3.1 Angels
Angels are the divine messengers, soldiers and guardians,
carrying out their duties as best they know how. However, angels aren't
perfect. They sometimes have a hard time understanding other angels'
perspectives or agreeing on what, exactly, the Role of the Heavenly
Host should be in the War. Fortunately, angels not only avoid personal
dissonance, but that which comes from pointless arguments with other
angels. So, they frequently just agree to disagree and go about their
duties, avoiding those with whom they disagree too strongly, thus maintaining
the divine harmony they value so highly.
While some angels are pacifists, extremely honourable,
or innately truthful and would be out of place in most areas of human
society, others will take the Roles of bikers, gang members, or even
prostitutes to get their duties accomplished. While some angels would
seem fitted only for white, others wear black leather with great aplomb.
Their Roles and their methods can be straightforward or completely unexpected.
Regardless of their methods or their disagreements,
all angels are united in their passion for accomplishing the divine
mission and winning the War for the hearts and souls of humankind.
3.1.3 Falling
When an angel acts against his nature, it generates
dissonance, muting the sound of the Symphony. The angel starts having
to fill in the missing notes, starting on the path to creating his own
personal symphony. If the angel doesn't get rid of the dissonance, either
through work, Superior intervention or converting it to Discord, the
dissonance builds up, bringing the angel under more and more stress.
The angel's associates begin to notice the change in his behaviour and
often start avoiding him. Eventually, the dissonance becomes to great,
and the angel is cut off from Heaven and dubbed an Outcast. If the angel
persists in his contrary thinking and behaviour, he will eventually
Fall. At first, there is a sensation of disorientation, as if the angel
has fallen from a great height, as the music of the Symphony slowly
fades around him. Then he is hit with a horrendous pain as the very
core of the angel twists into its polar opposite, becoming a member
of the Band which is the infernal counterpart of his former Choir. When
the pain subsides, the newly-formed demon finds an entirely new outlook.
He cannot descend to Hell, but must either follow another demon there
or pledge himself to a Prince, who will shape him into a new Servitor.
3.2 Demons
When the rebellious angels Fell, they became demons,
cutting themselves off from the true Symphony and surrounding themselves
with their own selfish Symphonies. Each demon's Symphony is unique and
personal to him. While he can no longer hear the true Symphony, in general,
he can still take actions which upset it, creating a disturbance, and
he can still detect when other celestials have done so.
Demons are united in two basic traits. The first is
that demons are selfish. The demons are out to change the world. Currently,
God is in control and things are unfolding according to His plan. The
demons, from the lowliest demonling on up to Lucifer himself, are trying
to prove God wrong or weak, through usurping God's order and gaining
the power for themselves. Second, demons are self-deceptive. To continue
with the War against the creator of the universe, demons must convince
themselves of their own power and importance.
These two basic traits combine to make creatures who
are usually self-important, aggressive, manipulative and competitive.
Because of their natures, demons don't usually like each other very
much, but ally themselves, at least while it's useful to do so, against
the enemy of Heaven. Working relationships are built on fear, paranoia,
and threat of destruction for betrayal.
3.2.3 Redemption
Demons are not incapable of caring, of feeling those
softer emotions, but such emotions are dangerous to show in Hell, liable
to get you a knife in the back. So, most demons hide those feelings
and deny that true kindness could ever exist. But, the lonely parts,
the parts that yearn to love and be loved, are still buried beneath
the demon's tough exterior as a selfish revolutionary. And it is those
parts that occasionally lead a demon to do something truly selfless,
creating dissonance that jangles his personal symphony and allow an
occasional note of the true Symphony in.
If a demon continues these selfless acts, the dissonance
builds up, eroding his demonic identity, till he can no longer stand
to continue in the selfish service of Hell. The demon goes renegade.
Such a state is dangerous, as both Heaven and Hell are likely to hunt
you.
A few angels, however, will see the opportunity to
convert one of the opposition to Heaven's side. If the demon can be
proven to be looking to higher things, he may be brought before an Archangel
who seems appropriate to the demon's dissonant behaviour. At this point,
the demon can swear fealty to that Archangel. But the oath is not enough.
The Archangel must then remake the demon as he should have been and
place him into his proper role in the Symphony, making him over, placing
him under the Archangel's Word, and changing his form and abilities
from that of his Band to the analogous Choir. The demon must be willing
to give up his very identity, his very being. If the demon cannot submit,
the metamorphosis will rip his being apart and he will not survive.
For those who do, it is an experience spoken about with reverence. For
the Hellborn, it is the first time they will hear the full power of
the Symphony. For those once Fallen, it is a return home.
A newly-redeemed demon won't be trusted at once, of
course. He will have to prove himself and learn how to behave properly,
undoing a celestial lifetime of bad habits. He will also be expected
to share every scrap of information he had on the activities of Hell
and will not be granted his Superior's full Rites and Attunements at
first. Frequently, there will be an angel or two to show the newly-redeemed
angel the ropes, but the ex-demon will still experience some distrust
for some time, until his Archangel indicates his trust through granting
the full range of abilities of his Servitors.
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