#crucible: hellbound

[greysfic]

I had a fun idea for Nine Billion Names as a roguelite - taking some liberties with canon. It's my canon and I can take all the liberties I want, especially for adaptations to new media where it's a practical and artistic necessity.

Your goal is to traverse Hell and deliver and the scroll containing the Nine Billion Names of God to a temple in the centre of Pandemonium. Your quest has two phases.

Phase 1: The Pilgrimage You journey across Hell, running into Parables (encounters); short narrative segments where you meet someone or find something, and resolve a conflict usually non-violently. You may incur a cost, or gain an item or party member, gain power, or set up something that will kick in later. You can spend as long on the Pilgrimage as you want but there's an increasing chance that the Principles or Scroll itself will manipulate your journey to force you to Pandemonium.

Phase 2: The Trial A series of tactical turn-based party-based combat encounters as you make your way through Pandemonium, as various forces try to kill you and steal the Scroll.

When you succeed, the kalpa turns. The loop resets. If I had the budget it'd be cool if each loop was slightly different because of this and maybe there was a terminal loop.

You start by selecting your Scrollbearer, which has three considerations:

Your Parables, your options to resolve Parables, your party members, rewards, and some passive effects will vary by Scrollbearer - the Nameless Bearer has less combat Parables and is guaranteed to get Dashen as a party member, the Shining Bearer can resolve any Parable with Sword Arts.

Each Scrollbearer has different stats and abilities for The Trial and also picks up different party members. The Nameless Scrollbearer relies on evasion and misdirection, the Shining Bearer has to go solo but is a combat powerhouse.

Aesthetic. Like come on sometimes you just want to be a cenobite.

Between loops you can spend XP to adjust your Bearers. If you complete a loop, you can add or remove new party members and Parables to the pool, or even alter one of the game's rules (I think).

File to: fun ideas I'll never get to execute

[greysfic]

The Just Cut

Finally, I am permitted to speak on a subject that is one with my own heart, yet in this I am challenged more than ever, for the knowing of the way and the following are wholly different things.

I will endeavour to impress on you this truth.

The greatest warriors of all Circles in Hell are we Lightbringers, and as befits our power the greatest sword art in creation is of our devising. It has many names - The Just Cut, Killing Heart Style, Deicidal Ambition Attitude... I will call it as is proper; Supernal Blade Mastery. Perhaps this lacks poetry. I am a sword; I have no use for poetry.

Our Circle prides above all things these three: beauty, order, excellence. The Art, therefore, is in the singular perfection of the Cut. The ultimate swordsdemon does not make multiple cuts; each passage of their blade must be unique and perfect. They must sever the head from the body in one clean blow, and if killed by that same blow shed tears of sincere respect for their executioner. It is not the result of the cut which matters but the process, the sublime Art of the Cut.

In this there is perfect order, and so absolute beauty. Every motion drilled to instinct, faster than thought, stronger than steel. In this, we honour the Principle of Glory, The Supreme Nuclear Radiance whose name is spoken as Judgement-by-Light.

This is the understanding of novices. To draw the blade first, to strike once with perfect form, and return to readiness for the next cut. An absolute focus, an annilation of self in the instant of the blow, to become all-in-one a heart, a sword, a Will which is cutting.

Consider, therefore, that the Cut is not of the blade.

Consider the Principles, in their terror and glory.

True mastery of the sword is to sublimate knowledge of the sword. It is said by some that sword-saints such as I and my few, few peers may draw their weapon and sunder a mountain with such speed that the eye cannot follow, and it is as if we merely swiped a hand. This is nonsense. The presence of a sword is immaterial before the Will.

Taina Onestrike, Eighth Master of The Just Cut, Hermit of the Plutonium Shore, writing for A Traveller's Guide to Hell (edited by Ronaldo The White, Archmage, B.Th, Dean of Malevolent Geography, published by University of Spinward Doldrum Publishing, Pandemonium, sixth kalpa)

[greysfic]

Irina, Count of Powderscar

Irina, Count of Powderscar, The Rust-Feather Crane, Shadow Of The Killing Rain, Demon Noble of the Sixth Circle. Subsidiary Soul: Beza, The Rust-Feather Crane

Irina takes the form of a tall, thin woman - unnaturally slender, her body corded with muscle. Her skin is rust-red, her head adorned with scarlet feathers like a thick mane. Her eyes are black holes ringed with bright steel; meeting her gaze is like staring into the barrel of a gun. She dresses in elegant robes in more shades of red and brown, with wings upon her back. Her weapon of choice is called Leadfire Wheel, a ringblade studded with pistols.

Her demense, Powderscar, is a dense and tall city wreathed in gunsmoke. The gunsmithies ring with hammers and testfire at all hours, almost drowned out by the bustle of the markets. It is surrounded by the bullet paddies that bring it wealth; oil-flooded fields where ammunition is grown by serfs and patrolled by stilt-legged guards. It sits on the edge of a canyon and the bridge to the far side is controlled from her palace.

She is known to be decisive and merciless; not cruel, but without hesitation in meting out punishment, quick to apply to the death sentence by her own hand. She is also well known for her taste and fondness for fashionable attire; her preferred colour palette may be limited but she delights in designs which make interesting use of pattern, texture, and shape. She practices pyrography, searing detailed and delicate scenes of nude figures lounging in gardens. Her private chambers are decorated with abstract sculptures of smoke and her favourite guns from her personal forge.

She serves Earl Ruthven of Kanon with fidelity, but feuds with her closest peers; Titus Ironhand covets her gunsmiths and she despies his boorish manners, while she and Lelka the Cutting Scream have never forgiven each other over being punished for infighting by having a rare material over which they battled taken by Ruthven. She is ever at war with her neighbour of the Fourth Circle, Count Lenshi of the Bitter Coast, who rules the demense wildward of her own. The great cannons of Powderscar shout their rage every few hours in a effort to sink his fleet. She takes lovers in secret and their names are not known.

Expressions: Hunter's Eyes: When sighting a target, Irina gets one use of the Hyper-Appraisal Blasphemy for free. Cannon Queen: Ballistic cannon revere Irina; they will try to miss her when fired in her direction. Bullet Ballet: Irina can use her Perform Skill in place of Evasion when avoiding gunfire and kick off bullets to propel herself.

Her subsidiary-soul, Beza, takes the form of an immense crane with rusting iron feathers. He soars above the demense, his shadow causing terror in Demons who fall under it. Traitors, spies, and criminals feel the piercing besk of Beza, whether falling from the sky like a spike of doom or exploding from a perfectly still one-legged posture. Beza enjoys harp music and eating Imps.

Expressions: Steel Beak: Beza's beak attacks ignores up to 5 Soak. Stillness to Violence: Beza blends into his home territory when still. When doing so, his Composure is doubled for determining Initiative and his next attack counts as if from stealth.

[greysfic]

Okay yes the Demon is a metaphor for suicidal ideation but it's also actually a Demon and additionally a sword made of reified self-loathing which is both a metaphor and the same Demon.