwolf - or making the use of it so difficult and costly that it's mostly not used. "Yeah, you blew the hell out of those orc raiders with Airwolf. By the way, the King just repossessed your lands and castle because you spent all your tax money on Hellfire missiles and aviation fuel."johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-27126816960233593422017-11-21T11:58:13.846+00:002017-11-21T11:58:13.846+00:00Jadhak would never have summoned a demon to fetch ...Jadhak would never have summoned a demon to fetch a cat, far too dangerous. He only ever did such things when the stakes were really, really high. Even if you succeeded, there was always a price to pay somewhere down the line. The summonings were so complex and dangerous that the collecting of the components, the rituals, spells all at vast expense could be an entire campaign in itself, if not an evening session. It was a lot of fun. Having said that, that's all for major demons. Minor demons could be summoned and bound into pieces of armour or rings, or just unleashed into combat. They were really just summoning spells. Still dangerous, but not to an accomplished demonologist in the Tekumel world. As for a cat in the tree? Even minor demon magic is not without risk, so Jadhak wouldn't take that risk. He was, for a demonologist, very cautious. More a Gorice 12th, than a Gorice the 7th. On the other hand, correctly wielding the power of Tekumel demons made him very, very powerful. Jadhak even wrote his own demonology tracts. <br />Jamie Thomsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10901707229406988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-7686315353270112402017-11-21T08:18:55.944+00:002017-11-21T08:18:55.944+00:00None of the summonings I'm talking about here ...None of the summonings I'm talking about here could be performed off-the-cuff. As it was a Tekumel campaign, we went by the Book of Ebon Bindings, which specifies every demon's powers and what you have to do to summon them. There's a lot of preparation involved, usually at great cost, so Jadhak never just used summoning to give himself a powerful monster to control. In fact there is no way to fight a Tekumelani demon lord. It'd be like PCs trying to take on Cthulhu.DMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01887893691053633187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-82290368186779246462017-11-21T04:50:09.363+00:002017-11-21T04:50:09.363+00:00I've been meaning to check out JS/MN for sever...I've been meaning to check out JS/MN for several years but I've just never quite gotten around to it.<br /><br />Probably "overuse" was the wrong term. Maybe "unpredictable" use will convey my meaning better. For the most part, character capabilities in a game are finite and relatively well-defined. You're X Strong, do Y damage with your preferred weapon. You have Z points with which to power your magic and tend to prefer A, B and C as your most used effects. Know that, I can plan my scenarios to give you a good challenge.<br /><br />With Demonology things are a bit different. Let's use the Lord of the Rings movies and say that Jadhak has perhaps a 90% chance of summoning and binding a demonic version of a fairly tough orc (capable but mostly inferior in terms of the party members' average "level." He has a 60% of summoning/binding something like a giant or troll (something basically a relative equal to the average party member) and he has a 20-30% of calling up something like Smaug or the Balrog ("Fly, you fools!") It makes it hard to plan and balance a scenario when I really don't know exactly what the party's capabilities will be.johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-3371569230818053962017-11-20T19:17:58.377+00:002017-11-20T19:17:58.377+00:00"Demonology is a magic much like Necromancy t..."Demonology is a magic much like Necromancy that seems really cool from the outside but can ruin games through overuse."<br /><br />Believe me, John, nobody in our Tekumel campaign felt any inclination to overuse it!<br /><br />For an example of the interesting ways that reanimating the dead can backfire, I recommend Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell. I'll say no more to avoid spoilers...Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-9011895038779136622017-11-20T16:10:58.700+00:002017-11-20T16:10:58.700+00:00For something like that (transporting an army) I&#...For something like that (transporting an army) I'd have the actual demonologist be an NPC while the player-characters have the job/quest to obtain the special gems (ruby/sapphire/diamond Zork II shoutout) that will serve as components for the summoning/binding. Or maybe a PC magic-user can do it if he has the right ritual. But ultimately it would be a case-by-case generally one-time/plot-necessary thing.<br /><br />Demonology is a magic much like Necromancy that seems really cool from the outside but can ruin games through overuse. I remember playing AD&D with a Necromancer character. Dr. Gertrude von Harres was specialized in Necromancy and was basically a forensic pathologist with spells. Eventually learned the "Animate Dead" spell. So, the next time we went into a dungeon, it became, "Zombie, open that chest. Zombie, walk down that potentially trapped corridor. Second Zombie, walk further down that definitely trapped corridor..." A good bit of the tension/fun in adventures comes from the characters taking risks and testing their abilities against the opposition, including traps, the environment and other beings. So, that tension/fun gets reduced when the characters can basically order minions to test their abilities with no consequence. I don't mind rare/unique situation, but too often doesn't work.<br /><br />For example, in the Dresden Files series, there's a point where Harry uses necromancy. It's forbidden to use necromancy on humans, but there's no real point in using it on anything else because other corpses can't contain much power. However, the older a corpse is, the more power it can contain. So, Harry uses necromancy to animate Sue, the complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is at least 65 million years old and can thus contain a massive amount of power. Harry riding a dinosaur into battle was awesome, but I wouldn't want Harry doing that during every book.johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-44590434113046342912017-11-19T10:33:47.409+00:002017-11-19T10:33:47.409+00:00I can't recall all the fraught summonings Jadh...I can't recall all the fraught summonings Jadhak did, but they led to some very interesting developments in the campaign. By the end, when he was installed as Grand Adept of the temple of Chiteng, his attitude had changed completely -- he'd kicked the demon habit. But even then he would occasionally get an order from the Emperor -- "I want the Legion of Red Devastation to travel to the Do Chaka protectorate, and they need to be there tomorrow." And then out would come the Book of Ebon Bindings, because in the absence of FedEx you can really only do a job like that with demons.DMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01887893691053633187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-67116473063191931012017-11-19T07:56:13.364+00:002017-11-19T07:56:13.364+00:00Sure, but there's also playing the role to con...Sure, but there's also playing the role to consider. Your character would get a ladder. Probably my character would get a ladder. But Jadhak is going to draw a summoning circle in cursed catnip so he can summon and bind the bakeneko to get the kitten for him.<br /><br />In one of Lee Child's recent Jack Reacher novels, Reacher and his companion are confronted by a small mob intent on running them out of town. The companion tells Reacher something like "All right, let's go. We can't fight 30 people." Reacher's initial response in his head is 'Of course we can. We both have guns, so that's 10-20 dead right there, and then...' Eventually Reacher decides to accepting the mob's demand so he doesn't commit double-digit multiple homicides. Right then, anyway. Sometimes bad judgement is part of good role-playing.johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-50111641581803337352017-11-19T00:25:40.648+00:002017-11-19T00:25:40.648+00:00Oh yes. I do hope Jamie joins in this conversation...Oh yes. I do hope Jamie joins in this conversation for once. He has a lot of stories which, in hindsight, might show him where demonology wasn't the best solution to his problems.DMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01887893691053633187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-29186659978561739872017-11-18T21:44:16.236+00:002017-11-18T21:44:16.236+00:00Figure a lot of it goes to the idea of "if yo...Figure a lot of it goes to the idea of "if you have a hammer, every problem is a nail." Jadhak is a demonologist, so he solves problems by summoning demons even when there's probably an easier/safer/better way of doing it. He's the kind of guy who would spend 12 hours and risk his soul to summon a bakeneko (cat demon) to get a kitten out of a tree instead of just grabbing a ladder.johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-1854388731618673692017-11-18T08:19:47.038+00:002017-11-18T08:19:47.038+00:00Jamie's character Lord Jadhak hiVriddi in our ...Jamie's character Lord Jadhak hiVriddi in our Tekumel campaign was an accomplished demonologist, but frequently ended up having to summon another demon to fix the problems incurred by invoking another. I often wondered why he didn't leave well enough alone, but power is a drug more addictive than zu'ur.DMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01887893691053633187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-52505228690919028562017-11-18T07:32:11.015+00:002017-11-18T07:32:11.015+00:00Demonology strikes me as kind of an NPC only magic...Demonology strikes me as kind of an NPC only magic system. It's difficult to learn, has multiple downsides and in the end gives you a (temporary, highly untrworthy) minion to do something you're probably better off doing for yourself anyway. Banishment is likely the best thing to learn and even that is difficult and unreliable. It's probably easier to either make the demon a better offer or just get your party together and chop it into cat-meat. And then track down the summoner and do the same thing.johntfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16005496604068259398noreply@blogger.com