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[[house_rules|Back to the House Rules Index]] \\

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|  **General**  |  [[Pacts]]  |  [[Reaping Faith]]  |  [[Lores]]  |  [[demon_rituals|Rituals]]  |


====== Foreword: Annotations for New Players =====

Experience has shown that there are a number of pitfalls that regularly plague new players of Demon: The Fallen, especially in the context of **Shadows over the South**. Following are a number of explanations and recommendations that are intended to help with these issues:

  - //Ranks of Virtues bought with freebie points do not affect your Willpower.// If you wish to increase your Willpower beyond the four or five points you get from your regular allotment of Virtues, you have to do so directly. However, please note the general server rules regarding permanent Willpower scores over five.
  - Since **SotS** uses (modified) Twentieth Anniversary Edition rules for combat, dodging is resolved as a Dexterity + Athletics roll. //The Dodge talent is therefore superfluous and can be ignored.//
  - The Religion knowledge ability has been replaced by the more general Belief Systems knowledge ability from M20. Please ask the Demon ST for the full text of the ability if you don't have access to the M20 core book.
  - **SotS** does not utilise the Linguistics knowledge ability. Instead additional languages are gained by purchasing the **Language** merit. The full text of the merit can be found on the [[setting:universal_merit|Universal Merits]] page.
  - In general, please note the modified ability lists used in this game. They can be found in full [[setting:general_system_house_rules#abilities|here.]]
  - It is recommended that characters with medium to high incomes (Resources 3 or above) purchase at least one dot of the **Finance** ability. Without knowledge of financial matters the character can easily fall prey to scams or simply bad investments.
  - Please make sure to familiarise yourself with our [[setting:lore_system|splat lore system]]. Since every character automatically receives a dot of their respective splat lore, demon characters receive one dot of **Occult** for free. Halaku characters can elect to receive a dot of Lore: Spirits instead. This dot is applied after step three of character creation, and //can// increase the rank of Occult beyond three dots.
  - While it is not a requirement, it is strongly recommended that you take at least one dot of the **Pacts** background. While Reaping is an available option for Demons to gain Faith (see the Reaping Faith subpage for details), it is not recommended due to the fact that it involves intentionally revealing the existence of the supernatural to a regular human.
  - In the same vein it is highly recommended that you take at least one dot of the **Legacy** background. Without Legacy your character will not know (and cannot know) much about their condition as a Demon, and will thus come across as highly ignorant.

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====== Apocalyptic Traits ======
**__We do not allow custom Apocalyptic Traits at character creation. You may ONLY have the Form Abilities that your Visage has as listed IN THE BOOK at character creation.__**

If you want to have custom traits, you must //earn them// in-game, using the method outlined in Chapter Four of //Demon: The Fallen: Player's Guide.// The XP Costs for doing so are as follows:

  * If the Form Ability is less than or equivalent in Form Points to the one being replaced, then the Player must pay equal to their Permanent Faith Rating x2 in XP.
  * If the Form Ability is greater in the number of Form Points than the Ability being replaced, the Player must pay in XP the default cost of Faith Rating x2, in addition to the difference in Form Points between the two Form Abilities x4. 

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====== Spending XP as a Demon ======

  * **House Lores and Common Lores do __NOT__ require scenes to increase.** You aren't //learning// them, you are //remembering// them. You can purchase these whenever you have the XP for them, though the third and fourth dots of those Lores will require more justification for them, such as a particularly spectacular roll using the highest level of that Lore that your character currently knows (please provide us with a link to that roll //and// to the context in which the roll was made in the scene). Remember that no Lore can exceed the level of dots you have in your Primary Lore.
  * **Out-of-House Lores __DO__ require scenes to increase.** The preferred method is for you to find someone who can teach you that Lore, who //must// already know the Lore in question at the number of dots in question. For details see the rules below.
  * **Rituals require an entire process to learn.** See //Demon: The Fallen: Player's Guide//, Page 177 for more details.
  * **Permanent Faith DOES require a scene to increase.** Mage players and Mummy players will be familiar with this concept. It will be run exactly like a Seeking Scene or a Balance Scene, in which your character acquires a deeper understanding of their role in the cosmos and will be tailored for each character. Hey, that's free XP for you, and possibly some other goodies.
  * **A decrease in Permanent Torment DOES require justification, but //not necessarily an entire Scene.//** In order to decrease your Permanent Torment, you must have ZERO Temporary Torment, and you must have gone an entire month without gaining any //new// Temporary Torment before you can request a decrease in Permanent Torment. //You cannot request a decrease in Permanent Torment two months in a row.// This is to prevent players cheesing it by simply not doing anything with that character so as to avoid any instance in which they might gain Torment.

Temporary Torment decreases are left up to the discretion of the STs. If you think you've done something that warrants a decrease in Temporary Torment, ping a Demon ST and we'll decide.

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====== Torment ======

  * You can shed one Temporary Torment per month, so long as you did not accrue any Temporary Torment for that month. For example, if you gain one point of Temporary Torment in January, but gain no points in February, you will lose one point at the beginning of March. If you gain no more points in March, you'll lose another at the beginning of April. Note that you cannot lose Permanent Torment in this fashion; if you have 0 Temporary Torment at the end of a month in which you did not gain any Torment, you don't suddenly drop down to a lower point of Permanent Torment.
  * You cannot reach Torment 0 by spending XP. The lowest level you can reach by spending XP is Torment 1. If someone reaches Torment 1 and wishes to try to reach Torment 0 (and thereby seek forgiveness from the Loyalist Host), see the rules about reconciliation further down.
  * If a character somehow reaches Torment 10 (and hasn't been killed by the other player characters for being an utter monster in the process), that player has two choices: Temporarily retire their character and maybe have that character escape hell again in the future, or attempt to become Earthbound.
  * Please note the rules errata for Torment in Evocations in the Players Guide, page 15:
<WRAP center box 80%>
When making an evocation roll, compare your successes to your Torment- if more of the successes rolled show numbers equal to or less than the character's Torment, the high-Torment effect occurs. \\

//Example: Magdiel wishes to use Decay on the body of a cancer patient. Magdiel's Stamina is 2 and her Medicine is 3, for a total of five dice, and her current Torment is 7. The difficulty for the roll is a standard 6. Adam gets three successes: 7, 9, and 9. He has more successes that are greater than his Torment, so the evocation works as planned. If he'd rolled 6, 6, and 8, however, the high-Torment effect would have occurred, decaying everything around the character.// \\

Botches cancel successes starting with the highest successes rolled. (pages 161 and 169)
</WRAP>

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====== Fugue ======

Fugue is a catatonic, coma-like state in which deeply-buried memories are forced to the surface in an extremely vivid dream. In Demon: The Fallen, entering a Fugue allows a Demon to relive a memory from the War. The mechanics for this are laid out on page 65 of Demon: The Fallen: Player's Guide, and allows a Demon to gain a discount on EXP for buying a Lore. \\

**Fugue is optional.** If you've got the XP, you can always just buy your Primary Lore's next dot. Note that just like the book says, you cannot enter Fugue without any dots in Legacy. \\

When requesting a Fugue, make your XP request as normal, and state that you'd like to enter a Fugue. A scene will be scheduled on or around the date of completion, similar to Seeking scenes for Mages, or Balance scenes for Mummies. \\

For the purposes of this game, a few minor changes are applied to this system: \\

  * Rather than gaining extra XP for the Legacy roll at the end, you will instead earn an XP discount.
  * You may use Fugue to gain a discount on House Lores other than your Primary Lore, but only after you have gained your fifth dot in your Primary Lore. You cannot use Fugue to gain a discount on out-of-House Lores. Common Lores count as House Lores for this purpose. Earthbound characters cannot use Fugue to gain a discount on the Earthbound Lores. Those Lores did not exist until after the War, therefore you cannot possibly have memories of using that Lore during the War.
  * The downside of entering a Fugue: If you botch the Legacy roll at the end of the Fugue, your character remains in Fugue. Your character may start having memories of the end of the War, being cast into the Abyss, or even remember the Torment of the Abyss itself. They will remain in Fugue until they they eventually pass a Willpower roll, difficulty 7, which you may only make once per day. Woe to the character who remains in Fugue for a particularly long time...

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====== The First Tongue, a.k.a. the One Language ======
The First Tongue is the language God spoke with the Heavenly Host at the dawn of time. As such every demon knew the language once upon a time, even though most have forgotten it. The following modifications and clarifications apply to the mechanics presented in Houses of the Fallen, pages 26 to 28:

  * As we don't use the Linguistics skill, learning the First Tongue requires buying the merit Language: First Tongue. Demons do not require justification for this purchase, as they are merely remembering something they used to know.
  * While the description claims that the First Tongue has "no surviving written form," this is contradicted within the book itself, as still existing texts written in the First Tongue are described on page 105. Therefore for the purpose of this game, the merit Language: First Tongue also confers the ability to read and write it in its original writing system. 
  * The ability of the First Tongue to 'contaminate' mortals and replace all other languages does not work on supernatural beings in general and player characters in particular. The potential for abuse is too great otherwise.
  * Regular (NPC) humans who hear the One Language make a Perception + Intuition roll against Difficulty 8 to learn it, instead of the Perception + Linguistics roll prescribed in the book. Seeing written examples of the language, either in its original writing system or written phonetically, is **not** cause for such a roll, the subject needs to hear it spoken.

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====== Relics and You ======


The process of creating a relic for the purpose of this game is as follows: \\

  * **Step One:** The player tells the ST what, exactly, what they want to make. Details must include the intended effect(s) of the Relic. Keep in mind that Relics, like Wonders, have very specific uses; there is no such thing as an 'all-purpose' Relic (even Demonic Relics are bound by their own limitations), and the more uses it has, the more Lores will have to go into it, and the more difficult it will be to craft.
  * **Step Two:** Once you have an idea of what it is you want to make, the ST will tell you the Lores necessary to create it. They will also tell you whether this is would qualify as an Enhanced Relic, an Enchanted Relic, or a Demonic Relic, as well as additional considerations or caveats.
  * **Step Three:** If your character possesses the required Lore(s), you're good to go. Get to crafting, using the method laid out in Demon: Players Guide, starting at page 142. Please create a new thread in the crafting rolls channel on the main server (to be found under the header Out Of Character), and make sure to ping the Demon ST to oversee the process.

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====== Reconciliation ======

Much like Golconda for Vampires, Reconciliation is believed by the overwhelming majority of the Fallen to be a pipe dream. Something no Fallen can ever truly achieve; even most of the Reconcilers themselves only work to atone for the crimes they believe themselves to have committed, with little to no hope of actually becoming one of the Elohim of the Heavenly Host again. \\

But also like Golconda, there are those who insist that it is not only possible, but that the Heavenly Host would love nothing more than to have their Fallen brethren truly see the light and seek the forgiveness preached in the Talmud, the Bible, and the Qu'ran. And indeed, following a scene that took place on August 7, 2019, the Heavenly Host has expressed just such sentiments to player characters. \\

**Please note that members of the Loyalist Host are not available as player characters (see banned and limited character type list).** So should a character ever achieve reconciliation, they will either be retired to NPC or sent to Main Stage (your choice). In any case, the character will no longer be available for regular play. \\

To become eligible for Reconciliation, your character must have the following prerequisites:
  * They must have Permanent Torment 1 and Temporary Torment 0.
  * They must have the Penitent merit. The original form of this merit can be found in Devil’s Due on page 100, but for the purpose of this game the text of the merit is as follows: 

<WRAP center box 80%>
**Penitent** (7 pt. supernatural merit) \\
Your character is truly remorseful for their actions taken during and after the Fall, and seeks to rejoin the Heavenly Host. All degeneration checks are at –2 difficulty (except for particularly heinous acts). This merit is required for your character to become a candidate for redemption. \\

Characters must have a Permanent Torment rating of 2 or lower to take this merit, and they may not have any dots in the Thralls/Followers or Cult backgrounds. \\

You cannot take this merit at character creation, and to acquire it the character has to have shown an appropriate mindset and disposition during play. 
</WRAP>

Once these conditions are met, a personal quest for redemption in the eyes of God will begin. Expect that the dedication of your character towards their goal will be sorely tested. **Proceed at your own risk.**
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