Page 133 - Hunter the Vigil - Mortal Remains

CHAPTER FIVE: TO HELL AND BACK

different from a demon? “Angel” is only a label that’s applied face, the Legacy has slowly learned to follow them. Milan lacks
to identify certain kinds of trouble from outside observers. It the vast resources that Cheiron can bring to bear, but they’ve
doesn’t matter how brightly they burn, creatures of darkness got better procedures — and frankly, better instincts — for sniff-
are still creatures of darkness. ing out demons. There are entire Legacy cells that use the ge-
The Denial hunts down demons of all kinds with vigor. nealogies like a hit list, looking for demons to wipe them out.
Lesser demons are often essentially equivalent to their own fa- The Truth gets a little more cynical. Accept, for the moment,
miliars, sometimes pests or the agents of true evil. There’s no that demons can be believed. (And if you can’t distrust a demon,
need to judge them, only to dispose of them. (Or, if they can’t, who can you distrust?) Accept the demiurge hypothesis, and that
to defeat and then push them away.) Greater demons represent the demons walking the world today are of the same sort as their
greater challenges. They’re hard to identify, but once backed ancestors. If that’s so, then why hasn’t the Lady of Milan made
into a corner, they sprout wings made of razors, and it’s easier that declaration? The possibilities only deepen their distrust of
to tell what a hunter’s dealing with. the Lucifuge herself. Why does she conceal the existence of a vast
The Reconciliation has a somewhat more complex rela- machine operating beneath the world’s surface? Some think that
tionship with demons. Those that believe the demiurge hypoth- she’s one of its agents, perhaps even an angel herself. The entire
esis occasionally propose that the complete extermination of all conspiracy, then, would be a part of this mechanism. Perhaps
demons is necessary. However, they often see these creatures as the creatures of darkness they hunt are not actually the agents of
beings that can be redeemed. Greater demons find the idea of the God-Machine, but flaws in its vast mechanism. With every
redemption horrifying when first presented with it, but some action they take, they might be performing corrective surgery on
come to believe — or at least accept — the Reconciliation’s un- the very force that created them.
derstanding of the world. Sometimes, it’s because the Lucifuge It doesn’t help that it always seems to be members of the
persuades them that there’s an even greater God than the one Truth that end up walled out of really juicy parts of the genealo-
from whom they Fell. Sometimes, they’re shown that what they gies. The Lady never intervenes personally to close off a line of
once saw as an infernal Machine does good in the world as well inquiry. That would be beneath her. The few researchers who
as bad, and they seek to return to its service. And sometimes, have access to the complete library, however, tend to get jealous
they come to believe that the demiurge itself can be redeemed, of it just when members of the Truth seem headed for a big
by changing themselves and becoming part of it. score.
No one knows if any demons have ever found redemption
this way. Some disappear, certainly, but did they become angels Castigation: Rebuke Lies
again, or simply possess another identity? And if they did return Greater demons wraps themselves tight in stolen lives. To
to God and become angels again…. Well, they’d probably be some members of the Lucifuge, they might as well be security
unrecognizable, not to mention too dangerous to approach. Yet blankets. Whatever evidence a demon fabricates to promote its
many of the Reconciliation still try, believing that returning — charade, those members are capable of dispelling.
or introducing — demons to a forgiving God is a way to move To the character invoking this ability, a piece of evidence
the world one step closer to redemption. They point out that or equipment that a greater or institutional demon has fabri-
the chances of collateral damage are far lower. cated using Cover appears to be wispy and ephemeral. A person
Those of the Reconciliation who believe in the demiurge who’s talking about his supposed relationship to the demon
hypothesis wonder how to redeem the God-Machine itself. It’s tunes out into a hum of static.
impossible to just uproot it, and its many institutional “de- The character can also destroy the evidence in a burst of
mons” are hard to find in the first place. Yet, if some way could flame and smoke, or cause the person connected to the demon
be found, if there were some access point into the conscious- to forget their relationship for the rest of the scene. This can
ness of the demiurge that could be uncovered, the implications be used offensively; a demon disguised as a police officer who’s
are staggering. Would the world itself move closer to redemp- used his Cover to procure a gun or body armor can have it
tion? Would there be a ripple effect amongst all the creatures taken away by use of this ability.
of darkness the Lucifuge hunts? There are only a handful of Cost: It’s free to try and pierce Cover, but for a point of
eccentrics that even think such a thing is possible, but for them, Willpower, the character can also destroy the evidence.
the very idea is captivating. Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive
The Legacy wants to know more about demons. They’re Dice Pool: Wits + Investigation vs. demon’s Presence +
not pure researchers — in fact, they’re often zealous warriors of Composure or Resistance
the Lucifuge. But they’ve made a tremendous asset out of the Roll Results
genealogies. Like the Cheiron Group, Legacy members in Mi- Dramatic Failure: The character forgets critical details
lan devote their resources to processing huge amounts of data. about the demon she’s investigating (such as her initial reason
Mainly, of course, they’re looking for other infernal scions, for for suspicion or her briefing) for the next 24 hours.
greater demons seem to be the progenitors of, or at least appear Failure: The character retains whatever reason she had for
in, some of these bloodlines. If they’re still out there, they’ve being suspicious, but the evidence remains present.
changed identities by now, and those new identities can be Success: The character sees through the evidence.
tracked laterally by analyzing certain connections to a particu- Exceptional Success: The character can destroy the evi-
lar subject within a genealogy. As demons leapfrog from face to dence without spending a point of Willpower.

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