Engel

[damieus]

Angels and demons... hard for me to have an objective opinion on this kind of game, since I am obessesed with angels and have a pretty strong inclination towards all things demonic as well.

As for judeo-christian games all of a sudden? I guess you mean as opposed to polytheistic settings, but almost every single RPG, (if not every single RPG) that I have seen is judeo-christian. Of course, the whole idea of demons is contrary to Judaism so we are really talking about Islamo-Christian settings or possibly even Zoroastrian settings. Anyway the point I am trying to make here is that the basic thing that sets "Judeo-Christian" (as it is labelled) apart from everything else is a clear seperation between good and evil and the idea that good and evil are forces of the universe and not just matters of perspective. Angels and demons are just physical incarnations of these very ideas.

Now I will certainly grant you that Engel and D:TF and hey even V:TM are based heavily on the bible and its apocrypha but that is hardly a new development in gaming. In fact, with all of the devil-lords of the Nine Hells in DnD, they are taken directly from early jewish and christian writings as well as from medieval fiction.

The vast majority of western culture, whether they are christain or not, has a basic background of good/evil ingrained in his psyche. Whether this came from church, disney cartoons, fantasy novels, movies or some other more exotic origin, it is a big part of western culture. Now, excluding the minority of RPGamers who have no grounding in western culture, the rest of us have this background whether we consciously subscribe to it or not. So drawing on our most basic concepts about metaphysical reality is a valid way of creating any kind of decent fictional world.

As for toying with religions, what is it exactly that you object to? In ravenloft, do they say: "This is what the Hindu religion believes:" and then proceed to butcher it? If so, then they should certainly retract that. But if they just create something that is loosely based off of Hinduism then they are just drawing off of real life to make a more palatable fiction. The same goes for Vampire the Masquerade's stories about Caine and whatever they did for Demon: The Fallen (Another book I haven't had a chance to look at). They are not trying to say that Cain(e) actually became a vampire and that the book of Nod should be included in the Catholic Bible, they are attempting to create a fantasy world that is based on our own.

That said, I haven't been able to find Engel in nearby bookstores, and my stupid credit card is maxed out atm due to a recent move so I'm just drooling over reviews on the internet right now.

 

[damieus]

That seems like a pretty big botch. Is it possible that there are different interpretations of Gabriel and Uriel? Making a book and not catching on that you switched roles of one common, major, named angel with another seems like something that no one could miss

Heh, there are about a million different interpretations of Gabriel and Uriel. Gabriel is most often seen as a messenger, but he is also associated with being a guardian, a warrior, the angel of death, and a myriad of other completely unrelated things. As for Uriel, he's only named in the Apocrypha and seems to serve all sorts of different purposes.

Most angel scholars feel that the names were arbitrarily added to scripture or at least mixed up at some point in the oral storytelling. At some point in history there might have been certain, well-defined roles for each archangel but those have become muddled and switched around over time.

Not to rebutt myself, but I do agree with you. If I had been the designer of the game, I would have made the Urielites the warriors (since he has been often associated with the angel of death) and the Gabrielites the scouts (since he is most often known as the messenger angel and scout is the best rpg fit for a messenger imo),

 

[Uzumaki]

Yes, but Gabriel literally means 'God is my Strength.' Her power was the most reknowned in all Heaven. Uriel means 'God is my Light,' which I suppose led the authors toward the scout class.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Uriel is the angel of death, not vice versa.

Uriel? I thought Azrael was?

 

[Uzumaki]

Uriel? I thought Azrael was?

He is. Uriel is the one who presides over Hell, so maybe there was some confusion.

 

[Merova]

Dogma of the Angelitiv Faith

That seems like a pretty big botch.

Hi all!

When you compare the beliefs of the Angelite church with those of modern Christianity, you find many more "botches" than this, like the role of Jesus, the "second" flood, the harsh dualistic cosmology, and the necessity of "good works," among many others. Why? Were the designers totally ignorant of these concepts in modern theology?

No, the Angelite faith was written by ignorant children, scrapping together a hodge-podge of miscellanious ideas from the ruins of civilization. The Vitus plague had killed off every adult in their world, twice. The education level of the world was reset to zero twice.

So, the absurd beliefs of the Angelite Church, with its "Frankenstein Monster" of Judeo-Christian ideas, is totally intentional. Moreover, it is totally a fabrication of religious themes meant to posit conceptual "what ifs" as is the tradition with good speculative fiction. It is not a commentary on modern religions at all, beyond the fact that all organized religions have similar core features (ie: faith, hierarchy, cosmological issues, etc.)

Give the setting section a good read, especially the chapter, "Mater Ecclesia." The world is in the midst of a great "Dark Age" and humanity is toiling under fear, ignorance and superstition. The theology is meant to be a reflection of this world.

In regards to the d20 system, I agree that the implementation was totally vanilla. They missed an opportunity to tweak with personality mechanics in a "Storyteller" system style, which would have pleased the most obvious target for this product. Secondly, they missed an opportunity to introduce more "narrativist" styles of adjudicating task resolution. Instead they "cut & paste" sections of the SRD. It's a pity.

However, the setting is sweet! It's the best that I've seen since Nyambe. I'll definitely be running this game soon.

Thanks for reading and good gaming!

---Merova

 

[Warrior Psychic]

Merova, you are my new best-friend/arch-nemesis. You basically said what I was going to say before me. For that I commend you, and thrice damn your soul!

But seriously, I too have a couple of qualms with the d20 system they use for Engel. Although I have always been more into setting (fluff) then actual game mechanics (crunch), it is always satisfying to bite into something soft and find out that it has a chewy center. That said, there is definately a lot of tweaking that I am going to do for sure with Engel's game mechanics. I am also going to work with the classes a bit to make them more balanced.

And whoever said that Urielites aren't "angels of death" have yet to actually read the class. Jeezus, they are scary. Full Base Attack, two good saves, a High Class Defense, Uncanny Dodge..

And for those of you who really want to incorporate a more "Storytelling" bent to your Engel game, Feder und Schwert has stated that they plan on releasing the alternate Tarot card rules soon as a free download from their website. From what I have heard from my German friends, it is a really cool system.. but it heavily relies on player-GM cooperation and trust. Or something.

 

[muhcashin]

You can change the system and use whatever system you wish to use. I totally agree that they just cut and pasted the SRD into the book. But the nice thing is that some of the Demons and Devils found in the D&D products could be used with a bit of tweaking in an Engel campaign. And there are tons of baatezu and tanari to use. BoVD and Tome of Horrors have all kinds of baddies that fit the Dreamseed description. And honestly, no one has ever used every single published fiend in a campaign. This means that even though the Dreamseed book isn't out yet can still throw in some demons. Granted, cunning human foes make better challenges.

 

[Azure Trance]

Hey all,

Just picked up the Warhammer 40K book Index Astartes which goes in depth about the Space Marine chapters of the Imperium with specific legions using their history and characters. While reading it last night (they have info on Dark Angels, Emperors Children, Flesh Tearers, White Scars, etc) it striked me as very similar.

The settings are both similar in dark futuristic theme, a similar religiously toned hierarchy (Emperor of the Imperium of Mankind is seen as a divine being in charge of it all from Terra; Engel has Pontifex Maximus as the immortal representation of God at Roma AEterna), and third was the idea of the legions of the Imperium and page 97-100 (without going indepth into it, if anybody knows both Engel and 40K should know what I'm talking about).

 

[Heylel Teomim]

gabriel

I think the confusion with Gabriel is in his "messenger" role. Part of that responsibility included fetching souls to heaven, lending the interpretation of the angel of death. At least, if I'm remembering what reading I did on angel mythology a few years back.

That same interpretation is used in The Prophecy movies to justify Gabriel's absolute dominion over who lives and dies. It is his power alone that sends a soul to Heaven, and without Gabriel, no soul is able to meet God (according to the films). They had to get that idea from somewhere.

Heylel