Page 132 - Hunter the Vigil - Mortal Remains

THE REsPONsE

The Lucifuge

LUMINOUS LABS You can say that Hell is other people. But I
know Hell is my family.
Luminous Labs investigates demons under the guise of For the Lucifuge, demons are part of an
biopharmaceutical research. Members believe that the demiurge ancient and resented past, a legacy that the
scions of the infernal wish they could put
can be understood and manipulated by humans, and regard that behind them. Strange, then, that they aren’t
the study of demons is a way to achieve that understanding. always at odds with one another.
They are aware that they’re probably watched by still-loyal First of all, most members of the Luci-
agents of the demiurge, and suspect that they have human rivals. fuge know that the real threat isn’t demons,
Luminous Labs maintains admirable operational secrecy, but but angels. Angels come from someplace else,
also believes that their goals ultimately compliment those of the and they serve a higher power. Their purposes
machine, so they have little to fear. are inscrutable; one might turn a descendant
Additionally, Luminous Labs has a wide variety of artifacts of Lucifer into a pillar of salt, while another
and weird tech devices. These can be simulated with speaks six words that changes his life. No one
Thaumatechnology or Advanced Armory. walks away from an angel unchanged. For
More about Luminous Labs can be found in Demon: The the Lucifuge, who have already been made
Descent. something they resent against their will, the
prospect of an encounter can be downright
terrifying.
The Lucifuge knows more about angels
and demons than any other conspiracy, be-
for now they’re pretty good at finding one demon hiding in a cause they make damn sure to record everything they learn. They
crowd of possible suspects. know there’s more than one choir of angel. Some suspect that
Then there’s the issue of what to do with them once they serve different Gods, or different aspects of a God who is
they’re in custody, for demons are most interesting when they many persons. Angels always seem to be sent to the world on
reveal their Apocalyptic Forms. These expose a wealth of bi- a mission, to accomplish a very specific purpose. If an angel
zarre technologies, both biological and mechanical. Cheiron is seems to be hanging around, then it’s probably just waiting for
investing extensive resources into deciphering demon psychol- a trigger to unleash some spectacular event.
ogy in order to stimulate these transformations. It’s not easy, Angels also build. Some other hunters identify institu-
since demons don’t betray emotional reactions the way most tional demons, but the Lucifuge knows that some of these be-
subjects do. The only way to determine whether a demon is ings actually serve Heaven. (If there is a Heaven.) Angels create
impacted psychologically is to give him a prompt and see what them for some sort of divine purpose, as infrastructure that
action he takes. No amount of intuition or interrogation is go- serves the will of whoever dispatched them.
ing to work. Knowing this, Cheiron needs a new approach to Why whoever? Because, there’s an important hole in the
learn how to stimulate demons into transforming into their implicit theology of the Lucifuge. They know with some de-
more useful forms. gree of certainty that there’s something horrible in their past.
By putting a demon in an environment where he has some They’ve seen and carefully catalogued the work of angels and
limited freedom of action, but still has defined limits, hunters demons. But there’s nothing about being a child of Lucifer that
can start determining what his reactions to given stimuli really means she has to believe in a loving God.
are. Current experiments, then, focus on establishing an envi- This is where demons and members of the Lucifuge may
ronment where the demon is captive, but able to take action. be able to start talking. Greater demons claim that there is no
The Group calls these “open facilities.” The plan resembles a God except the Machine, and that angelic works are often ne-
small resort town. A small number of demons are inserted into farious. This gives rise to the belief among some within the
the “resort” alongside a massive staff of observers. The theory is Lucifuge that the God demons talk about, the God that dis-
that the demons will guess about half the trick — they’ll realize patches those terrifying angels, is in fact the Adversary, the
they’re being spied on, but they won’t know by whom. In their Prince of this World, and the ultimate source of their damned
paranoia, their actions will reveal what they fear, and this can bloodlines. This is called the demiurge hypothesis, and the Lu-
later be leveraged to stimulate transformation. And that’s even cifuge hotly debates it.
better if the demon tries to escape by transforming. At that Those who accept the hypothesis also tend to believe the
point, the Cheiron spies are revealed to be highly proficient in argument that Hell isn’t an otherworldly inferno, but Earth
hunting techniques when they intercept and subdue the former itself. If Lucifer fell and created or became the demiurge, then
angel. the battle against the forces of darkness becomes not a delaying
The Group has one such facility on the French coastline, action or a long purge in an eternal war, but a conflict that can
where it’s monitoring a group of subjects who seem unaware of be won to make a Heaven of Hell.
each other’s identities. If this yields the behavioral data they’re For the Denial, this is largely an academic argument. If an
looking for, they may consider opening more.
angel looks to be doing something nefarious, how is that any

131