I haven’t talked about Demon for a while, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on my mind.
Originally Rose was going to develop the Demon Storyteller’s Guide, but scheduling issues and so forth meant that it landed with me instead. She did the initial outlining, and I hired authors (including some folks who responded to the all-call we did a while back!), and got it all squared away. Today, I sent developed text to Michelle for editing and art notes to Mike for arting.
It does occur to me, though, that since I haven’t said much about this book (brain’s been deep in Beast for a while), you might like to see what’s in it. So, here’s the “How to Use This Book” section from the Introduction.
I want to give shout-outs to Rose Bailey, creator and co-developed of Demon, here. Also, Demon veterans Danielle Lauzon and Eric Zawadzki (author of the recently released Demon Translation Guide), new-to-Demon authors Maggie Carroll, Leath Sheales, Vera Vartanian, Andrew Atramor, and Amy Veeres, and new-to-Onyx-Path authors Stuart Martyn and Monica Speca.
How to Use This Book
This book is aimed at Storytellers of Demon: The Descent. While players might look to it for inspirations for their characters’ personal hells or use it in collaboration with the Storyteller to build their Interlocks, its goal is to give Storytellers more tools to use in crafting the chronicle.
Chapter One: New Maps of Hell offers aid in conceptualizing demons’ diverse visions of Hell and ways of pursuing the Descent. Not every demon wants to rule over a Hell modeled after Dante’s Inferno. In fact, most Unchained don’t see that as a desirable Hell at all. This chapter also discusses the Cipher at length, providing suggestions for designing the Ciphers from Keys to Interlocks to Final Secrets. It also looks at what the Cipher is in-world and what it might to an outcast who unlock its secrets.
Chapter Two: Children of a Killer God focuses on the antagonists demons frequently contend with. It includes expanded rules for building angels and Exiles, providing new tools like angelic Incepts and Exile Parameters. It also includes Imperatives, new Numina, and a host of stranger things connected to the God-Machine.
Chapter Three: The Company discusses the espionage genre as a whole and provides tips for presenting it to players in a chronicle. It includes variations on the genre, complete with mechanics to back up the variant style.
Chapter Four: Urban Legends offers a mix of legends and strange phenomena that can be used to inspire stories within a chronicle — whether a Storyteller wants to use them as a “monster of the week” or an important part of her game. It also provides rules and story hooks for introducing characters and antagonists from eight other World of Darkness games, giving each a thematic spin to allow it to fit into the world of techgnostic espionage of the Unchained.
Chapter Five: Shards Infernal offers three alternate settings for games of Demon: The Descent. Want to run a chronicle featuring cyberpunk demon hunters? The story of demonic prophets who are the only thing that stands in the way of a world-ending apocalypse? How about a chronicle set in Biblical times? This chapter provides rules for all of them.
Okay, you’ve merged the Ciphers and the Descent chapter from the outline, and the World of Darkness with The Urban Legends chapters. Hmm…
We will be seeing Analysts in the Children of a Killer God?
Incepts… it’s reminiscent of “embed” or “exploit” but the definitions I’m seeing are “to ingest” “to take a masters degree” or in Botany, “a rudimentary organ.” Can you tell us a little more?
Will “The Company” be useful as a resource who want to run an espionage game in nWod without using demon? A group of CIA agents investigating ISIS activity in the vicinity of a Mummy cult, for instance?
Analysts: Yes.
Incepts: It’s about getting master’s degrees. I decided there was far too little attention being paid to higher education in the World of Darkness.
Company: Yeah, I think so. It’s a really good deconstruction of the genre. It’s spun toward Demon, of course, but I think you could take a lot of the information away and use it for a mortals-ish game.
(One of these is false.)
Fiendishly clever, Mr. MacFarland.
It’s the Analysts, isn’t it?
I look forward to seeing a row of grad-school educated bio-mechanical horrors, all waiting outside Deva Corporation’s human resources department, all waiting to answer the questions “Yes, but do you have any experience warping reality in a workplace environment? Are you a team player? Do you have any references” who aren’t sleeper agents?
More seriously, will see more Facilities and Sleeper agents? as is, both are rather underrepresented in canon and fanon
Mr. Paint, for more sleeper agent love, I suggest looking at Hurt locker, which has a microtemplate for people who gain power from being brainwashed.
And as a microtemplate (a themed set of supernatural merits), it’s completely compatible with being stigmatic….
I fully agree on the Facilities part. They were something really hard for me to imagine and to integrate into my picture of the world. And they can be like, really, really awesome.
As much as I’ve been anxious for this to come out, I now realize that when it does get released I will feel a little sad that we won’t have any more Demon books to look forward to. Any possible plans for another Demon project in the next year or so? I could never have enough Angels, Demon Seeds or Splinter ideas!
Next Year: WoD 3E and Demon 2E!
There’s a fair amount of Demon material in Dark Eras.
Hideously excited for the crossover chapter and the Biblical shard, but my current Night’s Black Agents obsession means all this will see use. One of the most exciting books in a long time!
Do you plan on having more embeds and exploits in this book also ?