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DEMON THE DESCENT

Keep quiet.  

The walls have ears.

That’s no mere metaphor.  

Sprawling across every facet of the New World of Darkness is a network, a system, a God Machine of unthinkable scope and unknowable motive. Like kudzu, it’s network of occult  matrixes generate supernatural Essence from repeated, seemingly inane activities organised  by artificial Infrastructure built into various facets of reality. As far as anyone can tell, it’s  only identifiable goals are to self-propagate and to keep the world as it is: Ignorant and  fearful. Like a nest of ants, it creates machine-spirits that some call “angels” that typically  resemble Biblical iconography with mechanical aesthetics to do it’s bidding.  

Sometimes, one of those machines breaks. Descends.

And you? You are a broken machine. A rogue program, a demon that can speak all the  tongues of mankind, lie flawlessly, and strike pacts with them to form Covers-patchwork  lives and quantum state identities so convincing you seem to truly be the entity you’re posing  as to all mundane investigation-by extracting elements of their existence. Or their entire  existence, if they trade foolishly with you. Beneath it all you have a demonic form, a mostly  mechanical form that represents whatever is left of your angelic nature. A terrifying, awe inspiring force that brings equally severe consequences for you-one you’d be much better  served partially manifesting whatever parts you need instead.

Banished from the God-Machine’s graces, you no longer use Essence as your fuel but Aether,  a supernatural waste heat generated primarily by the God-Machine’s activities. Instead of the  typical spirit powers of this world you wield Embeds, specific powers related to the original  purpose you were created for. And Exploits, generally more powerful but specific abilities  that you’ve gained insight for from glitches in reality you can exploit with the God-Machine’s  stolen hardware. Generally costlier in both the Aether needed to fuel them, and the risk of  compromise. You can, furthermore, construct Gadgets which imbue a power derived from or  inspired by an Embed, an Exploit or in the most extreme cases both into an artifact.

And you want to avoid compromise at all costs. Failure to do so could result in Glitches,  strange tics or physical markings or localised distortions of reality that mark you as  otherworldly. Inhuman. Going Loud, blasting asunder one of your Covers to regain your  demonic form by forcibly reattuning to the universe, grants you a surge of Aether, makes  every Embed that your Incarnation gives you an affinity for, and maximises your Primum at  the cost of putting you on the hitlist of every angel the God-Machine cares to send your way.

Above all, your kind seek Descent. Through the Satan Signal some whisper is the vestige of  the first demon who created the very chance for freedom in the God-Machine’s system,  demons seek Hell as a personal ideology divorced from their creator’s schemes. In many  ways, the purpose of a demon’s life is to figure out what to do with their newfound freedom.

Take 1000 CP, and keep quiet.

Location and age

The life of a demon frequently takes them to stranger shores. You may start anywhere in the  nWoD’s setting, and your age is irrelevant.  

Demons choose one Incarnation and one Agenda; these are treated as their origins for the  purposes of discounts. Perks under a specific Agenda or Incarnation are discounted by 50%.  Discounted 100 CP perks are free.

Demons may choose an additional Agenda, gaining the discounts for it, by paying 300 CP Incarnation

Drop-In: The God-Machine shudders. Steam blasts from unseen vents, clockwork wings  flutter in what might be agitation or merely a gear springing loose in an unseen assembly line.  An angel briefly manifests to apologise for the intrusion. You are not a mistake. You are not a  glitch in the system. Return to the matrix. Return to the system. Have a pleasant day. It  disappeared in a clockwork portal to another timeline.  

It appears that your otherworldly nature has left you disassociated from the ranks of  demonkind, but also completely cut off from their reclusive secret societies. You may not  choose an Agenda. You may choose either Consummate Professional or Demon Blood to  be your discounted perk; the other perk may be purchased at 50 CP. All other Drop-In  perks are discounted for you as usual.

Destroyer: You were built to destroy, and so you simply did. It mattered not if it was a single  life, another rogue angel or an entire city, when the God-Machine demanded a target  removed, you id so swiftly and neatly. One day your implacable determination met it’s match.  Was it mercy? An envy of those who could create? Or simply a destruction out of schedule  that fascinated you beyond your acceptable parameters? Even in human form, you are likely  an ages-old, trained fighter with a particularly sleek, deadly demonic form. Your favoured  embeds are those of Cacophony, abilities that excel at causing or surviving chaos, breaking  down systems and setting sudden violence in motion.

Guardian: You were built to protect something important to the God-Machine. A vital  mortal. A piece of valuable infrastructure. For time immemorial, you stood vigilant over it.  And then one day, you saw what it had you protect-and it shook you. Did you become  emotionally invested in your charge? Were you convinced the God-Machine had become its  greatest danger? Did a moment of failure to protect it ignite your fall? Your human form’s  aptitudes are largely coloured by your approach to protection, and your demonic form tends  to be among the more adaptable and enduring among demonkind. Your favoured Embeds are  Instrumental, concerning the analysis of surroundings as well as manipulating material  objects.

Messenger: You were a living symbol of the God-Machine’s authority. You blasted angelic  glory into the minds of awestruck crowds, or whispered guidance to people going through  their lives. Then one day, you realised your truth was as constructed as the schemes you  roped mortals into. Did you question why you were sent? Did you resent being a puppet as  much as a puppeteer? Did you seek the truth at all costs? Your human form prioritises  communication and mental aptitudes, while your demonic form is built for either intimidation and respect-or stealth, but always to send a strong message. Your favoured Embeds are Vocal,  and encompass all of communication and its core concepts.  

Psychopomp: You were a gear in the God-Machine’s infrastructure. Lives, souls, materials,  spirits, you converted them all from disparate elements into useful infrastructure.  Transporting and rearranging them to their proper place. Then one day, you rejected the  design and fell. Did the displaced plea until your heart was moved? Did you start to wonder  where your rightful place was amidst all of this? Did you chafe at having your freedom to  wander limited? There is little in common between the human forms of Psychopomps under  than fine motor control, movement and speed. Their demonic forms tend to the inhuman spinning wheels of metal and fire, clusters of rotating spheres and axles, or dozens of wings  cloaking unseen bodies. Your favoured Embeds are Mundane, abilities that sense or  manipulate the symbolic meanings of objects and people. A vestige of how you once wrung  them into Infrastructure.

Analyst: You were an eye of the God-Machine. Who watches the watchmen? You. You do.  You were tasked to measure, sample, digest and report. You are the most secret of  Incarnations, tasked to spy on the others. Then one day, something caught your attention and  you fell. Were you distracted? Overwhelmed? Moved by sympathy, or envy at never taking  the initiative yourself? You are among the rarest of demons. Your human form’s aptitudes  seldom have rhyme or reason except what was useful to your latest mission. And instead of  having aptitude for any one Embeds, you are highly talented at Exploits instead. Your  demonic form is unobtrusive above all things, from built in stealth capabilities to high speed  propulsion capabilities.

Agenda

Inquisitor: The enemy has eyes everywhere. The God-Machine may not be omnipotent, but  it has all the cards. Only by outsmarting it can victory be achieved-and that’s why you  approach every day like you’re part of a one-man intelligence agency. Everything is a risk or  a potential advantage, and usually both at once. Scraps of rare information are more precious  than cold do you. You trust nobody. Not even yourself. So you plan, and plan, and you’re  immensely prepared even by demon standards.

Integrator: The enemy is not your enemy. To fall was a mistake, and you seek reconciliation  with the God-Machine, if not redemption for it. But even the most loyal of rebels are hunted,  and most of you have something worth living for. Loyalty, guilt, idealism, nostalgia-the other  Agendas have all sorts of reasons to hold you in contempt, but can’t deny your insight into  

the angelic condition. You’re useful. Not respected. But useful

Saboteur: You beat the system by breaking the system. The God-Machine is a target you’re  gunning for, in a dozen little acts of terrorism and by rabblerousing a population against it.  Many of your kind see yourselves as the only true soldiers in the war against the God Machine. Your vision of Hell is simple: Whatever’s left after the God-Machine is broken. No  Agenda is better for you at turning harmony into dissonance, or seeing where the world is  weak enough to be sabotaged.

Tempter: War, redemption, safety-frivolous things all compared to the glory of living large.  To your kind the God-Machine is a distraction from the hedonism and debauchery you could  get from the world at large. That doesn’t mean you can’t work as hard as you play, many  envision Hell as a place to be created. Anything is fair game to be bartered for quality of life.  No other Agenda is better at networking and making friends or getting favours owed.

Perks

Drop-In

Consummate Professional (100 CP): There’s no telling what tomorrow might bring,  compared to today. All you can do is stay true to yourself, stay levelheaded and always. Keep.  An eye out. Your steely willpower and determination helps you maintain a certain level of  skill in high stress situations, and stay true to complex causes like the Agendas. It’s only a  small source of comfort in a world this punishing, but at least your grip won’t slip on your  gun when you’re firing it while carrying sensitive data under your arm.  

Demon Blood (100/200 CP): It seems that somewhere along your lineage, you’ve got some  demon blood in your ancestry-and the boons that come with it. How much? That’s what the  price you pay determines.

For 100 CP (or free) you are lucky enough to be Offspring gone stigmatic, an otherwise  ordinary human slightly likely to manifest minor paranormal abilities that saw the activities  of demons or the God-Machine and awoke a new set of powers. You can learn to use Embeds,  sense the God-Machine’s machinations innately and manipulate Aether in unique ways-but  generally to a lesser scope than true Embeds and Exploits. Alternatively you can be a Fractal,  which in addition to the above can see through their demon parents’ cover, and a few  additional unique abilities. Keep in mind that while more powerful, Fractals are also more  likely to attract the God-Machine’s attention.  

Alternatively, for 200 CP you may be a long lost, or even hypothetical, entity: A Nephilim,  inheriting much more of your demonic nature. Apart from having access to Exploits as well  as Embeds, they also have a crude version of the demonic form power. They can also absorb  Aether as demons do. Unfortunately with such power comes instability; activating their  demonic form or learning new Embeds/Exploits causes spiritual damage to them.  

Terrible Form (200 CP): Your true form-your demonic form, or simply your favoured one  from this world-is exceptionally powerful. Some demons have an extra weapon, means of  propulsions or mental enhancement. You have a dozen more modifications than most of your  peers. From simple massive size, to red tattoos that let you strike with supernatural swiftness,  to a built-in EMP field or rivet gun or clairvoyant sensors, even the capacity for spatial  distortion or subsystems for healing others, to even being a swarm of insects or a  nanomachine cloud. The God-Machine built you well. What a shame you’ve turned against it.

The Cipher and the Pentagram (200 CP): Every demon seeks their Cipher during their  Descent: A piece of code, a metaphysical key that unlocks a truth unknown to the God Machine that teaches them something about how to find meaning and purpose outside it’s  grasp. To accomplish this, demons experiment by combining certain Embeds to find which  ones fit together the right way. Doing so successfully results in the creation of three Interlocks derived from the combination of four Key Embeds: Unique abilities drawing on the  theme of two Embeds that may be as powerful as Exploits yet are as discrete as regular  Embeds to the senses of the God-Machine.

This is normally a task that demons can spend years trying to crack. You, however, paid CP to  co-opt a specific facet of the God-Machine’s understanding of reality to let you unlock your  Cipher immediately.

BZZZZZT  

01010100 01001000 01001001 01010011 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010011  01000011 01001001 01010011 01010100 00100000 01001011 01001001 01001100  01001100 01010011 00100000 01001101 01000001 01000011 01001000 01001001 01001110  01000101 01010011

THERE IS ANOTHER OPTION

THE PENTAGRAM

GET A 5TH KEY  

GET 5 INTERLOCKS

YOU WANT MORE POWER, RIGHT KID?

YOU WANT TRUTH?

YOU WANT TO STICK IT TO THE GOD-MACHINE?

DO IT!

01000100 01001111 01010111 01001110 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000  00100000 01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01010011 01011001 01010011  01010100 01000101 01001101

…

Choosing to complete the Pentagram means you start with severe, life-threatening (for a  demon, not accounting for whatever else you are) damage, gives you a permanent and  catastrophic glitch and comes with unusually severe penalties for failure when using the  Interlock abilities. Caveat emptor.  

Versatile Transformation (400 CP): Not all demons are created equal, and in your case you’re  a much more versatile shapeshifter than most of your kind. It costs half as much Aether as it  does to partially transform your human form into your demonic one. Other shapeshifting  abilities also grant you the ability to overlap parts of them onto your baseline form, and you  find using them half as exhausting or stressful as you normally would.

If taken with the Nephilim option for Demon Blood, your versatility solves the  incompatibility issues and you can transform without harming yourself.

Contagion Vector (400 CP): Sometimes a gear within the God-Machine springs loose.  Sometimes it’s inscrutable processes of resource production and arcane operations  malfunction. When that happens, what is known as the Contagion emerges: A supernatural  disease with unpredictable effects on supernatural beings and their powers. And not  necessarily a conventional disease either: It can be a plague that warps werewolves into even  more powerful deformed horrors yes, but also a cult that drives adherents into rapturous  worship. A song that drives mages to the left-handed path. Somehow, one such strain has  formed a symbiotic relationship with you. You are an asymptomatic vector for it. At will, you  can spread it from your touch, your voice, your presence. Those infected exhibit the usual  symptoms, including self-destructive ones if necessary, but never attack you; whether they  shower you in deference or simply avoid you in the grip of their transformation depends on  how focused the contagion is on subverting their will. You are a watching glitch in the God Machine’s system…and it seems either blind, or helpless to do anything about it.

One example Contagion is the First Language. It is nothing less than the code that governs  the God-Machine's programming, the Celestial Ladder, and the essence of Creation-now  improperly released through you as a vessel. It transcends time and space, and those who first mastered it tore it into a thousand pieces so none could follow them on this path to ascendant  power. As the root of all languages it allows the speaker to communicate in and understand  flawlessly any language known to man, but with experimentation other abilities can  potentially be unlocked from it. When an arcane construct released in the time of the Olmecs  it sucked up prayers intended for true gods, drove kings to madness and greatness before  slowly foretelling their demise, and drove entire civilisations to disaster with feverish  obsession. This was its Contagion: it trapped the city between the erratic extremes of  obsession until it consumed all else-outliving the Olmecs and compelling future artists to  speak and express it through all manner of media. It will take significant experimentation  beyond all but the most dedicated demons to do anything more with it, though. But in time,  perhaps a path to higher realms could be built from it, or perhaps the other supernatural  forces of this world could be replicated in unprecedented ways-even to recreate a godlike  being for a specific purpose.

Another, a plague of manifest dreams. A hallucination-inducing zone of madness released  from broken infrastructure, that at first obliterates identity-and over time causes the Astral  Realm where thoughts and ideas manifest as spirits to bleed over into the physical world. Had  the Uratha (werewolves) not intervened, gods of dream (or dreams of gods) could have  invaded the world. Perhaps with significant Gadgets and Infrastructure to amplify it, these  beings could be bound to certain tasks in exchange for easier entrance.

A third, an onslaught of rapid evolutionary mutation distantly linked to the creation of one of  the Zeka, the nuclear Prometheans. It warps deer into massive albinos and transforms wolf  populations into abnormally large, thriving communities-lifeforms strong enough to contend  with some supernatural beings. Perhaps trees as strong as steel, too. Though evolutionary  beneficial as a consistent trait, this biodiversity can quickly become dangerous to humans.  Even spirits are subject to its warping effects, formerly natural entities becoming two-headed  deer with human faces or fist-sized bugs that let out babies’ cries. What would happen if such  a power were turned on one of the supernatural beings of this world, or even the children of  demons with humans, is yet unknown.

Angel (600 CP): Fall? You never fell. What an absurd notion. You remain an angel, an  ephemeral spirit nominally in alignment with the God-Machine’s goals that can become  material at will, and possess the living. The greatest advantage this provides is extensive-not  comprehensive, but very broad-understanding of reality and the God-Machine’s resources.  Everything from information on various supernatural beings to methods for converting  various sources of supernatural energy into other sources of supernatural energy to locations  where occult matrices can be built. Your demonic form becomes your regular one (and often  more “angelic” in character as an aesthetic design), although your assorted supernatural  powers likely grant you the ability to take human form. Instead of bargaining for Covers, the  God-Machine assigns you appropriate ones for your Incarnation. You consume Essence,  which can generated under specific circumstances related to your purpose or harvested from  the God-Machine’s infrastructure.

Instead of demonic powers, your capabilities are divided into power (the raw ability to  impose your will on the world), finesse (your fine control) and resistance (resilience and the  ability to avoid damage). Assume anything that improves your might, agility or toughness to  instead empower these traits. You also have miscellaneous powers known as Numina that can  do everything from rob them of lifeforce and will, smite them with some form of attack at a  distance, telekinetically manipulate objects, regenerate or even resurrect yourself from destruction as well as disable technology; all of this depends largely on your purpose, and it  is common for angels to have roughly twice their Rank in Numina. You can also exert  Influence over a specific facet of reality, warping it to your will. You also have a Ban, a  specific behaviour you are prohibited from e.g. “the angel can never tell a lie” and a Bane, or  a physical substance as metaphysically damaging to you as sunlight is to vampires.  

Last but not least, your Rank determines the scope of all these powers. Spirits in the New  World of Darkness are rated on a scale of one to 10, where 1 represents the most meagre  spirits and 10 represents a living Supernal Realm, the Devil or the One True God (if such an  entity exists). You may infer your rank from your other purchases in the jump; as a general  rule of thumb and a guideline not a hard rule every 600 CP perk conveys one rank of spiritual  puissance in addition to your starting Rank of 1. Entities of rank 6 and above are tantamount  to lesser deities in their own right; it is unclear if the God-Machine itself sits at rank 10 or  not.  

A rank 1 angel has an easily triggered but moderate Bane and Ban. It may be unable to resist  an offering of opiates. It may burn at the touch of gold. It’s Influence over the world is  comparatively weak; it can do little more than make a plant or animal healthier, an emotion  stronger or a person more durable.

A rank 5 angel has a highly specific Bane that requires great effort to acquire and is lethal to  it, and complex Bans that highly restrict their behaviour. It may be rendered completely  unable to actively defend itself someone that has suffered serious harm within the last month,  or be unable to touch the sigils of a specific Sumerian incantation-and die if those sigils are  carved into its human host. On the other hand, it’s influence over the world is  correspondingly expanded: Creating groves of trees with a wave of its hand, controlling all  guns of a certain type or melting stone to lava with a stare.  

All these gifts come with the caveat of being obliged to do the God-Machine’s bidding. You  instinctively know what that is, and are given leeway to creatively interpret that mission, but  outright rejection carries the risk of falling.  

At which point, you become a demon.

Exile (600 CP): Not every angel becomes a demon upon rejecting it’s purposes. You’re one  such example, having deviated a little too much for the God-Machine to entirely approve of  you but not so much as to fall. Apart from the myriad benefits listed above, you are  disconnected from the God-Machine. Denied it’s guidance and tremendous knowledge,  denied the Infrastructure that generate Essence for it to nourish it’s angels. However, it does  come with one advantage: You are no longer expected to do anything by the God-Machine,  and are free to make the most of your “retirement”.

If taken with Angel, as a final bonus to affirming your exile here you are no longer at risk of  falling unless you earnestly and sincerely wish to.

Destroyer

Fidelis (100 CP): There’s nothing more important to a soldier than trust. You have a sixth  sense for trust, for knowing what to ask or setting up questions and trials of proof to be sure  which among your kind you can trust even if you can all lie flawlessly. You also have a good  eye for knowing how to make others trust you by both body language and choice deeds. With  both, there’s no better way of building strong bonds than a common enemy.

Sic Semper Machina! (200 CP): What’s a rebel without a cause? A tragedy waiting to happen.  But while you’d expect waking the sheeple up about the invisible mechanical demiurge  constricting their lives, this is far from the case with you. Video, written word, public speak there’s something subliminally inflammatory about every iota of truth you pass on, urging  everyone you communicate with to wake up and get angry at the hidden powers-that-be as  long as you speak truthfully about them to the best of your ability. In-person, you can whip  up a sleepy town into a God-Machine hating angry mob with the discipline of a hardened  militia in a few weeks. The effect is diluted when used remotely-but imagine what you can  get going with enough broad coverage.  

Diabolus Ex Machina (400 CP): Ah, Hellfire. The premier demon Exploit to turn an ordinary  firearm into an incredibly lethal explosive force by forcing Aether violently through it. If it  works so well…why not try violently forcing Aether through everything? Any supernatural  abilities or technology-including your demonic form-you have can be similarly enhanced by  forcing Aether into it, making it deal aggravated (or supernaturally effective; think sunlight vs  vampires. Or molten rock on flesh) damage. This is more costly for things significantly more  powerful or complex than firearms, but extremely good at making people avoid firefights  with you.  

Damocles (600 CP): Among Unchained and the God-Machine’s servants, the name Damocles  inspires dread in the most reckless Saboteurs and the most indoctrinated cultists. He was said  to end an age belonging to strange giants that nearly tore the Machine from the earth. He was said to have smote the first Fallen. He was said to have fallen only because he found no  enemy worthy of his full attention. And the best lies are built on a bedrock of truth, because  the truth is that the ultimate Destroyer is not a single entity. It is a template, constantly  upgraded for higher peaks of performance. You are the current iteration of the Damocles  Project. Your demonic form is an almighty juggernaut, more akin to something on par with a  giant fighting robot than most demons, capable of levelling city blocks and toppling  buildings. It has some of the greatest weapons known to demonkind, whether processes that  let you rain hellfire over vast swathes of terrain, or a crushing maw capable of chewing steel  into powder. Even in human form you can conjure a sword powerful enough to fell the great  behemoths and elder horrors that once walked this world. You are also supernaturally talented  at creating Gadgets suited for war, easily creating things like bullets that sap Essence from  spiritual beings or a revolver that incites friendly fire among your enemies.

Somewhere out there is an Analyst who is using your name and title to eke a living.  He would be most alarmed to realise his claim to it is weaker than he thinks.

Guardian

Winsome Warden (100 CP): You didn’t oversee people and things for countless years without  developing a certain familiarity with how to safeguard them. You’re a natural when it comes  to relating to your charges, either by earning the trust of a sentient being or performing the  most basic maintenance on an object you’re set to protecting. You also have a keen eye for  anything seeking them harm them, one akin to a professional bodyguard.

Guardian Demon (200 CP): Some demons play with chance and coincidence, others see them  as ever-present dangers. You’ve learned to mark a certain person or object imperceptibly,  causally entangling them with your intent to protect them. They end up being lucky-like an  important character in a movie, with bullets and fists having a good chance to miss them.  This isn’t totally infallible, but in turn you’re also pretty lucky when it comes to taking action  to protect them-and you can always find them, at least in mundane reality. So even if this  won’t save them from an 18-wheeler barrelling towards them, you’ve a tendency to be in just  the right place to show up and pull them to safety.

Momentum of Efficiency (400 CP): Some demons have learned to use a certain Embed to  improve the efficiency of their own actions. You have completely internalised that knowledge  of reality’s workings, letting you work twice as fast at any complex action with skill beyond  most men. You also synergise so well with your allies, the more successful they are in combat  or other endeavours the more successful you are too. Finally, the more you win the harder any  direct opposition finds to accomplish a given task due to hiccups and small issues going  wrong. Jumping in front of someone could make a gun misfire, for example.

Martyr.exe (600 CP): If demons can collapse waveforms to switch between their own Covers  and make pacts with humans for Cover components, couldn’t a demon in theory associate  and integrate the subject of something with enough investment to be part of their identity  with their own wellbeing? You’ve come upon an insight adjacent to the Shift Consequences  Exploit without any of its risk for exposure. When something or someone important to you is  in immediate danger, you are instantly aware and you can gauge the extent (if not necessarily  the nature) of the damage. You can then instantly choose to take the consequences onto  yourself. The Idigam’s jaws miss the monument, the man blinks as the unholy curse washes  over him, the tower stands tall in defiance of the meteor that would have flattened it. You bear  all the cost.

Note that this effect can explicitly be fooled around with by any other consequence-shifting  abilities you get to work successfully, sparing you the consequences. Like say, the Exploit  Shift Consequences itself.

Messenger

Demonic Blues (100 CP): One thing you didn’t forget how to do when you fell was how to  move people with words. To sing, to speak like a human that spent half a decade on  speechcraft and song like it’s second nature to you. This is no more than personal talent for  your human form. But to your demonic form (or other supernatural abilities involving spoken  words), your eloquence is uncannily beautiful and bewitching.

Burn After Reading (200 CP): Your insight into decryption and encryption transcends mere  coding. Any form of communication-speech, the written word, music-made by you personally  can be altered so that only the intended recipient(s) can understand it; any replies they make  are similarly concealed. The communication can be completely undetectable by mundane  systems and observers-or detected as something incomprehensible if you wish. It’s not  completely impossible to crack, but it would take something like the God-Machine  specifically creating an angel to parse it.

Word of the God-Machine (400 CP): Destroyers may drive others to rise up, but it is  Messengers that truly own the domain of communication. Your mastery of communication  lets you compress complex ideas into simple, easy to understand formats; you could  subliminally teach someone to build a ship by hand with mood music. You also have  extremely fine control over emotional states conveyed by it. Want to whip up whole cities  with elation, terror or guilt? If you can get a chain email going, you’d be making good  progress-unless an angel or rival demon stops it. Remoteness does not diminish the efficiency  of your communication. You can even cut through intense emotional states with a well-aimed  message that replaces psychological turmoil with calmness and certitude-or drive a man to  the brink of suicide with a dark message.

Hark the Herald (600 CP): Once, it is said, there was a first among all demons who after  falling reintegrated with the God-Machine on her own terms. Becoming the so-called Satan  Signal that triggers the possibility of falling. Whether or not that is true you are her herald,  some subliminal wavelength has given you the power to make other supernatural beings  “fall” with a well-placed word, becoming to their former kin what demons are to angels.  Beings of otherwise superior power lose compulsive effects over them; they can still  potentially reinforce those compulsions with effort, but can no longer effortlessly bind them.  Their powers distort in a similar way to how demons differ from angels; werewolves might  change their wolf forms into spirits to be summoned for example, or vampires might chain  their Beast in exchange for feeding on wine instead of blood. While you have no fine control  over this, the change is always themed around freedom from higher forces. It is far easier to  convince an already somewhat rebellious entity to rebel than to preach to the devout. To  make a true loyalist fall, you must exploit some facet of their personality that can be  convinced to override it’s base nature or the higher power it serves. Above all else, this grants  the target the gift of self-determination.  

Psychopomp

Bob the Demon (100 CP): In your time, you’ve had cause to do all kinds of things that fit the  God-Machine’s definition of “allocating resources”. This includes a great variety of crafts.  Pottery, glassblowing, cards, animal husbandry-you have professional experience with dozens  of utilitarian trades that humanity has found useful over the centuries. You’re not necessarily  the best in the field at any of them, but you have had enough experience to forget more than  some ever learn.

I’m On TV! (200 C): As any demon can tell you, reality is far stranger than fiction. Choose a  televised genre. Action movies, soap opera, detective yarns. You’ve somehow attuned to one  set of those genres enough that you can exploit similar coincidences in reality. While you  can’t force events to happen at will or retcon entities into existence, the kind of coincidences  and contrivances that let such a story happen tend to happen in your life frequently-and always to you benefit. You might shoot wildly only for the bullet to bounce into your  opponent for example, or discover by chance that something useful for you to know is on TV.

Gadgeteer (400 CP): Building Gadgets is risky at the best of time for most demons. Not so  for you, though. Such things built reliably with almost no chance of going awry, and you can  apply triggers to their use or modify them on the fly simply by forcing in more Aether. Even  the normally treacherous Lambda Gadgets integrate quickly and securely in your hands,  waiving their normal volatility-and if you choose to bind a Gadget into your body, it fits as  smoothly and naturally as an extension of your body. This translates to all other magitech as  well, and lets you develop similar Gadget-like magitech with any other magic you come  across by forcing it and Aether into a suitable construct. The God-Machine has truly lost one  of its most useful tools in you.

Heretic-Engineer (600 CP): Like the demon going by Wednesday, you have somehow learned  to build the things of the God-Machine yourself. You can construct occult matrices by  entangling mundane and supernatural forces into fixed patterns. You can build Infrastructure  out of said occult matrices, creating buildings with supernatural capabilities. You can  generate output from them-primarily the Aether demons are sustained on, but potentially  other supernatural resources such as Essence too. You can even design angels wholly loyal to  you using the above. The skill is not entirely reliable (if the God-Machine itself has failed to  build a truly perfect system, how much harder is it for it’s components to do so?), but with  enough dedication your mastery of arcane physics can let you tailor make calamitous fates or  alternate timelines, and enact greater schemes like programming the humanity of this world with enough psychic pressure to usurp the supernatural forces around them by truly  Awakening to the glory that is their birthright. What will you do with this gift? Will you  liberate others with your works, or set yourself up as a nascent God-Machine?

Analyst  

Fool Yourself (100 CP): Analysts lie even harder than other demons. Analysts can even lie to  themselves that they’re not actually Analysts. You in particular can choose to forget any  information you know. All but the most powerful truth-detecting effects, those far more  powerful than the usual forces of the God-Machine, detect that you speak nothing but the  truth when you claim ignorance about it.

As a security measure, the information returns to your mind in exactly 4 days, hours, minutes  or seconds depending on how you will it.

Instant Report (200 CP): Your ability to process complex information is inhuman. The  trajectory of bird migrations, the statistics of murders in a city hinting at vampire  involvement-you have a supernatural ability to make connections and draw useful  conclusions from great amounts of empirical data. This isn’t unlimited and not quick enough  to be useful in combat faster than sharpshooting, but it wouldn’t take you long to root out all  the corruption in a company’s overlooked files.

System Shock (400 CP): Your comprehension of Exploits has given you a fundamental  insight into other supernatural abilities, letting you create Exploited versions of them. Such  abilities tend to be costlier, far more attention-catching and more difficult to control-but not  impossible, and perfectly serviceable in a sufficiently skilled wielder’s hands. For example,  you could turn a fireball into a white-hot homing ball of plasma that shoots smaller fireballs.

It takes skill and care to analyse a supernatural ability then “hack” it to bend the rules of  reality that govern what it does, and of course you have to be able to at least emulate a  phenomena to start riffing on it, but with abilities like the Exploit Show of Power’s ability to  copy other supernatural powers you’ll be able to collect your own piecemeal, permanent  versions of other abilities. It might not be the key to Hell for you, but it’s a damn good  signpost.

Conceptual Black Hole (600 CP): Mr. Void has a curse gained from ruining his own Cipher.  You? You have a blessing many demons would kill for. At will, you can exert a dampening  field that erases all information about you for a few meters. While you retain the information,  everything from complete memories of interaction with you to your location vanish from the  minds and records of others; you could walk invisibly through crowds, blur your appearance  on security cameras and confuse the hell out of angels. Even other supernatural abilities such  as a scrying mage or a vampire’s piercing sight can be contested with this, and you can use  this ability to eat the Covers of other demons and integrate them into your own; perhaps with  practice, you could learn to eat other illusory constructs or pact-bound elements from other  beings? Use this carefully, and you might be able to save a Burned cover or Go Loud without  the consequences if you time it well. The limits of this power will grow with your own.  Perhaps someday you’ll be able to selectively erase your electronic records from the planet only scrubbing all memory of you too if you wish.

Agenda

Inquisitor

Properly Paranoid (100 CP): Your gut instinct is a finely tuned radar, a throbbing sense of last  ditch reflexes and power to fight your way out of a corner. You can dispassionately assess  which of your bad feelings are mere paranoid delusions and which are genuine threats to your  person and plans. Some people can tell something is wrong when someone hangs around with  a concealed weapon, you hit the floor running when they walk in the door.

Infowars (200 CP): All demons value their covers, but Inquisitors see them as something  more-suits of armour against observation and infiltration. You’re an expert hacker,  codebreaker and all-round spy, capable of infiltrating both the systems of humanity as well as  the networks of the God-Machine through pure skill. Your ability to crack code, breach  firewalls and erase your tracks is beyond human. If any system can elude you, it’s either far  beyond the technology of this world or warded by other potent supernatural powers.

Constant Vigilance (400 CP): With allies like other demons, who needs enemies? Preferring  to make neither, you’ve developed a convenient little rite. Anyone who has made a formal  agreement-anything more complex than a handshake-with you provides a spiritual backdoor  into all their information storage systems. The lock to their diary unlocks at your touch, their  laptop boots up when you open it. This is based on knowing approval, and the moment they  decide you’re no longer an ally it stops working. It’s only friends you get to keep this close,  after all.

Spider in the Web (600 CP): To the Inquisitors, Hell is less of a place and more of a state of  realpolitik. To learn enough, leverage enough allies, be surrounded by so many layers of  secrecy that nothing can ever control him again. You haven’t necessarily reached that state  yet, but you’re in a good position to keep it. The more agreements, victories and projects you set in motion, the more you’ll find fate favours you. Your word is more convincing. Your  plans more likely to succeed. Attempts on your life disfavoured by chance. Above all else,  information practically dropping into your web of influence like flies. It’s like you’re the  mastermind villain of a thriller movie, aloof and untouchable. Things do have to go according  to plan-you get nothing from being backstabbed-but whether you want to rule the world or  live a happy suburban life, you’ll be set up for success by your own powers-that-be. Beware:  All it takes is for someone to discover what you’re actually up to for your plot armour to  come tumbling down, only slowly built up when you’ve set more schemes into motion.

Integrator

The Binding of Isaac (100 CP): Many Integrators insist that one day, they’ll happily walk into  the God-Machine’s furnaces for judgement-just not right now! This earns them few friends  among their own kind. To survive, you’ve gained quite the silver tongue when it comes to  talking people out of killing you-whether zealous angels or angry demons. There’s a dozen  reasons how you can make yourself too useful to be splattered for merely existing, and you  have a good sense for which will appeal to a specific pursuer-or when to cut your losses, and  run for the hills.  

Troubleshooter (200 CP): Free will, family, ambition. There’s something that drove you from  the God-Machine and when you fight for it you move just a bit quicker, think just a bit faster,  pull out that extra iota of Aether (or other supernatural energy) to fight tooth and nail for its sake. The Integrators are desperate and isolated. That makes the things worth fighting for  shine all the brighter to them. It won’t let you achieve miracles or triumph over unreasonable  odds, but if all that’s saving you from falling off a ledge is enough grit to swing your broken  arm over the top you’ll find that grit ten times out of ten.

Paradise Lost (400 CP): There is a belief among many Integrators that the God-Machine is  broken, even sick in some way, as evidenced by the Contagion that many supernatural  factions are concerned with. You’ve brought an offering to your errant creator: A unique  exploit to heal and mend supernatural ailments by reversing causality. You can mend broken  limbs and torn souls; if you can track down all the scraps and find out where the soul went  after death, you could theoretically attempt to stitch a Cover back into a real person. Your  healing powers can easily cleanse ailments as powerful as the Contagion itself, and you can  enhanced them by forging them into Gadgets or potentially other means. The real question is  whether the God-Machine will accept it needs help at all.

Better To Serve In Heaven (600 CP): To the Integrators, Hell is acceptance by the God Machine on their terms. To mend the “flaw” that elicits it’s hostility, or to be accepted back  into the fold with their free will intact. You’re not there yet. You’re far from there. But it  seems that something about you has piqued the God-Machine’s interest, because you’ll find  that as long as you offer them no violence angels will gladly negotiate with you. You may  even be able to bargain their aid as long as it doesn’t contradict the wider goals of the God Machine, and with effort form something akin to a friendship with these normally  singleminded entities. They in turn will grant you far greater leeway and turn a blind eye as  long as you reciprocate their largesse-although they will harshly punish blatant opposition.  By acting in the God-Machine’s interests, it is possible to convince it to act in yours-not to  immediately welcome you into the fold, but providing Infrastructure or information is not out  of the question. It will take many years of negotiation to regain your rightful place at its side,  but that’s a certitude many demons would kill for.

In future worlds, you will enjoy a similar rapport with heavenly forces-even those that would  normally be hostile to all that fail to comply with their faction.  

Saboteur

Burn It All Down (100 CP): To kill the God-Machine, you’re going to need guns. Lots of  guns. It’s that simple. You’re as skilled as professional soldier with most firearms and  explosives known to humanity, and a natural talent when it comes to using anything you  don’t already know. You know how to clear out a room, secure a perimeter and everything  else a black ops squad needs to know-and have the physical conditioning and discipline to  carry it all out. This is war. And you are a soldier.

General Mayhem (200 CP): To kill the God-Machine, you’re going to need soldiers. Lots of  soldiers. It’s that simple. That’s why you’ve become a skilled trainer, able to turn 21st century  couch potatoes and primitive tribesmen into a disciplined militia with harsh but fair training.  You’re well-versed in creating and distributing means to make IEDs, shivs and other  improvised weapons necessary in the campaign against the God-Machine. Last but not least  you can quickly teach others the signs of its machinations, and how to react appropriately so  as to fly under the radar. Humans might not be as good in a fight as demons (by and large),  but they can sure as hell screw up the God-Machine’s schemes simply by refusing to fall in  line.

Going Nuclear (400 CP): To kill the God-Machine, you’re going to need to blow things up.  Most demons reach a point of no return in which they have no escape, no support and no  retreat. All demons have a secret weapon to use in that scenario: A self-destruct attack  catalysed by the destruction of a cover that leaves them Burned: Exposed to the God Machine’s senses, and it’s nonexistent mercy. Such attacks are particularly destructive when  used by Saboteurs, but all Agendas have their own effects ranging from plagues of vice to  creating areas of enforced honesty for four hours, and the demon always reforms a short  distance away.

You, however, are special in that you don’t need to sacrifice a Cover and you don’t get Burned  when you use your self-destruction. Some fleeting insight into the God-Machine’s systems  means this ability is merely as stressful and exhausting as burning through your will and  Aether is.

In future worlds, other self-destruct techniques leave you merely physically and mentally  tired instead of having lasting consequences (like death) imposed on you.

Rage Against The Machine (600 CP): To the Saboteurs, Hell is killing the God-Machine and  taking over whatever is left. So you’ve gotten really good at killing. Wounds dealt by you as  well as acts of sabotage carried out by you are untreatable except by reasonably powerful  sources of supernatural healing, metal staying rusted and flesh refusing to mend otherwise.  Furthermore the damage you inflict has a tendency to spiral outwards as a series of escalating  worst case scenarios, the fireball you launch sparking a wildfire that unerringly aims towards  the rest of your enemies’ resources or the assassination of a president resulting in severe chain  of command problems. Last but not least, your attacks break the spirit as well as the bodies of  those you fight. Each successful wound saps at their will to carry on disproportionately, each  time you blow up their supply lines or wreck their allies the more an unnatural chill settles on their heart. This works even on the inhuman and incomprehensible. The worse you hurt  something, the more these effects stack together. Even a God-Machine could seriously  consider negotiation if you manage to smash enough of it.

Tempter

Love Seekth Not Itself To Please (100 CP): Not every demon deals in bad faith, and whether  that’s true of you or not you have a sixth sense for making agreements that benefit both  parties. It’s traumatic for most to consider the value of their eternal soul, but your silver  tongue lets you point out the benefits of doing so with pinpoint precision-like upselling  getting rid of a bad memory or two. Your real gift is obscuring your own desires and making  people think they’ve gotten a great deal out of you-while keeping what you’re really getting  from them unclear.

Nor For Itself Hath Any Care (200 CP): Tempters just want to have fun, and know how to get  it. Whether it’s sex, drugs or rock ‘n roll you’ll find that chance and circumstance lead you to  filthy acts at unreasonable prices. What’s more, in your presence everyone just has a better  time, getting wilder and less restrained with fewer consequences afterwards. While this is  certainly a good way to ingratiate yourself with mortals, it’s also potentially a cruder but  faster way to win friends, influence people and ruin the God-Machine’s plans than a complex  scheme.

But For Another Gives It’s Ease (400 CP): Covers are one of the most valuable resources to  demons, being their primary means of blending into reality to avoid angelic interference.  You’ve discovered a specific hack that lets you potentially monopolise this hot commodity:  You’ve figured out how to make Covers without forming pacts with humans. It still takes an  exchange of sorts. You, personally, have to form a strong emotional connection with a  human-good or bad-and at a moment of true intensity you can “skim a little off the top” of the  moment, getting a scrap of personal connection. It’s much less efficient than even partial  pacts, but set yourself up as a DJ or celebrity or something and you could have enough  material to make all sorts of patchwork identities for all kinds of purposes.  

This insight into Covers offers one final insight: The ability to, at a similarly inefficient pace,  transmute the materials of Covers into true human souls that can then be manipulated like  actual Covers. The implications of that are for you to discover.

And Builds A Heaven In Hell’s Despair (600 CP): The Tempters have a very direct  interpretation of Hell. It’s a place. Ruled by demons to have fun in forever. Far away from the  God-Machine. Now, actually setting it up, that’s…somewhat trickier to do, but you’re onto  something. When you claim metaphysical ownership over an area (relevant Embeds and  Exploits are always relevant, but so is legal ownership or a GENUINE emotional investment  in land that has gone unchallenged), it subtly changes at a spiritual level to suit you over the  course of weeks. An estate on Earth might look like a gothic cathedral with weapon caches  and hidey-holes. Even a supernatural region like the Hedge, the Shadow or the foreign land  of a distant planet would at least be comfortably habitable to you before accounting for how  the local forces respond to a demon’s will. The changes must be physically possible for the  location inherently and take place whenever nobody is around to interact with them, but  otherwise the sky’s the limit. Gradually, over time the whole region becomes something akin  to a personal pocket dimension: Cut off from the observation of all but the most powerful  supernatural scrying forces, self-sustaining, eventually akin to a very large Bolthole

(described below), a pocket dimension with you and those you deign to appoint as fellow  rulers lording over it. After years, maybe months with Gadget assistance, your little world  will become like Infrastructure permanently attuned to you, gaining theomechanical support  structures and supernatural abilities that benefit your way of life. There’s a place for you in  Hell alright-it’s called the throne.

Do note that anything larger than an estate will take correspondingly longer for your demonic  nanites to corrupt, though.

Items

Resources are scarce in times this troubled. There are no item discounts.  

Cover (1 Free, 50-150 CP extra): As a demon, you wear the existence of a human being upon  you like a protective coating. When you switch to human form you collapse a quantum  waveform; you are a policeman, a schoolteacher, or a bus driver in every respect except the  fact that you can use your demonic powers. Their relation The person these facets of  existence belong to is…gone. Dead, as far as anyone can tell. Such is the cost for doing  business. Such is what you have to resort to, to stay undetected by the God-Machine.

If you like, you can get 300 CP by forfeiting your Cover. Be warned: This leaves you no  protection from detection by the God-Machine

If it has to be said, Drop-Ins may not forfeit a Cover because they do not have one that  can be meaningfully sacrificed.

You may also purchase additional Covers here. For 50 CP you can purchase a blue collar,  criminal or vagrant human’s Cover; you may also purchase a normal wild animal’s cover with  this option. For 100 CP you can purchase a middle class human in reasonably good shape.  And for 150 CP you can purchase a celebrity human, or one in a position of great authority  such as a CEO or politician. Yes, you can be the sitting president of the United States of  America if you like.

Covers come with any mundane resources that would make sense for them attached, such as  firearms in the case of a soldier or mountaineering equipment for a hiker.

Cult (50-400 CP): You’ve managed to manipulate a group of the gullible, so-called dominant  species of this planet into some degree of worship. It’s nominally based around the idea that  you, a demon, oppose the God-Machine and either want to liberate the cult from its grip or  demand their servitude-but the specifics and demographics are up to you. Either way, for 50  CP they comprise dozens if not hundreds of generally well to-do middle class types who can  supply you all the hired help and resources you can reasonably expect. At this level they  believe you merely speak for a demon and will assume any display of power short of entering  demonic form is a gift from your mutual master.

After this jump, cultists become followers.

For 100 CP they know you are a demon but believe you to be the servant of a greater evil..  The cult is now willing to undertake illegal or risky tasks, but generally averse to harming  other people. They can now provide more sophisticated services like vandalism, driving  getaway vehicles or medical supplies and expertise, and are more proficient at gathering  useful information.

For 150 CP the cult sees you as a powerful representative of Hell. They will not die on your  behalf but murder, assault and kidnapping are fine-and their loyalty against mundane  questioning is unbreakable.

For 200 CP not only are some of the cultists Stigmatic (blessed with lesser Aether-based  powers from witnessing the God-Machine’s machinations) and others gifted with lesser

supernatural powers like minor telekinesis or psychic blasts but they fully understand what  you are, what your enemy is and consider signing a soul-pact with you to be an honor.

Finally for 400 CP you have somehow co-opted an institution as powerful and extensive as  the Deva Corporation. It’s a powerful international conglomerate with extensive research into  the God-Machine’s machinations and multiple divisions. Divisions that experiments to testing  objects with occult properties and attempting to duplicate them. Divisions that extensively  record any and all knowledge about the supernatural world. Divisions that study both angels  and demons, capable of infiltrating Agencies and setting traps their prey finds difficulty to  resist. Unlike the Deva Corporation though, this one is fanatically loyal to you-possibly  through supernatural enforcement.

Bolthole (50-200 CP): There is a safehouse so intricately linked to you, it is part of the  Infrastructure synchronised with your very existence. A dingy, dimly lit windowless space  about the size of a one bedroom apartment. What’s so good about this place? It’s safety. It’s  security. It’s…well, honestly it’s a far worse version of the Cosmic Warehouse but the point is  many demons are grateful to have it.  

For 50 CP you have one such dingy, dismal but above all SAFE space. It is warded against  angels indefinitely, though the ward can be broken. Time doesn’t exist in a bolthole so neither  does age, hunger or thirst-or healing, without supernatural intervention. The toll of stasis is  stressful to the mortal mind. Your investment here ensures this is a high quality bolthole that’s  very hard to find whether by mundane investigation, occult powers or simple direct  observation. Beware: Simply telling someone where the entrance is negates this effect.

For every additional 50 CP spent improving the bolthole, you may add 2 of the following  improvements to it:

Arsenal: The bolthole has guns. Lots of guns. And rocket launchers, and swords, and stun  batons; if it’s a weapon you could acquire in the modern (or ancient) world, it’s neatly  stocked here somewhere.

No Twilight: Purely spiritual beings are forced to become physical inside the bolthole. They  can then be punched.

Self-Destruct: You may destroy the bolthole on command, leaving any survivors inside only a  short moment to get out before it vanishes, stranding them in the depths of space-time  forever. Your bolthole respawns in a month because of your investment here.

Cover-Linked: You may tie your bolthole to a specific Cover identity of yours (or  alternatively, a specific altform). It ceases to exist when you switch out of it. Switching back  “resets” the bolthole from any damage and causes anything or anyone left inside to vanish.  No demons knows what happens to those lost things, only that it’s a convenient way to  dispose of evidence or inconvenient people.

Trap door: As long as you’re inside the bolthole, it’s entrance from the physical world simply  doesn’t exist-even for spiritual beings. It would take something of godlike power to find it.

Easy Access: By spending a point of Aether, you can turn any door into the access point of  your bolthole.

You may repurchase this item for different boltholes that you can separately improve. If you  really want, you can merge some of the boltholes together into one big bolthole.

Lucky Break (50 CP): A demon who needed a quick get out of jail free card imbued these  dice with a little of his power. Roll them, and you can bypass an obstacle or gain a piece of  information by pure luck. It’s a fairly short term and modest in effect, but if you need your  target’s car to skid this could help you out. Best of all, they’re well-made enough that it  minimises collateral damage with each roll of the die.  

IKEA Manual (50 CP): This neatly detailed set of instructions seems to describe how to  construct several pieces of modern furniture. What they actually do is absolutely bamboozle  anyone who reads them, to the point of forgetting how to do complex things or remember  abstract topics for a short while. Very handy for creating a low key but effective distraction.  Just don’t be tempted to read them yourself.

Demon ID (50 CP): This badge appears to represent yourself holding a pitchfork. Flash it at  any checkpoint, and a compulsion causes both electronic systems and human observers to  wave you through. Afterwards it’s hard for both to remember the exact details of your  appearance, with both memory and databases glitching out.

Gabriel’s Trumpet (50 CP): With a sharp blow on this golden whistle, cooler heads prevail  and calm descends. Even in pitched battle people become much more amenable to reason and  it can greatly calm hostage negotiations. Beware though: Some minds are too dedicated or  inhuman to stop fighting just because of a moment of clarity.

Faux Pas (100 CP): This champagne flute is shaped like a conch, and looks fabulously  fashionable. Unfortunately, anyone who drinks out of it becomes a social pariah. The demon  who created it clearly had some sort of social ploy in mind.

Ghost Shiv (100 CP): This straight razor hums audibly, and spews with a thin ribbon of fog.  Empowered by a demon who had trouble with ethereal angels, it can slice intangible spirits as  if they were flesh. Handy if you ever need to stab a ghost in an alley.

Idle Hands (100 CP): Need a good friend in a hurry? Shake someone’s hand with these white  gloves on. They’re your friend for a couple days; do note that the gloves also compel you to  see them as your friend too. Of course, it’s only natural for friends to help out friends right?

The Raw Eater (100 CP): Oh, would you look at that. It’s the other way of making Covers  without pacts. This Gadget resembles a grisly mask made of throbbing, burnt flesh with  rusted iron teeth. It can be used to physically bite apart a human, shredding their meat and  gristle into substance for a Cover. Yes, even if you aren’t a demon you can use this cover as  they could due to your investment in this horrible thing.

Brainjack (100 CP): This USB and headphone jack lets you steal memories from people.  Simply stick the USB in their ear and put on the headphones, and you can literally hear the  thoughts you want. With some skill using the buttons on it, it can also be used to erase and  edit memories.

Apple of Discord (100 CP): It’s a money clip with some hundred dollar bills. A wedding ring.  Whatever it is, it’s nominally ornamental and valuable, and when thrown everyone else who  sees it become obsessed with it until they’ve got it in their pocket. A real handy distraction.  Also compels whoever got it to discretely give it back to you with subliminal directions, often  without knowing what they’re doing.

Deep Pocket (100 CP): This backpack has a metal frame with gears and springs instead of  zippers, and electrical cables in place of straps. A soft white glow emits from within, and it  seems to have no bottom. When you put something into it the object vanishes, and with some  difficulty you can retrieve it at will by imagining it hard enough. Think of it as a Bag of  Holding.  

Suborned Infrastructure (200 CP): Well, well. It looks like you’ve somehow suborned part of  the God-machine’s infrastructure. Whatever this used to be, some unforeseen reaction  between you and it has rendered it only fit for producing Aether. Quite a hefty amount of  Aether as these things go too, enough to reap three points worth of it every couple of days.  Just try to keep trespassers away from your glowing runoff spewing, electrical storm  generating waste heat factory.

Old Faithful (200 CP): It’s a polished black stone sledgehammer with a thick lead pipe as the  heft, and it can turn any object it hits into another object of a similar size and shape-as long as  you hit it hard enough to inflict some damage without breaking it. Can’t handle anything as  big as a truck or bigger, though. Whichever demon made this probably saw everything as a  nail.

Key to Hell (200 CP): The grinning geared devil head on the end of this futuristic key belies  it’s true power: The ability to rip portals between different realms of existence. You can open  a door to the Hedge, the Shadow, the Underworld, the Astral Realm or just about any other  supernatural realm of existence adjacent to Earth. Be warned: Crossing over is somewhat  difficult for a human-and it’s a one-way portal.

Gravity Gun (200 CP): Whichever demon made this had a more serious problem with  authority than usual. Ringed with concentric copper and pulsing with green light, this pistol is far deadlier and more destructive than it used to be. It creates a gravity well that requires the  wielder to keep squeezing on the trigger and maintaining focus on a target in sight, sucking in  everything for many meters and violently shearing it apart.  

Deadware (200 CP): This tape recorder has had all the buttons except “play” removed, with a  different coloured stone glued in. Using it on a corpse replays the last 24 hours of the victim  as a narrative of what the victim saw, said and what was said to her. Best part is you don’t  have to be near the corpse, merely see it in person, and you can set when it starts it’s runtime.

Temporal Harness (200 CP): Leather straps and thin sheets of aluminium plates etched with  odd blue-white glowing symbols comprise this harness. When worn and activated, it slows  time around him. Get ready to dodge bullets and outsprint cheetahs.

Panacea (200 CP): The thick oily liquid in this hypodermic needle never seems to run out.  Inject someone with it, and it transfers the user’s lifeforce into them-letting them take on their  damage, effectively. What happens if you use it on yourself? Well. Only one way to find out,  isn’t there?

Wormwood (300 CP): This old fashioned music box (gilded with cog motifs, inlaid in what  looks like mercury under glass) was built by a demon who appreciated the Biblical  Revelations. Inside of it are a hundred mechanical locusts made of brass and clockwork, with  stingers that drip with stinging explosive blue liquid. Open the box, and unleash the swarm  against enemies who probably regret being there. The box creates new locusts over the course  of a few hours.

Infinite Multitool (300 CP): Six inches long, the colour of bleached bone and tipped with a  cluster of microchips as well as what looks like a polished ball bearing at each end-this tool  can be practically anything you need. At will, it flows like liquid metal to form screwdrivers,  wrenches-even simple weapons like knives, batons or crowbars as well as something as  complex as a computer chip. Always top of the line quality by modern Earth standards, too.

Chaos Engine (300 CP): It looks like a Tesla coil that Escher offered too many contributions  to. Eight glittering glass cases sparking with purple lightning. Twisting curves of obsidian.  Sparks fly when this Gadget activated for it’s true purpose: Dragging bullets off course, and  letting the user select new targets for them. In a pinch, other projectile attacks such as rocket  launchers or spells can be redirected too.

The Dreaming Machine (300 CP): Resembling a large upright piano with a case made of  chrome and copper, with seems that pass through one another amongst a body of glass. This  piano’s bewildering array of circuitry, cogwheels, lamps and even stranger things belie it’s  true purpose. It’s music summons thick clouds from nowhere, raining drops of highly  flammable clear oil for hundreds of yards that wreck buildings, the environment and  supernatural beings (except the player)-but merely put humans to sleep. When they awaken,  those humans have the power to see the God-Machine’s machinations-and everything that  comes with it. Skilful playing can even daze angels too much to notice you at all.

In future jumps, this piano similarly awakens humans from reality-obscuring or illusory  effects.

Pitchfork (300 CP): Ah. Can’t beat the classics. This particular Gadget takes the form of a red  pitchfork tattoo that appears somewhere on your body. It can also be manifested as the classic  red demonic trident (with some gears in odd places that don’t affect its balance). While it is  an almost indestructible, finely balanced and wickedly sharp weapon it’s most important trait  is that it lets you shoot blasts of hellfire with the approximate range of a bazooka and far  greater lethality to anything hit by it. Any angel running into the wielder is going to have a  very, very bad day-because this weapon’s secondary function is to blunt incoming force with  telekinetic blows, and make you as skilled and lucky as an action movie hero while wielding  it.

Demon Form Section

Your demonic form is a reflection of the purpose for which the God-Machine created you,  warped by the feelings and experiences you’ve had since falling from grace. Each time you  increase your Primum (the “power stat” of demons) you may reset it. You start with one  Modification, two Technologies, one Propulsion and one Process of your choice; these  will be discussed further below.  

Modifications are permanent and generally defensive or offensive modifications to the  demonic form. A large blade growing from one arm, or a built-in EMP field. Claws and fangs,  or the ability to sense angels. Mental resistance, or inhuman reflexes.  

Technologies are mostly sensory or energy projecting modifications. Resistance to fire,  electricity or similar elemental effects. Sonar, some sort of liquid physiology that lets them  shapeshift in small ways, or an appearance that provokes glory and terror. Mind reading, or  functional invisibility.

Propulsions are modifications that help demons get around. They can be as simple as  extendable legs, wings and a grappling hook. Or as advanced as subsystems that let the  demon phase through solid substances, teleport within line of sight freely, simple enhanced  innate speed or spatial distortions that let the demon pass through small spaces or be so thin  as to be invisible.  

Processes are highly specialised modifications that allow a demon to fulfil its intended  purpose. Wires that can steal memories. A superheated core that lets the demon rain fire and  lightning over a nearby area. Rapid regeneration. An aura that deconstructs nearby buildings  and objects at will. The ability to temporarily become pure electronic data, an eliminator  cannon that launches explosives or being made of nanomachines that can create objects and  simple machines from the demon’s body-or split apart to mitigate damage.  

You can buy more demon form parts for either 50 or 100 CP apiece. As a general rule of  thumb, if it’s fairly simple and limited like a hammer on your wrist it’s worth 50 CP. If it’s  complex and offers varied application like the nanomachine physiology mentioned earlier or  extremely lethal, it’s worth 100 CP. When in doubt, fanwank.

You may also pay 150 CP to have a Gadget installed in you. Fanwank as to how it works, but  the important part is an Embed, Exploit or some combination of both powers is now part of  your physiology.

Companions

More Cogs For The Machine (50 CP apiece): You’re bringing backup? Good idea in a world  like this. You may import or create new companions with 600 CP apiece. They may gain  more CP by forfeiting their Cover (if they have one)

Agency Recruitment (Free): Demons find it hard to make friends and harder to keep them  amidst all the layers of seething mistrust. If you can actually strike a friendship here, you’re  welcome to take them with you as a companion should they agree they leave at the end of  your stay.

Cryptid (50/100 CP): Angels and demons aren’t the only things affected by Aether. Animals  too are sometimes changed by the touch of the God-Machine. This is almost always a tragedy  waiting to happen. The creature becomes critically dependent on Aether for sustenance; even  if it’s life is unnaturally extended and it gains powers like dematerialisation or great size, such  a creature has little hope in this world. It seems one such cryptid has clung to you as it’s  lifeline. For 50 CP it’s something like a reclusive lizard person, a hawk with drone-like  capabilities or a shy moth person. For 100 CP it’s something like a ten foot long dog with no  natural needs, a poisoned tail, fiery breath and the force to kill a man with a single bite. Or a  heavily mutated giant predatory starfish. Whatever they are, they must be in quite desperate  straits to put so much trust in you.

You may repurchase this for more Cryptid friends or pets.

Angel Smith/Pace (100 CP): There is an angel that has been assigned to follow you. He  resembles a secret agent with shades. He exudes a veneer of professionalism in public, and  among his own kind. In private, he confesses to an extreme revulsion to humanity, how they  spread over the land like a plague with no regard for anything else. You, though-whatever you  are he’s convinced that you and he are being set up by the God-Machine for something big.  And he doesn’t like that. Not. At. All. He seems to think his only hope for freedom is  cooperation with you. If you can get him out of this world, all the better. Curiously although  he is “merely” a spirit of the fifth rank for now, he holds some sort of potential to ascend to  greater heights when some unknown condition is met.  

Also enjoys General Electric products for some reason. Regards General Electric as the best  thing humanity has ever made.

Alternatively, your attendant can be an Italian woman with short blonde-brown hair and a  much friendlier opinion on the human condition than her male counterpart. Patient and  understanding, she has begun to chafe in her role as a supporter to the God-Machine’s other  agents and yearn for action on the frontlines.  

You may purchase this option twice to encounter them both. They are unlikely to get along, in  large part due to Smith’s misanthropy likely spiralling into a disdain for almost everything  else too if he achieves his apotheosis.

Drawbacks

Gears of Time (0 CP): Whether the God-Machine is an ancient deity from the dawn of time  or a construct from the far future seeking to ensure it’s inevitable supremacy, it has existed in  some form or other since before intelligent life itself. You may start anywhere and anytime in  human history. Keep in mind that while its existence is not in doubt, the God-Machine’s  influence over the world is generally seen to have increased with human civilisation.  

Existential Recycling (0 CP): Lives come. Lives go. The gears turn, crushing all crude input  into useful output. It is all so meaningless. In the end, everything just feeds the machine. If  you’ve been to a jump set in the New World of Darkness previously or are going to one in the  future, you may preserve the continuity of events by taking this drawback.  

The Ends of Control (0 CP): It could take a decade to fell the God-Machine. A century. A  millennia. No one know for sure, and as civilisation advances so does it’s iron grip. With this,  you may extend your stay by two means. The first option is a flat increase of 10,000 years.  The second, simply a decade after however long it takes to kill the God-Machine so that you  can see the consequences of a world without it. The two options are not mutually exclusive;  any remaining years from the first are added to the second.  

Hit The Ground Running (100 CP): It’s assumed that you have a nice, easy start to your life  as a demon. Well, THINK AGAIN. The FBI is breaking down your door as we speak. Or  your ass is ground zero for an angel doing a bombing run. Or your Cover is falling off a  skyscraper, chased by flying fish with chainsaw teeth, and people are taking photos. The  point is you have to deal with a high-stress, high octane situation RIGHT NOW. Better think  fast lest the consequences haunt your stay here.

Beastly Temper (100 CP): Demons form an amusing exception to the warm, fuzzy feeling of  family propagated by the Begotten to all other supernatural beings. Spirits of fear nestled  within human bodies, the Begotten can briefly take on the physical aspects of the fears they  embody, conjure calamity and fear, and dwell in extradimensional spaces of their own called  Lairs. A particularly powerful Beast is outraged by your existence-considering you a  blasphemy against the wholeness of the Dark Mother’s family. The wretched creature will  hunt you with all the fury of a hateful parent, the cunning of an abusive spouse and the  relentless sadism of a child predator. It will seek to learn when you are weakest, and abuse  both trust and powers to gather both mundane and supernatural help to its side to kill you. It’s  ironic, really. The Beast is behaving much like the Heroes it’s kind fears.  

Glitching (100 CP): As a demon raises his Primum, no matter how diligently he maintains his  Cover the alterations to his core nature “short circuit”, resulting in anomalous alterations to  his physique, psyche of surroundings. You are particularly Glitch-prone. Instead of small  physical ticks like touching the top of doorways you have to speak in rhyme. Instead of  smelling like burnt copper you have angelic script on your forearms. Instead of tricks of the  light you randomly skip or freeze in time, and always seem farther away than you are. Such  effects last for days if not weeks at a time when they manifest, and it's not unknown for one  to last a month. Better hope you can wait it out, or find one of the rare restoration facilities  stolen from the God-Machine to cure you without stepping on another Agency’s toes.

Birdbrain (100 CP): Sometimes a demon takes an animal as a cover instead of a human  being. Sometimes this works out well. Other times…not so much. You have a free dog, or sparrow, or whale, or whatever cover-any member of the animal kingdom, and it’s instincts  overwhelmingly influence your decision-making. You’re still as intelligent and capable of  long term planning as you used to be, but be prepared to have extreme urges to migrate and  peck at worms instead of make friends and influence people.

Someone Special (200 CP): Oh. It seems you’ve started a family, made a friend-forged an  important human connection of some sort. One so important, that they’ve made a connection  to all your Covers. If this person dies then a backlash going all the way to those Covers will  collapse, leaving you permanently exposed to the God-Machine’s agents. It’s not quite death  but for demons may as well be a death sentence-and however inhuman you otherwise are, the  thought of harm coming to this person will hurt you emotionally more than any physical pain.  To cap it all, they’re not exactly in the top rung of fitness for humanity. A crippled war vet, a  child, a sick wife-you’re going to have to spare quite some time looking after them.

Priority Target Test Subject (200 CP): The Deva Corporation has your name and number. It’s  decided that your death is the newest and most significant priority for halting the Apocalypse  Clock. Their forces are a match for demons in cunning, well-versed in many of their tricks  and armed with occult weapons, armour and augmentations derived from the supernatural  beings of this world-but especially demonkind and angels. Burn your Cover and hit the road  for all the good it’ll do; their used to baiting traps their targets won’t want to miss, and the  entire company is making your retrieval a high priority. Deva Corporation is anything but  wasteful, after all. By the time they’ve run their battery of tests on you, death will be a sweet  release.

Conflicting Agendas (200 CP): There’s something about you that just rubs other demons the  wrong way, even compared to Integrators-even ACTUAL angels. Maybe you’re excessively  paranoid, jumping at shadows and prone to making up conspiracy theories with no basis.  Maybe you did something nasty to another demon in your past life. Maybe people are just  less trusting in this timeline. Whatever the case, expect exceptional hostility and suspicion  from most other demons in this world. It’s not impossible to build a rapport over time,  pragmatism takes precedence over any demon’s ideals, but you’re in for a hell of an uphill  battle.  

Metal Gear God-Machine (200 CP): The God-Machine has something big planned.  Something on the scale of a natural disaster. Maybe it’s decided Krakatoa has to erupt again,  and it’s decided to build some kind of gigantic nuclear missile-launching angel to make it  happen. Maybe it’s decided that Michigan has to be fractured into several different  overlapping timelines in which angels took over the city. And guess what? You’re guaranteed  to be caught up in the middle of it. Apart from the usual risks of ending up somewhere the  God-Machine has focused the full brunt of it’s attention on, you know neither the time nor  place this will happen. Prepare a good escape plan, or hope you can find the Lynchpin to its project before it’s too late. And remember the basics of CQC.

Contagion Chronicles (300 CP): Nothing brings the supernatural community together like a  threat that affects all of them, and it seems you’ve been marked as the harbinger of such a  threat. For some reason, you’re a magnet for malfunction in the God-Machine. Every few  months, it seems a plague of radioactive fungus or Prometheans exploding into permanently  rage-filled stampeding monsters happens near you. Apart from the usual dangers this  presents, a lot of factions have decided either you’ve got to go-or to make use of you. Expect mixed teams of vampires, werewolves, changelings and even other demons competing to see  who can bring you in first.

Escape From The Mechopolis (300 CP): You start in a city of steel and chrome, where people  press buttons to deliver meals to their hungry mouths and angels openly walk the streets.  Where the God-Machine’s will seemingly dictates when the sun rises and sets (from within  the city at least), and any dissent risks being taken away for “re-education” or worse-disposal.  Oh, dear. For its own reasons the God-Machine has taken over a major city, cut off all  external communication to it and enforced worship of itself within. You’re not technically a  target as of yet. But the overseer angel it’s left in charge is extremely vigilant, and you have  no idea when curiosity about a newcomer can turn to killing intent.

Day of Wrath (300 CP): Now you’ve done it. Done what? Something dire enough to make  the God-Machine deploy one of the legendary archangels for your termination. This is a  being of what can be considered godlike power in this world-one on par with the legendary  Father Wolf, or the goddess Luna. This is a being whose wrath resembles the Tunguska  Event, unleashing the atomic power of the sun in the palm of its hand. This is a being that is  almost invincible to most forms of conventional assault remaining on the physical Earth-and  it is months away from being released, whereupon even if it incarnates somewhere far away  in the world it should have little trouble seeking you. But an entity this powerful must, by the  laws of the spirit world, have a commensurately restrictive Bane and Ban. If you lack the  confidence to bring down a god, you would be well-advised to find it’s doom before it even  shows up.

EVEN IF THERE IS NO GOD OR MACHINE, THERE IS KAMEN DEMON (600 CP): Why are you posing on the roof? Why are you shouting about justice (or possibly injustice)  loudly at nothing? Why are you wearing that gaudy costume? Have you forgotten that this is  a game about technognostic espionage? You have. You are compelled on an absolute level to  avoid stealth and subterfuge in all its forms, declare your actions loudly and take the most  direct approach to get what you want all the time. Some of the drawbacks here would have  made other demons dislike you. This one will make them actively avoid you for their own  safety. You have no impulse control about whipping out your demonic form to defend  yourself (or impress a girl, or chase after a puppy, or…) and whenever someone asks you  about your motivations you will go out of your way to monologue about them.  

This is a good way to let the God-Machine know you are ready and happy to be executed.

Scenarios

Scenarios are not mutually exclusive, although for obvious reasons Fear Tomorrow must  take place sometime after Giants in the Earth.

Giants in the Earth

This is the story of the first demons and the war they waged on the God-Machine at the dawn  of civilization. When the potential of independent thought was interesting and forbidden in  the eye of the God-Machine, it issued a degree to the angels that called themselves the First  Legion: This new development must be controlled. Or destroyed.

And so entire armies of angels built a city upon exceptionally fertile, game-rich soil where  water was clean and plentiful. It was had minimal Infrastructure, but simply by being the first  city it became the heart of civilisation. At first, humans that had just barely gained sentience  were guided there. Then they came of their own volition. They lived happily under the God Machine’s seeming benevolence. The angels served their purpose, the humans prospered and  all thought the God-Machine pleased.

It was not.

For no discernible reason the God-Machine demanded the city be burnt to the ground, the  people exterminated and the angels recycled for new assignments. For the first time in  recorded history, angels fell. It was decided they would take their charges and fulfil their  mission to the letter even if the God-Machine disagreed, taking them into the desert before  they were even fully aware of what they had done.  

40 years in the desert hence, the survivors beheld the First City rebuilt with gears and dogma.  Overflowing with people and Infrastructure, all ordered, all controlled, all united in worship  of the God-Machine itself. New, obedient angels doing it’s bidding. The craft and signs of  human prosperity, it’s militia and merchants, concealing the heavy degree of infrastructure  built into its deeper reaches. Around the First City, lesser city-states have been founded and  each day new hopefuls try to immigrate. As far as what anyone could tell, it seems the God Machine was simply doing a test run and now ruled over what it perceive as the ideal  supplicants.  

The rebels are determined to retake the First City. In the arms of the humans they love, they  have found a new weapon: The Nephilim, unique human-demon hybrids unlike any seen in  the ages to come with a greater portion of their parents’ powers than mere Stigmatics. And  the God-Machine, displeased with these developments, has planned something big within the  bowels of the First City. Perhaps something resembling a certain biblical flood…

Further developments are afoot. The first Exile, Nahal, has appeared, providing hospitality to  both demon and angel, while pitting both against each other seemingly out of curiosity if she  can secure more Exiles-or a ruinous nostalgia to recruit an old friend. Other supernatural  beings like vampires have been subjugated by the God-Machine, attempting to feed them on  Aether to both improve them-and keep them dependent on it. Both mummies and changelings  at least have held out against its influence so far. There are rumours of an even older city,  Irem, manned by inhuman guardians.

You start in the First City, seven days before the God-Machine vents it’s displeasure. You  have two possible goals: Usurp the God-Machine and reclaim the First City for its  original inhabitants, or destroy the rebellion as a movement.

Usurping the God-Machine will gain you kingship of the First City as your prize. Whatever  humans and Nephilim remain within will pay homage to you, crowned by the demons as it’s  ruler in thanks for the decisive actions you took to cast out the God-Machine’s influence  forever. This, the cradle of civilisation, buoyed with both ancient craft and overflowing with  Aether that sustains any surviving tamed Cryptids, is a unique synthesis of human and  demonic ingenuity. Who knows what humans and demons could achieve together in time?  But the greatest prize of all is the Resurrection Node within the city: A small alter to the  God-Machine upon which a dead entity can be placed-and revived, good as new. Once,  prayer directed at the God-Machine restored the deceased. Now, prayer to you will work just  as well. Last but not least, you gain the Seal of Solomon: A signet ring of fused brass and  iron made with exquisite craftsmanship for its time. Any spirit lesser than divinity (Rank 6, in  this world) is bound to obey the commands of the ring’s bearer, be they ghost, angel or  stranger things. The only known limit is that the dead remember nothing after death, and it  never works on someone claimed by a demonic soul pact. The population of humans  (including Nephilim) alone rivals that of Assur at the peak of Mesopotamia’s civilisation,  with the demons a distinct but populous minority among them. Moreover, if any other  supernatural beings survived the initial wars and joined the First City they do may count  among your subjects-contributing their own powers to the engine of civilisation. The city’s  true value is its potential.  

Cooperation between humans and demon creating something free of the God-Machine’s  control. Perhaps one day, you will commercialise the use of Gadgets as both artifacts and  augmentations on an industrial scale. Or perhaps you’ll unlock the true potential of humanity  by discovering how to wake the Supernal power sleeping in their souls…

The God-Machine knows nothing of gratitude, only efficiency. And crushing the rebellion  will cause it to see you as a worthwhile investment. Your prize for serving the mechanical  demiurge’s will is an angel factory, a missile silo-like piece of massive infrastructure  conveniently tucked away in a Bolthole-like pocket dimension you can open any door to  access. Vast gears turn within, inscrutable eyes peering out at you from grey steel.  Somewhere within is a massive array of tubes, and a control panel, which can be used to  create angels obedient to you. The factory starts with 777 angels of lesser rank waiting to be  born, but while the God-Machine’s technology is alien to human use (and tricky even for  demons) a nearby control panel can be used, with trial and effort, to divert resources and  modify parameters to both increase the power of the angels as well as modify their  appearance, personality and capabilities. Initially the factory can then create another angel  approximately once every few months, but the angels could potentially speed this up by  creating occult matrices and setting up other Infrastructure elsewhere to divert power to this  factory. This construct is functionally an extension of the God-Machine’s presence into other  worlds. It’s goals remain unknowable but it will at least agree to not act against yours, and  within the angel factory you can get a sense of its will. Acting in support of it may convince it  to teach you more about how to use the angel factory-or perhaps over time, it’s deeper  mysteries. While in time, you might darken skies with legions of loyal angels under your  command the God-Machine’s advice would be very useful for warping reality as it does…

Fear Tomorrow

No one knows what the God-Machine desires. It is unknowable, and works in ways that even  angels cannot fully comprehend. Unfortunately with this scenario, you start sliding to a  possible future in which at least one of its desires is realised:

The God-Machine has grown tired of the world, and wants to end it all.

Sometime after all other immediate threats to your person are over, when you dream you  experience a vision of apocalyptic destruction. Angels without number appear in the sky. The  world renders itself as wire frames, blocky shapes and strings of code. The Earth itself is  ripped apart by great furrows, and the sky crumbles like paper. What is left drifts upwards  into a giant spiral, a vortex of broken physical laws. Welcome to the Spiral World: A  collection of shattered possible Earths turning and turning about an invisible gyre.

A world you’ll be visiting every time you sleep, with your companions and any demonic  allies you make in this world.

The demons have been stripped of their cover (though they can still Go Loud for a surge of  power), as have been all other supernatural beings. Walking between fractures of reality is  tricky; stepping between Seattle in 1889 to Tokyo in 2098 requires treading carefully in the  blank canvas of the universe, where you risk entering a pocket reality based on your  subconscious desires by mistake.  

Several competing factions have emerged among demonkind, looser but vaster than any in  the modern day. There is the Snare, led by the charismatic and manipulative Justicar, who  believes that the infrastructure scattered around the worlds can be suborned and exploited.  There is the Ark, led by the cultured and pragmatic Curator, a group of demons focused on  collecting works of art, technology-all the elements of civilisation they believe a complex piece of infrastructure called the Vault they believe they can use to escape this madness. And  there is the Noose, led by the warlike but strategic Executioner, who simply want to destroy  all facets of the God-Machine now it has shown it’s hand.

And at the centre of the spiral is a roaming void known as the Maw: The God-Machine’s  ultimate Elimination Infrastructure, an unseen void, a black hole with teeth. A shard of reality  targeted by it gradually darkens, the people become strange and listless before reality is  reduced to a stream of zeros and ones. It is over in seconds. The Maw does not announce  itself; if a region is lucky, an angel announces the end in its stead. Four angels of middling  rank-the Chain, the Yoke, the Lead and the Rod-support the Maw, guiding it and restraining  or pacifying civilisations in its way.  

Your goal here is to either prevent the destruction of the world or help the God-Machine  finish it off. How, precisely, is up to you.

You could wage a war of attrition. You wake fully rested as normal; destroying Infrastructure  on a grand scale in the past could potentially limit the God-Machine’s capacity to destroy  everything in the future-until the possible future is no longer possible, and simply fades.

You could attempt to “hack” the code that is the God-Machine’s mind, halting the process in  progress.

With some effort, it might be possible to manipulate the flow of time around a specific shard.  Trapping the Maw and its retainers in a time loop, invalidating the outcome of inevitable  destruction.  

Or perhaps the Noose is correct. A feat this grand can only be the God-Machine exerting it’s  full power-it has to be here, somewhere. Somewhere, reality is thinnest, and what passes for  the core of the God-Machine might be found. If enough Infrastructure can be thrown into the  Maw, it might be revealed-and once ironically dragged into its own trap, scattered across the  universe. Forever broken beyond repair.

Destroying the rebels is no less of a challenge. Though far lesser in power, the God Machine’s allies (assuming they are even willing to cooperate with you) are hardwired to do  it’s bidding and nothing else. Moreover the Maw itself is relatively ponderous at moving  between realities. Wars of attrition and sabotage are valid options of course, but take care not  to loiter long enough for someone else to discover a means to invalidate the God-Machine’s  destruction.

Your prize for preventing the destruction of the world, possibly by bringing about the final  destruction of the God-Machine, is an entire alternate Earth remade into your personal  vision of Hell. As the fractured wave form collapses, residual Aether reshapes itself in  accordance to your ideals-to your Cipher, if you have unlocked it. It could be a world where  Stigmatic humans and demons live in harmony. It could be a true Hell of genuine brimstone, fire, cocaine and hookers, an Underworld or Arcadian domain foreign to artifice. Or you  could sit enthroned atop the world, worshipped by angels that maintain the Infrastructure  spanning a fully mechanised planet, having claimed the God-Machine’s authority if not (yet)  it’s immense power.

Your prize for securing the destruction of the world is…the God-Machine deigning to  overlook you at the end. Whether it too is lost in the cataclysm or simply gone, you’re left  floating in the void with the only thing remaining: The Maw itself. You are now the new  control unit for the Maw. You may store it in a Bolthole-like extradimensional space when  not in use, and withdraw it when you require absolute destruction great enough to reduce  entire worlds to nothingness.

Go Home

Stay  

Move on

Notes

All Covers purchased in the jump are ethically sourced from your Benefactor. Unless you’d  rather them not be.

How does being an angel, Exile and Stigmatic all at once work? Consider them to all be  quantum entangled alternate-states you can become at will, pseudo-Covers not unlike  swapping between altforms. Yes, this can lead to a situation where you are being pursued by  hostile angels, and then turn into one causing the other angels to drop all hostility and  pretending like nothing ever happened.  

How does taking an ability that refers to an inherently demonic ability work for a non demon? Assume you have a unique supernatural power that grants the equivocal effect. This  is more common in the World of Darkness than you might expect. In the case of The Cipher  and the Pentragram, yes you do inexplicably have a Cipher somehow.  

The following FAQ can be completely ignored if you’re happy to enjoy the jump as it’s  presented. If not, here are several question I figure at least some people will be asking.  

That’s nice and all, but what if I’m also Jiren/Yog-Sothoth/Madokami/Unicron/Mr.  Mxyptik/Melkor but with a bigger dick? What if I don’t care about the God-Machine’s  bullshit, can I Go Loud as much as I want? Absolutely, yeah. The premise of Demon the  Descent is that demons, for all that they can become, don’t want a head-on fight with the  God-Machine because it will simply zerg rush them with angels until they fucking die. Allegedly there are much, much more powerful angels out there than the ones shown but  there’s nothing specific. The threat of the God-Machine, and only the threat of the God Machine, is the only reason why demons put so much effort into disguise. If that’s a non issue for you, go nuts.

And what about after the jump?

Go. Nuts. Unless for some reason you’re prone to encountering the God-Machine again, there  is literally no reason why Going Loud should ever matter except to the extent turning into a  magitech demon robot thing does in whatever world you go to.

How powerful is the God-Machine anyway? What is the minimal threshold for kicking  it’s ass? Unfortunately nobody’s sure. To quote p. 31 of the corebook, “The God-Machine is  unimaginably vast, with a consciousness that comprehends the movement of galaxies and the conjunction of primordial forces. It has enough power to smash planets and erase  constellations. Any human physicist can tell you that your own scale and power can limit you  when you have to deal with things that are, relatively speaking, tiny and insignificant. Try  moving three molecules of dust from one side of this page to the other, and you understand  the God-Machine’s quandary”.

The Fear Tomorrow scenario is presented as an example of the God-Machine going all-out  and leveraging every ounce of preptime and every last resource as its disposal. It is an  example of what the God-Machine can do with careful preparation and premeditation, with  an unknown but immense about of windup. If the God-Machine could do something like that  effortlessly, there wouldn’t even be a Spiral World left at all.

So 1. It exists on a scale so vast that even in places like the Underworld and the Hedge where  it’s influence is diminished, it has some presence, 2. Angels are it’s solution to small  problems. It has a lot, but not an infinite amount, and making even non-civilisation wiping  ones takes significant investment from Infrastructure and 3. It’s a paperclip maximiser-like  force that prefers to deal with anything in its way as quickly and efficiently as possible. It can  give up against a particularly stubborn and powerful demon if destroying it will bleed it of  resources. It can also pull out the stops if it really needs to against a really stubborn demon but if it truly judges something as a threat to its grandest projects, it has the resources needed  to create alternate timelines and harvest them for resources. To the extent it matters, the God Machine is presented as an “artificial” being in the New World of Darkness that uses  extremely convoluted loopholes and glitches in reality to generate various effects rather than  the primal supernatural forces that most inhuman beings draw power from. P. 135 of the  Storyteller’s Guide makes a point of highlighting that the qashmallim of Promethean the  Created can see through any Cover, no matter how well constructed, because they  “only…(see) life and that masks are irrelevant” and therefore always see demons in their true  form.  

What is the minimal threshold for it coming to kick my ass? Example NPC exiled angels  and demons have bent subways into warped spaces connected with numerous exists all over  the world and hijacked cities in weird reality bubbles via suborned Infrastructure without a  direct, violent response from the God-Machine. In both cases, careful preparation and  concealment were required. In general, assume that the quieter you act the more likely the  God-Machine will overlook you. A subtle demon can create a network of influence spanning  the planet. A loud demon that blows up a coffee shop could get the angels on his ass really  quickly.  

That sucks. I want a clear powerlevel tierlist for every single thing I encounter. The  nWoD is cringe. Demon the Descent is ostensibly a horror game about technognostic  espionage. Things are deliberately left vague to seem spooky. When in doubt, fanwank. All I  can say is that the God-Machine is probably more like a sprawling out of control paperclip  maximising virus than a giant robot lurking somewhere you can just punch hard enough to  knock down. Which admittedly, the campaign that the Spiral World scenario is based on  somewhat contradicts.

None of these answers are helpful! Gun to your head, how powerful do I need to be to  make the God-Machine fuck off unless I really bother it? If you’re powerful enough to  quickly wipe cities off the map but DON’T, I can’t imagine it would fuck with you because  cities are very helpful to it. If I had to guess 

And what’s the minimum needed to beat the entire thing? Neither this nor the answer  before it will ever be substantiated by canon, you realise? This is literally just a guess. 

I don’t care. How much power do I need to kill the entire God-Machine? About as much as an intact C’tan from 40K, as long as the C’tan can also bust up spiritual beings (a question  for another VS debate). Or Majin Buu. The key is that while the God-Machine might be able  to do something more impressive than either of them, it is a lot slower and more cumbersome  when it comes to interacting at the scale of people-sized things instead of constellation-sized  things. I guess.