>>22900106
That's one of the most pleasant afterlives I'm familiar with.

So, anyway, I'm working on a setting I like to call Infernoir, because puns are awesome. It's what it sounds like, a gritty noir game set in the city of Dis in the middle of hell. Tommyguns, demons, diablerists and fedoras.

So you have crime rings run by the most vicious mobsters to ever live (though crime is a term that kind of loses meaning in hell), conspiracies with demons, people who bargain for demonic power and general exciting shit.

>>22900106
Still better than the Sumerian Underworld.

>>22900288
Cool story bro.
Let us know if you make any progress.

>>22900343
I'm actually working on the system right now. Fairly simple d100.

I'm also trying to map out the bad part of town, where the real headcases hang out. Basically it's Harlem meets Friday the 13th. Thing is, I can't come up with a name for it. Murdertown just seems kind of silly.

I'm also trying to plot out the bazaar, which is kind of like Chinatown in Gremlins, only demonic. So you have all kinds of fucked up people selling shit that may or may not be demonic artifacts. Thing is, I don't really know what one would use for currency in hell. Souls seem impractical and kinda cliché.

Also not sure how far I'm willing to go. See, I was thinking of having a red light district. Naturally, hell hookers are considerably worse than earth hookers. As are the pimps. But I don't feel like running a game with graphic rape camps. So I guess I need to make them lean more toward ultimate despair and utter lack of desire. Just mechanical fucking without emotion or desire.

>>22900500
An idea for currency:
Money is Salvation. At least, that's what everyone will tell you. When an angel flies over the city, golden strips of paper float down, to be picked up by anybody. Some say that with enough Feathers, you can buy your way out of the city, if you can find the gate, and have enough money for your own wings. Maybe that's why demons roll them up and smoke them like cigars. Or because of the rush of bliss you get when you smoke one. There are other rumors, which say that the money is just another test, and trying to buy your way out will drop you straight into the Fourth Circle.

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I love this idea. I will be monitoring this thread.

>>22901505
That's actually pretty cool. Adds another element of despair, as people are whoring themselves out, committing worse sins and generally doing nasty shit for salvation.

Also makes the bad guys even more monstrous for using people and stealing what little chance they have to leave hell.

>>22901648
And the best thing is: You need the money to live, to buy food, or pay the rent, or whatever. So, to earn enough money, you have to commit crimes. But commiting crimes might make it more difficult to reach salvation. So you need more money...

>>22901648
>>22901708

On these notes, I'd like to suggest a bit of music for inspirational purposes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf3FOEL3KjE

>I'm Public Enemy Number One
>I'm sorry for the things I've done
>If indeed we do cross paths
>-It's nothing personal...-

>>22901708
Exactly. Hell's a shitty place. There might even be those willing to work for the demons for an extra bit of cash. And well, that's a hell of a lot worse than snitching for the feds. Just imagine how much fun a demon would have with a stash of salvation.

Speaking of demons, I'm trying to incorporate them in a way that's not just Big Red Monster #37, while keeping them separate from the damned humans rather than Generic Player Race #24.

I'm thinking you might have extremely low rank imps and the like cooperating with the humans in some sort of pyramid scheme to gain power. Sell out the big shots when the time is right, gain power, fuck their subordinates. They might even play subservient fools. The bigger demons essentially work like insane cops or the like. They show up when someone fucks up enough that they have to enforce whatever passes for order in hell. The step above this is a full-blown raid, where demons decide to show who's the boss, swoop into Dis and just pick people up from the streets at random.

I'm also trying to stay away from the bat-winged monster demons, going for more of a corrupted angel look. They should just look wrong rather than outright monstrous. Hell, maybe even pretty, but still sinister and powerful.

>>22901915
Something I once did in a similar setting: there's a difference between demons and fallen angels. The Fallen Angels are the bosses. They the hellish equivalent to corrupt city councilmen, to crooked mayors and police chiefs on the take. Powerful, influential figures; the biggest difference is that they don't have to pretend they're on anyone's side but their own.

Just a thought, maybe?

>>22901990
I've been toying with the idea of a corrupt mayor type running Dis. Some kind of bigshot demon who just no longer gives a shit and has taken to letting himself be bought by mob bosses. After all, what's a noir setting without a corrupt government?

>>22900500
>I'm also trying to map out the bad part of town, where the real headcases hang out. Basically it's Harlem meets Friday the 13th. Thing is, I can't come up with a name for it. Murdertown just seems kind of silly.

Just actually call it Harlem. Or New Jersey or something, I'm not too familiar with American hellhole neighbourhoods. As background information it would have that even the demons didn't really find a more hellish place. Or would that take away from the grimdark?

At least its not Detroit.

>>22901915
The fallen angels are the most pitiful creatures in Dis. You know how they say that the primary punishment you receive here is being not in G's presence? Now imagine how this feels to a being which was accustomed to this since before the dawn of time. They do anything to make money. Even the hookers in Cordia Street have more self respect than them when it comes to Feathers. And the thing is, they still are different from us. Some can scrape the flesh from your bones with the slightest touch. Some are unkillable. Most are stopped by enough bullets, but not those. Some make you weep tears of salt. There are even a few who still know a syllable or two of the first word. No, I don't know what happens if they speak. Point is, you can't trust them. Some try to maintain order, but are desperate and over-eager, or often just corrupt. Others...well, you saw one of those, didn't you?

>>22900500

Name the different neighborhoods after various culture's names for the afterlife or stages thereof: Sheol, Styx, Oblivion, etc.

>>22902572
I was thinking of doing something like that. I mean, hell, I'm already ripping a lot of shit from Inferno.

>>22900500
In my setting for Hell I used a currency called Treachery, which was based on the amount of treachery in the underworld. You act treacherous, you get credited one.

>>22902605
I've been toying with the idea of selling some kind of aspect of you. At first I was thinking memories, since demons could barter for your first kiss and the like, but then I figured there could be no despair without hope, so taking away every happy memory someone has would actually make their stay in hell less torturous. So then I figured it's the small things. Names, the feel of your first kiss, the smell of your first barbecue. You remember the events, but they're incomplete. Just a fuzzy video without any kind of emotion or clarity. Sure, you'll remember having a daughter, but not what her voice sounded like.

>>22902743
The original piece of writefaggotry is here if you're interested:

https://www.facebookdotcom/notes/dash-trudeau/i-stand-at-the-gates-of-hell/500426824493

Sorry for facebook, the only other place that story is is a place where I got banned.

Also bartering your memories would be interesting, but it should work like a pawn shop, you can put a part of yourself on pawn and buy it back later, or sell it entirely for more money.

>>22902585

Make demons mob bosses, politicians, or kings of different sections of the city they control. They can range from amorphous masses of sludge, to dragons, to unfathomably beautiful bodies of light. While they are much stronger than the souls of the damned they oversee they are mortal. Their true power comes from instilling fear into the masses and controlling them. The PCs could be Humans born in hell who are mortal but have the drive of the living and this compels them on their quest to escape.

Just one thing about demons: You won't recognize them until it's too late. Often, not even then.

>>22902918
That would be scary, so sometimes demons would consort with you about escape, spread rumours and then as they set you up you are tortured publicly.

>>22901505
If this would be used, the outer city gates could be enforced by angels in full armour. They'd be like those British soldiers outside buckingham palace, not reacting to a single thing, until you actually touch them or try to leave, and then they brutally throw you back in, or vaporise you or something.
The very fact that they're there would reinforce the myths of getting out with enough salvation.

>>22902918
>>22902985

Like how the FBI sets up terrorists that would have been unable to post much of a threat without FBI assistance?

>>22902840
I like that, though not too sure about the part about people being born in hell. See, one of the reasons I went with a noir setting was because grey morality and grittiness works beautifully in hell. Corruption, greed and violence comes easy when every single one there did something bad enough to deserve hell. A large part of that disappears once you have what are essentially innocents living there.

I'm also thinking about how magic will work. I sort of like the idea of some kind of sorcerous pact with demons, but I'm not sure how much to emphasise it and how it will work.

I love the idea of fetishes. Dudes using parts of their enemies to gain their strength and the like. Shrunken heads, demon fingers, dragon tongues. Really creepy shit. Of course there will be rituals involved as well.

But I have no idea what it's going to do. Throwing fireballs seems kind of too obvious, but at the same time I feel like an overt display of power is pretty sweet.

As a matter of fact, the first draft for the first adventure centers around a minor crime boss known as The Flayed King who makes cloaks out of the hides of his enemies, fuelling his power. I want him to just radiate power. Currently I'm thinking some kind of aura of power that subdues his enemies and make them helpless as he takes his time.

>>22903031
I like it, but I don't know if I like the "armored guards" idea. It feels out of place in a Noir setting. Maybe angelic snipers?

>>22903034
For example. Or to drive you to sin so heavily that you fall further. Or just to get some money.

>>22903105
Would angelic snipers be like the guy from saving private ryan? Who recites prayers as he shoots people?

I think you'll need at least a few classes of demons if you want a good setting.
Try looking into more obscure parts of Abrahamic mythology and non-cannon gospels.

>>22903096
I like the idea of ritual magic, but I would keep it very rare.
You could have fetish magic, as you described, and maybe Enochian sorcery, evoking angels and names of God, which would be risky, difficult and maybe not all worth it. (After all, how do you know those powers really come from Heaven, especially when you're in the place that is clearly cut off from God's presence?)

>>22903165
One of the things I have noted down as a solid rule is that there is no mentioning of the Carpenter from Nazareth, his father or anyone associated with them in hell. Lucifer's still got a huge chip on his shoulder when it comes to his former boss, and the last thing anyone wants is for him to get involved personally.

>>22903105
I'm not sure how you're picturing the angels themselves. And technology of about the 30's if I'm not mistaken? Maybe some martial-law-esque blockades (with MG nest?), or something. Something that just screams "this is an exit but you're never leaving through here".

>>22903279
That sounds better. Something that fits with the Noir theme, while keeping the "Guardian of Passage" thing. The angels themselves? I don't have anything against winged, radiant humanoids.
>>22903265
On the one hand, I think this is a really cool idea. On the other hand, maybe that is what makes Enochian sorcery so risky or undependable.

>>22903105
Why so personal?
Make the exit just a simple, immaculate white arch, filled with a shimmering curtain of blinding, golden light.

Whoever tries to pass, burns instantly to ash, which is scattered in the wind.

Some believe it to be a trap. Others, the way to salvation. Nobody remembers anyone who passed through successfully, but there are rumors. Always rumors. That carrying exactly one hundred and eight pinions of an Angel will work. That annointing yourself in the blood of the innocent - as if there were such a thing in Hell - will let you pass.

That it leads fools hoping for redemption straight to the lowest Circle.

And, well, what do you have to lose? When existence of the Damned starts to weight on you like a funeral shroud, and all feelings fade to gray, do your best, gather as much Salvation as you are able to, and take that final step while you can.

Before you end up Broken.

>>22903279
Hownabout gigantic hole in the ceiling? Angels and demons come and go, but you are tied by gravity. Crazy plans of hastily erected ladders and flying machines exist, but nobody has even heard of succes. There are rumours of other way, though...

>>22903384
Hot air balloons don't work because you can't find the right materials for the envelope, and even if you could the temperature of Hell makes the entire idea not work.

>>22903384
>Home, where I learned the truth about despair, as will you. There's a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth... Hope. Every man who has ventured here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom. So easy... So simple... And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope.

>>22903371
And around this arch, hundreds of little shops have set up, each promise the one and only way to ascend. This has, in fact, grown so big, that the bazaar is actually around the arch.

I don't know which I like better.

>>22903371
>Whoever tries to pass, burns instantly to ash, which is scattered in the wind.

What happen after that? I mean, you can't die. Are you going to respawn?

>>22903453
Maybe it's just horrifyingly painful. Or it's horrifyingly painful and you get ported a Circle lower.

>>22903453
My idea was that if you die in hell, you respawn. Only a lot worse off. Remember the parts in Dante's Inferno where people were forced to live in a quagmire of mud and human bodies or buffeted by winds into jagged rocks? Yeah, that's pretty much what happens. Sure, you can probably break free, but it would be a huge undertaking now that the hardcore torture fanatics have their eyes on you.

>>22903453
Nobody knows. Those who tried to pass are never seen again.

Some say that your body reform on the lowest level of the Pit, from whence is no escape, to be eternally tormented in ways which make the worst of Dis look like Paradise.
Others, that the soul moves on to the Purgatory, or even Heaven, and just the empty carcass is destroyed.
There are those that believe that the Arch grants Oblivion to those who pass through, destroying body and soul in the same conflagation.
And all the shades in between.

>>22903561
What really happens:

You respawn as another person being lowered into the pit, but you have a compulsion not to tell anyone. Everybody goes through the void in the end, everybody knows but nobody can speak about it.

I once designed a city inspired by Dante's inferno. Would OP be interested in details for inspiration?

>>22903597
Nah, then nobody would actually try to escape, because they'd know what happens.

>>22903699
yes

>>22903699
Sure, go ahead.

Nice enough. One problem bothers me though: What's stopping Gaius Julius Caesar, the Waffen SS, the Golden Horde, Robert the Bruce and Gotz of the Iron Hand from picking up yours and beating Satan to death? I mean if demons have physical limits, surely eternal damnation will make enough desperate enough to try at some point?

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>I've been waiting. Leave the artefact on the table and do not blink until you are three paces outside.

>>22903836
I meant picking up a rock.

>>22903836
>Waffen SS allying with traitorous Italians
Also, maybe Satan is a special case. Maybe the higher orders of demons are magnitudes more powerful.
Or maybe this already happened.

Nevertheless, this seems to be more of a lower circle thing.

>>22903836
I imagine lack of organization.

How could you trust your co conspirators, even if they were really who they say they are and not a demon fucking with you?

What if the demons have some superweapon in their defence?

What if the higher demons get stronger beyond a linear sense of the rank and file?

What if that already happened, and the humans who took over became demons, but can't tell anyone?

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Here's something a drawfag made for a 40k marine faction, but it would fit well in this setting I think.

>>22900500
Id call it "The Cesspool" a place even the demons try to avoid when possible. Anyone who walks in is liable to have their soul stolen. To make it even worse the area should be like a upper-class neighborhood (but hellish of course) So the really fucked up assholes live the high class.

>>22903898
Spoilered part is actually RAW, if you read the descriptions for what happens in hell - eventually if you survive long enough you become a demon.
Cassius and Hitler may already be demons.

>>22904166
>if you read the descriptions for what happens in hell

In this thread? Where?

>>22904177
I mean in the actual 3.5 descriptions of hell, basically you would become a petitioner and if you survived long enough you become one of the CR 20 outsiders, losing all your memories.

>>22904233
Oh, that's pretty cool I guess.

Be an interesting mechanic for OP. Some PC's working towards that end, others rushing to accomplish their goals before it.

Probably need some manner of time skip for it though. Maybe every time you die you wake up a level lower 66 years later or something?

>Second rule, no pleasure. No singing, no dancing, no drinking, no smiling, no fun
Sounds like /v/

>>22904261
It doesn't specify how long, although I expect that even if the requirement was 20 years it would still be impossibly hard.
Also, I like the idea of money. Needing more salvation (angels wings) but having to do evil acts to get the salvation, so the price is always higher. It would take years to collect salvation without evil, but it is possible to free yourself if you do it. The more evil you commit, the more you take but the higher the price of redemption.

>>22903733
>>22903760
I came up with this stuff a while ago as part of a lit project envisioining a modern day Divine Comedy. I think I started with either Benito Mussoloni or General Tecumsah Sherman acting as the virgil figure for the narrator, taking them into the bowels of a subway station where he bought a round trip ticket.
I have a vague idea of some of the classical sins like heresy, but I remember a city rising on tiers, each slowly rotating, carried along by grinding gears and filling the air with a constant din that make most communication impossible. Dis, the engine of hell, is how it is introduced as the highest tier seems to penetrate the very sky itself, driving the movement of the blood red clouds. Everyone in the city wants to move to the next tier above where they reside, believing that at the center lies the doorway to salvation, redemption, or paradise.
Pandomonium is the first borough or tier, consisting of those in life who abandoned god by inaction and sloth. The damned are here are formed up into work gangs that are tasked with maintaining and repairing the edifices and staffing the factories that keep the city running. it's a constant,sysphian task- the movement of the engines components always shakes parts loose, designs are only half completed, and machines, once activated,more often then not dissemsble themselves.

The next tier is a junkyard, where the greedy and gluttonus squabble and bicker over trash from the upper levels, hoarding junk or trading it for Anam (Mana spelled backwards)- the only source of susetnance. The landscape is always shifting, however, as vent open to the furnaces that power the city open, dropping the sinners possessions into the firey heart of the next layer- the engine room,where those who sined inpassion(Lust and wrath) toil to keep the furnances of hell burning.

>>22904557
This... This is neat.

>>22904557
At the center where (nominally) everyone strives to enter the spire that leads up to the heavens, those who betrayed and swindled in life work the vast bureacracy of hell among the labrynthine and constantly changing cubicle landscapes. It would be almost paranoia esque as these people who have more material comforts ignore them willfuly to backstab each other. The sinners are pitted against each other internally to rise higher in the ranks, scrabbling eternally to be the first to pass demonic secretaries who demand forms filed in triplicate by say, a gang-boss in the very outer suburbs of the city.

I also had ideas fo various demonic gangs that rule the different sections of the city, inspired by the Goetic traditions and stuff like The Warriors.
Wrathful devil bikers locked in eternal fued with deamonette hookers, along with the dukes and barons of the infernal legions, stuff like that.

What do you guys think?

>>22904652
Daemonette Hookers, succubi? It seems awesome though. Wouldn't book a vacation there.

>>22903364
The angels would be really attention grabbing if they weren't fitting in with the aesthetic. Like you trundling along with a tommy gun and you have this guy in plate armor and a sword. Two different worlds

>>22903886
He who kills Tim Buckley must assume the role and form of Tim buckley

This is a neat setting, and I'd like to see the mechanics.

I have one question though- when you're in hell, exactly what kind of goals would you have? I mean you're dead and literally in the worst place ever. There are no happy endings in a setting like this, and never will be.

>>22905176
What does a person ever want?

Happiness? An end to suffering? Purpose?

>>22905176
The thing about living, is you can die. It can happen easily in fact, and the vastest portion of the mortal world is taken up trying to either bring about or stop this. But when you're dead, you can't. There is no easy out.

If you can't get food as a mortal, you go hungry for a while, endure the pain of starvation a little longer, and then death claims you. But as a tormented soul, you don't die if you don't eat. You just get hungrier and hungrier. The agony in your belly is no-longer bound by human flesh, and will grow and grow without limit, a horrid eternal fire consuming you from the inside out. Eventually it becomes all you know, all you feel, and you have become a ghoul, with no mind left beyond a cruel cunning for hunting meat.

Each of the myriad ways a man can die has its own destination here in the Pit, and none are as pleasant as the first death...

>>22906624
I can see 4 different inhabitants of Hell working quite well:

1) Dead Humans. The players, damned souls all, but still human.

2) Demons. Horrid remains of what happens to a soul that hell (the society as it were) consumes, like the ghouls mentioned above. This is why the players need to still eat, and not get shot: getting shot in the gut may leave you in agony for YEARS if you can't afford to get it healed, and might push you towards becoming a Pain or War Demon.

3) Devils. Those ancient damned who have fought tooth and nail, and taken hell into themselves, losing much of their humanity in the process. They have risen above the common folk through whatever method they found, and now have huge powers and fiefdoms. They are even capable of doling that power out to others somewhat. Goals for PCs in certain cases, and NPCs in all cases. Hear you find Caligula, Attila the Hun, and (perhaps if he's been dead long enough) Al Capone all engaged in permanent gang warfare.

4) Fallen Angels. The real deal, the big ones. None compare to them in power, and some of them are truly weird in appearance and abilities. The Big Man numbers among them, but doesn't come out much, except to annihilate the occasional idiot who thinks he can get to heaven by building a church. That and the five or so miles of surrounding city. Has a special type of Demon made by being killed by him, a constantly scream ghostly revenant, so everyone knows how horrid attracting his attention is.

What do you guys think of this?

>>22906624
Actually, as a person who has starved before, hunger doesn't work like that. Sure it's agony at first, but then it gets very quiet and dull. To this day I lack appetite and just pick arbitrary meal times, as I have trouble noticing hunger. You do feel weak ad fuck though.

>>22907166
Well we can work with that. We just say that the part when it goes weak is caused by the body, but the soul has no such limit. You just stay in ever increasing agony.

>>22907467
I like this idea.

I think that you should have it so that Satan is stuck in the center of the pit, frozen in ice from the waist down.
I always liked that part of the book, so that he wasn't running shit, he was being punished just like everyone else there.
And maybe he could run shit, he just would have to tell his subordinates what he wants done, but he could do nothing himself.

Also, how did Dante escape hell again, climbing halfway up the shanks of satan and then climbing back down into purgatory?
I was always pretty confused about that part.

Purgatory needs to be represented as a restaurant with terrible service.

>>22903836
1) They're not nearly bad enough to rule hell.
2) They don't like each other very much.
3) They're just the kind of high profile targets the demons would make an example out of.
4) Satan rebelled against God. Think about that for a second. He had reason to believe he could overthrow an omnipotent being. Try to wrap your head around how ridiculously powerful he must be.

>>22903836
This actually happened, but instead of taking out the big guy Caesar and his crew took out one of the lords of the outer circles. They now rule, unaware that their squabbles are part of a larger, infernal plan

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>>22904557
>Benito Mussoloni
Boy have I got a book for you

>>22909935
Actually, I would recommend HIGHLY that you not read this. It is a very good book- I enjoyed it very much- and shares some very similar ideas and even similar plot points to your proposed novel- but it's also very different, different enough that if you ever read it you'd be stuck with visions and ideas about how modern Hell should look and it wouldn't be your own work anymore. I'm really interested in the original take that you posted, and of you read Niven and Pournelle's Inferno before you write your book, you'll just end up copying it.

>>22900288
You know, I had a dream about infernoir. It was a sunless city with ashes covering everything, and I spoke with a devil woman wearing a gangster outfit also covered in ash. She had a snake sticking out of the front of her pants.

>>22903597
I think free will should be sacrosanct in a setting about Hell. No mind control. No possession. No 'the Devil Made Me Do It.'

Ritual magic can be done using relics of power, or elements of powerful beings - like the horn of a goat-headed lust demon, the semen of an incubus, and so on. It's very rare shit, but when someone DOES fuck around with ritual magic they're able to retain their humanity and wield the powers of demons and devils.

Also, let's not forget there are many named demons, like Baal, Asmoday, and so on. They would be power players in this world of hell. They would be VERY powerful.

>>22910578
I actually had this idea for Baphomet where he was a loanshark, because lolTemplars.

It'd be cool if the city sort of fades around the edges. Go out far enough to the outskirts of town and the city seems to fade into the darkness. As more people arrive in the city, more of the city starts to appear and the hole in the sky seems just a bit farther away.

>>22906921
I like this. Though I'd personally call the Demon tier just Ghouls all together. They're husks of their former selves, pure emotion and agony with hardly any personality left.
My thoughts for demon/devil would be that the devils be the original inhabitants of hell, those that once were actually tasked to individually torture all. Demons would then be the ascended humans, and while some might get to the same level of power as the devils, the devils still have a great amount of disdain for them.

>>22911298
It will be a megacity. After all, it contains billions of sinners. However, I like the idea of incorporating some of the sites from Inferno, like the forest where people turn into trees. Then again, a city that large can contain all kinds of shit.

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These concepts are rather brilliant, I must confess.

Bumping and grinding.

>>22911120
As a fellow history nerd, I applaud the reference.

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>By the very nature of the city, it is impossible for the population to be content with it
>There is a very obvious outside source for everyone's problems, the demons. What with the torturan' and the no police-an' and the being regarded as supernatural horrors throughtout the damned soul's mortal live-an'
>Don't forget, you're here forever! (liiikely) can't suicide your way out.
>Enforcer population to human population: is one to a thousand.At least. At a glance.

...SO GET UUUUP!

How is death (for the demons) handled in this world? respawn in seven days time at a designated structure? You can't actually die and if you're restrained in some psychopath's basement you can't get out because, you know, Hell? Something more exotic?

I ask because... how common are riots and full scale rebellions in the city of Dis? Has the city been taken at any point in history? Are there hopeful stories of people claiming independence just long enough to achieve freedom through some means? How would rebels go about keeping the immortal demons out, encasing their respawn pillar into a sealed tomb, just simply tossing the wingless ones over the walls whenever they may appear? What sort of weapons would the demons use to quell a riot, considering they're monstrous by definition and the inmates got their hands on tommyguns?

I feel the idea could be a good bit of background fluff,and a pretty bitchin' end game goal if the players pursue it: turning the corrupt city right around...

>>22916426
Given the nature of the city, riots are inevitable. Usually spearheaded by those too new to know better. Since demons fill the role of police, they have to crack own, and there ain't no brutality laws in hell.

As for the matter of dying, permanent death is out of the question. Eternal punishment and all that. For humans, I'm still working on it, but there's some kind of penalty involved. For demons, the current idea is they reform after a set period of time and receive a promotion. And since status in hell is measured by how low you fall, that's a bad thing.

>>22916613
Of course, I'm doping my best to prevent it from bring a Lady of Pain situation where rocks fall. Since demotions are hard to get, most demons only die reluctantly. So heavily fortified sections of Dis are only assaulted when shit really goes down. This is also why some bend the rules and cooperate with the damned. A safer shortcut to power.

>>22916426

The Revolution of the Damned.

This is the only possible title.

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>>22916809
So basically he died and went to hell?

>>22916426
It's obvious that what happens is that the revolutions and intercinine warfare is encouraged from above. The new class of oppressors replaces the old but retains their powers and positions, more often not because they think it will make the afterlife more...livable.

A really big key abotu this setting should be about how human beings go about oppressing themselves so that the demons don't really need to do anything more then lip service. Kind of like the prisoners delimina. Selfish people will screw eachother over every time rather then take a chance on someone else being nice.

I'm reminded of an old buddhist story- Siddhartma was meditating under a tree when from below he heard a penitent soul in hell cry out that, if rescued, it would change its ways and repent.
The buddha, intriuged, let fall into hell a single spider thread which the penitent soul grabbed onto annd began to inch upwards towards paradise. However, when other poor sinners also began to climb up afterwards the condemned soul cursed and kicked at his fellow sufferers, saying that the thread could only support him. At that moment, the thread broke, sending all and sundry into the abyss below. The buddah returned to his meditation.

>>22910259
You really think it's a good enough idea to turn into a book?

bump

Anyone wanna keep talking about this? it's really interesting.

>>22922228
I would love to, but I'm drunk as shit.

also drunken bump

>>22922475
>>22925464

I am also drunk, but I just found this thread. So I'm in.

>>22916613

RE the questions of death, maybe when you die you come back as something slightly worse, in a Clive Barker-esque sort of way. Or maybe when you die you become a part of the city somehow. You become a new critter in the landscape, or a fixture in Dis.
Somewhere between Barker, Geiger and Glimmer Rats, basically,

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>>22927925

And since it could be relevant, I may go storytime this in another thread if anyone's interested.

I dedicate my life to covertly murdering as many Demons as I possibly can.

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Howdy friend. Welcome to Alcatraz. THE Alcatraz. Biggest rock there is.

You might notice the service is poor, yeah, and the beer's shitty, but you take what you can get in Hell. Better than molten tar I suppose, less you're into that sorta thing. Some are. Some get used to it.

Now listen here, buddy. Cause I'm gonna tell you this once, and only once. New arrivals tend to get the shaft around here more than most folks, but you caught me in a moderately less than completely apathetic mood so I'll clue you in.

There's two kinds of demons down here. The kind you wanna talk to, and the kind you don't wanna talk to. In fact the latter king you don't even wanna look at, so keep that in mind too. Don't even make eye contact. What do they look like? Well that's the easy part. Look just like you or me, or anybody else, at a glance at least. Just another poor sinner trying to make their way in the afterlife, that is until you get close. Until you get to know them. Then the lights go off and the thoughts turn on and you're staring down several thousand years of cosmic hate and pain and guilt wrapped up in eyes that burn like smoldering bullet holes and more teeth in the wrong places than the sum population of your hometown. But you won't know it at first. It'll keep up on you. You'll get a feeling. That's when you've got to go.

As for the others, well, that's a bit easier. They are what they are and they don't try to hide it. Maybe they think it's pointless, I mean hey, what good'll it do down here? It's Hell, case you missed it. Like that one over there, that seven foot suit with cigarette smoke drifting out where his eyeballs should be, where they probably were once upon a time. That's Bernie. Great guy, I guess. You know, for a demon. More tired than anything though. Don't think you push him though, because nobody and I mean nobody pushed back harder.

Anyway, there's a bit more to it, but you'll figure it our for yourself soon enough.

>>22909085
He climbed down Satans legs through the center of the world where gravity flips and then he climbed up to mount purgatory, which was a created when all the ground was pushed out the other side of the planet when the hell crater was created

This sounds awesome as fuck guys, keep the ideas flowing.

>>22902743

That's brilliant.

Awesome setting guys. Thread Archived:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/22900106/

>>22918603
Well, obviously; after all, Twilight exists.

The adjective you're looking for is probably 'marketable', in which case, possibly?

>>22927981
How about that, I was thinking constant theft because 'lol immortality'.
Hook up with a spetsnaz, hook up with a ninja and share the plunder with my newfound skills.

>>22903105
I think the style shift underlines the dichotomy between the two planes.

Massive, Art Deco armored angels guarding a white marble staircase that goes the only direction that matters in this shithole: it goes Up.

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>>22934321

See, I like a little bit of the old fire and brimstone imagery mixed in with the noir. I think that would work.

Baphomet: Goat-headed demon constantly seen wearing crisp Italian suits, driving the fanciest cars, and surrounded by a host of beautiful women. Officially, he works as an overseer of sorts, making sure the lower ranking demons in Dis are doing what they're supposed to. Unofficially, he's the First Bank of Dis. He's virtually bankrolled the entire Bazaar by himself. He's got his hands in everyone's pockets, and owns enough pieces of enough important people that he may very well be the most important demon in the city. Since he's operating outside the supposed power structure, he's intensely disliked by the other demons, who feel he's muscling in on their territory.

Asmodeus: A giant with the face of a man who has been in a thousand fights. Scarred, hard, unforgiving. He dresses far less lavishly than most of his associates, sticking to plain working men's clothes. Asmodeus runs the (surprisingly legal) prostitution and gambling houses in Dis. Since he is in direct competition with speakeasies (which have the advantages of being, you know, fun) he tends to be the most antagonistic toward the damned. However, he lacks the power to move against the businesses owned by the other major players, so he's content to bust down any independents he can find.

For Astaroth, I'm thinking something like a police officer, since princes aren't very noir-esque. Gives you a sort of authority figure. Naturally, he's for sale if you feel like messing with the competition. Has been working pretty closely with Baphomet.

Beelzebub would be something akin to the mayor, building Dis to be his powerbase in a play against Lucifer.

I'm also thinking about having Cambions (or half-demons for those of you who prefer it) be a playable race to add a bit of diversity.

>>22936010
Belphegor would be the industrialist of the lot. He gains power by snatching up inventors, engineers and eggheads to build an industrial empire. Known to play all sides against each other, as he controls the guns in Dis and benefits the most from the other powers butting heads.

Samael: A skeleton in a trenchcoat and fedora, Samael works as the federal authority in Dis. Answering only to the Morningstar, he is perhaps the least corrupt of the demons, if there is such a thing. He's single-minded in his pursuit of what he believes to be a perversion of the natural order of things. While not as powerful as many of the others, he is nevertheless terrifying to many, since he can't be bought or reasoned with. Has a hostile relationship with Astaroth.

How do we approach the fact that God is obviously evil by any sane definition? He's just the control-crazy genocidal paranoid fascist to Satan's sociopathic, anarchist, brutal African warlord.

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This is a fantastic idea. I don't have much to offer, but I stumbled a piece of old sketchfaggotry you may use for further inspiration.

>>22936519
Let's not get into this. Also, YHWH is mostly a non-factor, since the worst part about hell is supposedly being removed from His presence.

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>>22936747
So he says. Point in fact, the worst part appears to be being surrounded by sociopaths, thieves, and murderers. And that's before even talking about the demons or the king lunatic of this asylum.

The issue of God's malevoence is bound to come up. Especially on a noir'-themed game, and especially if your players try to stage a revolution of the damned.

>>22936925
I don't know. You certainly can make this a theme in a game, but I believe it should work more on "street level", meaning you don't know any more about God or His Ineffable Plan than a normal person in the real world. Sure, there are various people and groups in Dis insisting that God is evil, but most conversations will be weighed down by the fact that it's not easy to talk about something you don't dare to name. If you want to know for metaphysical reasons, well, maybe he really is an evil, controlling fascist. Maybe the betrayal of Lucifer created a blind spot in the cosmos, where hell now lies and God can't interfere directly. Or maybe, it's all part of the Plan.

>>22936169
Of all your writeups, I like Samael the best. He is powerful and has an agenda, but that agenda can put him on your side as well as against you. I propose all demons to be very strange indeed, especially the one's on the higher rungs.
I would, on the whole, prefer more esoteric "demon" concept, but I don't have any ideas, so disregard that.

>>22934321
You know, I can see that working, too.

Question: In this world do all gay people go to hell? Is there a large population of people who are perfectly innocent, but happen to have a different sexual preference?

>>22900106
>dantes mythology + noir
>I love you dude, that Idea is pretty kewl

>>22901505
This right here. GENIUS.

>>22937227
Gay people probably got off with just some purgatory time. Now the shellfish eaters, those bastards are burning for eternity.

>>22937227
It's a touchy subject, but I'm leaning toward no. Now, there are people thrown in there for sexual deviancy, but those are slightly more fucked up than people who happen to be gay. I feel as if I want to draw the line somewhere, and homosexuality, eating shellfish on the wrong weekday and the like seems a bit too petty.

Then again, I like the idea of having people in hell that are kind of hard to see why they would be punished so disproportionally. People who stole to feed their starving children, people who committed suicide, people who treated their parents poorly.

So you have these people mixed in with your Dahmers and your Bundies and your Gacies.

>>22902823
The part about bartering memories is intruiging, OP think about that idea.

>>22937227
Well, seeing as, canonically, all heretics and so on go there, I'd say the chance of going there being gay is not bad. Maybe it's kind of a deal breaker: If you're not quite bad enough to go to Dis, homosexuality "makes" you bad enough.

Also, I think we should relocate Dis, making it the first or second circle (and merge it with Limbo). Reasons being:
1.) You need innocents for Noir. You need the guy who didn't do anything wrong other than being raised as Hindu. If everyone is bad, the players don't have someone to fight for.
2.) You know how Dis is Circles Six to Eight? Yeah, there's just not enough potential for a fall, in my opinion. Yes, it sucks being in Dis, but it can suck so much more in the lower Circles.

>>22937449
While I'm at it, everyone in hell is Christian and/or pseudo-Christian, because I'll be damned if I'm going to drag atheismfaggotry and religious debates into the game.

Also, I'm stealing one of my favorite systems from Unhallowed Metropolis, because it makes more sense here. The corruption mechanic. Basically, how it works is you can gain corruption points to re-roll any roll once. However, go beyond your capacity and your corruption increases one step permanently. So it's a sort of Faustian bargain where you survive a little longer, but lose part of your humanity every time you do. Really cool and really fits with the setting. It was one of my favorite mechanics in UM and I love being able to use it here.

Hell, it even works really well with the death system, since you can gain corruption every single time you die and resurrect, creating an incentive to not get yourself killed. I'm even thinking it can somehow tie into the magic system (magic is fuelled by corruption) and the monetary system (sell humanity, receive cash). Fuck, I'm just overflowing with ideas!

>>22928556
Actually he piggybacked Vergil, which is 200% cooler

>>22937487
I was thinking the same thing. Actually, I was thinking Dis was the first circle, maybe the shittier parts being the second or third. Lower than that and you have demon country.

As for innocents, I think having minor sinners is enough. A pickpocket is generally considered somewhat innocent, as is a whore, a suicider and the like. I just feel as if opening the GOD HATES FAGS floodgates is a bit unnecessary in a noir setting. So I'm probably making it a non-thing. Maybe that shopkeep is gay and that's why he's here. It won't be explicitly stated at any rate.

>>22937730
Maybe if you think you should go to Hell because you're gay, that's where you end up. I'm thinking of adapting Dante's suicides damnees: they "broke the pact" by thinking they were not good enough and killing themselves, so if you think you're too gay for salvation, the First Principle says "Oh, ok then" and dumps you far down?


Idk man,this would all be easier if it were the XIII century

>>22936169
>Skeleton Hoover
shutupandtakemymoney.jpg

>>22937730
>>22937787
I think making it a non-issue is the wisest choice. Maybe that lady over there is lesbian, but you don't know why she's here, anyway, so it doesn't make a difference.

While everyone's agreeing with me, what does everyone think about fewer demons? Like, very, very few? The vast majority of people are just sinners, and there are five to six demons with specific tasks and themes. One is a lone hunter in trench coat and fedora, who seeks out magicians and diviners and if he finds them, he casts them deeper into the pit. Another is a scurrying network of spider spies, and so on. I guess what I'm saying is, less magic, more Noir.

And on another note entirely, plot hooks in Dis. What should they be? How do you do a Noir game, in hell or out of it?

>>22937939
I was thinking the same thing. A few big guys at the top, a few smaller guys every here and there, and the rest are just damned souls. Every now and then you'll have a warlock or an imp or something, but most of the time it's just people.

The more I think about it, the less I like the ideas of cambions too. Maybe one or two as a plot point and a huge fucking deal, but I don't want them to be common. However, with a corruption mechanic in place you can have damned people skirting the line between human and demon without making them outright supernatural. Billy the Butcher is the worst kind of monster a human could be, but he's still a step below even the lowliest of imps.

Demons dislike humans and will do their best to have as many middlemen between them and the damned as possible.

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The biggest mistake would be making hell's culture and demons to similar to the human world.

>>22900331
Which is a lot like the underworld of Hellas or the germanic tribes. During those days of mankind, salvation and eternal paradise did not seem possible, even in the afterlife.

>>22902286
How do items come into Dis?

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>>22937449

Interesting, but there's a ring for suicides if I'm remembering the Inferno correctly. Somewhere where the suicides hang from trees forever or something.
I like >>22937487 's idea, since what this thread has been on about is closer to Limbo than any of the nasty circles. Noir doesn't lend itself well to hard boiled detectives stuck in a pit of boiling pitch for the rest of eternity. Well, at least not for a main character.

Also, pic related is how I imagine demons in our noir Dis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVFse1LLQs

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>>22938312

>>22938407

Thanks, it's been a while since I read it.

>>22938407

looks like gays are beneath dis, actually.
I don't like this model (even if it's the legit one)
I'd like all sorts of sinners together in one place, and I definitely don't want all the players locked in burning stone coffins lol.

>>22938527
The OPs idea was that overpopulation has lead to demons slacking in the punishments. Dis could very well be a melting pot of sinners (even literally for some people), with only the ones attracting enough attention being sent to the appropriate punishments.

>>22938527

I think that's why it was proposed that Dis be relocated to Limbo. Which I think works, personally. This city strikes me as the overflow bin for hell, where the people who don't have a burning coffin reserved for them go.

>>22938527
Gays are actually about "going against God's intended order of things", so you could make that about anything, really.

>>22938591

Maybe, you know how at the beginning sinners are supposedly judged and it's decided where they are to go? What if there was so much overpopulation that they had to stop judging and just open the gates and push people in, and so DIs - being a city, and about in the center, maybe lower - has the most people. People from above who have been pushed down or even went down farther to escape the less populated and htusly more dangerous regions above. Also, people who have been in hell for a LONG fucking time. 6th circle could still work.

>>22938527
I'd say you can't go wrong with the occasional coffin of burning stone. (This could even be what happens to people who are "killed". Just imagine it: the hardboiled private eye enters the dames hotel room, only to find a coffin of burning basalt lying on the bed.)

Ok, how about this: Dis is actually very a strange mix of Limbo and the "canonical" sixth, seventh and eighth circles. We have all kinds of minor criminals "naturally" going there. Additionally, all sinners go through Dis. If you're a mass murderer, you are led through the city (maybe to the Pit in the middle?), and if you know the right people, you can make your escort vanish. Maybe the escorts are even normal damned, who have watch duty and ensure that the serious criminals go to the lower circles, where they belong, at least most of the time. This solves the issue of there being some really bad guys, but the city being lawful enough to have nice Noir adventures.

>>22938628

The line about gays is right next to the one about masturbation.
The reason either is in there, is because at the time there were few Christians and adding that shit in was supposed to encourage reproduction.

We're lucky you know. We're here, in the City. The demons and the devils and all that lot have all acclimated to us. See, it wasn't always like this. Dis wasn't always this nice. You're in hell. Right here, right now, this is the worst place in the universe. The fact that there may have been a couple of cultural shifts over the centuries has nothing to do with it. We get away with a whole lot more than we should. Eternal torment, remember? Down there, on the lower circles...

The inferno is still burning, and you'd be good to remember. Don't get it in your head that it's all sunshine and rainbows here either. See, just because the natives don't have the biggest presence around here doesn't mean one single thing has changed around here. I mean, it has obviously, but the official story is that Dis is still fire and brimstone all the time. The boys down below, they're not stupid. They know exactly what's going on up here, but they don't care. So the fuckups who're in charge of the first circle have made a mess of things, so what? They've got more important things to do. So what you need to do, the biggest thing anyone and everyone needs to keep on their minds, is to make sure we don't become a problem worth dealing with.

>>22938721
The freaks up here? We can handle them. Nobody setting the place up ever really expected bullets after all, and they're plenty of stuff to make gunpowder. The little failures of hellspawn who are in charge can be shot up just as good as anyone else, and we've got a thousand of us to their one. By any account, we could seize the place. Overthrow hell, you know? Maybe set us up our own private paradise. That's never going to happen, and you need to get the thought out of your head right now.

Imps and ghouls can be shot to bits, and the weirder things too. Not the others. If we ever become important enough to bother with, all the misshapen things from your nightmares are going to pour up out of that pit and you're going to remember quite clearly that you're in the pits of fucking hell. They'll put the fear of Satan into you, and there's not one thing that any of our cute little toys can do to stop it. You'll have the muscles in your leg melted off so you can't run, have your ribs cut apart and flayed open, and be crucified facing the pit with your eyelids ripped off so you can never move your gaze from what you've been spared from. You'll have your bones torn out and your tendons tied to strings so some devil can use you as a marionette. You'll have your lips cut into ribbons and peeled off, your teeth shattered, and your mouth filled with molten lead that runs down your throat until your body's nothing but flesh on top of metal. Maybe if you're lucky you'll just get eaten by some nameless horror, and spend eternity being digested.

Don't fuck with the 'quo kid. We've got it good up here.

>>22938675
>>22938667

I think it's important that it's deep enough for there to be historically evil people hanging about. Pontius Pilate or Cassius would be great BBEGs.

>>22938737
How do guns make their way to Dis?

>>22903265
Forget his failed rebellion, what about the Harrowing of Hell?
That One came down here, smote demons left and right, and led a majority of the souls down here out to Paradise. Lucifer's not just mad, he's scared. If enough of the damned cry out to Christ, will he listen? Will he come back?

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>>22938667

Hmm, I actually rather like that.
This thread is still going places.

>>22936519
Know what's on the other side of the Gate?
Know what's all those loonies are waiting for, counting their feathers and waiting for a way out?
Know what the best case out of all of this is, if Hell can be escaped and redemption possible?

You'll kneel at the feet of the big man's old boss, and you'll sing. You'll sing, and kneel, and grovel and pray forever. You didn't think it was a party up there did you? You didn't think Paradise was an endless party, or there was some kind of bizzaro-Cordia where the whores are pretty and the sex is all passion and beauty?

There's a reason the top dog rebelled you know.

He was tired of being a cheerleader.

>>22938773

With all the people in hell, I'm sure more than a few know how to make guns. With all the sulfur, and brimstone, and other materials in hell gunpowder is no rarity. As for metal? Tons of fucking metal. All sorts of shit is made of iron and steel in hell, obviously. It's hell.
Putting it together would eventually become common knowledge.

>>22936519
How is God evil for constructing a prison and keeping people from doing much more harm than they're doing now by putting them there?

>>22938284
>>22938773
I'd say there are quite a few natural resources in Dis, and people who knew how to build things sin as bad as everyone else. My first thought are small craftshops, with a foreman and one or two assistants, maybe a few small factories with rudimentary assembly lines, because of the chaotic nature of the place.

>>22938737
>>22938721
OP here. You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

>>22938764
I feel kind of iffy about that. While I certainly like the idea on some level, the focus of the game can easily shift to a silly Night at the Museum place if you overdo it.

>>22938773
Built, shaped, summoned, whatever you'd call the process. Just like are buildings in hell, there are factories. I'm thinking Belphegor controls most of it, but there are various shops doing custom jobs.

>>22938698
If all you needed was to have a kid to make another Christian, then there would be no edgy atheist teenagers breaking away from their Christian sheeple parents.

>>22938773
People build them. With as volcanic as Hell is there's plenty of ingredients for gunpowder, and from there it's just a matter of how many gunsmiths there are among the damned.

All you really need is metal and heat after all, and Hell has quite a bit of both.

>>22900106
>No religion
Good luck in a city filled with every heresiarch and demagogue in history.
>some whackjobs think finding Jesus will help them.
The whole point of hell is that it is eternal self-exile from God. Finding Jesus really would help them.

>>22938982
>The whole point of hell is that it is eternal self-exile from God. Finding Jesus really would help them.
This. It's just that they don't want to because their own pride keeps them from asking forgiveness.
And so they don't.

>>22938982
The ones who openly worship are swiftly dealt with. Nothing like the old Prometheus treatment to make people realize that God has no place in hell.

>>22900500
Call the part of town filled with serial killers after a sin they all share, or something ironic to show the futility or self-defeating nature of their ways, or name it Detroit.

>>22938667

I like this.
Eventually so many people were in Dis that it became one of a few 'safe' zones. It's only safe because there are SO many sinners in one place that punishing them is too much of a chore. I mean, nowhere it truly 'safe'. So, now that people know of Dis, guys from the bottom are ALWAYS trying to claw their way up, get lost in the crowd, and do something else really fucked up (Crime lord rolls into town, stories circulate of him crawling right out of Lucy's rectum and up to the sixth district using his own entrails as rope). People from above would normally never go deeper of their own accord, but some power through the first 5 rings in hope of reaching Dis where they can [ut their heads down and try to adjust.
Of course there will be some demon border control going on, so travel between rings isn't impossible but on the off chance a demon spots you, well.. off to the burning coffin.

Nothing wrong with a "Few are Chosen" thing. Gay people are damned, yes, but so is anyone who's had sexual thoughts about anyone but their spouse. Only a small handfull of the dead are brought to paradise, and God alone knows why He chose them, for all are sinners and none deserve paradise.

>>22938764

Newer historical figures, maybe. Cassius is being chewed by Lucifer for eternity. It's a bit edgy and politically incorrect, but you could say that Hell started overflowing around World War 2. You could draw on some wickedness there.

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>>22939050

>or name it Detroit

>>22939016
>>22938982
>Finding Jesus really would help them
You're not really clear on this whole "hell" thing are you? There's no way out. Abandon all hope. You really think the wingers at the Gate are going to let you out? You're feather-keepers aren't you? Think you save up enough salvation, they'll let you stroll up all the way to Paradise. Or maybe you're some other kind of crazy, and think that this whole mess is just one big final exam on whether or not the worthy can hold onto their faith.

I've got news for you. It's all bunk. It's all garbage. You're here because upstairs doesn't want you. You're out, it's all over, you failed the exam and there's no extra credit. I run into morons like you from time to time, thinking you're in purgatory and all you need to do is pray hard enough and you'll get let out.

This ain't the big P. There's no mountain you're climbing, the test is over and the papers have been collected. You failed. You're here, you'll always be here, and it doesn't matter what you do.

The only reason the gate is even here is to keep idiots like you hoping. You realize what's going on, you lose your last bit of hope, and the torture ain't so bad. All you're doing with this delusional crap is making it all worse on yourselves.

>>22938764
I don't actually see why Pontius Pilate would be a BBEG. He was a pretty standard (effective, even) Roman governor who just happened to kill the son of God. He's certainly in Hell, but I'm not sure he would revel in the evil of it.

>>22939050

I want the area with all the serial killers and ritualistic murderers and REALLY scary people to be called 'Death Vegas' if I ever run this setting. Because of these monster's willingness to do really dark work, and often their indifference to pain or suffering or consequences, they'd be pretty successful in hell. They'd probably have a lot of feathers but they wouldn't be interested in going up. Most of them consider hell a paradise, and do more torturing and punishing than some demons even pull off - they love being in a place where they can... be themselves...
Because of the disposable income, I imagine they'd invest in nicer houses so the whole area would look like an upper middle class suburban neighborhood.

>>22939041
I don't think you understand how Christian Cosmology works. Hell = Absence of God. Salvation = the minions of hell can't touch you. Maybe the demons could be alerted to that someone is trying to attain salvation, and they try to coerce you, tempt you, deceive you, set you up for another fall.

Also keep in mind that demons are just fallen angels, and that they are as much prisoners as you are. You also might want to emphasize the Hell is other people aspect and people make their own hell aspect. If you read Dante's Inferno, it's not so much demons going to town on people as everybody going to town on everybody, and people fucking themselves over with their own self-defeating actions/cycles.

Might I suggest treating Salvation like Golconda from VTM and VTR. Where it's possible but really freaking hard, and it requires overcoming your very nature to achieve it.

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I wouldn't mind if a Redeemer-esque character is running around.

>>22939155

Being punished for so long can change a man. I mean, if he's in the circle of treachery... let's make him treacherous.

>>22939148
Well, there *is* a precedent. Vergil made the trip twice, and he's technically damned. Cato was also chosen to act as the warden of Purgatory, with the understanding that when Purgatory closes down, he will be allowed to move up the ranks.

Alternatively, there's also the chance of scoring some job with the heinous powers, like that guy who's puppeteering the body of a monk who's so evil, his soul is already in Hell while his body is still acting up upstairs.

>>22939093
>It's only safe because there are SO many sinners in one place that punishing them is too much of a chore.
That's more or less the idea. Limited resources means you need to prioritize. You could go after the chronic masturbator, or you could focus on Guy Fawkes. Unless you cause enough of a ruckus to force intervention to make an example out of you, you're relatively safe. Sure, there are still drive-by punishments and demons being cruel to random people for the sake of it, but the people upstairs (well, downstairs to be more exact) just don't give a fuck as long as people still fear hell. Because even demons fear non-existence, and there's reason to believe Big G might decide to take action if they don't do their task. Their job is to punish sinners. They have an eternity to do it. Eventually they'll get to them all.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking maybe there's a waiting list. A ranking of where you are in the grand order of things. It creates an additional sense of tension. Sure, maybe you're #3,561,125 but you can see names above you disappear in a steady stream. Your name will be at the top of the list one day.

>>22939211
Why? Do you really want Pontius Pilate as a BBEG? I think a suffering, jaded Pilate is much more fitting in a noir setting. This doesn't seem adventuresome or black and white as a moral setting. Shit, no one can top Pilate's street cred in hell, but that doesn't mean he wants to be there.

>>22939262
Maybe he's even acting as a pacifier figure of sorts. Like, you've got something you want to settle, Pilate's words carry a heavy weight. This guy condemned the son of God, you don't get much more Law&Order than that.

>>22939262

Calm down nigga
I'm just brainstorming for what would make a memorable BBEG in hell, and what would motivate someone at the BBEG level. Drugs, money, power - that's more or less meaningless. I think agent of chaos route, or maybe someone who will do ANYTHING for salvation - even city scale genocide.
idunno
It can't be just a random thug, yaknow? I also don't want a demon BBEG. I want it to be another damned soul

>>22939217
>>22939203
I think we should try to define about which hell exactly we are talking. Dante's Inferno? Christian Hell? Something in between? Or a creative reinterpretation of both, with a good dash of Prohibition and dames.

>>22939217
Virgil was in limbo, though. He wasn't damned proper.

>>22939206
You get the occasional fighter. Some poor sod who thinks he's going to bring justice to the damned. Usually crazy, some think they're angels or saved souls sent to punish us all.

They can make a good job of it too. There's been a few that the demons are scared of. The real trick is to go big enough that you're accomplishing something, but small enough that you're not accomplishing anything at all.

Kill to few and why are you bothering? Kill too many and you're in for an unpleasant reminder of where you are. I know for a fact that some lord named Abagor keeps a collection of first circlers who got too upity down on one of the lower levels. His chef cuts bits and pieces off of them to make hors d'oeuvres for Abagor's parties.

>>22939318
There are innumerable figures from history you could use as a BBEG in any specific game. You could come up with a plot where you have to stop Pontius Pilate from killing the actual devil as a means of repentence because either 1) it's gonna fail and Satan's gonna get really mad and fuck up the vague stasis you've got going in hell 2) it's going to succeed and God's just gonna destroy everything.

Or you could use like, Nero, who wants to reach limits of depravity and evil even demons can't aspire to, for a more action-y game where at one point your noir-ish agent will be in a coliseum with a demon opposite them.

>>22939338
A big part of Vergil's story arc (forgive me the term) is that although he's got a sweeter deal then most, everyone in Limbo is still miserable because they know they can't see God. They're jealous of the righteous Jews that were saved at the Harrowing of Hell, and they're bored as fuck. Vergil actually gets street cred because he's travelled through Hell twice. And, last but not least, when Vergil meets Cato, Cato gets a good stab at Vergil's pride for being another of the damned, while Cato has been chosen for his exceptional merits.

(Vergil tries to retort with something about Cato's wife, but Cato gives zero fucks)

>>22939203
Heh heh heh. What makes you think you've got salvation? I don't mean the feathers either, what's gotten into your poor fool head to make you think you're eligible for protection from upstairs?

I won't say his name, but he doesn't come down here. His light doesn't shine, that's the whole bloody point. We're cut off, every one of us, and there's nothing between you and the brimstone but guns, guile, and gumption.

Welcome to hell.

>>22939203
Actually, it's more that I'm wilfully ignoring Christian Cosmology, since it interferes with the setting and tends to be confusing as shit. Just ask a Coptic and a Jehovah's Witness.

Infernoir is about as accurate a depiction of Christianity as the Dante's Inferno vidya. It's a noir setting with a few trappings from Christian mythology. So religion is banished because it fits the mood I'm going for. Sure, there might be a legend of someone who earned forgiveness and ascended to heaven, but you're pretty much fucked. Having religious people around kind of fucks the theme of the game, as it represents hope.

>>22939487
1. This setting could be real fuckin neato, done right.
2. I'd just play a white knighting paladin. Sorry, but thats my favorite thing to be in grimdark settings.

>>22939568
That's fine, just expect to end up like Jake in Chinatown.

>>22939487
On the other hand, religious people being around could make for really cool stories. Everyone knows religion won't help you here, but there are some nutcases who keep praying, maybe because they think it really helps, maybe because they're accustomed going through the motions. (Oh, this could be cool: There are people praying, maybe even holding masses or the equivalent, but neither Big G nor the demons care. Why? Because they're just doing it to make themselves feel better. They don't believe in God, or Ganesha, or Isis, they believe in praying. Not only useless, it's even sinful and self-destructive.)

>>22939568
The White Knight is a solid noir character. You'll just need a layer of grittiness on top. After all, you did something to earn your place in Dis. Think Nicholson's character from Chinatown or the like.

>>22939596
What crueler way of dealing punishment than by giving them hope and then ripping it away when you can, only to let them build it back up to start the process all over again.

>>22939640
Naw man, I love the utterly non-gritty, completely clean White Knight in Hell concept. Its neat.
>Kamina and Don Quixote in Hell.
>Best story ever.

>>22939667
Okay, then you do introduce a conflict. You can understand how some types of characters don't work in some settings, right? If you pick a position, stick with it, and die and then do it over and over, refuse to adjust your character to any stimulus, do you think you're roleplaying well in a game all about moral questions and survival in hell?

>>22939568
Maybe I'm the only one here, but I don't see this setting as grimdark. It's not nice, yes, it's Noir. Maybe you can never escape hell, and you can probably never change it in a way that matters to a lot of people. Ans this is the interesting thing: Why do you do good? There's no approval from on high, there might not be any authority at all beyond a strange consensus to lay low and mind your own business or be prepared when the mob comes. It lends itself very well to small victories, which are much more meaningful because of why they are won: Because your character thinks that it's the right thing.

>>22939696
Well, yeah. That's sort of a major component of noir.

>>22939596
Because I have been a GM long enough to know you will end up with some chucklehead who creates father Anderson from Hellsing. Or someone who insists he genuinely prays to God, despite the fact he couldn't, because if he did he wouldn't be damned in the first place.

I also find that having religious people need to be secretive about it makes for more interesting roleplaying opportunities. Maybe there's a Christian Anne Frank hiding a crucifix in the cellar of an abandoned building in the ghetto?

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>>22939696
This picture never ceases to be useful to me.
>>22939694
They may not "work" in some settings, but thats only because stories are usually about people who "fit" certain stories. In real life, you DO have people who are kind of weird or outsiderey. Now obviously if the whole party was bent on doing a certain type of game, I'd relent and make a more fitting character. But as a story concept, I love taking the darkest, most hellish universes, and playing as noblebright as possible. I love looking an entire nightmarish reality (Like the Imperium), in the eye and saying "No. You move"

>>22939744
It's not that unusual. Roleplaying is a form of power fantasy. But it totally doesn't fit this game.

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>>22939712
>MFW all my divine classes take some degree of inspiration from Anderson.

>>22939667
I knew a man in this city, we met in a speakeasy. We were talking about how we both got here. Me? Hedonist, atheist, come on, laugh it out, and generally not a good person. Decent, but not good.

Him? He was a straight as an arrow, gave to the needy, helped the helpless, and did all he could to improve the lives of others. Why was he here you ask? Because he refused to bend. He had his own laws and codes, and nothing else. He didn't follow God because he didn't like him. That's it, refusing to follow God.

But that will of steel has helped him out down here, this place is run by fear, and the big boys patrolling around this city aren't that big, well, not compared to some other the things in the Pit.

I saw that man punch a fiend in the face for attacking some woman, sure, he screamed. Oh did he scream, the fiend made sure of it. But the look of surprise on its face when that fist collided.

Beautiful.

I think he's still around, or he's been deported lower. Say hi for me if you see him.

>>22939667
But see, that's like making a Judeo-Christian pacifist in Dark Heresy. You need to make some sort of compromise to fit the theme of the game occasionally. Kamina would be fucked in hell. He'd scream nonsense about manliness, only to get gangraped by demons and tortured publicly as a warning.

See, that's how noir works. The world is fucked, and you need to be smart. Even the good guys are slightly grey, because if you play by the rulebook, you won't last one minute.

You can still be a genuinely good guy, just a smart one.

>>22939808
See thats the thing, not always. Its possible to be so horribly gloriously incandescent, that you fuck completely screw with the grimdark. The realm literally doesn't know what to fucking do with you.

I mean really, do any of you? Suppose you have a very charismatic, smart individual arrive in Hell, and decide "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah no."

This is how revolutions happen bro. Could be a neat idea for a campaign in this setting.

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>>22939795
>Clint Eastwood in hell

Has potential.

>>22939855
>See thats the thing, not always. Its possible to be so horribly gloriously incandescent, that you fuck completely screw with the grimdark.
You're having your power fantasy get in the way of the game. In TTGL, the story and its themes are different and Kamina absolutely works. Kamina doesn't work in The Maltese Falcon, or Chinatown, because those are different sorts of things.

I wouldn't play this with you, because you sound like an asshole.

>>22939581
Or he could be Ip Man in Ip Man 2 (Japanese occupation of China). Take your pick.

>>22939855
Personally I prefer characters with some depth to them. Not to say that LOLEDGY = depth, but rather that a character so set in his ways and inflexible tends to stall plots. I like to say that you shouldn't look for motivations why your character wouldn't do something, but rather why he would.

That aside, there's even a mechanic in the game capitalizing on this. Sure, you can be a good guy, but eventually you're likely to pick up some corruption. So maybe you eventually start to see that most people don't deserve salvation?

>>22939944
Roleplaying is about making a story, not telling a story. Like I said, if the whole party wanted to make a certain type of story, I'd deal. I could easily roleplay someone who ranged from evil to mildly unpleasant, to just somewhat moralistic, or even someone who's motivations had nothing to do with ethics.

But if the party was just wanting to do a story in this setting, with pretty much (Lets make realistic characters for the setting, and just see what happens)? I'd probably go for a white knight, simply because there is so much room for conflict or disagreement there. I might die under a hellish overpass, unremembered and unburied, but if the party is cool with the story we're making together, and if that story is good, then who really cares?

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>>22938867

Because FUCK YOU DAD, I'M AN ATHEIST! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT?

Pic oh-so-related.

>>22938284
Obviously when people die they bring the shadow of whatever it is they were buried with. This makes new arrivals prime targets for mugging. The rarest commodity a new soul can bring is a bite of food, trapped in their mouths.

>>22940151
Oh shit that's great. You could have an entire noir game about safeguarding some new arrival, unknown, who's managed to come into hell with a scrap or maybe just the idea of a scrap of hope.

>>22939808
> only to get gangraped by demons and tortured publicly as a warning.
And then go right back to crusading. That's how a paladin can exist in hell: by simply not caring about the consequences. Refusing to bend will break you. So, he is broken. Broken, beaten, tortured. But if he ever is released, or escapes, he will go right back to holding the line.

It's not particularly smart. He could get much more accomplished by massaging his morals a bit and avoiding trouble so he could work greater good over the long term. He doesn't care. He's completely focused on the short term, and he will do the greatest possible good right now. Hell can go to hell.

In its own way, it is grimdark. The utter futility of it, and the illogic of getting ten dollars today rather than five dollars every day for a week. It doesn't go against the setting at all, it just spits in the setting's face and tells it: "you move."

Then he's publicly disemboweled as an example to others.

>>22940105
You can disapprove of something that's commonly accepted without being edgy.

>>22940193
Its pefectly logical. Comprising sows the seeds of your own downfall. It doesn't do any Good fighting Evil if you have to become Evil to do it. You've just substituted one monster for another, and the fact that you're a "lesser monster" is not really good enough news to change it.

A real Paladin doesn't break., he doesn't bend. He just is covered with dozens of scars from previous disembowelments, and his whole body looks like its barely put together. But still he moves on, not giving one fuck.

>>22938867
Are you fucking retarded?

Have you fucking read the bible? HAVE YOU FUCKING STUDIED THE ETHICS OF GOD'S SO-CALLED DIVINE ACTIONS?

If you would, you'd say "God is Hitler looking down at us jerk off... and he's waiting for all of us to die."

Bronze Age warrior-demons from desert tribe legends make VERY SHITTY loving and caring Gods.

>>22940189
It'd have to be specific though.
>new arrival gets hounded the entire campaign
>PC and NPC alike speculate as to what the man could be hoping so fervently for
>someone much further down in the Lowerarchy makes a house call
>shit gets real
>opens the package
>"what could possibly be of such importance that you would safeguard your hope for it so dearly?"
>tears off shoddy wrapping paper
>it's a copy of Half-Life 3

>>22940275
>Satan is revealed to be Gabe Newell
>Now so fat a good portion of the campaign is journeying for months across his enormous body

>>22940193
Now, the question becomes: How could a man so seemingly good end up in hell?

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>>22902743
I would advise against this. I've read the concept up before in changeling, and one of the things stat struck me was "Well, you only have a limit on your body parts. What the fuck can you do when you run out? how can you put a value on something that is literally irreplaceable". I dunno. Selling a small amount of your innocence however, as in the corruption mechanic listed on
>>22937627
Would allow for the players to see a literal change in their characters. unless the selling parts of you is just the fluff behind the corruption falling. I'd be good with that too.

>>22937220
The "esoteric" demons listed here would work quite nicely I would think. like, I was imagining for somehting I was gonna do having surgat - he who opens all locks- as some crazy almost dragony figure. barely concious of much other than his purpose. how does one make a deal with him? he does have wants. Those wants are keys. passwords, physical keys, keycards, all are fine. Only the really powerful demons want souls. He just accumulates them, living in a hoard of access.

>>22940048
One game in . How to destroy any credibility your chaacter has, becuase you know, demons are dicks.
>your characters rallying people
>Obvious demon comes up to the crowd and sees you there. shouts "excellent work! I'll be back in a couple hours, but keep gathering them!"
>What do?

>>22940259
I'd love to see some examples, considering I've been reading it every other day for 12 years.

>>22940259
Old testament god is kind of hard love, but I wouldn't call him evil.

new testament god is pretty darn lovey dovey.

Let's not turn this into a religion debate though? This is more about Dante's inferno then anything to do with the bible

>>22940306
What happens with the bet and him ruining some random guy's life to test his faith is pretty fucking evil.

>>22940259
Not that Anon, but have YOU read the bible? (I have).

The whole logic of Hell is that its a prison for immortal, evil beings, to keep them from doing more evil to others.

And its another Christian idea that everyone is Evil to some degree, and that without repentance and the gospel, doomed to continue getting worse. So even a "good person" now, deprived of the Gospel, would continue down the slippery slope so that in 1000 years or so, they'd be evil. So they get sent to the prison as well, as a lost cause.

Its like you don't even Theology at all......

>>22940193
How exactly does one go back to crusading when you're tied to an upside-down cross with your own intestines for the rest of eternity? Sounds like a pretty shitty character to boot. It's essentially saying you refuse to play the game because the setting doesn't cater to you. Not to mention it's a horribly one-dimensional and unrealistic character.

>>22940306
The New Testament God SEEMS lovey dovey, because that's what Paul the fucking Roman SELLOUT wanted the Roman people to think.

He just dropped all the New Testament books that were violent or anarchistic, anti-Roman, whatever, and just turned Jesus' philosophy into this mental cancer to become popular among the Romans.

>>22940325
>Not that Anon, but have YOU read the bible? (I have).

>The whole logic of Hell is that its a prison for immortal, evil beings, to keep them from doing more evil to others.

Obviously, you've never READ the Bible, because Hell is never mentioned in the Bible.

ANYWHERE. Except for some faggot translations that are even FURTHER from the actual message of Jesus than Paul's babbering.

>>22940300
Well there is the harrowing of hell, where jesus leads those who ended up in the abyss but could still be saved out of the inferno. Righteous pagans and stuff like that

>>22940301
Easy. Only a fucking retard would gather a crowd in public, in Hell. Read the second part of that. I said someone who was smart, AND charismatic.

Expect tons of hidden "cults" of Lawful Goodness, and "cells" of do-gooders. Lawful Good is not Lawful Stupid, and I'd be more like a LG Kira, then a "LOLJUSTICE" character.

Start assassinating major demons, slowly but unofficially start creating "safe zones" of Dis, start promoting moral righteousness through "evangelists" that work the streets, tales of martyrism combined with my plans giving people hope, and what do you have? Revolution. Reform. Modification.

>>22940306
Whats a bit of genocide between friends?

>>22940325
>Worse
Worse doesn't matter. They're just not good enough.

>>22940323
He knew Job was going to win him the bet, because he knew Job wouldn't turn his back on him like a scrub.
And then God gave him a new family and more wealth than he'd ever had before (which was already a lot.

>>22940368
>the actual message of Jesus
This is so fucking retarded I don't know where to begin. But let's not derail the thread further.

Since someone already pointed out that the Hell isn't mentioned anywhere in the Hebrew or Greek texts that formed the basis of the Old and New Testament... shouldn't we separate Hell from the Bible bullshit?

Just go full on Hell, with all Underworlds of the world in one...

>>22940368
Actually Hell is mentioned several times, sometimes by name, sometimes as "Sheol, the Pit, the Abyss, Gehanna, etc"

The concept, of an eternal fire pit is mentioned throughout scripture, and codified in the tale of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

>>22940368
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A41&version=NASB

You sure?

There's some in Revelations too.

>>22940344
Uh huh...ok. Can we stop debating religion and get back to the setting?

>>22940413
Shut up shithead.

You actually thought that Hell was mentioned somewhere in OT or NT.

You already lost any kind of authority on the subject of theology, cocksucker.

>>22940412
>A new family
I GUESS THOSE PEOPLE WHO DIED FOR THE SAKE OF A SILLY TEST DIDN'T MATTER AFTER ALL.

>>22940384
You do realize any half way decent GM is going to have your character either 1) As a flayed skin cloak on some Daemon Pimps ass for eternity or 2) Will let you continue for just long enough-before Lucifer literally crushes you with his finger, before flicking you into one of the boiling shit seas, for ever more?

>>22940478
>World where people are immortal.
>Death being a thing.

Go home Anon, you're drunk.

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>>22940421
Hell is never mentioned by name.

Sheol and Ge Hinom basically are Jewish for garbage/corpse dump.

Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna are Greek loanwords for ultimate demise.

And after than cocksucking Christians just started replacing the words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna with Hell.

>>22940427
I'm fucking sure because I've written a paper on this on UNI, you fucking cocksucker.

>New American Standard Bible

I fucking hate christians.
>oh man look at this marvelous history of bending language and text you guys have
>HELL IS IN DA BIBLE
>fuck you!

Another thread ruined by touchy religious people and athiests.This is the reason why we can't have nice things.

>>22940574
>another thread saved by a theology student that actually knows what the fuck he's talking about

>>22940496
Actually, a good GM is supposed to give realistic consequences for actions. So forcing unrealistic death on me just because, is a major That DM move.

A decent GM would have literally EVERYTHING trying to find and kill me, killing my agents, storming my compounds, slaying and skinning my men, engaging in propaganda wars, etc.

With a decent GM, it may lead to my death. Or it may lead to several near escapes, or a massive game of resource chess and silent war, or anything else.

A good GM gives realistic consequences, he doesn't give "LOL I HATE YOU" consequences. I've had a player in a game I DM'd just run around killing people in a small village while they were in bed, knifing the poor commoners' throats and stealing their stuff. Now this was bullshit. But did I just kill him? Fuck no, because he passed all his stealth checks, watched his back, and when a dog saw him he used Sleep on it, cast Burning Hands on the village, and ran the fuck off. And when I rolled perception to see if anyone saw him getting away, no one did.

So he got away with burning a whole village down, even though he was an obvious faggot. Because mah realism. And I honestly hope you dont' have to put up with DMs as shit-tier as you just described.

>>22940569
>I'm fucking sure because I've written a paper on this on UNI, you fucking cocksucker.
Stop pretending a university education is something amazing.

>>22940569
No, but the concept is the same, even if the word isn't. Sheol is sometimes just used to mean, being dead, and the words have some various definitions, and could be more precise in translation. But the CONCEPT of Hell is in the bible. Lazarus and the Rich man, Revelation, etc.

>>22940569
>The place of Eternal Fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.
>Not Hell

What the fuck is that, then?
Pompeii?

And I'm an atheist, pull your head out of your ass.

>>22940616
Stop pretending that the Bible is some kind of word of God.

It's translated and translated, and translated, and translated, and translated...

Hell, you can't even read an English bible from 1400.

How the fuck would YOU know what they meant 3000 years ago with the text?

Exactly, you fucking cocksucker. That's why people study theology and ancient texts. So we can know what the text meant 3000 years ago. Instead of what the text meant in 1769.

>>22940603
Perhaps you don't /get/ hell. Let's leave it at that shall we?

>>22940600
>implying theology has fuck all to do with the setting

>>22940603
>Realism
>One-dimensional bullshit character
Pick one.

>>22940662
What else could a "Place of eternal fire made for the Devil" possibly fucking mean?

>>22940662
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx

Here's most of the Bible, from around 400 AD. Its the same as the modern text. Go fuck yourself.

>>22940633
The concept of Hell was created by the Church Fathers. It doesn't COME from the Bible.

The Bible just has "You live. You die. One day God will resurrect the cool people and destroy the Earth."

>>22940616
Look at me! I failed my university course, so I'm gonna pretend that it really isn't anything good!

>>22940696
Because Jesus wrote the Bible in 400 AD right?

RIGHT?

Fuck, you're fucking dumb.

>>22940672
>Good guys are by default one-dimensional.

You don't into literature do you?

>>22940603
You forget-the daemons are generally out of your league. They are here-TO MAKE YOU SUFFER.
You can go fight Abbadon, sure. Just don't cry like a babby when he uses your soul as an eternal jizz rag.
You also forget that, as has been established, do goodering is pretty much punished on sight here.
Again, Satan himself can pretty much 1HKO you-cause he'll be an unstated YOU LOSE.

And finally, what the cunting fuck is this PARAGON OF JUSTICE! doing in Hell anyway.
You sound like That Guy.

>>22940688
Where does "place of eternal fire" imply that those who burn in it live forever?

>>22940711
>Jesus
>Writing shit

The fucker died mid end.

>theology student hitting the shit out of Jesus cock suckers

Lemme put on my Darwin cap and get the popcorn, I love this shit.

>>22940711
If it didn't change in the last 1600 years, which included the god damn Dark Ages, and if we have people quoting it from the centuries before that, and we have manuscripts (Including the dead sea scrolls) from before that, then something tells me the book hasn't changed in a game of telephone like you're saying.

>>22940718
41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not [e]take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Right there.

You're talking out of your ass.

>>22940718
Wow, smart people. I didn't expect that happening.

People who actually UNDERSTAND what the ancient Jews and early Christians believed.

>>22940747
>quotes a bible text
>doesn't mention the page or the book OR THE TRANSLATION

>typical dumbshit christian shit kid

Why don't you go have gay sex or some shit?

>>22940574
As another anon here would say: There's still hope. Go strong!

>>22940301
I really like this demon list. Maybe we could every demon also have a specific method of torture, because demons. Also, not all demons are your friends. You mentioned Surgat: If you don't have keys, or maybe can find something that would be cool to unlock, he sees you as a way to get keys, or as a nuisance. Of course, the worst thing he does is making your door being unlocked all the time, and how bad can that be?

I also agree with you on the subject of selling memories. It just seems more fae-ish than demon-ish.

>>22940714
Obviously. They'd kick my ass in combat. The point is, that a good game could be played, based on the concept of someone trying to change the place from behind the scenes. The whole point I was making, was that a good game could be had, in this setting, by introducing a character who's whole bend was entirely against the powers that be in the setting. And quite simple, maybe he's a pagan.

>>22900106
Yeah, OP? I'd say, record everything good from this thread, let it cool down, note down anything good in the mean time and come back in about a week or so. the shit storm of the century has come.

Really nice setting though

>>22940773
Once more, kiddo, I'm an atheist.

I've linked you to the part that comes from, and you had a go at that.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25&version=NASB

BUT HERE YOU GO.

>>22940712
Good guys who only do good for the sake of doing good and never do anything else are. You've shown a complete and utter unwillingness to add the slightest bit of depth to your character, it's all moral high ground all the time. You've essentially created Richard Rahl, only with white knighting instead of objectivism.

>>22940747
>he doesn't know that the Jews stole the idea of an immortal soul from the Zoroastrianists.

>>22940798
"Depth" does not equal comprise. You can have a totally morally uncompromising character, who isn't one-dimensional.
>Superman
>Rorschach (Not LG but still)
>Etc

You just focus on the conflict between the character and the verse, and between his conflict or thoughts on his sacrifices, or his temptation to be more consequentialist or something.

>>22940444
>You already lost any kind of authority on the subject of theology
OTOH, you finished off your post with 'cocksucker'.

>>22940794
I give you one advice.

Because you're atheist, you might not have noticed it yet...

BUT EVERY TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE IS DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER

THEY ALL HAVE AN AGENDA THEY WANT TO TEACH YOU

THAT'S HOW RELIGIOUS BOOKS ARE WRITTEN

YOU NEED TO READ AROUND THAT
AND FIND OUT WHAT THE HISTORICAL CORE IS OF THE TEXT

WHAT DID THE BOOK SAY

INSTEAD OF WHAT DOES THE BOOK SAY

>>22940786
So essentially-you want to bend the story round your character?
Classic That Guy

>>22940852
>>22940736
>>22940696
The book(s) haven't changed though.

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>>22940848
>giving a shit about cursewords

babbyshit

>>22940788
Not OP, but you know what? I think I'll do this. Will be biased, but what the hell.

>>22940863
>The book(s) haven't changed though.

Hahahahahah.

>>22940707
Actually, I have two degrees. That's why I know it's not a big deal. Writing UNI in all caps just makes you look like a fucking moron who went to some clown college so he could lord over his inbred friends that he got him some edyukayshun.

>>22940782
It's often said that knowing the name of a demon gives you power over it. Do you think that applies here?

>>22940852
Well no shit. But to deny that Hell is mentioned in the Bible, even when presented with links that say otherwise.

That's a piss take.

>>22940863
>The book(s) haven't changed though.
Have you even paid attention to how many Christian sub-sects there are? THEY ALL HAVE THEIR OWN BOOK MAN!

>>22940858
See
>>22939744
I wasn't saying, that if I played this setting, with a DM who had a planned story, I'd white-knight. I was merely claiming, that such a character could be used in this setting, without breaking it, and that a story could be made based on that.

>>22940894
>>22940877
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/

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>>22940863

>>22940846
>Rorschach
>Uncompromising
Did you miss the entire part that he and Nite-Owl worked as a team because of compromises? Or the part where he was intended to be hypocritical?

As for Superman, he's pretty flexible. After all, he did kill Doomsday and has been shown multiple times to be willing to at least consider putting the greater good over his own convictions. Kingdom Come and Red Son are perfect examples.

>>22940892
Just because some fucking faggot translator changed the word Gehenna or Tartarus into Hell, doesn't make Hell something that is mentioned in the BIBLE you dense motherfucking cunt!

WE HAVE THE HEBREW TEXTS THE ORIGINALS

WE CAN TRANSLATE THE BIBLE FROM ANCIENT HEBREW STRAIGHT TO ENGLISH

AND YOU GET A BIBLE FROM OT TO NT WITHOUT HELL ANYWHERE.

There, shit ain't hard now is it?

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>>22940846
>superman
>not one dimensional

The immortal soul is something the Jews stole from the Zoroastrians. And Hell is something the Christians stole from the Zoroastrians. Learn your christ-crap kiddos. It isn't hard.

>>22940937
No we don't. We get a Bible with the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Its all there. Even if the rest of scripture was silent, theres the doctrine, right there, black and white, plain as day.

>>22940846
I thought superman is like one of the most one dimensional characters in existence.

>>22940937
Calm down, no need for excessive caps lock, it just sullies your argument.

We can translate the bible, well, we did. That's how we've got it now.

And the one now references Hell.

>>22940974
Same things as Christmas being in December.

>>22940953

The concept isn't naturally one-dimensional.

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>>22940782

The thing I was gonna run is where a character works as a servant to Surgat. one encounter would be like

>bloke trying to open a motorbikes lock, fails
>character turns up
>you need some help with that?
>"yeah, the locks busted"
>Proceeds to take key, pulls out a massive keychain and pulls a seemingly random key from it
>unlocks the lock. Not the motorbike though, because that's starting the engine.
>turns out guy was trying to steal bike. the character has buggered off by this point

Of course, who needs opening locks more than bank robbers?

>talking to friends, opens door.
>walks though, teleported by the whim of surgat to someone with a big payload of unknown keys (which would be favourite. after all, he needsto find many locks to unlock things to find out where they belong). which happen to be in the hands of a bank robbery.
>Fucksake. unlock the vault.
>deal with consequences of being implicated in a bank robbery.

His payment would be uses of surgats powers, so unlocking things, transferral between locked places, and occasionally favours being called to another demon. these are literally limited payments in exchange for servitude.

>>22940985
>And the one now references Hell.
Because the idea of eternal suffering is an excellent control mechanism not because it was present in previous translations.

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>>22940978
Are you seriously referring to that illustration? A parable? A fable?

JESUS MADE THAT STORY UP TO GET A POINT ACROSS.

Lazarus and the Rich man never existed. They're fictional characters, made up by a possibly fictional character.

And no, the Lazarus in the story isn't the same as the Lazarus that Jesus resurrected with the help of James Randi.

>>22940937
>Implying there was an original bible rather than several different texts
>Implying we have ever found this mythical ur-bible
>Implying there is perfect consensus on how it should be translated and interpreted
>Implying scholars can't even agree on what's written in MOTHERFUCKING BEOWULF, much less incomplete texts written in a dead language
>Implying you're not just as retarded as everyone else ITT

Enoch is the best noncanon book, eat it nerds.

>>22941047
>implying you have anything up against years of theological and historical research

Zoroastrianists called, they want their immortal soul and bliss in heaven/terror in hell back.

>>22941059
>not picking Jesus fucking KILLS A MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON

Jesus could be up there with Thor, and Hercules.

But NO, FAGGOT PAUL WANTED A NICE JESUS, A LOVING JESUS!

>>22941096
Imagine if that book got in the Bible.

>well, we're sure that Jesus must have fought a dinosaur here in Egypt!
>next on creationist science - the search for the dragon... or should we say dinosaur that Jesus killed here 1980 years ago in Cairo

Certainly would make things a lot easier for atheists.

>>22941140
The dragon is a metaphor for the gays.