Angels and Demons oh my!

Kesh · Jan 7, 2004

Heck, Oriental Adventures might be a good place to start. It would at least give you a few ideas of where to go with such beings.

tecnowraith · Jan 7, 2004

I want to use all myths from different religions. Not just one or the other.

Stormborn · Jan 7, 2004

tecnowraith said:
I want to use all myths from different religions. Not just one or the other.

Disclaimer. I hope that the following is not in violation of the board policy regarding religion. It is not my intention to discuss the belief systems of any faith, but instead to describe concepts related to the question. End Disclaimer.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (and in ancient times Zorastrianism) have what we traditionally consider demons and angels, with Islam adding the ginn. Oriental traditions have things that we translate as "demons" that are essentially evil spirits, such as the Japanese Oni or Indonesian Buta. GURPS Spirits can help with players as otherworldly spirits. Angels, on the other hand, are actually a fairly Western concept. Greek thought has good spirits, eudaemons, and bad spirits, cacodaemons, that behave much as demons and angels do in popular literature in the western traditions. Socrates claimed to have a guiding spirit that protected him and aided him, but never controled what he did. Naturally, Roman mythology incorporates these ideas as well. In Norse myth there are quardian spirits of a place called Landvaettir, which might be associated with guardian angels. In Native American myth guardian spirits also appear, often but not always an totemic or ancestrial aspect. In Chinese mytholgy there are the Hounds of Heaven (the Tian-gou) that hunt evil spirits on behalf of Er-lang. Again, not something I would really associate with angels.
Then there is the melding of African and Christian ideas in Vodun, which again might have beings that at times could be called demons and maybe a few with "angelic" qualties, but even less so that mainstream Christianity.

All of which is to say: I doubt you are going to find a single source book that deals with a wide variety of real world religions or mythologies. GURPS might, if you are willing to build from a ton of different sources.

In developing a campaign, the issue is how you define Angels and Demons. The traditional definitions do not really apply across cultures, but you can find "evil" and "good" spirits in almost any time and place. Their behavior and power levels, however, are going to be radiacally different.

Trying to shut off proffesor mode now. Thank you for your patience.

tecnowraith · Jan 8, 2004

Well Nephilim, the French rpg of occult horror, english verion done by Chaosium will be very hard to find now. Just found out that the French company Multisim, the orginal creators of Nephilim and many others went bankrupt. Sso now I am depressed about that.

D.Shaffer · Jan 8, 2004

Stormborn said:
All of which is to say: I doubt you are going to find a single source book that deals with a wide variety of real world religions or mythologies. GURPS might, if you are willing to build from a ton of different sources.
.

Actually, one of the In Nomine guides (I THINK it was the GM guide) actually had a fairly nifty summary of various major religions and how to fit them into the game, as well as to adapt In Nomine to fit mainstream religions more 'accurately' for those who wished to. Now, most of that information is geared to the In Nomine universe, but as its background info, you should be able to incorporate it.

That reminds me, has anyone ever converted In Nomine to D20 rules? I've been thinking about such a campaign, and anythink which cuts down the work would help

Tristissima · Jan 8, 2004

Heck, I'd be interested in a conversion as well. I have done some stuff with world creation and combining IN with AU, but it has all been fluff. Some help with the crunch would be nice too.

seankreynolds · Jan 10, 2004

D.Shaffer said:
That reminds me, has anyone ever converted In Nomine to D20 rules? I've been thinking about such a campaign, and anythink which cuts down the work would help

Well, Anger of Angels was certainly inspired in part by In Nomine. Obviously I couldn't convert the IN angelic races because of copyright issues, but there are some things in common (IN has Words, AOA has dominions, for example). If you'd be willing to convert the races, it wouldn't be that hard to do (in fact, before I wrote AOA I did some quick IN d20 rules for a one-shot game at MonteCon).

D.Shaffer · Jan 10, 2004

seankreynolds said:
If you'd be willing to convert the races, it wouldn't be that hard to do (in fact, before I wrote AOA I did some quick IN d20 rules for a one-shot game at MonteCon).

...I dont suppose you still have them somewhere? Heh.

tecnowraith · Jan 10, 2004

seankreynolds said:
Well, Anger of Angels was certainly inspired in part by In Nomine. Obviously I couldn't convert the IN angelic races because of copyright issues, but there are some things in common (IN has Words, AOA has dominions, for example). If you'd be willing to convert the races, it wouldn't be that hard to do (in fact, before I wrote AOA I did some quick IN d20 rules for a one-shot game at MonteCon).

Ohh WOW, I did not expect to have you , Mr. Reynolds, on the threads and on this particular one. My question for AOA is will you have any web updates for other culture celstials or is that in the book already?

d4 · Jan 10, 2004

seankreynolds said:
Well, Anger of Angels was certainly inspired in part by In Nomine. Obviously I couldn't convert the IN angelic races because of copyright issues, but there are some things in common (IN has Words, AOA has dominions, for example). If you'd be willing to convert the races, it wouldn't be that hard to do (in fact, before I wrote AOA I did some quick IN d20 rules for a one-shot game at MonteCon).

hey cool! i haven't picked up AOA yet, but i'm a big In Nomine fan. i too have been ruminating a d20 IN game, so maybe i'll need to take a closer look at this one.

it seems most things could be fairly straightforward:

Choir/Band = race
Word you serve = class
Songs = spells
Attunements = feats
etc.

the one stumbling block i was having thinking about the conversion was what to do with Forces. Forces aren't just a mechanical thing -- celestials in the game know about Forces, know how many (and what type) they have, and some can even sense Forces in other people. there'd have to be some way of converting that over to d20. the crudest way i could figure would be to vaguely link it to level, but that seems kinda weird, since in IN Forces represent your ability scores.