The Nemesis System

The Nemesis System

Properties of the Nemesis System

• The Final Law: All Things End
• The Law of Laws: Laws have physical weight, and must be followed.
• The Law of the Black Sun: Only the truth may be spoken under the gaze of the black sun.

The Shape of the Nemesis System

The sun has a sinister twin, the Black Sun, the Occulted Star, which orbits at the rim of the Solar System. The Black Sun, also called Nemesis or the “Apocalypse Clock”, travels on an elliptical, and its pertubation can send asteroids and comets cascading down upon the inner solar system. Nemesis, thus, determines the end of the world.

The detritus of slain worlds circles the yawning mouth of Nemesis, and the bones of dead civilizations decorate these free-floating boulders and world-fragments. Upon these, Azrael resides, gazing upon her Black Sun and waiting to be called to End All Things.

The Nemesis System houses

• the Crossroads of Worlds
• the Library of Truth
• the Gaming Underworld
• the Tomb of Azrael

The Laws of the Nemesis System

Arbitrary rules and laws interweave the Nemesis System with a sort of physics that force those within the Nemesis System to behave a particular way. These rules don’t precisely change, but their impact on the world wane and fall with the movements of the Nemesis system in a fashion that seems utterly unpredictable to the less-than-divine inhabitants of the system. Violating the laws is akin to violating an Imperial Miracle, especially in the gaze of Nemesis. One can resist the law, but it wounds you, in the same way that resisting the pull of gravity slowly changes one into a gravity-resisting alien.
Some laws might be:

• You must sleep with your head facing the Black Sun.
• If a pile of something small and countable is thrown at your feet, you must count them.
• Everything that you have done yesterday must be repeated, but that repeat will be done by a shadow of yourself, as your life begins to blur together across time.
• You must orient towards the nearest appropriate structure: Walls become floors, ceilings become floors. “Down” becomes what looks like should be down.
• All doors must connect to all other doors. Walking from one to the other must be done by conscious connection, rather than physical effort.
• Anyone who knows your true name may command you by name, and you must obey. After this, your name changes.
• You may not cross running water or lines of salt.
• Travel from one place to another by means other than simply walking (crossing lines or gaps of void) costs two, greek copper coins.
• Anyone who eats the food of the Nemesis system cannot leave the nemesis system.
• The water of the Nemesis System is richly fertile. A living being who drinks of it will give birth to another, different living being by giving up his flesh to that being. This usually leaves a grave wound, perhaps even consuming the original “parent”completely.
• If you are emotionally afflicted, your memories can come to life. You must keep your passions in check!
• Mazes of invisible walls dot the landscape and can suddenly rise up to trap the walker. The answer to these mazes is always to walk widdershins.

Challenges of the Nemesis System

Hunt an Alien!

0 or less: It’s hunt or be hunted. You chose poorly.
1: You’re more into photography than killing. Woah! Is that an alien? No, wait, that’s just a cool rock. What an adventure!
2: You foundan alien. Now what?
3: You found a coolalien. Your struggle will be epic!
4: You hunt and killan alien! Well done! Now, what to use its strange organs for?
6:You hunt and kill a rareand preciousalien. Mastery of the void is yours!
7: You hunt and kill a wondrousalien. An Elder God lies at your feet, or the priest of a strange faith, or a blue-skinned alien space-princess.
Trouble, Tools and Bonds

• All things must End: Gain an edge of +2 against an alien that’s just trying to survive, rather than kill you.
• An Alien is You: There are strange laws and properties within the void that surrounds the Nemesis System that can change you into an alien. This is usually a major or divine wound.

The Crossroads of Worlds

Deep within the heart of the greatest dead city of the Nemesis system lies the crossroads of worlds, a complex arrangement of gates, arches, portals and doorways that can lead from the Nemesis System to other worlds. This is the most common entrance into the Nemesis system.

Creatures of the Void

Strange things lurk within the void. Some examples include:

• The Astral Behemoth
  
  • A monstrous creature with Paramount Strength that exists in the 4^th Dimension. One sees monstrous, elephantine creatures hulking about, but they are all extrusions of one, great Astral Behemoth.
• The Shade
  
  • An unusual hue that settles upon all things. Its color is one that Earthly being can truly comprehend or describe. If its color descends upon you, or you witness it for long enough to infect your mind, you begin to take on unearthly qualities, as you begin to understand it.
• Adorable Green Things From Outer Space
  
  • Often afflict those who look upon them with an unwholesome and unearthly desire to cuddle them like crazy.
• Hunters
  
  • Chitinous, black things that hiss and laugh and then vanish into the void. They scuttle about and claw at things from within crevices and devour you when you sleep.
• Zeta Reticulans
  
  • Small, squat beings with black eyes and glowing flesh, they are numinous, nightmarish, psychic and inherently mysterious (anything you learn about them slowly drains from your mind). They seek to poke and prod the flesh of earthly beings, for no evident reason.
• Machine Elves
  
  • Twisting, changing shapes that, nonetheless, give an impression of cybernetic space-elves. They can teach others to change and, those who mastery their psychedelic polymorphism, will find their form dissolving into nothing, at which point they too become Machine Elves.
• The Tall
  
  • These tall, pointy-eared beings of exquisite beauty with blond hair, blue eyes and white skin. They will claim inherent racial superiority. They wear silvery jumpsuits and weild strange rayguns and are free with gifts of technology and food that, when returned to Earth, turn out to be simple aluminum and biscuits. They claim to be from a “Federation of Intelligences” and that offer pronouncements on how your race needs to mature, citing concerns about humanity’s environmental, nuclear and military crimes.

Survive!

0 or less: All things must end.
1: Anyone can find a sliver of peace in accepting the inevitable, as you have.
2: Something happens: A disaster strikes, or you stumble across an interesting box, or you find some lost ruin. Perhaps you have a chance now?
3: Your starvation is exquisite. Your suffering is poetry. You might be dying, but you’re doing so artistically.
5: You survive! For now.
6:Your survival inspires others. A community of strange creatures gather near you, hoping to steal your fire, or to learn your secrets.
8: You’ve done more than survive, but you’ve begun to lay the foundations for continued survival. What you build, others can use too. Can one found a civilization on the edges of death itself?
9: All things must end.
Trouble, Tools and Bonds

• All things must end: This trouble is worth at least -2 for mortals. It violates the law of the Chancel to survive for too long.

The Tomb of Azrael

Even Azrael herself will someday die. She knows this. She has seen it. She even knows how she will die. Azrael is Eternal and exists at all points of time, but at the same time, she mustend, so her corpse, like her body, resonates backwards and forwards through all points in time. As Azrael walks the world, she also lies dead in her tomb.

No mortal has ever entered the tomb, and Azrael will not, for it lies outside of her living purview. But some say that if the immortal enters here, he may commune with the Dead Angel of Death and learn forbidden things about what will happen after all things have ended.

Properties of the Tomb of Azrael

• Entering that which has no Entrance (-5): The Tomb of Azrael cannot be breached by the living. It is like a chancel within a chancel, and offers a trouble of 5 to attempt to enter. In practice, only the miraculous have a hope of gaining entrance, though it is said that the Powers of Death know a secret way in.
• Nothing Living Walks Here (-5): Nothing living can be in the Tomb of Azrael. Those who enter are turned instantly to dust. Anyone who enters must attempt to survive with a -5 difficulty, and even those who succeed are marked by a wound for having entered. Only the Eternal and Actively Immortal can endure the infinite years that lie within the Tomb of Azrael.
• The Grave Goods of Azrael (+5): The funerary mask, the caul, the sarcophagus, the funerary urns of Azrael all contain the remnants of her dead power. Those who carry them hold in their hands the power of a dead angel. It grants enormous, world-shattering power to those who bear them, though getting in to the Tomb of Azrael is virtual impossible.
• The Wounds of the Tomb of Azrael:
  • Blinded by Infinite Darkness
  • Maddened by the Whispers of the Tomb of Azrael
  • (Divine) turned to dust by the Tomb of Azrael’s infinite years.
  • (Divine) exalted to mad godhood by tasting of the corpse of Azrael.

Description Snippets

• Surrounded by the bleached bones of a dead world, steel girders jutting out of black sand beneath the dread majesty of the Black Sun, rises the great edifice of Azrael’s death, made of cyclopean stone and covered in a fine layer of decaying dust. It casts a long shadow.
• The stones of the Tomb whisper. No wind stirs the dust within, and a darkness so total that it drives those who witness it to blindness, but the stones whisper. They whisper to you that which you already know to be true, but have long denied. Those whispers tell you what has happened and what will happen. Each whisper cuts at your sanity until none is left.
• The air smells of dust. The dust rises with each step, a fine, bone-grey powder. It stinks of old books and discarded lives. The dust is the remnants of every mortal, angel or god who dared to step within the tomb.
• The grave goods of Azrael burn with a darkness so dark that they glow with inverted light: that which is dark becomes white, and that which is light becomes black. Upon this negative view, one does not see so much as know. The presence of those grave goods, of the corpse of the angel of death, weigh down upon one with vast, psychic power. These can crush a mere mortal, driving them mad or exalting them to godhood, or both.

Uncover the Truth

0 or less: Sometimes, it is better to decieve ourselves than to know.
1: You learn enoughof a truth to be satisfied.
4: You learn the truth that you sought. Can you bear that burden?
6:You learn a truth that others seek. You can withhold this truth for power over them, or to protect them from that which they should not know.
7: You learn a great and powerful truth that you sought. It will certainly change you.
8: You learn a great and terrible trugh that all the world wishes to know. The world itself will be fundamentally changed by this truth.
Trouble, Tools and Bonds

• The Power of Truth: The Truth can be a tool that grants one access to powerful and mystical principles. Depending on the truth, it can grant a +1 to +3 tool or edge, but only in a direction that the Truth wishes to go. One cannot bend the truth to one’s own purpose.
• The Truth Hurts: Learning the truth always wounds us by stripping us of our illusions. Such wounds are usually Surface wounds, but the deepest truths can run even deeper. Some truths might even agree with the Excrucians and unmake the Divine itself.

The Library of Truth

Azrael is the Angel of Truth, and she keeps every truth in the world in a great library, hidden behind the protection of the Nameless Sphinx. Within its strange halls, anything can be found.

Properties of the Library of Truth

• Twisting Halls: The physics of the Library of Truth are not the familiar physics of Earth, but the Escherian physics of the Nemesis System. Getting to a specific point in the library can be difficult for those not adapted (-1 to -2 trouble).
• Books of Babel : The books within contain all truth, but not all truth is equally useful. One book contains the complete totality of Pi in hexadecimal notation. Another book describes all electromagnetic fluctuations of the sun. These books, without the proper context or a mind that can comprehend them, read like static sounds. Too many of them can blast the reader with a surface wound of “Static Madness” where he begins to see the truth in chaos.
• The Truth Within (+1): The library can give absolute, perfect truth, and any truth can be found here. Given the difficulties facing one within the Library of Truth, it only offers a +1 to the pursuit of truth, but also allows perfect confidence in what is found.

Description Snippets

• The Black Sun’s burning corona casts a strange, flickering red glow through the stained glass of the library that makes the shadows of the books and shelves writhe and dance.
• The musty scent of books thickens the air with a miasma of curiosity and wonder.
• Opening a book can instantly engross the reader in worlds of unexpected and powerful truths. A religious text can reveal the absolute truth of whether or not an afterlife exists and why, or point one to the location of an even greater and more important text, or just be filled with endless expounding of points that, while true, aren’t particularly useful. Lost in the pages, those who read the tomes become transfixed and zombie-like. The ground in some places are littered with bones of readers.
• The library has the silence of a cathedral, interrupted only by the distant echoes of your own words filtering through the twisted, escherian madness of the building’s architecture. Always far away, down (or up, or sideways) several floors, one can see the glow of candles and the red robes of the Cult of Babel, who believe that the truths of the random texts contain secrets to the ultimate truths buried in the deep within the library, or “the Master Truth” or “the Monadic Gospel.”

The Nameless Sphinx

A great beast guards the Library of Truth. It has ten million faces, one for each person who has, or will, visit the library. Each face and form is unique. To enter the library, the petitioner must know:

• The Name of the Sphinx
• The Form of the Spinx
• The Power of the Spinx

Each petitioner defines these, by his own fears and deeds. Those who do not know themselves cannot know the Sphinx and thus cannot pass. Only those who face who and what they are can understand what they have made the Sphinx, and thus pass.

Win the Game!

0 or less: You didn’t win the game 😦
1: Games are fun!
2: Ooo, good try.
3: You’re having such a good time, your friends are growing impatient with their desire to join in.
4: Congratulations, you won the game!
6: And you won with a high score!
Trouble, Tools and Bonds

• Escape: Games can serve a purpose, but one can become lost in the twisting maze of their delights, especially in the Nemesis System. This serves as a Wound (usually a surface wound) for those who find themselves playing too long in the Gaming Underworld. It prevents them from leaving, or from even existing as something outside a game.
• Nothing really matters (-5): Nothing you can do in a game, especially in the Nemesis System, has dharmic weight. All achievements are the equivalent to ghost miracles. You can find love in a game, but it’s not real love. You can defeat your enemy in a game, but he’s not really defeated. Sometimes, you can turn what happens in a game into something real, but it takes super-human effort.
• High Score! (+1): Someone who gains High Score has an edge over any other denizen of the gaming underworld.

The Gaming Underworld

The rules of the Nemesis System accumulate like dust gathering on the surface of old ruins. And as they gather, they begin to combine and merge to form weird, arbitrary ruleset that can be frustrating, or interesting, to navigate and explore. These have themselves merged in the bowels of the Nemesis System, deep below the library and the crossroads and the tomb, to form a wierd underworld full of games.

The games of the Gaming Underworld usedto be old and primal. This was where the pawns of chess and parcheesi would swap tokens and war stories while bowing before the King of Diamonds and lusting after the Queen of Hearts. But with the coming of Zee, the world has fundamentally changed. It has expanded, though one can “fall through” the world of gaming into the glitchy “donkey space” just beyond it, seeing the Nemesis System from behind its textures, and gained colorful sprites and 3D models. Gold coins replace tokens and wargame chits and checker pieces have been pushed aside to make way for a new royalty of franchise heroes. This has proven controversialwith the old denizens.

Properties of the Gaming Underworld

• Play the rules: The rules of the Nemesis System hold just as much sway here, but they grow vastly more complex, nuanced, knowable and fun. And should one wish to escape one set of rules, one has only to travel a short distance to do so.
• Everything is a Game: All conflict and problems within the Gaming Underworld must be resolved by gameplay. One does not kill the King of Diamonds, but defeats him at Poker. One does not seduce a waifu, one grinds her with gifts and proper dialogue choices until her heart bursts in a cloud of stars that spell out “You win!” after which you get a cut-scene that extends the story.
• Treasures of the Gaming Underworld: The gaming underworld has grown a collection of powerful treasures over time, including:
• The Konami Codex, which contains a complete account of the cheat codes necessary to defeat any game, or to overcome any rule in the Nemesis System
• The Master Glove, a powerful tool (worth +2) to attain victory in any game.
• The Princess, a perfectly beautiful woman, virtuous and kind, who has been captured! Every time you’ve been told she was in another castle she was, in fact, here.

Description Snippets

• Charmingly beautiful and anime-esque sprites cluster near you, interested in hearing what you have to say, and repeatedly (often using the same words) inviting you on a quest, or to “save their princess.” Close inspection shows that they’re two dimensional (don’t push one over!), and that they’ll sometimes glitch and shimmer in a staticky sheen to show something ghostly beneath.
• As one travels over the hills and valleys of the gaming underworld, one’s feet make a highly repetitive “clop clop” sound.  A tinny, electronic chip-tune accompanies your action, shifting based on the context of the situation.  Every useful and narratively pertinent action, like bumping a gold-giving block, or taking some damage, is always accompanied by a little, cute sound-effect.
• Deeper in the gaming underworld, as one travels its deeper tunnels and sewer pipes, one comes across horrific scenes of carnage.  The dead of those above pile in great heaps, often the same person dead over and over again, including endless corpses of Zee, left before she respawns.
• The air of the gaming underworld smells like bubble-gum and electricity, just like an old arcade.  Its swirling lights and and beeping tunes also evoke the atmosphere of an arcade.  But beyond the digital facade, the scent changes to something older, the scent of oak and stone and tea.  Here, dust and mold hangs heavily on the air.
• Deeper still in the bowels of the gaming underworld, beneath the digital textures of the vaunted Video Game realms likes a world of stone and wood, where strange pieces move and shift in an endless game of strategy.  Old gods come here to gamble souls.  Here, the Black Bishop walks, discussing the future of the gaming underworld with the Queen of Hearts and the Jack of Diamonds and the dread King of Spades.

Zee's Achievements

Zee fundamentally views the world as one would view a game.  She would even argue that she, and all other powers, are but characters in a larger game, and if the whole world is nothing but a game, then she can have profound control over the very fabric of the world itself, to shape it into what she thinks it should be.  Using the dark wizardry of the Konami Codex and spending days to concoct the right rituals, she has managed to weave a certain dharmic magic into the world, one which can empower her own ambitions and power, but one that can empower anyone’s ambition and power, if they understand them and accept the Zee’s premise that life is but a game.

This magic takes the forms of an achievement.  By accomplishing an achievement, one gains sudden dharmic weight.  Achievements lend meaning to the meaningless and that meaning can translate into the ability to move one’s life forward and in a direction one wishes.

Anyone playing in the Price of Tea in Vancouver may choose to pursue achievements.  Successfully gaining an achievement grants you a single point of destiny that can be spent on any project you wish, however you must also fundamentally accept Zee’s premise, which means any project that benefits from achievement destiny can be manipulated and controlled by Zee herself.  She promises that any changes she makes will be awesome and a total blast, though, so I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.

The Achievements

Bastion
-Suffer a divine wound without dying

Blue Rose
-Give or recieve true love’s kiss

Call of Duty
-Defeat an Excrucian

Capitalism
-Collect one million gold pieces

Crusader King
-Earn a Title

Dark Souls
-Condemn one soul to hell

Girlfriend Rescue
-Rescue a princess or be rescued by a knight

Love Plus
-Go on an official date!

Orcs Must Die!
-Kill one million enemies (humans, mannequins, robots, demons, zombies, etc)

Portal
-Unlock a bonus stage!

Progress Quest
-Complete one Project

Starbound
-Set foot on a new world in the world tree

Time Splitters
-Travel through time

Witcher
-Speak a Word of Power

Yahtzee
-Roll a critical success!

Zee, the Marquesssa of Gaming

Ada McQueen had little time for life, preferring to lose herself in her beloved video games. Then she died.  The aneurism struck her in the midst of an epic, record-breaking gaming marathon.  As her body slowly cooled before the glow of her CRT, to the chiptune music blaring from her speakers, a yawning void opened behind her and Azrael, angel of Death herself stepped forth.

“Be thou not afraid” spoke the Angel with a voice that shook the earth itself “I am come to escort you to your final resting place.”

Zee suddenly sat bolt upright “Wait,” she said with furrowed brow “Don’t I get to challenge you to a game for my soul?”

And the angel did roll her eyes in a most exasperated manner and gestured dismissively with her bony hands and did say “Choose thy game, Mortal.”

Zee grinned and said: “Tekken Fighter Instinct Ultra: Hyper-Tournament Omega Edition – Limited.”
Only one copy existed.  With flashing fingers, Zee promptly defeated Azrael, who dashed her controller to the ground, drew herself to its full, majestic height and with the voice of a roaring ocean, did say unto Zee “Only by the whims of fortune was thy victory earned.  Also, Mortal, thy father did lie with a whore to bear thee into this world.”

Zee nodded patiently and said “So, double or nothing?”

Thus did Zee claim the Estate of Games and became Azrael’s second power.

Her rise has not been without controversy.  Zee believes in rules, but only in the rules she chooses to accept, and she prefers to have fun than to perform her obligations.

She has set aside the old “boring” games of yesteryear, like Chess, Checkers, Parcheesi and Monopoly and, in fact, her rise to Power has come with an equal rise in status for video games (allowing them to “rise to art”), and a new phase of boardgame/RPG development divorced from its past, while the old form of games become “solved problems” to sufficiently complex computers, gnawing at what it means to be a game.  This has earned her the ire of the old guard of her Estate, including the Black Bishop, a bane of her own estate who conspires to remove Ada from power and return the Estate back to Azrael.

Meanwhile, Zee was the first true gamer girl.  With her rise to the very essence of what it means to game, every other girl who wanted to “be a gamer” had a saintess they could bend knee to, and many did.  A cult grows up around her while the Inquisitors of the Old School, or the “Grognards” as some call them, serve the Black Bishop and make quiet war against one another.

They are not the only, for Zee’s reign has been tumultuous, marked by wars of consoles and even wars of fandom. For Zee is not only the Goddess of Gaming, she’s also a fan of gaming.  When she accepted her Estate, when Azrael introduced her to the other Imperators, Kirin bestowed a fragment of the shattered estates of Fashion, something new and unseen before: the Estate of Cosplay, and Zee enthusiastically embraced.  It forms a core element of her power now, giving her the ability to change into any video game character (though, for some reason, she only changes into a female-version of male video game characters).

Zee’s flowers are the Star of Bethlehem (the Key to Something Changed Forever) and the Wild Rose (the Key to Something Different).  She follows the Song of the Wild.  Her Anchors are the Cult of the Gamer Girl, and the Gaming Underworld is her Sanctum (and the source of her opposition, the Black Bishop).

Estate of Cosplay

-Cosplay is the most beautiful form of fandom (3)
-Cosplay is totally impractical (1)
-Cosplay tries to bring fiction into the real world (2)

-Cosplay is just a fad; it cannot last (1)

Zee and Azrael have a tense relationship. Azrael accepts that Zee exists, but she only exists because of a deal struck between the two. Thus, Azrael ignores her, pretending that nothing has changed. For her part, Zee loves her Imperator as only a Noble can, albeit in her own, irrascible way. She has seen her mistress’ pain ever since she was enNobled, and wanted to help. She discovered that Azrael’s shadow was missing and brought it up with her mistress, who angrily shouted her down. Winds of fury howled around the literally dumbstruck Zee as Azrael issued an imperial miracle that she was to never speak “of this humiliation” to any being, in this world or any other, in past or future. And then she commanded Zee not to meddle further.

Zee has been a single gamer girl for too long now, and she’d like to find love. Naturally, she doesn’t lack for admirers, but she wants someone who’s on her level and also understands her. And, if she’s honest, the Powers of the Tacoma are absolutely fantastic. She plays at what they really do. She’s carefully cultivated an excited crush on one of them.

Finally, Zee seeks to end the struggle she faces with her own Estate. Each action against her by the Black Bishop only hardens her will. She seeks the All-Former, for his mastery of Franchise Tie-Ins and between his power, her own power of Cosplay, she hopes to reshape the Estate of Games to purge them from her Estate once and for all. This dangerous path is, of course, encouraged by Yvonka Velvetine from behind the scenes.

Traits

Aspect 1 (Touched Up) (3)
Domain (Games) 2 (Viscount) (6)
Domain (Cosplay) 1 (Saint) (1)
Persona (Games) 2 (6)
Treasure 0
Miracle Points: 5
Common Gifts: Immortal (6)

• Form of Cosplay (Shapeshifting 2): Zee can change into a unique version of any video game character. While in such a form, she’s still recognizable herself. Moreover, she has thus far only changed into a transgendered version of male video game characters, but if that represents a limitation of her power of personal preference, she hasn’t said. It does grant her Superior Quality (Cosplay Hawtness) +1 in any of her forms, in addition to any powers her forms grant her.

Passions and Skills

Skill: Cool +2 (1 free)
Skill: Shine +3 (Free)
Passion: I want to escape the humdrum of life +2
Skill: Video Games +5

Bonds and Afflictions (3)

Bond: Nobody is better at video games than me +4
Bond: I serve my imperator in my own way +1
Bond: I never cheat +2
Bond: I will beat the Gaming Underworld +1
Affliction: My estate is at war with itself! +1
Affliction: My world is a game +1
Affliction: I am a true gamer girl +1

Affliction: I can only die if beaten in a game +3

Anchors

The Gaming Underworld

Rules accumulate in the Nemesis System like dust, thus the deeper one treads into its heart, the weirder and more arbitrary those rules get, into you end up in the gaming underworld, the Sanctum of the Estate of Gaming, an entire substrata to the Nemesis system full of monsters, power-ups, warp zones, chutes, ladders, play money, jail spaces and abstract gaming concepts like “tapping.”

The Gaming Underworld does not belong to Zee, but it is profoundly connected to her. As her Estate wars with her, those parts loyal to her, the hip, modern, video-game parts, line up behind her, while the old and traditional line up behind the sinister black bishop. On her side of the Gaming Underworld, Zee keeps two of her most precious treasures, the Konami Codex and the Golden Disk.

The Konami Codex is the book of all cheat codes. It contains within it Zee’s Words of Power which she can use to unleash her most powerful miracles. It also grants access to the Skill: Cheat Code Wizardry, which allows one to bypass all kinds of troubles (provided a cheat code could help you bypass that problem). Zee herself refuses to use that skill because she does not cheat, but she would not put it past others to use the Codex for dark purposes, especially the Black Bishop.

The Golden Disk is Zee’s original copy of Tekken Fighter Instinct Ultra: Hyper-Tournament Omega Edition – Limited. This sacred disk was Zee’s key to the Estate and to her Immortality. She keeps it primarily as a momento, but her divinity is also inscribed into its surface, and it’s conceivable that its destruction might somehow harm her (it would certainly wound her estate), and one could learn of Zee’s deeper mystical secrets by analyzing how she mastered the intricacies of that most sacred game.

Finally, the Black Bishop represents the “Old Gods of Gaming,” those who celebrate the truly ancient games, like chess, go, checkers, parcheesi, poker and monopoly. At first, he watched the White Bishop attempt to serve as her adviser, to introduce her to the beauty of the traditions of the old ways. She called him a “fuddy-duddy” and in a flurry of creativity, violated all of his rules by creating Knightmare Chess, Battle Chess and Chess 2.0. The Black Bishop grew disgusted with her disdain for the great old games that underpinned the games she enjoyed, and that were as much a part of her estate as any other game. Inspired by the ferocious resistance that Damien Bogsworth’s reign has engendered, he began his own protest, then his own subversion. He hasn’t moved to full rebellion, because he prefers to come at problems from a diagonal, rather than straight on. Nonetheless, he has drawn quite some support from the Old Games, and has built up a profound movement among those who oppose the Cult of the Gamer Girl.

The Cult of the Gamer Girl

Before Zee enNoblement, the embodiment of the “true gamer” was male. Afterwords, the fundamental nature of Gaming changed. Now, the truest of true gamers was female. Every girl who was ever grilled over her gaming knowledge or frowned upon for wanting to play a princess in a D&D game could now turn to a patron saintess of gaming and invoke the name of Zee. Of course, not many mortals are Noble-Watchers, but every gamer intuitively sensed the change, the shift of gaming from something abstract and ruled by a distant capricious god who might curse their dice to something more feminine, something more bubbly and something more fun. The gamer girls began to gain courage, some might even say arrogance, and a line was drawn.

The Grognards of Gaming reacted poorly to this. They despised the change and preferred the capricious Old Gods of gaming. None of this “narrativist nonsense” or those dreaded, pretentious “walking simulators”. To these, the most faithful of the Old School, the Black Bishop appeared. He empowered them to be his grand Inquisitors, to return gaming to its glorious roots.

Deadwood, Marquis of Death

Walter “Deadwood” Fitch was a good-fer-nuthin’ low-life, good at poker and bad with whiskey until he met a good christian woman who refused to back down when faced with his nonsense, so naturally he did the only thing he could and married her. He enjoyed his quiet life on a ranch, living a reasonable life until the Devil came, and took his bride away from him. So naturally, Walter did the only thing he could and went to rescue her. Faced with the power of Bhaal and his minions, Walter was soundly defeated, but not before stealing a precious treasure from the Devil, which he traded to Samuel Colt in exchange for crafting a revolver that could kill anything. So armed, Walter Fitch killed the Devil, but it was too late. His wife had been dragged to hell.

Lord Entropy arrested Walter Fitch and dragged him in chains before his court, for Deadwood had violated the law “Be as I would have you be,” and mortals should not, as a rule, be killing Imperators. But Azrael beheld Walter Fitch and his deeds and proclaimed “Lo, he follows a higher law!” and when asked what higher law he followed, she replied “Mine,” and took him as her Power. Thus, he fell under the Chestnut Law, and the death of Bhaal was no more than seven times worse than the kidnapping and enslavement of a wife but, frustrated at being overruled, Lord Entropy declared that if Fitch freed his wife, then he wouldbe in violation of the Chestnut law. To serve the Imperators of Earth, Walter would have to give up his mortal life and accept his role as Death.

Deadwood has three anchors: the Colt, the Nameless Horse, and Persephone Cross (his ex-wife, separated by Death).  His flowers are Vervain, the Key of Something Powerful, and Mimulus, the Key of Something Restless.  Deadwood, particularly beloved by one or two of our players, has his own playlist.

Two forces threaten to corrupt the good-spirited Deadwood. First is the Cammora. They are outside of Lord Entropy’s law, so theycan rescue Persephone Cross and Lord Entropy would say nothing about it. They can help Deadwood violate his Estate. And so, Deadwood plays a dangerous game with the Cammora and slowly finds himself being drawn into debt with them. He gave them six of his bullets to rescue Persephone, and he has not heard yet if anything has come of it.

Meanwhile, Yvonka Velvetine has begun to whisper to him that there may be a way to bring Justice to his estate. She has hinted that she loves him, that it might be best if he let Persephone go, and love her instead. When he says that this violates the Windflower Law, she hints that there’s another law. Slowly, Yvonka tempts Deadwood into her Conspiracy and away from the War.

Aspect 5 (Great Master)
Domain 3 (Marquis)
Persona 0
Treasure 0
Miracle Points: 5
Common Gifts: Immortal (6)
Gifts:

• Avatar of Death: Deadwood can take on any aspect of the Death Estate as per Persona 3 at the cost of 1 Persona MP (1)
• Focus: the Colt: Deadwood carries a revolver with bullets marked with the names he has come to take (though he can fire it no more than 6 times in a scene). It can kill anyone, even an immortal, similar to an Abhorent Weapon. Each attempt costs 1 Treasure MP Treasure (1)
• Focus: The Nameless Horse: Deadwood has a nameless white horse who will always arrive when needed, no matter where Deadwood is, and can carry Deadwood to wherever he needs to go (3)

Passions and Skills

Skill: Cool +5
Passion: That sunset is inviting; best I be mozyin’ along. +5
Passion: A just man must be willing to get his hands dirty: +2
Passion: Just one more glass… -1
Skill: Cow-Wranglin’ +1
Skill: Poker +2
Skill: Gun-slingin’ +3

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I killed the Devil once, and I’ll do it again if I have to +2
Bond: I would give anything to be with my wife again +2
Bond: I am a just man +1
Bond: Fastest Gun in Creation +4
Affliction: The Devil follows my footsteps, and so I have to keep moving on or he’ll hurt you too +3
Affliction: I’m an out-of-date cowboy +1

Anchors

The Colt

Bhaal, the devil Deadwood killed, served as a general in the Excrucian war, and carried a dread weapon with him at all times. When Deadwood fought Bhaal, a piece of the devil’s weapon broke off in the battle, and Deadwood stole it and brought it to his friend, Samuel Colt. The industrialist investigated the strange material and agreed to make a weapon out of it, in exchange for the other half of the material. The resulting revolver came with six bullets and had the ability to kill anything. It can kill even an actively immortal being by acting like an abhorrent weapon in that it can negate certain, specific miracles. The strange, starlike material that makes it up carries the whiff of the Not with it and when Deadwood has let a few powers look at the Colt, they have found hints of Excrucian engineering in it, suggesting that Deadwood either stole a piece of an abhorrent weapon, or it wasn’t Samuel Colt who built the weapon, and that Deadwood was a pawn in an Excrucian plot to end Bhaal.

Deadwood has far more than 6 bullets now. He’s learned the trick of forging them on his own, and they always carry the name of his targets.

The Nameless Horse

Deadwood rides a pale horse (and is, hence, sometimes known as the Pale Horseman). Azrael acquired the Pale Horse early in the Excrucian War, long before most Powers even existed. According to some, Azrael consumed the Excrucion that had brought Death into the world, taming the Excrucian’s poison and making Death a natural part of the world. When she did, she claimed his horse, and thus the Pale Horse of Azrael’s reaper isthe same sort of horse that the Pale Horsemen ride. The horse must remain nameless lest it come free of Azrael. It seems unnatural, hard to see, hard to want to understand.

The Nameless Horse is alwayswith Deadwood, even if you cannot see it, and it can always bring Deadwood to wherever he needs to go.

Persephone Cross

As a baby, Persephone Cross was sold to the devil, so her father, Ezekial Cross, the Leatherwood Warlock, could achieve immortality. Her mother ran away with her baby and tried to baptise her, but the sacred water burned her and the pastor turned her away. She tried to bring her girl to church, but Persephone could not step foot on holy ground. She gave her daughter a bible to read, but the pages turned to cinders when she touched them. So her mother told her. She whispered God’s holy word to her damned daughter, and raised her upright and sacred. She kept her hidden from Ezekial’s cult, from those who called her witch or demon, and taught her the sacred word of God. When her mother finally died, she passed her silver cross to her daughter, and her mother’s love protected her from its burning touch, and the cross itself acts as a talisman to protect her from her father’s hateful eye.
Her damnation pushed her out of civilization and further West, where her education made her a natural teacher. There, she met Deadwood, who refused to be put off by “the only good woman in the West” and eventually agreed to marry him. She never told him of her damnation, but on her 26^thbirthday, the devil came for her.

She accepted her fate. She’d long ago made peace with it, but when she turned back, when she saw Walter struggling to rescue her, she thought she saw Bhaal deal a lethal blow, depression swept over her and she wept for her husband as the walls of Hell closed in around her. When Deadwood returned and killed the devil, Persephone saw her chance and struck a new deal with Asmodeus, her new keeper. She would accept his demand to serve him as a courtesan and a dancer, and in return, he would release her after a century had passed. She performed her service, and Asmodeus broke the agreement, the devil of Lust preferring to keep her for himself. She raged, then, gathering up all of her hatred and power and lashed out at him. By chance, the forces of the Cammora also worked to free her, and together, they struck down Asmodeus long enough for her to escape. Now, she roams the world, her former husband unaware of her relase, and she in denial about her demonic nature as she seeks to reconnect with him.

Passions and Skills

Passion: A woman’s love can overcome anything +3
Skill: Christian Devotion +2
Superior Quality: Devilish Charm +1
Shine +2

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I’m a Good Woman +1
Bond: I love Death +2
Bond: I belong to the Devil +2
Affliction: I’m corrupted by Hell +3
Affliction: I’m an out-of-date victorian +1

Azrael, Angel of Death, Games, Void, Truth and Bridges

“Not so,” the eager Poet said;

“At least, not so before I tell

The story of my Azrael,

An angel mortal as ourselves,

Which in an ancient tome I found

Upon a convent’s dusty shelves,

Chained with an iron chain, and bound

In parchment, and with clasps of brass,

Lest from its prison, some dark day,

It might be stolen or steal away,

While the good friars were singing mass.”

-Tales of the Wayside Inn, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Azrael has existed for as long as most other angels remember. She did not participate in the creation of the World Tree; instead, she stands ready for that day when the World Tree must perish. She has stood as one of Lord Entropy’s most ardent supporters and one of his most ferocious warrior in the Excrucian War. Azrael does not answer questions about her origin or purpose, merely fixes those who ask her with an unwavering gaze, usually shortly before they die from remaining too long in her presence.

Azrael doe not care for mortals. They are too ephemeral, too minor, to concern so universal being as herself. She refuses to create any Powers other than the one she always creates: the Power of Death, her personal, private Reaper. Any mortal she takes as a Power must necessarily become Immortal, for they cannot die without her permission, and thus they will not pass until she withdraws her Estate. Recently, one other mortal has acquired an Estate from Azrael: When Azrael came to claim Zee’s soul and guide her to the afterlife, Zee challenged her to a game in exchange for her soul andwon, thus for the first time in centuries, Azrael has more than one Power.

Azrael makes her home in the Nemesis System, the hidden black star that orbits the Solar System at a great distance, whose pertubations send comets raining down into the inner system. The Nemesis System houses the Plaza of Bridges, the True Library, the Gaming Undeground, and Azrael’s Tomb.

It should be noted that though Azrael appears in female form, she does not refer to herself as female, but as “We,” and this current appearance is relatively recent, perhaps a reflection of taking on Zee, or in response to a prophecy in graphic novel form.

Azrael’s flowers are Vervain (the Key of Something Powerful) and Oak (The Key of Something that Hasn’t Changed)

Estate of Death

-Death ends things (2)
-Death is terrifying (1)
-Death comes to all things (1)
-Death brings both grief and peace (1)
-All men are equal in death (1)
-Death leaves a corpse (and other evidences of its passing)

Domain Miracles of Death

1. Finish off something that doesn’t matter. Frighten someone. Kill off someone who is on the verge of death (Mercy killing). Speed the grieving process or help someone get over an event. Inflict a surface wound with a little bit of death.
2. Know something about the death of someone just by looking at the corpse. Talk to corpses or ghosts.
3. Make someone even more frightened of their death. Bring death very swiftly from something that could kill (a nick kills someone). Make the grieving process intense and all-consuming. Make a death really easy to investigate, or make a battlefield particularly messy.
4. End someone’s life instantly. Conjure up the fear/specter of death for nothing. End something immediately (such as a fight).
5. Know how someone will die. See moments that surround future deaths or funerals. Ask the dead generally useful questions. Prevent someone’s death, or prevent the end of something. End the grieving process for someone (but prevents them from moving on). Remove someone’s fear (or their fear of death). Remove a corpse or evidence of a death. Animate the dead.
6. Change how someone is destined to die, the hour or the form of death. Ensure that death can come even to the immortal. Make something more lethal on a wide-scale (paper-cuts can kill, in San-Francisco)
7. Kill everyone in a city or a region. Kill an immortal. End a vast movement or principle, such as “killing a civilization,” or “the Death of Punk.”
8. Prevent the death of everyone in a vast region. Remove the fear of death from a huge portion of the populace, or ensure that someone never fears death again. Make someone immortal (so that they will never die).
9. Chart the deaths of large scale things, such as when and how the American way of life will die. Shape someone’s destined death to a ridiculous scale, in a way that ensures that they will end up somewhere (“You are destined to die during the colonization of mars”). Shape how an immortal is destined to die. Animate an army of the dead. Bring the dead back to life.

Persona Miracles of Death

1. Make someone a little spooky. Make someone a little corpse-like. Make people a little more equal. Make someone leave additional evidence of their passing.
2. Become any corpse. Be present at the moment of anyone’s death.
3. Make yourself terrifying. Bring yourself to anyone. Make yourself the equal of others. Leave more evidence of your passing.
4. Make someone else terrifying. Bring someone to you. Turn someone into a corpse-like creature. Make someone your equal, or the equal of others.
5. Become present in any corpse, at all possible deaths. Make a corpse appear fresh and alive. Make someone not particularly scary. Create inequality between people.
6. Make someone undead or a ghost or a reaper (“Guardian of Death”). Make death follow someone and kill those around them. Teleport to someone from across the world. Make even the whisper of your name terrifying. Make yourself the equal of immortals.
7. Teleport someone from across the world. Make someone epically terrifying. Make someone the equal of immortals.
8. Prevent a nation from grieving. Prevent a genetic lineage from even leaving a corpse, ghost or any other sign of passing.
9. Make someone a local death god. Tuck a city/nation away into the world of the dead, as a salvation for the passing dead, with a cult of reapers to protect them.

Estate of Games

-Games have winners and losers (1)
-Games are governed by rules (2)
-Games always have an element of uncertainty (1)
-Games are fun! (2)
-Games challenge their players (1)

Domain Miracles of Games

1. Make a situation a little more fun, a little more abitrary, or a little more chancey.
2. Know the rules to any game, even abstract “head games.” Know where the nearest game is. Find a specific game.
3. Make a game last longer. Make a gamer harder to win, or make a game even chancier than usual. Enforce fair play.
4. Declare that events are “really” a game (fun, governed by rules, chancy). Create a new game out of nothing. Create a new player out of nothing.
5. Declare that a game is boring, or nonsensical, or its ending already known. Excise players from the game. Remove rules from a game. Learn something about the larger world or the future by playing a game.
6. Shape a game’s destiny so it is bound to encounter a particular person. Shape the results of a particular game (who will win, who will lose, what the outcome will be). Transport a game from one culture to another (“Monopoly has always been Japanese”). Redefine the rules of a game. Shape a specific game (as in, a particular copy) so that it can grant special powers to its winners. Make it so a person is destined to win or lose a particular game (or all games).
7. Create an entire line of games or a franchise out of nothing. Create gamers out of nothing. Declare a vast set of ongoing events are a game and follow the rules of games (such as a war), making them largely fun, fair, etc.
8. Wipe out games from an entire region.
9. Make a specific game deeply important to a religion or a nation. Make gaming sacred in a city (like Vegas or Monte Carlo or Tokyo). Make the result of a particular game something like gaining magic powers (“Those who manage to finish Amnesia: the Dark Descent can become immortal”). Manipulate the rules of war, or the rules of etiquette, changing a game on a large, metaphorical sense. Declare someone a winner or a loser of something more abstract (like a game of love, or a war)

Persona Miracles of Games

1. Make someone slightly more fun to hang around, or force them to follow one particular rule, or conjure a random set of events for them that irritate or amuse them.
2. Be present in any game. Show up inside of a video game. Suddenly turn up at any gaming table.
3. Make yourself fun to be around. Surround yourself with uncertainty. Declare particular rules apply to you. Become a character from a game. Follow the rules of a particular game.
4. Create a geas for someone, a rule that they are required to follow. Declare a particular element of someone’s character as uncertain. Declare someone fun! Turn them into a character from a game (not making them a specific character, but giving them qualities like someone from that game).
5. Make someone dreadfully boring. Remove the rules that govern a person’s life (such as the rule that gravity affects them). Remove an uncertainty of their character. Make a video game character real by kicking them out of the game. Kick people out of games.
6. Make someone a “true gamer” giving them a deep connection and/or skill with games. Make someone the denizen of a game, bound to that particular franchise or lost within the game. Allow a video game character to interact with the real world. Connect video games and the real world via a portal. Become an extraordinarily powerful character from a game. Follow extremely powerful rules (such as immortality, or admin-rights to a city’s world-space)
7. Turn entire cities into video-game like spaces, or turn everyone around you into a game-like qualities. Make a region fun, or follow arbitrary rules, or fill it with chance.
9. Make someone an enormously powerful denizen of a game. Make a permanent, region-wide connection between game and world, creating a cultural connection between the two.

Estate of the Void

-The Void is the space where something could be (2)
-The Void hungers to be filled (2)
-The Void is home to very strange things (1)
-The Void is without form, substance or qualities (2)

Domain Miracles of the Void

1. Expand space a little, making something a little farther away. Draw things together. Show a glimpse into the weird. Create a blast of wind/shrapnel from a sudden void-pulse that causes surface wounds.
2. Know a creature of the void just by looking at them. Know the distance between things. Sense a nearby void.
3. Make the pull of an emptiness very intense (or the strength of an implosion very great). Make the things within a void even stranger. Make a void last longer than it naturally would.
4. Create a vast, suffocating emptiness that threatens to kill everyone in it (local only, but often has an area effect). Creating a vast emptiness where someone was is a Deadly wound, creating a vast emptiness around everyone is a area-scope Serious wound. Summon creatures from the void.
5. Fill an emptiness with… something logical (closing bullet wounds, for example, or filling a room with air). Allow a void to have form, quality or substance (but you cannot define what it is). Learn something from spending time in an empty space, by listening to silence, by staring at the darkness between stars.
6. Change what strange creatures live in a particular, local void. Change what is destined to occur within a particular void. Transport a particular bit of space/emptiness to another place. Create a gulf between two people emotionally. Fill someone’s heart with emptiness.
7. Summon vast armies of unnatural creatures. Erase a city or a vast chuck of landside or a mountain. Create a world-shattering implosion.
8. Create a planet out of nothing (filling a vast with void with something. Cannot define the planet). Give a vast area of space (such as the solar system) a particular unique quality (such as ether, or space-warping capabilities)
9. Change the destiny of a vast area of space’s destiny (“The home of the Arquillian empire!”).

Persona Miracles of the Void

1. Make someone feel a little empty inside, or a little hungry, or space out a little, or attract weird things to them.
2. Be present in any void.
3. Make yourself filled with strange monstrosities. Make yourself hunger greatly and able to devour nearly anything. Remove some specific form or substance from yourself (“I am without that specific substance”) such as purging yourself of poison, or removing your eye color, or removing defining elements about you.. Be insubstantial.
4. Make a hideous monster erupt from someone (likely killing them). Make someone feel empty and a great yearning to be filled (physically or emotionally). Remove undesired qualities from someone. Make someone a place where something else can be, allowing them to be insubstantial.
5. End someone’s hunger. Give someone qualities or fill them with substances they did not have before (though you cannot define them). Become one with the space of the Solar System.
6. Make someone a bizarre denizen of the void. Give someone the ability to survive, even thrive, in a void. Become able to spill out great armies of monster. Become able to devour mountains, or even worlds, to fill your endless hunger. Remove emotional or abstract qualities from yourself.
7. As 6, but to others.
8. End hunger across the world. Give everyone in a city undefined/uncontrolled qualities.
9. Make someone a god of the Void. Make a city a denizen of the void.

Additional Estates

Estate of Truth

• Truth shows the world for what it really is
• Truth hurts
• Truth will set you free
• You can’t handle the Truth
• Truth requires wisdom and sacrifice to uncover

Estate of Bridges

• Bridges allow you to go from one place to another, unconnected place
• Bridges carry you over obstacles
• Bridges grant power to those who control them

Aspect 0 (Mortal)
Domain Death 1 (3)
Domain Bridges 1 (1)
Persona (Death) 3 (9)
Persona (Truth) 3 (3)
Treasure 0
Miracle Points: 8
Common Gifts: Immortal (6), Flying (1), Glorious (2)
Gifts:

• Death Aura (2): Automatically kills anyone in Azraels vicinity (Generally inflicts a Deadly Wound, but only a serious wound on Durant powers, and might inflict a Surface wound on an immortal with a miracle point) provided she wishes them dead. Sometimes happens automatically, especially if doing so would protect her (even just her dignity)

Passions and Skills

Passion: “I will win the Excrucian War” +2
Passion: “We must all follow the rules” +1
Superior Quality: Destroyer of Worlds +4
Superior Quality: Speaker of Truth +1
Shine +3

Bonds and Afflictions ()

Bond: I will fulfill my duty to Heaven and Lord Entropy (5)
Bond: None may know my secret (Shadow) (2)
Bond: I always honor my word (Zee) (3)
Bond: I will protect my Reaper (Deadwood) (2)
Affliction: Mere Mortals cannot comprehend me (1)
Affliction: I have no shadow (Divine Wound) (5)

Additional Background

Azrael and Lord Entropy led a warparty against the dread Strategist, Vermifex Dremmerick, the Dark-Eyed Levtiathan, who was then attended by Cameron Delacroix.  The Vermifex had already corrupted a world with his corrosive presence.  Rather than attempt to rescue it, Azrael wrought apocalypse upon the world and forged it into an abhorrent weapon and used it to strip the dark-eyed leviathan of his immortality and killed him with the shards of that dead world. Before Lord Entropy dealt the death-blow, Azrael spoke an Imperial Miracle and created the riddle of Dremmerick: “What must exist to cease to exist?”  and answered the riddle thus: The Vermifex Dremmerick.  Thus, she pinned his corpse to creation, hovering between a state of existence and non-existence, unable to live, but unable to escape and reincarnate.  In so doing, Azrael violated her own estate and ripped open a wound in the world.

This paradox left Azrael vulnerable, and Cameron used the unconquerable edge of True Love to wound Azrael, stealing away her shadow and the Estate of the Void. In her wounded state, she fled without seeing the crawling wound of the paradox left by her riddle, which manifested as the Arch-Hipster.

To prevent anyone from tampering with the riddle or the now nameless world that holds the Vermifex pinned against the world tree, Lord Entropy decreed that none should speak the Riddle of Dremmerick as an Imperial Miracle.  Together, they have worked to scrub out the truth of that battle.  Azrael fears that someone might undo her work, and Lord Entropy’s reasons are his own, though some whisper that he lies about the state of the War, which the World Tree is slowly losing.