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Rebuilding DEMON


Shiva13

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In an online campaign, the subject of DEMON came up. And generally it was decided primarily by me as one of the GM team that the current version of DEMON fronted by Luthor Black just wasn't to my tastes. And that it was time for a return to the core elements and concepts that made DEMON what it is.

 

Luthor Black's organization would be the most public arm of DEMON. It would not be the full extent. DEMON's masters allow Luthor Black's organization to exist because it distracts the public from their true enigmatic agenda. For the most part, the true powers of DEMON faked their own deaths during the takeover by Luthor Black, Because it took them off the radar when it came to superheroes, allowing them to pursue their goals relatively unhindered.

 

The true DEMON is the classic DEMON. From PRIMUS & DEMON.

 

What is their goal? Power. Amassing as much material and magical power as they can, to ensure their dominance in the world. While manipulating events from behind the scenes to their favor.

 

DEMON has evolved, grown, Learned the value of a disposeable public face. No matter what happens, DEMON will endure.

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In Luther Black's case, his deck chair is a hospital bed. Black/the Edomite is in no condition to confront PCs directly, which is precisely why he needs to work through surrogates, whom PCs definitely could confront.

 

Shiva13, I actually recommend taking the opposite course to what you propose. The version of DEMON presented for 4E in Classic Organizations (more on that below) posited that the tech-armed DEMON agents were created as a front for the organization's true magic-wielding masters. I recommend making the DEMON you want a facade over the Edomite's DEMON, because according to Servants Of Darkness that DEMON would already have attempted its grand ritual, and presumably failed, pretty much eradicating itself in the process. The front organization, being separate, would have survived; but would now be able to loot the main group's remaining resources and personnel, making it a more potent force in its own right. That would let you transition over any elements from D:SOD you might like to keep.

 

I also recommend looking for a couple of earlier Champions books: Classic Organizations, and Target Hero; because their versions of DEMON build upon the original from Organizations Book II in recognizable ways, while adding characters, structural elements, and options.

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I've actually done what Lord Liaden suggested in my campaign several years back. The 4th Edition version of DEMON is the front/false face of Black's DEMON. Its worked out quite well with the heroes slowly peeling back the layers of the organization to find another deeper level of evil below.

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I would use the Brotherhood of the Scarlet Moon. (That's the right name isn't it? I'm not getting muddled with the Scarlet Brotherhood of Greyhawk fame am I?) They are the perfect hidden master types. In their official capacity in the Champions Universe they are meant to be non-super mages. That is, their magic is a much slower more careful practice than that practiced by super hero/villain types. No conjuring the Lights of Luathon in the middle of a battle high over the New York skyline. But that's not to say they aren't capable of achieving very powerful results with time and some powerful rituals. They are responsible for the Tunguska Event of 1908 -which was really them taking out the then Archmage of Earth. They have existed as an organisation for some centuries and have used their magic subtly all that time to make themselves unbelievably rich and very, very powerful.

 

Full disclosure: I never really liked the Luthor Black is summoning Cthulu angle. I'm just very much over the whole Elder Gods from Beyond Reality thing.

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"Circle of the Scarlet Moon," and yes, their magic is much more subtle than that of DEMON. For example, instead of a Morbane hurling a fireball to destroy a building, a Druid of the Circle might cast a curse which causes the building to catch fire and burn down the next day... after which the Druid collects the insurance. All witnesses or surveillance can give is a man making odd gestures across the street from the building the day before.

 

But if Shiva13 wants something akin to the original DEMON, it sounds like he's looking for a more obvious, directly opposable foe for his PC heroes.

 

(Minor pet peeve: The infamy of Lex Luthor has convinced many people that the much more common name "Luther," as in "Luther Black," should be spelled his way. To date Lex's family are the only "Luthors" I've come across.)

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Full disclosure: I never really liked the Luthor Black is summoning Cthulu angle. I'm just very much over the whole Elder Gods from Beyond Reality thing.

 

The real fatigue is over at Champions Online, where the game developers rather overdid the whole Qliphoth thing, while never really conveying what makes it distinctive. Most players treat is as just another Hell-like dimension, and Edomites and their kin as like other demons.

 

Personally, I thought Luther Black's decades-long, cast-of-thousands scheme was one of the most epic villainous Master Plans I've ever heard of. Summoning Elder Gods from Beyond Reality, that's admittedly cliche. Becoming an Elder God from Beyond Reality... that's original.

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"Circle of the Scarlet Moon," and yes, their magic is much more subtle than that of DEMON. For example, instead of a Morbane hurling a fireball to destroy a building, a Druid of the Circle might cast a curse which causes the building to catch fire and burn down the next day... after which the Druid collects the insurance. All witnesses or surveillance can give is a man making odd gestures across the street from the building the day before.

 

But if Shiva13 wants something akin to the original DEMON, it sounds like he's looking for a more obvious, directly opposable foe for his PC heroes.

 

(Minor pet peeve: The infamy of Lex Luthor has convinced many people that the much more common name "Luther," as in "Luther Black," should be spelled his way. To date Lex's family are the only "Luthors" I've come across.)

 

 

Actually, that does annoy me sometimes too, if only because 2 members of my family had Luther as a first name.  (and I always thought it was Lex Luther for the longest time)

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Greed would be responsible for financing DEMON though various get rich quick and pyramid schemes.

 

Lust would use seduction to gain influence for DEMON.

 

Wrath would create a group of super-soldiers/terrorists for DEMON using drugs that turns then berserk.

 

Gluttony would sell addictive food times for DEMON to gain control over people.

 

Sloth would attack religion to undermine resistance to DEMON.

 

Envy would manipulate people into hating DEMON's enemies by attacking their success.

 

Pride would for an organization to recruit DEMON members who would be told they are the elite of society.

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In the Champs book The Mystic World, the mightiest archdevils call themselves the Sin Emperors, supreme exemplars of one brand of evil. Mephistopheles claims the title, Emperor of Pride; Baphomet, Emperor of Wrath; Beelzebub, Emperor of Envy; Lucifuge Rofocale, Emperor of Avarice. The book itself doesn't name archdevils for the other three Deadly Sins, but I'm sure a little research would turn up appropriate candidates. In any case, four should be enough demonic patrons to start with. :sneaky:

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Cassandra perhaps expand gluttony to all addictions?

 

Gluttony would operate on two levels. 

 

One would be the selling of traditionally popular items like cupcakes, ice cream, pies and cakes, and other fattening foods.

 

The second would be to feed on the dieting crazy, selling both special health foods and a diet food service.  

 

They would advertise the latest "healthy" food, which would of course be laced with an addictive additive.

 

Once someone has become so addictive they can't live without the item, DEMON would contact them offering them a lifetime supply for doing them a little "favor".

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Sloth would attack religion to undermine resistance to DEMON.

 

 

 

Okay, I'll go right out and attack religion.

 

 

But first I'll take a nap.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks a nap for me is an excellent idea right now

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Gluttony would operate on two levels. 

 

One would be the selling of traditionally popular items like cupcakes, ice cream, pies and cakes, and other fattening foods.

 

The second would be to feed on the dieting crazy, selling both special health foods and a diet food service.  

 

They would advertise the latest "healthy" food, which would of course be laced with an addictive additive.

 

Once someone has become so addictive they can't live without the item, DEMON would contact them offering them a lifetime supply for doing them a little "favor".

 

While gluttony is commonly associated with food, in broader usage it embraces anything consumed to excess. So, let DEMON push all the addictives: tobacco, alcohol, narcotics, hallucinogens. Hook enough people, and whoever controls the supply controls the world.

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In Luther Black's case, his deck chair is a hospital bed. Black/the Edomite is in no condition to confront PCs directly, which is precisely why he needs to work through surrogates, whom PCs definitely could confront.

 

Shiva13, I actually recommend taking the opposite course to what you propose. The version of DEMON presented for 4E in Classic Organizations (more on that below) posited that the tech-armed DEMON agents were created as a front for the organization's true magic-wielding masters. I recommend making the DEMON you want a facade over the Edomite's DEMON, because according to Servants Of Darkness that DEMON would already have attempted its grand ritual, and presumably failed, pretty much eradicating itself in the process. The front organization, being separate, would have survived; but would now be able to loot the main group's remaining resources and personnel, making it a more potent force in its own right. That would let you transition over any elements from D:SOD you might like to keep.

 

I also recommend looking for a couple of earlier Champions books: Classic Organizations, and Target Hero; because their versions of DEMON build upon the original from Organizations Book II in recognizable ways, while adding characters, structural elements, and options.

 

Not to make anyone hot under the collar here, and I don't mean to, but in my professional opinion, the size of Luther Black's VPP makes this irrelevant. He can literally generate so much power compared to the average superhero that he can pop anyone like a grape. If he was limited by a massive multipower where he could only do a couple things at a time, sure, but a VPP on the scale that he has basicallly gives him the ability to globally obliterate people. Plus, his knowledge of magic is literally so supreme that the only thing stopping him is probably Takofanes. This is what I like to call "Not fun." The level of power being thrown around will never be achieved by most player character groups, unless outrageous XP is awarded every time the players complete an adventure. Not to mention that being saved by an ancient undead sorcerer's desire to rule the world should really only happen once...maybe.

 

If Luther Black was a moron, this might not be an issue, but because all of these characters are genius-level intellects, it is. When you're dealing with a bunch of guys who can use subtle sorceries at that level of power, and they're smarter than Albert Einstein, you run into a giant wall of problems. If you're a storytelling GM, everything is fine. You just fudge whatever you need to and move on.

 

But what if you don't fudge dice? Or you're a comic-book simulationist GM who runs people at the intellect level their stat says they should have? Not everyone runs their game the same way.

 

If Luther Black can defeat his enemies without ever leaving his chair, he should at the very least attempt this, the same way Takofanes should. "My minions will deal with this" only goes so far. Now, in a lighter hearted game, this can be used for comic effect, especially if a player happens not to be there that week.

 

"Captain Ohio just became a banana!"

 

Players: Damn you, Luther Black! You'll pay for this!

 

OOC: George is sure gonna be mad when he comes back next week.

 

The problem is, in a slightly more serious superhero game, A-la Astro City or the like, we begin to ask questions like "Why hasn't the villain done this?"

 

And this is the heart of the problem. When I see these huge die totals on book NPC's, I go ape, because I know darned well what this means for even the most skilled group of players. Mastery of the combat rules is huge, and when you get a villain who throws out that much raw power, it is possible to take the combat rules and use them to turn your PC's into beef jerky. While I'm certainly not suggesting that this is what a good gm should or shouldn't do, I am suggesting that if you're going to use these NPCs like Takofanes and Luther Black and Doctor Destroyer on a regular basis, you may need to lower the power level of the characters in order to give the players a fair shot.

 

And here is my reason why.

 

NPC's that are iconic are useless if the players cannot fight them. And what this means is not that they are badly designed, just that they are incredibly powerful. I know a lot of GMs favor proxy versions, or lesser fake versions of these characters that are robots or constructs or whatever, but there's only so many guys you can do that for before one of the players says something like "So he wasn't even the real bad guy? Didn't you do this to us two weeks ago?"

 

It has always been my belief that unless a villain like this shows up every so often and either A) Trashes the player characters without killing them (And it's way too easy to accidentally overkill this at these levels where 150 active is being thrown around like candy) or B) Is driven off by the PC's because they defeated his plans or put the big hurt on him.

 

The way these guys are built, option B is pretty much off the table. Sure, they can defeat his plans, but they sure won't whup him or get any sense of roleplaying satisfaction. I'm not saying that guys like that need to be completely neutered, but maybe I just have a slightly different concept of scale from a lot of the published material.

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that a lot of these guys are iconic, but because they are so amazingly powerful, new players can't face them, and they don't teach the intricacies of the game. And as someone who writes for the game, I'm worried that this has made us as players of the game a little insular, and possibly arrogant. And you want new players to be able to face these iconic adversaries, because they are marketing draws and bring people into the system, because they are iconic and exciting.

 

I find that very troubling.

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With respect, in Luther Black's case, I don't. You have to look at Black's character sheet from DEMON: Servants Of Darkness as a whole, not just fixate on his Variable Power Pool.

 

Black has a DEX of 3 (hence OCV 1 under 5E), with no Combat Skill Levels, and SPD 1. He'll be beaten to the punch by any PC who confronts him, and unless he devotes some of his VPP points to making a physical attack Area of Effect he almost certainly won't land any. Yes, his ECV is 8 -- very good though not great -- but Mental Power attacks, or attacks requiring the BOECV Advantage, will be less lethal. In any case, all he'll get is one action that Turn. Black would also have to devote a big chunk of his VPP to Defenses, since he's so fragile nearly any attack that hits his unprotected body will kill him. He's blind, so some points will have to go to creating Targeting Senses. He can barely crawl, so if he doesn't want to be a sitting duck, more points need to be devoted to a Movement Power. He does have a pretty sizable Endurance Reserve, but it requires a living sacrifice to Recover, so once it's exhausted he's down to his personal END of 10.

 

Attacking someone at a great distance would require devoting sufficient points from the VPP to locate and target an opponent, and using the remainder to configure an attack effective at great range, which again diminishes the actual damage it does to the target. If the attack involves Mental Powers the target will know who's attacking him and from where -- which compromises Black's protective anonymity -- unless he devotes part of his points to making the effects Invisible.

 

Don't get me wrong, there's a tremendous amount Luther Black can do with that big VPP, particularly in terms of noncombat effects. But as a direct combatant I can't see him being nearly as big a threat as you present him to be.

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Yes, but. that's the whole point, my good friend. He can kill anyone from his living room, the players never see it, and their comrade falls over, dead. He can make virtually anything Uncontrolled, Constant, 0 END, Based on OMCV, and Fully Invisible. In direct combat, he desperately needs protection, and I agree with you that in direct combat, he should be paste.

 

The problem is, the PC's will never get there if the guy is run according to his INT score. I'm not saying you're wrong. The problem is, I'm saying you're right. But the problem with giving him the advantage of his INT score also means that he will be using his abilities to the fullest in noncombat all the time, and that means things like..."So, Captain Heroic, you've thwarted DEMON twenty five times?"

 

PC: Yeah.

 

GM: Guys, you see a carnivorous beetle crawl out of the corner of his mouth. And another, and another...He seems to be vomiting up beetles and blood. What do you do?

 

A kind GM won't do this stuff to people. And I agree that that style is not for everyone. But the problem is that we have very different expectations of what this guy can do. See the banana example above.

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Yes, but. that's the whole point, my good friend. He can kill anyone from his living room, the players never see it, and their comrade falls over, dead. He can make virtually anything Uncontrolled, Constant, 0 END, Based on OMCV, and Fully Invisible.

 

Don't forget "Does BODY" if you want the attack to actually be lethal. Have you done the calculation as to how many dice of effect you actually have left once you apply all those Advantages? Not to mention that it's only going to attack at Black's SPD of 1 per Turn. By the rules, any Uncontrolled attack also has to have a reasonably apparent way to stop it. That's not considering the part of the VPP devoted to actually locating and targeting a person

 

But this is always the debate with VPPs: the game mechanic priority versus the special effect priority. Yes, you can build an attack with all those Advantages; but that's only the metagame definition. As a GM, I would want to know what sfx would justify those Advantages. What does it look like? How does it travel so far? Why does it keep going? Why should it bypass normal Defenses? For me coming up with a good explanation for such things is a much more appropriate and effective limit on what villains with very flexible Power Frameworks can do, than just the bare tally of the math.

 

But I realize that other players/GMs have different priorities, and I know from past experience that this particular debate never gets resolved one way or the other. So, having said all I have to say on this subject, I'll just accept that we probably won't agree and return to our regularly-scheduled thread. :)

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