Steve Jackson Games’s In Nomine has been one of my favorite RPG settings and I’ve run (or attempted to run) multiple campaigns using the setting and system. In the planning for some of my campaigns, I’ve written some adventure seeds that were never given the time to germinate or that I ran before fully tending them. I share four of these with you now, should you see anything you’d like to take root.
Electric Demons In Love
Mercer, Mercurian of Lightening, fell in love with Koria, Djinn of Technology and, the Stalker (for all her selfish reasons) with the Friend of Man. Their plan, escape from their masters to the tumultuous Detroit, where it’d be harder to spot them or their disturbances amongst the populace and common Symphonic noise. For half a year, they’ve managed to hide in Motor City. Through this time Mercer felt himself slipping, and gaining more and more dissonance as he and Koria work together–because he’s in love with her, after all, and is willing to bend the rules a bit for her. He’s allowed Koria’s work with humans and her suggesting “improvements” to their tech unabated. At this point, Mercer has not been able to feel his Heart for a little over two months and it won’t be long now until there’s no turning back. And for what he feels for Koria, it might be worth it. He knows he can’t redeem her and if you can’t redeem them, then maybe it’s best to join them. For love. Koria, meanwhile, has abandoned her post to be with her latest obsession. She works for a small pay-to-play app development company and specializes in coming up with ways to keep users addicted to the phone games, but the company is small potatoes compared to where Vapula assigned her. Now, they’re both on the hunt from Lightning and Technology… and it won’t be long before Judgment and The Game get involved. PCs may be recruited to help in the hunt or decide to assist the renegades. Creation and Flowers may be more likely to help the couple and try to use their love to redeem them both.
Let’s Get It On
Servitors of Andrealphus and Novalis have occasionally worked together to help keep the peace in The City, by prodding people to ignore their conflicts in favor of enjoying sex. The idea is, get enough people in the mood–including celestials–for sex and/or love and the War will have no choice but to sit back for a while. How do they accomplish this? Through songs and chemicals. A number of angels and demons will be called in from both sides to sing Songs of Attraction, Desire and Ecstasy. Sure, this will cause a major Disturbance, but maybe it’ll be worth it if it slows the forthcoming War? PCs can be brought in a few ways; perhaps they’re helping (or are working under cover, attempting to thwart the big event before it happens), it may be that they are unaware of the event until it occurs and the Songs affect them, or they could be coming to the city after the event and rounding up the instigators.
As Heaven Is Wide
At Bar B.Q., a truck stop/biker bar on US-59, just north of Heavener, Oklahoma, a traveler can indulge in their vices and dream of a land of electric horses. The bar is run by Iadalbaoth (a Halabite of Drugs) who has taken the name “B.Q.” and from him you can get a glass of whatever, sure, but what’s more important is what he sells under the counter–amphetamines, LSD and a handful of other recreational pharmaceuticals. Also at the bar works an Impudite of Fate named Nahema. She helps out at the bar occasionally, but her more important role utilizes the rooms upstairs. Simply put, Nahema is a prostitute. Not much to it, right? Sounds like typical demons corrupting humanity. Well, you’d be right and so very wrong.
B.Q. and Nahema do more than test and tempt the road warriors that enter their establishment, the establishment also acts as one of the hubs for drug trafficking in the Southern states. Plus, since they seem to work in an angel-free territory (beyond the servitors of Janus who pass through but don’t seem to do much–as they don’t cause that many disturbances), the secret basement of the bar functions as a drug lab where the two demons are experimenting in the production of a new, enchanted form of LSD that gives the user visions of another life, another’s history. It all works off the principal that “one man’s mundane is another’s technicolor.”
Mass production is, however, a problem. Thus far, the only method of making “Other Life” involves Iadalbaoth ingesting LSD and invoking his Habbalite of Drugs attunement on a particular patron, Nahema then charms the victim and takes a bit of their memory-infused Essence. Minor Disturbances are caused but, with the gained Essence and an artifact that acts as an acid lab, the two demons can produce 30 tabs of ‘Life.
As careful as they’ve been, the growing popularity of this new drug B.Q. sells means that word is getting out. This is not a drug that most of the Host would like to see out in the world, and many Archangels would want even the idea of this drug wiped from earth.
Blood Boat
For at least the past three years well-attuned celestials on the islands of the Caymans and Spain have heard the distant ripples of Symphonic disturbance. The disturbances only come a few times year, and are two warped and distant to determine details. The fact that the ripples seem to reach transatlantic coasts means that something massive is occurring, though.
It took some research and investigation, but both the Host and the Horde (working independently) determined that the timing of the disturbances all coincided with the Royal Caribbean transatlantic cruises–and always on a directional switch (US to Spain one trip, Portugal to US the next, etc.)–though not every RC transatlantic cruise. So, two months ago, both celestial forces began sending agents to investigate. On one of the first investigations both demons of The Game and Judgement were aboard the same ship (from England to Massachusetts); the disturbance occurred but no celestials ever reported back in or appeared again, their Hearts had vanished overnight (near the midpoint of the cruise). In one of their longest-standing truces, Asmodeus and Dominic agreed to have shared investigations until the cause was discovered. (It’s to be noted that almost all the crew and passengers of that Spain to Louisiana trip docked either sick or complaining of a poor trip, however it’s still unclear if this was tied to the disturbance or coincidental.)
One investigation involves the PCs. They’ve been sent to board the Oasis of the Seas for a 12-night Transatlantic cruise from Florida to Spain for their one-way cruise from Fort Lauderdale (Florida) to Barcelona (Spain) with a stop at Malaga, Spain. They’re to examine the entire ship and attempt to discover the cause of the disturbance before it happens. And/or, if the disturbance occurs, the source and reason.
Once out at sea–for the first few days–any disturbance can be pretty easily picked up as there are no other disturbances to conflict. If there are celestials on board, everyone has to be quiet or risk their investigation being discovered. Three days out to sea and a strange hum begins to permeate the entire ship, with no apparent direct source, each day the hum gets louder, and humans seem to be more irritable and jumpy. Midnight between the sixth and seventh day the hum jumps to a single, escalated roar. On the seventh day the ship will almost feel empty, with most passengers staying in their rooms and only a fraction of crew and cruisers idly “going through the motions” on their vacation. Each day, the traffic and enthusiasm will pick up again and by the time the first port is reached, everything will appear to be back to normal.
So, what’s going on? Sorcerer Eugene Warreich is 82 years old and is casting a custom spell, drawing minor Essence (1-2 points) from all living beings within a 3 foot radius of a sigil (which can be written multiple times) and reversing the his age in order to avoid death (and going to hell). He’s also trying to avoid celestial interference so is using transatlantic cruises to hide his activities. Eugene is able to plant his sigil by disguising himself in different jobs aboard the ship. His current physical age is now in high 30’s; all it will take is a few more trips and he’ll be where he wants to be–back in his early 20’s with a chance to start over again.
Clues:
1. The PCs may notice they keep seeing the same face covering a lot of different jobs on the ship.
2. Investigation of rooms (especially as the days grow) may reveal a small marking (a blood sigil) on every wall
I originally ran this for a couple friends during GenCon 2014 with little more than the notes above. (I had some characters written for the friends, but nothing adventure-specific.) I did make note of two useful links when writing this up: plans and ports of call for transatlantic voyages and the deck plans for Oasis of the Seas.
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