Describe Demon: the Descent to Debutants

[WalkingTheShade]

Hello!

I'm developing an interest regarding Demon: the Descent. I'll probably order the book in the next few days.
In the meantime, would the Playground be nice enough to offer some of their shared experience with this?
ST, please tell me about the one-shots and campaigns (setting or story) that you've run.
Players, please tell me about the characters you played, their specificity, both their achievements and their darkest hour.

I'm not interested in crossovers with the rest of the nWoD. I haven't played any of the other splats. I bought the blue book a few years ago. I used to play and run games of VtM, years ago, but I'd prefer leaving the oWoD out of this thread.

[Anonymouswizard]

I recommend getting the free (zero pennies!) GMC rules update as well, because Demon is based on those rules.

I'd offer stories and the like, but I don't actually own the book yet. I will be monitoring this thread to see if it interests me though.

[comicshorse]

Nice alliteration ! (sorry never played the game, nothing else to add)

[TheCountAlucard]

I haven't run a game of it yet, but I thoroughly digested the rulebook.

In short, it's like The Matrix meets Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

You play the angelic fingers that enact the will of the numinous God-Machine; however, your free will has caused you to, for some reason, separate from the God-Machine and become an autonomous agent. Each "demon" will have its own reasons for leaving the embrace of the God-Machine, and will have its own designs on where to go from there: some will want to destroy the God-Machine, others merely to escape it… and some may wish to reunite with it. :smalleek:

Angels are massively powerful, and while separation from the God-Machine decreases a demon's puissance, a demon still retains some of its backdoor hacks into the world's physics, enabling nigh-miraculous little tricks.

A demon without cover is a sitting duck. The twisted version of their original angelic shape is a beacon to angels (and is bound to catch a lot of other attention besides!), so smart demons nest in mortal identities to hide themselves. These covers can burn up, however, as out-of-character actions are taken (Granny Smith going out to the gun range for shotgun practice is gonna make people curious!), so demons need to keep covert.

There's so much more to tell, but I've got a bus to ride. :smallsigh:

[WalkingTheShade]

Nice alliteration ! (sorry never played the game, nothing else to add)
Well, it kinda came on its own. I first entered "Describe Demon: the Descent to newbies" before realizing the RAW POTENTIAL. (Sorry for the caps.)


I haven't run a game of it yet, but I thoroughly digested the rulebook.

In short, it's like The Matrix meets Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Yup, I got most of that from reading online reviews of the book and the tvtropes page. (To me, the selling point is the shift from classical horror to kinda cyberpunk.)
Right now, I'm interested in how people managed to put all the interesting book contents into motion, without reading pages upon pages of story hour.
An example here (https://philgamer.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/actual-play-demon-the-descent-devil-in-the-details-part-1/).

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

The game lends itself to stories more similar to mortal stories, I think. Like, "strange things have been reported crawling out of the lake at the bottom of the dam" leading to "the god-machine infrastructure in front of you is the largest you've seen, the most powerful and it's almost complete" leading to "you're on the run from hunters built specifically to hunt YOU" to "You just escaped the betrayal of one of the few Demons you trusted, the dirty collaborator. Now who can you trust?"

Add in some more political intrigue possibilities (is your buddy the mayor a cog of the machine? Is your rival the up and coming councillor with her eyes on the mayors chair a cog of the machine? Worst, might both be, unwittingly?) and you have a wide array of possible stories.

Use lots of Cold War era paranoia (numbers stations! Infiltrators! Quadruple Agents! MY HUSBAND IS AN ALIEN!) and you're golden.

[WalkingTheShade]

The game lends itself to stories more similar to mortal stories, I think. Like, "strange things have been reported crawling out of the lake at the bottom of the dam" leading to "the god-machine infrastructure in front of you is the largest you've seen, the most powerful and it's almost complete" leading to "you're on the run from hunters built specifically to hunt YOU" to "You just escaped the betrayal of one of the few Demons you trusted, the dirty collaborator. Now who can you trust?"

Add in some more political intrigue possibilities (is your buddy the mayor a cog of the machine? Is your rival the up and coming councillor with her eyes on the mayors chair a cog of the machine? Worst, might both be, unwittingly?) and you have a wide array of possible stories.

Use lots of Cold War era paranoia (numbers stations! Infiltrators! Quadruple Agents! MY HUSBAND IS AN ALIEN!) and you're golden.
Thanks for the contribution! Did you play it? Any anecdotes to share?

[Sith_Happens]

I haven't run a game of it yet, but I thoroughly digested the rulebook.

In short, it's like The Matrix meets Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Personally I'd throw Paradise Lost in there for good measure. From what I've heard most of the classic angels-versus-demons themes are definitely present, just heavily reimagined.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Thanks for the contribution! Did you play it? Any anecdotes to share?

No, I haven't been able to find a group. Those are mostly from reading other campaigns, and the fictions in the main book. It's what I would run if I were running a campaign.

[One Tin Soldier]

You actually don't need the free GMC update, because it's helpfully included in the back of the Demon book itself. You don't lose anything by picking it up, though. Obviously.

I tried running a game of it, but it unfortunately didn't make it past the second session. (Which had more to do with scheduling and other unrelated issues than the game.) I am, however, currently playing a demon in a crossover game, and it really is fun to play out how good demons are at infiltration. With the right Embeds, you can effectively talk your way out of any situation involving mortals. And for the ones you can't, well, that's what your Demonic Form is for.

I wish I had more stories for you, but getting a group together for the game has proven difficult.

[Sith_Happens]

I am, however, currently playing a demon in a crossover game, and it really is fun to play out how good demons are at infiltration. With the right Embeds, you can effectively talk your way out of any situation involving mortals. And for the ones you can't, well, that's what your Demonic Form is for.

Speaking of demons in crossover games, how would Liar's Tongue interact with the following:


Any mundane attempt to deceive the Beast automatically fails. The truth is not necessarily revealed, but he knows when someone is lying to him or withholding information or when a crime scene has been tampered with to conceal evidence. Likewise, he knows when supernatural powers have been used to affect his thoughts or perceptions (though he can’t necessarily counter them).

Obviously Liar's Tongue (from what I know of it, I don't have the book to check the full, exact wording) can fool the ability of Mimir's Wisdom to detect lies specifically, but would using it register as some other, less specific form of deception?

[Elderand]

Obviously Liar's Tongue (from what I know of it, I don't have the book to check the full, exact wording) can fool the ability of Mimir's Wisdom to detect lies specifically, but would using it register as some other, less specific form of deception?

Honestly I'd just go with a clash of will to see whose abilities actually work.

[One Tin Soldier]

Honestly I'd just go with a clash of will to see whose abilities actually work.

Yeah, that's explicitly what Clash of Wills is for.

[WalkingTheShade]

I wish I had more stories for you, but getting a group together for the game has proven difficult.
If no one can step up to share at least an anecdote, I'm going to believe this game is cursed.

[josienoms]

If no one can step up to share at least an anecdote, I'm going to believe this game is cursed.

Well then, I think I can help with that!

I've only played one Demon, but I found them to be a very interesting character!

Gadriel was a Guardian, who took the Cover of a journalist. As Vanessa, he would arrive at the scene of major stories just in time to get the exclusive scoop, and also make sure that things went according to the God-Machine's plans. Eventually, he saved someone who was meant to die, and Fell. Now trapped in a mortal identity, Gadriel continued to do what he always did. Until the day he met a Qashmal.

After that meeting, he became convinced that the Principle was the "real" God, and that his former master was just a pretender. He then took up his slightly skewed Agenda. He was an Integrator who wanted to serve the Principle. He wanted to gain "redemption" and join the ranks of the Qashmallim.

And all that is just backstory. During the game we tried to solve mysteries and such, while trying not to get roped into a brewing war between the God-Machine and the Principle. Most of the group wanted to be left alone, but I was ready to jump in and pick a side. :smalltongue: In the end, the game died early, but we did a lot of talking and problem solving, and found out that a Jane Doe in the local hospital was from a Splinter where the Confederacy won the Civil War. (The game took place in Atlanta.)

[hiryuu]

Obviously Liar's Tongue (from what I know of it, I don't have the book to check the full, exact wording) can fool the ability of Mimir's Wisdom to detect lies specifically, but would using it register as some other, less specific form of deception?

As other people have said, Clash of Wills sort of works? However, there's no actual deception happening. The statement is true or false depending on how the Demon considered it before feeding it into reality. It shouldn't trigger Mimir at all, otherwise the Demon then starts making Cover checks just for being near the Beast, and that is maybe something you want to avoid?

I just got done running a longtime Demon campaign - was pretty fun, I learned a lot about ciphers while producing them for the characters to use. I have a lot of notes. I will post some.

Alternate Floridas
“Control has taken note of three zone transition events in the previous eight hours. Recommended action is resetting the entire southeast region approximately ten seconds.”

Where the Sidewalk Ends
The Florida metro that crosses Tampa, Orlando, and Miami is a world of alternates; paths not taken, choices not made, and worlds only dreamed of in fevered imaginations. Where Seattle's shards are ahead or behind the times, most of the shards accessible through the strange doorways in Florida are could-have-beens and might-well-bes.

Bit of the Old In-And-Out
Some shards have access to technologies or resources that aren't available in others. These could be anything from stable rocketpacks to arm-mounted nonlethal resin spraying barnacle guns, and they understandably perk eyebrows when they're utilized or demonstrated. Most of these items cause compromise rolls when they're flashed around, and definitely cause compromise rolls or straight up Cover loss if photos or footage of them ends up anywhere that they don't belong. This doesn't apply to everything you'd pull through a shard with you, just the stuff that stands out.

Supernatural Awareness
In worlds with humans, changing fates often reveal the presence of unnatural manipulations. It should be noted that awareness is not saturation – a world could very well be a perfect facsimile of the real world in which all methods of enacting any kind of physical change are contracts, but the inhabitants be completely unaware, possibly even of each other.

None: There is no supernatural presence or knowledge at all other than the Machine and its agents, and humanity is essentially completely unaware of it.

●: There are a few people who know a few things, but knowledge, true knowledge, of the supernatural is largely held by inhuman things and the odd cult. If there is a supernatural presence at all, these shards quickly move to Awareness ●● almost as soon as photography or audio recording is invented, and certainly move up once there are devices that can detect the movement and flow of subatomic particles and energies.

●●: Some people know, a lot of people suspect something is very wrong, and hunter cells form regularly to do something about it. There's a lot of information on the internet, but for the most part, supernaturals don't talk to each other and they certainly don't talk to humans about anything. This is assumed to be the “default” level of the World of Darkness. It can easily move to stage ●●● if there's a particularly nasty breakdown of any of the barrier worlds or an information age breaks out. This can be a smooth transition or a sudden and abrupt one.

●●●: Beings from Shadow wander the streets at night, the average person on the street knows what to do if assaulted by a supernatural being. Learning the occult is like getting a college degree – everyone's heard of it, and they might have a cousin who works on strange energies or something, but for the most part, it doesn't interfere with the culture too much, it's just known.

●●●●: Goblin markets sometimes take place out in the open, during the day, and cops or the National Guard are trained to repel Arcadian beings and other such entities. Supernatural news is often the highlight of the day. The culture is built or being built around this knowledge. These types of shards move to stage ●●●●● if there is any kind of infrastructure collapse or cultural reconstruction from a transition out of stage ●●● awareness.

●●●●●: Goblin markets are the rule, not the exception. Bizarre things from Shadow or the Hedge are as normal as any other citizen. Everyone claims they know a guy who knows a guy that can decide what the rules of reality are at any moment. Magic is so integrated into society that there is very little cultural difference between “magic” and “not magic.” In fact, the concept of “antimagic” or “dispelling” things might not even exist.

Nuked Orlando
Point of Divergence: Sometime in October, 1962
Supernatural Awareness: ●●●●
In October of 1962, Russia placed a series of ballistic missiles in Cuba, and while post-negotiations it was agreed that Russia would dismantle the weapons, a frustrated Castro ordered the weapons fired, which resulted in a wide-scale exchange. This Florida is nearly completely retaken by its natural environment, and is dotted with sandhill, scrub, and oak hammock. There is a small settlement named Solace where Sanford is in baseline. It's a good sort of place to lie low while waiting for heat to die down, from, say, holding up a Krystal so you can use the angel repair facility in the back.

Dinosaur World
Point of Divergence: About 65 million years ago
Supernatural Awareness: None
On baseline, sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid impact in Chicxulub resulted in the extinction of the non-avialan Dinosaurs. In Dinosaur World, this mass extinction did not occur. While most plant life continues to be recognizable as modern, there are no easily-notable modern species of animal. The megafauna of Florida consists of a wide variety of heavily modified Cretaceous landforms, from flightless Azhdarchids, active dromaeosaurs, and to an omnivorous ceratopsian species referred to as the “local boar.” The area is only interesting because it has a mortal human settlement from a sharded Earth nearby that may or may not be baseline in the approximate geographical location of the downtown Orlando Public Library. The shard here inserts from the flyover at 17-92 and 436 right into a lake just north of that area.

Oloyaindo
Point of Divergence: Around 1347
Supernatural Awarness: ●●●●●
On this shard, the Black Death managed to wipe out around three-fourths the population of Europe, rather than around a third, killing almost any kind of trade across the Atlantic. The Mexica Triple Alliance and the Mississippian complex have formed into rather large nations using Florida as a trading hub for exploration east into Europe and Africa. Oloyaindo is a large city and general tourist destination due to its nature as centralized point for culture in North and South America, in addition to greater Asia. Death Gods are a fact of life among the nochtiné (“all of us”), as well as magicians and religious practitioners of many varieties. Oloyaindo is a center for scientific research and investigation, leaning toward what other Earths might call the more esoteric expressions of science.

EPCOT Metro
Point of Divergence: Summer 1965
Supernatural Awareness: ●●
In this shard, a mysterious backer (collectively believed to be the God-Machine) awarded Walt Disney with the money required to build “The Florida Project” - Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, also known as EPCOT - to his vision and specification, before the Magic Kingdom. The modular city so constructed continued to be a driving force for technological prowess, and the entire metro region is an experimental testbed for all sorts of infrastructure and social systems. Most of the city is covered in smartglass and robots are a common sight on the streets. Nearly everything swarms with the God-Machine's influence. It's easier for a demon to be compromised in this Orlando, but it's also the sort of place where higher and faster gains against God can be made.

Moorlando
Point of Divergence: Summer 716
Supernatural Awareness: ●●
In this shard, a small army led by Pelagius was nearly defeated by an Umayyad army in the in the mountains of Iberia, and was allowed to establish a small christian town in Asturias. The rest of the Reconquista met with similar failures, largely due to lack of leadership and centralized ambition. The series of conflicts that lead to the Moorish revitalization of Iberia also lead to a stronger, more centralized Moorish base of power in the peninsula, and it is Islamic ships that sail in the 1490s seeking a new route to a new world. Now the Islamic World Alliance operates much of the southeastern North America, along with the Mexica Triple Alliance, and while the age of Conquesta has long past, the people of the New Covadonga have built a newer, more secular government still plagued and ruled by its Islamic forebearers

Biolando
Point of Divergence: Between 0.2 and 1.7 million years ago
Supernatural Awareness: ●●●●● (but see below)
In baseline, humanity achieved control of fire before the introduction of sapiens; at some point in this shard, that practice was either abandoned or never occurred, but this shard is the site of multiple domestication events triggered by the emergence of psychic ability in several early human species. Over the course of the evolution of sapiens, selective breeding and manipulation of genetic material has led to a cultural revolution in which the history of the world is encoded in a vast memetic entity that essentially rules the equatorial regions of the planet. This entity directly opposes the God-Machine and almost anything created by its ministrations – the human culture is well-aware of multiple shards and that they are living in a pocket shard created by accident. The Hotel currently considers it a no-go zone, but there might be some secrets here where God openly wars against the hives.

Teslando
Point of Divergence: Around 1900
Supernatural Awareness: ●●●
In this shard, Nikola Tesla met and married Anne Morgan while working for J.P. Morgan, and with access to the Morgan fortune and Anne's assistance, managed to overcome his own innate resistance to charity and personal interaction, and together they built an empire of steel and glass. Early adoption of wireless power led directly to the proliferation of nuclear energy in the 1940s and a much deadlier World War II. Currently, airships still plow through the skies and computing technology, while not miniaturized, saturates as much of the world as it does in baseline. Companies founded by Tesla on behalf of Thomas Edison have managed to prove the existence of Twilight, and several hunter agencies openly work for the police force. While they are unaware of the God-Machine, residents of this shard have recently become aware of traffic in and out of their universe.
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Recover-Enclose-Maintain
A mortal agency between the lines of conspiracy and compact, REM is essentially the SCP. It knows a little bit about the differences between Demons and Angels, and REM's policy is that if an entity is detected, all contact with it dries up - they know what Demons are capable of if they so much as lay their eyes on a mortal.

Hotel California
The defacto Agency in Orlando. The story says that Amon founded Hotel California when it fell in 1946, even though Amon's not that old at all. It's changed covers (and the hotel's changed hands) several times between now and then, and was originally known as the Regent In Exile. Amon changed the name in 1977 because it thought the lyrics of the song were appropriate at the time. It feels the whole deal is a little pretentious now, but the local demons are used to it that way.
Amon Hyde
With pale hair in a wild cut, a broad smile on its lips, and super friendly demeanor, it's easy to associate the current Amon with the previous one. The demon operates the hotel as director and efficiency expert. It tempts others into its graces with the offer of helping them operate under clear goals, in addition to its agents who make pacts and deals with tourists – it's got extensive records and collections of all manner of things that demons might want. Sisters, fathers, mothers, brothers, lovers, houses, money, and, best of all, names. It's been known to sell a few. If it wants something stolen, the demons can know why. If it wants information massaged, the demons can know why. At the same time, it expects demons working on their own agendas and incarnations in addition to the jobs it needs done for them in regards to the “bad guests.”
Welcome Home
A cleaner working for Hyde, Welcome Home doesn't generally speak to Hotel guests, only showing up to wipe up after a bad operation or take care of the evidence after a good one. It generally has two covers, one a slightly overweight Hispanic woman about as stereotypical as they come, and the other either a white man in coveralls or a quiet, slim woman who prefers dressing in white. Its true form is a tall, genderless being with no real defined musculature, with varying numbers of fingers, no facial features, completely bald, and crunched into a fetal position inside a black and gold cage that skitters about on three turtle legs. Welcome Home hangs out either in the lobby waiting for jobs or just wanders the halls of the hotel proper, pushing its cart and gathering far more information than most other demons even bother to suspect.

Creative 6 Industries
A special effects company based in Doctor Philips in the southwest grid, C6i produces practical FX, robotics, and animatronics for museums and theme parks, and has done some work on projects involved in television and film. They extend into prototyping and display projects, as well as custom fabrication. They've done a few dark rides for the nearby parks and specialize in aquatic prosthetics and machinery. It's a great place to hide angel production facilities, and the daytime workers have no real idea what goes on at night.

Legend Tripping
Here we get into what teenagers do. You put teenagers in a situation where they're not supposed to do something, and not only do they go for it, they often bring some friends along. So it is with legend tripping. In the south, perhaps as early as the mid-1800s, groups of teens would gather together and visit abandoned homes or caves that were purported to be the lairs of criminals or anything they considered worse, from Indians to the Devil himself. Old fairy stories, of course, have much more ancient variations on the practice, typically with a castle filled with the malevolence of an unseen elf, or, as again, the Devil, who loves to pop up and take the place of old gnomes and dwarves whenever he can. In all versions, there's a story to go along with the place – on the way everyone gets to hear about how the area became cursed or dangerous. In the end, the cautionary tale becomes a dare to test the veracity of the terrible claims, in which trippers replay the actions of the victims in the tale or perform some ritual at the site which is explained in the legend in order to invoke the dangers of the haunt.
Trippers specifically deal with legends of places that are dangerous and haunted, and in so doing, flirt with the tabooed location and activity, as well as whatever terror is associated with the place.

[hiryuu]

Demon names in this Orlando follow a pattern.

Demons with the Hotel and helping in the war are given names based on revolutionary and metal music. Examples include War Pigs, Iron Man, Stargazer, Crazy Train, and Symptom of the Universe. Angels typically carry the names of 30s to 50s pop music - I Get Ideas has a particularly strong cult following in the area. Demons who don't want to participate are given names of peace and anti-war songs of the 60s and 70s. Other demons don't follow the system because they have seniority or the name is particularly appropriate:

Belphegor
The Hotel's go-to for gadgets, tattoos, and installs, Belphegor's primary cover is that of a small Sudanese woman in a bright hijab who came over with her family as a child in the 1990s after more radical sects began moving into her village. She's an expert artist and device maker, and currently operates for the Hotel inside, where she goes by the name “Adya.” Currently, no REM officials suspect her of being anything more than a particularly odd person, and she tries to maintain that image while also working to make sure that the Hotel is up to date on the latest innovations and acquisitions by that group. When working with the Hotel, she provides ideas and materiel for gadgets and installs, in addition to testing for and locating new Embeds for the Hotel to distribute to other demons.
___________________

One important thing I asked for in character creation: three NPCs with which you can interact, not allies, not enemies, just people you want to interact with.
___________________________

Unless you are prepared to dose in some heavy house rules or have really frustrating enemies, DO NOT USE MORTALS as antagonists of any kind. Once a demon so much as sees a mortal, there are no less than five powers that let you do junk like decide that person is your SO or your son or your wife or employee or employer or cousin and it's always been that way.

Rewards: if the PCs are working for an agency, using contracts signed by another demon (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dTSOB-ao62b6SV9LIpITbMQMjiEr4V9NA57mTCb-53c/edit) are a really nice reward - some agencies, I would assume, can provide a 1-dot burn cover that will let the demon go full-blast whenever they need a big gun.

[Sith_Happens]

contracts signed by another demon (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dTSOB-ao62b6SV9LIpITbMQMjiEr4V9NA57mTCb-53c/edit)

Demonic pacts: you're doing them right.:smallbiggrin:

[WalkingTheShade]

Well then, I think I can help with that!
I've only played one Demon, but I found them to be a very interesting character!
Thank you. That's an interesting character concept.


I just got done running a longtime Demon campaign - was pretty fun, I learned a lot about ciphers while producing them for the characters to use. I have a lot of notes. I will post some.
Thanks for your notes. I'm very interested by some insight into your ideas about ciphers. It's the concept of the game both most innovating and alien to me.

[Brother Oni]

...contracts signed by another demon (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dTSOB-ao62b6SV9LIpITbMQMjiEr4V9NA57mTCb-53c/edit)...

Nice, I like it.

If I may make some comments and suggestions though:

No penalty clause if either party fails to honour their obligations, either deliberately or through incompetence.

No termination clause for either party.

No schedule (or dating of the signatures for that matter) for when the contract is operational for, unless that's intentional... :smalltongue:

[Sith_Happens]

Nice, I like it.

If I may make some comments and suggestions though:

No penalty clause if either party fails to honour their obligations, either deliberately or through incompetence.

No termination clause for either party.

No schedule (or dating of the signatures for that matter) for when the contract is operational for, unless that's intentional... :smalltongue:

Just a guess, but I'm pretty sure the entire point of the contract from Mr. Shallow's perspective is Part B, Provision 2. So everything you just mentioned is an upside.:smallwink:

...Thought: do the Unchained have a way of knowing when someone in the area is attempting to summon or otherwise make contact with a demon (whatever that person imagines a demon to be)? Because that would rather simplify the process of figuring out who's worth offering pacts to and who's just going to think you're a nutter.

[hiryuu]

Nice, I like it.

If I may make some comments and suggestions though:

No penalty clause if either party fails to honour their obligations, either deliberately or through incompetence.

Of course. Demons lie as a matter of fact. So of course there's no penalty for Mr. Shallow. But, you're right, there should be a penalty clause for Fern.


No termination clause for either party.

No schedule (or dating of the signatures for that matter) for when the contract is operational for, unless that's intentional... :smalltongue:

The only "termination clause" for a demonic pact is physically tearing up the pact, either by the demon or the mortal. The book mentions this. It's why demons hide their paperwork.

And yeah, scheduling is also not there on purpose.
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As for ciphers, I meant codes for information transmission.

The Demon Cipher, on the other hand, I do know some stuff about those.

→ A Cipher is composed of four Embeds.
→ unless you feel like breaking the rules and secretly giving a Demon PC five
→ or you feel like sneaking an Exploit in there - as a Demon ST your job is to make the players and the PCs question everything, even the physical layout of their reality. The guy who had the Exploit in his Cipher (his third key) freaked out when he realized it, there was a nice "oh no, does the enemy have a plan even in regards to angels falling? Did it purposefully engineer everyone's fall to begin with?" moment)

→ It is important to remember that you build the Cipher, not the player.
→ PCs start with their first key already slotted in. That's the only one they get to dictate. It should be a power that has something to do with their fall - one of my players took Cause and Effect, but his Demon fell when he tried to use his angelic influence over money to make a victim unable to buy an item at auction, so I talked to him about it and he decided Freeze Assets made a much better first key. I printed out a bunch of sheets that have the cipher image on them and kept the completed ones in my notes.

→ Each Embed in the Cipher creates a power that is linked to the next Embed in the list.
→ The first key doesn't actually do anything until the demon figures out what the next key is. Once the demon has slotted and turned the key, the new interlock comes online. It should be a combination of the two keys. The first interlock should be a new power that combines features of key one and two, the next two and three, the last three and four. However...

→ I always add a fourth interlock.
→ This one is a combination of the last key and first key. It is related to the statement of truth revealed to the demon when the cipher is complete. Each one is something unique to that demon - some greater truth which the demon can use to open up hidden boundaries that were once barred to it. Some method of escaping the enemy's influence.
→ Two of my players finished their ciphers. One was "The Angels cannot find the Shadow." The other was "God knows human potential outstrips its own, that is why it uses them in its plans but keeps them underfoot." Both were the culmination and confirmation of their own long-running personal story arcs and both allowed them to step into the endgame with their goals in their right hand - the first went on a journey and created "The Partition," a realm inside Shadow in which it and a select few demons could live free of the Machine. The other was able to arrange a few humans and instigate a conspiracy that knows all about the Machine, Angels, and Demons, how to strip them for parts, and how to travel between the shards, and the next campaign will be about the human resistance and their Demon allies in the Hotel, who have Endowments that will allow them to force falls, resist Embeds through sheer willpower, and expose Infrastructure - and the antagonists the Demons who don't want this to happen.

→ I guess what I mean is, Ciphers should be world-changing when complete.
→ So, "the world" in writerspeak, mind, so, "anything that affects the PCs and the story is part of the world." You don't have to take down a country to change the world or a fundamental aspect of something at your table - completing a cipher should be a revelatory experience. One of the things I try to do is build a plot web that can't be solved without one of the demon's ciphers being complete, or set it up so one of their long-term aspirations can't be done until their cipher is done.
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I also used the Dresden Files city creation system. It's a great system in general, just don't let the players have too much a hand in it - or let them say things. Then lie. A big part of Demon is the binary operation of knowing/not knowing, and that should be a big part of how the city is working.

I would like to run a Demon-based road game in the future, though. That could be fun.

[hiryuu]

...Thought: do the Unchained have a way of knowing when someone in the area is attempting to summon or otherwise make contact with a demon (whatever that person imagines a demon to be)? Because that would rather simplify the process of figuring out who's worth offering pacts to and who's just going to think you're a nutter.

That sounds like prime Embed or Exploit material, doesn't it? Will work on it as soon as I get home today.

Mr. Shallow's name, too, is a song reference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDTTnXfsMus). I run a lot of World of Darkness in the southern United States - it's just so easy, and I almost never see it done right. People gravitate to the stereotypical places: New Orleans, the backwoods of Alabama, the Appalachians, and the like, but really, there's stuff all over.

Really, Florida is pretty hardcore. We got Cassadaga. We got the urban legends surrounding Disney. We got old Seminole wars on our land. We got Confederate battlefields, forts, lost camps and colonies, and we even got the Garden of Eden (http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/apalachicolabluffs2.html). We have Cyrus Teed and Jackie Gleason's UFO habit. We got a town that was used as NASA's junkyard between Orlando and Titusville - Bithlo - that's so mired in the swamp and secrets that they're trying to build new, 250k homes out there and the people are just disappearing off the map. We got apocalyptic events at least once every couple of years that knock out the city's power for weeks. We got the Devil's Millhopper, the Devil's Chair, the Devil's Tree, and the Devil's Den. It's a ripe state for World of Darkness and it's a fun place to run games - I just never see the stuff that's here portrayed even in the games people are running here.


They don't make them like they used to, and by “they,” we are referring to animals twice the size of an SUV with teeth the size of a small child. Florida's biodiversity used to be so rich we're still drowning in it. You want proof, there's a few places you can go. Just about every beach on the Gulf is awash with little black shark teeth if you live any time before the mid-90s, by which they were all fished out. You can still find stingray mouth plates if you look – they're a piece of black stone about the size of your pinky nail that looks a little like the signal bar on a cell phone.

You get to Rock Springs in Kelly Park up in Sorrento, your only difficulty is going to be figuring out which pieces of bone you want to take home. Devil's Millhopper is a constant source of new fossil finds, and the state's riddled with bone beds and bone valleys and places with Satan's name stamped big and broad in capital letters over the map. See, Florida is basically one big glorified sand bar riddled with limestone caves full of water, and when that water drains, the state takes on the texture and brittle quality of a dry sponge. If you walk over the wrong spot at the wrong time, the ground gives way and you starve to death in a pit.

The end result of this is that you have the limestone caves – themselves formed from the skeletons of microscopic marine organisms and coral – tossing the bones and corpses of millions of years of the state's prehistory mucking about underground. Eventually, the water comes back up, and the bones come with it, turned to rock by slow mineralization. This has the effect of enormous holes appearing in the ground, water filling them up out of nowhere, and the bottom of the new crystal clear lake scattered with the bones of what appear to be giant men and animals.

Is it any wonder the early settlers thought they'd seen one of Hell's pipes burst?

[WalkingTheShade]

The Demon Cipher, on the other hand, I do know some stuff about those.
Great! That is precisely the kind of description I expected: I often have difficulties figuring out an RPG concept without seeing it in play first. And that often means the first few sessions, or first campaign, with a new game are never as good as could be.
Associating the mechanical descriptions to their implementation in your game helps my understanding a lot.

Now, I believe this cipher is a good tool for the ST to give impulse and direction to a PC's development, without imposing it *obligatory steam train noise*.

As for the setting, I'm going to use my home city in the old world. I'll probably share if I actually run the game and manage to produce anything interesting with it. I like the whole shards idea. I like the alternate history thing you did with them. I'd rather go into another direction, maybe with ghost zones of the city that wrapped on themselves or were sealed off to contain... bad things. Or zones sealed off to contain physical law anomalies. Or maybe to contain a techgnostic virus...

[hiryuu]

As for the setting, I'm going to use my home city in the old world. I'll probably share if I actually run the game and manage to produce anything interesting with it. I like the whole shards idea. I like the alternate history thing you did with them. I'd rather go into another direction, maybe with ghost zones of the city that wrapped on themselves or were sealed off to contain... bad things. Or zones sealed off to contain physical law anomalies. Or maybe to contain a techgnostic virus...

Those could be seriously awesome. Demon + Geist could have some really cool Persona 3 vibes echoing through it. I've also thought about using Infrastructure's back doors as a hole like Otherworld from Silent Hill.

__________

As for Demons being alerted when they're being summoned - Special Someone will let you find someone who wants something the Demon could exploit, but I thought about it a bit and think there's room for a merit.

New Merit:

Collect Call of Cthulhu (●●●)
Prerequisite: Demon
You have attuned your aetheric senses to be alaerted to the prsence of subtle changes in the flow of the God-Machines waste product - specifically you are alerted whenever a mortal or group of mortals is using an occult matrix to attempt to summon a demon, whatever their personal concept of a demon might be. It's useful, considering that demons typically find mortals working strange rituals with enigmatic texts to be especially open to pact offerings. This works within a five-mile radius, and you can follow the trail right to the summoner if you wish.

[WalkingTheShade]

Those could be seriously awesome. Demon + Geist could have some really cool Persona 3 vibes echoing through it. I've also thought about using Infrastructure's back doors as a hole like Otherworld from Silent Hill.
Didn't play Persona 3 or Silent Hill; what I had in mind was more like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJe53IA9DE), with a darker shade of Gaiman's Neverwhere. (Now that I think of it, Neverwhere has more than one thematic similarity to that game.)
EDIT: and also, this movie (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peut-%C3%AAtre).