Scénarios
"Subway" is the third adventure for Magna Veritas.
The angels are sent on a special mission (one that officially doesn't involve a penalty in case of failure). The management has decided to send four teams of angels to simply "do good deed" as lord Jesus Christ did.
The PC will have to spend four days in Paris subway, with only their clothes (and powers) to do good deeds, without going to the surface (the other three teams being sent to small towns around France). Each good deed will be reported and score points, and the team who scored the most at the end of the four days will won.
The PC will have to find food or money, and a place to sleep inside the subway. The adventure lists a number of good deeds, from stopping pickpockets to convincing homeless people to join a reinsertion program. There are also three more complex plots, to dismantle a drug dealers ring operating inside the subway, intervene in an abduction case, and catch the adult leading a group a child pickpockets.
Now, the real point of the adventure is to detect and defeat a demon of Beleth, the prince of nightmare, who is performing a ritual to merge Paris subway network with the marche of nightmare. Its starts with more and more frequent cases of narcolepsy among the people who spend time inside the subway (homeless people, subway drivers and technicians, cops...).
The demon has loug-garous roaming the subway to abduct the people affected by narcolepsy and gather them in a secret room where she is performing the ritual. No stats are given for the loup-garou, and the adventure says to search for them in the rulebook... As far as I can tell, there is no such thing anywhere in the book (as I said, there is no bestiary, and loup-garou are not available as servant through the list of powers either).
During the last night, after the doors to the subway are closed, the entire network gets cut from the real world and the nightmare starts: blood flowing from the walls, giant worms roaming the subway track, humans entering frenzy... The gamemaster should then allow the PC to find the secret room and battle the demon to save everyone in the subway.
The demon of Beleth does have stats, at least, and quite powerful ones. She's a grade 3 with 42 PP and many defense powers and a decent set of attack powers (though only Fangs is lethal, the other being Charm, Fear and Paralysis).
In this adventure, the PC either die or get full victory (even though the mission did not go as planned). On the other hand, the adventure have them losing the contest, no matter how many good deeds they did, to another team.
Except for the missing loup-garou stats and the forced "the PC must not find the secret room before the grande finale", this is a rather good adventure. The premise works very well for a team of angels, before it escalates into heroic stuff.
La suite : Scénarios - Faut pas être Mickey à Eurodisney
Le OSSR : In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, deuxième édition
Moderator: Moderators
Okay, so I'm starting to get bored and I have a Shadowrun session to prepare, so I'l glance faster over the five remaining adventures before concluding (and posting some extra info about vikings).
Scénarios
"Faut pas être Mickey à Eurodisney" is the last adventure in this book for Magna Veritas. This is a fairly typical investigation. The PC are sent to investigate several missing child cases in Eurodisneyland near Paris. The main false lead involve a demon of Ouika trying to blow up an attraction to avenge the death of his host's little sister (explaining that demons, and angels, can retain some feelings from their hosts' past existence). The actual culprit is an angel of Christophe, the archangel of children (not featured in the corebook), that has gone crazy and loves childre... not in a proper way. Having 23 power points, Strength 5 and Willpower 4 makes her quite hard to take down. For once, this adventure doesn't set what constitutes full victory/normal victory and failure (though I guess the angels are not going to get full victory if they catch the killer but let a terrorist attack happens while they're around).
"Boum Boum La Guerre" is an adventure for In Nomine Satanis (demon PC). The PC receive a quite simple mission : to destroy a monastery that hosts a training camp for soldiers of god. They have to deal with one rank 2 angel of Laurent, a dozen of sons/daughters of God, a few dogs, and one hundred soldiers of God. The monastery also houses a lab where the good guys are producing a nerve gas. Full victory requires the PC to kill everyone in the monastery but also to discover the lab and destroy or release the nerve gas without wiping out the nearby village (the suggested solution is to set off an alarm and lure all the soldiers into the lab, seal the doors while releasing the nerve gas inside). Anything short of that is at best normal victory (and semi-random new power). And that's supposed be even though nor the demons nor their hierarchy knew about the lab. This is one of those odd case where the adventure may deny you full victory for a reason you have not discovered.
"Les Esquimaux vont au cinéma pour se faire sucer" is an adventure for In Nomine Satanis. A rank 3 demon of Andromalius was scheduled to arrive on Earth but is nowhere to be found. The PC must find him. What happened is that another person died at the exact same time in the same hospital and the demon ended in the wrong body, which also happened to be the wife of a Russian cryonics expert. The PC have to find and properly "revive" her (removing her from the freezer in the basement and injecting the right cocktails of medication). The adventure has a side quest were the PC are watched by a team of demons, whose leader is rightfully worried that this rank 3 demon was sent to investigate him. This adventure have special victory conditions, were the official objective, finding and releasing the rank 3 demon, get them rank 1 of his prince Andromalius (whoever their actual prince is - and the associated capability is a neat one, making you automatically inspiring truth to humans you encounter). Full victory requires to release him and discover the treason of the other demon (again, an objective you have no reason to suspect at start).
"C'est en smurfant qu'on devient schtroumferon" is an In Nomine Satanis adventure, though it can be played by angels with some small changes. This adventure introduce a background for intelligent weapons (magical weapons that have additional powers and can fight on their own). Those magical weapons are not created in Heaven or Hell, but by being called "The Blacksmiths". The Blacksmiths mind-wash souls taken from the Purgatory and bind them to weapon to grant them power. The bad guy in this story is an Aztec priest who was a powerful magician enough for his soul to resist the mind-washing. He was transformed into a magical M16 but learned in the process who the magical weapons are linked to their angel or demon owner. He first escaped hiw owner and is now severing the link of other weapons to build an army, linking them to homeless people he and some other weapons can mind-control. In the meantime, he is also ritually murdering people through Paris to make sure the Sun rises each day, because aztec priest.
The PC are originally sent to investigate why a high-ranking demon "lost" the magical weapons his prince granted him the first time he tried to summon it. They encounter a Blacksmith on the way, which is actually the only one who can neutralize the weapons. The Aztec priest/M16 is a particularly though enemy, with as much "hit points" as an archangel, some specific immunity and the teleportation power to flee. On top of that, this adventure is particularly harsh on victory conditions. If the Blacksmith is killed and the Aztec priest/M16 escape, they get two penalties (well, since you don't have rules for removing them, can't say if it's harder to remove two at once). And full victory is not even possible, the best you can achieve is normal victory.
This adventure is odd feature in a corebook. It's interesting as it provides one example of intrigue that is not angels vs. demons. But it's also hard, with little chance for unexperienced characters to prevail.
"Cette mission, si vous l'acceptez..." is the fourth and last adventure for In Nomine Satanis. The forces of evil caught a demon who betrayed and started working as a double agent (something particularly rare, though it worth noting in this case it was a demon of Valefor who agreed to work with Janus angels). She was sent to a mental institution run by demons that double as a detention center for traitors and alleged traitors.
The forces of evil learned that she has critical intel she was supposed to give to Janus himself. The first part of the PC's mission is ot infiltrated the detention center and make the traitor escape while posing as angels. The second part is to move her into a fake angelic headquarters and make her met a fake archangel. The title is a reference to Mission: Impossible, and there's a reason. As written, the adventure makes it quite a challenge to retain her trust and make her deliver the intel (which is that the rank 3 demon running the institution/detention center is willing to defect). The only two possible results here are full victory or failure.
This adventure can be a really fun moment I think, if the gamemaster doesn't take a too much adversarial approach and help the PC get through.
Overall, the adventures are quite diverse and rather challenging. It's pretty obvious that most were not written as introductory adventures for a corebook. Because PC have some if not all of their power randomly chosen and the NPC get them from a similar set, setting appropriate difficulty is a tough task. But no matter how challenging those adventures may be, the worst part are the predefined victory conditions, which can be in some cases utterly frustrating to the players.
La suite : la conclusion
Scénarios
"Faut pas être Mickey à Eurodisney" is the last adventure in this book for Magna Veritas. This is a fairly typical investigation. The PC are sent to investigate several missing child cases in Eurodisneyland near Paris. The main false lead involve a demon of Ouika trying to blow up an attraction to avenge the death of his host's little sister (explaining that demons, and angels, can retain some feelings from their hosts' past existence). The actual culprit is an angel of Christophe, the archangel of children (not featured in the corebook), that has gone crazy and loves childre... not in a proper way. Having 23 power points, Strength 5 and Willpower 4 makes her quite hard to take down. For once, this adventure doesn't set what constitutes full victory/normal victory and failure (though I guess the angels are not going to get full victory if they catch the killer but let a terrorist attack happens while they're around).
"Boum Boum La Guerre" is an adventure for In Nomine Satanis (demon PC). The PC receive a quite simple mission : to destroy a monastery that hosts a training camp for soldiers of god. They have to deal with one rank 2 angel of Laurent, a dozen of sons/daughters of God, a few dogs, and one hundred soldiers of God. The monastery also houses a lab where the good guys are producing a nerve gas. Full victory requires the PC to kill everyone in the monastery but also to discover the lab and destroy or release the nerve gas without wiping out the nearby village (the suggested solution is to set off an alarm and lure all the soldiers into the lab, seal the doors while releasing the nerve gas inside). Anything short of that is at best normal victory (and semi-random new power). And that's supposed be even though nor the demons nor their hierarchy knew about the lab. This is one of those odd case where the adventure may deny you full victory for a reason you have not discovered.
"Les Esquimaux vont au cinéma pour se faire sucer" is an adventure for In Nomine Satanis. A rank 3 demon of Andromalius was scheduled to arrive on Earth but is nowhere to be found. The PC must find him. What happened is that another person died at the exact same time in the same hospital and the demon ended in the wrong body, which also happened to be the wife of a Russian cryonics expert. The PC have to find and properly "revive" her (removing her from the freezer in the basement and injecting the right cocktails of medication). The adventure has a side quest were the PC are watched by a team of demons, whose leader is rightfully worried that this rank 3 demon was sent to investigate him. This adventure have special victory conditions, were the official objective, finding and releasing the rank 3 demon, get them rank 1 of his prince Andromalius (whoever their actual prince is - and the associated capability is a neat one, making you automatically inspiring truth to humans you encounter). Full victory requires to release him and discover the treason of the other demon (again, an objective you have no reason to suspect at start).
"C'est en smurfant qu'on devient schtroumferon" is an In Nomine Satanis adventure, though it can be played by angels with some small changes. This adventure introduce a background for intelligent weapons (magical weapons that have additional powers and can fight on their own). Those magical weapons are not created in Heaven or Hell, but by being called "The Blacksmiths". The Blacksmiths mind-wash souls taken from the Purgatory and bind them to weapon to grant them power. The bad guy in this story is an Aztec priest who was a powerful magician enough for his soul to resist the mind-washing. He was transformed into a magical M16 but learned in the process who the magical weapons are linked to their angel or demon owner. He first escaped hiw owner and is now severing the link of other weapons to build an army, linking them to homeless people he and some other weapons can mind-control. In the meantime, he is also ritually murdering people through Paris to make sure the Sun rises each day, because aztec priest.
The PC are originally sent to investigate why a high-ranking demon "lost" the magical weapons his prince granted him the first time he tried to summon it. They encounter a Blacksmith on the way, which is actually the only one who can neutralize the weapons. The Aztec priest/M16 is a particularly though enemy, with as much "hit points" as an archangel, some specific immunity and the teleportation power to flee. On top of that, this adventure is particularly harsh on victory conditions. If the Blacksmith is killed and the Aztec priest/M16 escape, they get two penalties (well, since you don't have rules for removing them, can't say if it's harder to remove two at once). And full victory is not even possible, the best you can achieve is normal victory.
This adventure is odd feature in a corebook. It's interesting as it provides one example of intrigue that is not angels vs. demons. But it's also hard, with little chance for unexperienced characters to prevail.
"Cette mission, si vous l'acceptez..." is the fourth and last adventure for In Nomine Satanis. The forces of evil caught a demon who betrayed and started working as a double agent (something particularly rare, though it worth noting in this case it was a demon of Valefor who agreed to work with Janus angels). She was sent to a mental institution run by demons that double as a detention center for traitors and alleged traitors.
The forces of evil learned that she has critical intel she was supposed to give to Janus himself. The first part of the PC's mission is ot infiltrated the detention center and make the traitor escape while posing as angels. The second part is to move her into a fake angelic headquarters and make her met a fake archangel. The title is a reference to Mission: Impossible, and there's a reason. As written, the adventure makes it quite a challenge to retain her trust and make her deliver the intel (which is that the rank 3 demon running the institution/detention center is willing to defect). The only two possible results here are full victory or failure.
This adventure can be a really fun moment I think, if the gamemaster doesn't take a too much adversarial approach and help the PC get through.
Overall, the adventures are quite diverse and rather challenging. It's pretty obvious that most were not written as introductory adventures for a corebook. Because PC have some if not all of their power randomly chosen and the NPC get them from a similar set, setting appropriate difficulty is a tough task. But no matter how challenging those adventures may be, the worst part are the predefined victory conditions, which can be in some cases utterly frustrating to the players.
La suite : la conclusion
La conclusion
After rereading the book from cover to cover (I admit, I skipped some powers' entry), my first conclusion was about the same than the list time I took a look at it: my god, this system sucks.
The power scale is narrow, it's impossible to make the math on what each level of attribute or skill/power represents, and PC and most NPC pick their powers in the same list. There is no way on Earth (or in Heaven or Hell for that matter) to figure out how hard an encounter can be, unless you have perfect knowledge of the system. When playing published adventures, the gamemaster has to guess, based on NC stats, what should be the best strategy in combat.
On the other hand, by maxing one attribute at 5 at chargen, picking one power (through full victory) and raising it to +2 level (two normal victories after that), a PC can reach in just three adventures a significant damage output through one power like Strength Absorption, Lighning or Acid... (the actual maximum possible damage output is to have all contact powers and activate all of them at once when hitting the target).
The actual difficulty in most adventures is to figure out what is going on and understand what the conditions are for full victory (or be lucky enough). The only good side in this system is that you don't have to bother with precisely calculating XP gains and expenses. But it's basically GM fiat, with the hope that if you have to roll for a new powers, the one you'll get won't suck too much (with a number of allies or hideouts "powers" that are going to be another layer of GM fiat).
But my second conclusion is that the setting is really good. Not that it's particularly coherent or that it has great metaplots; it's just that it allow the gamemaster to play humorous adventures, à la Simpsons or South Park, as few games managed to. Yes, the authors did not always hit the right note of bad taste, and some adventures are not as funny as they probably expected. But the setting makes it possible, because the PC and their opponents are on mission for the fundamental forces of Good and Evil, the PC can move forward, no matter the silliness or inconsistency of the situation and the characters (when in doubt, kill the guys from the other faction). The part where you start asking what the fuck is going on this planet and what are you doing here is part of the game, unlike other games where you are just going to drop the ball when things stop making sense around you.
After rereading the book from cover to cover (I admit, I skipped some powers' entry), my first conclusion was about the same than the list time I took a look at it: my god, this system sucks.
The power scale is narrow, it's impossible to make the math on what each level of attribute or skill/power represents, and PC and most NPC pick their powers in the same list. There is no way on Earth (or in Heaven or Hell for that matter) to figure out how hard an encounter can be, unless you have perfect knowledge of the system. When playing published adventures, the gamemaster has to guess, based on NC stats, what should be the best strategy in combat.
On the other hand, by maxing one attribute at 5 at chargen, picking one power (through full victory) and raising it to +2 level (two normal victories after that), a PC can reach in just three adventures a significant damage output through one power like Strength Absorption, Lighning or Acid... (the actual maximum possible damage output is to have all contact powers and activate all of them at once when hitting the target).
The actual difficulty in most adventures is to figure out what is going on and understand what the conditions are for full victory (or be lucky enough). The only good side in this system is that you don't have to bother with precisely calculating XP gains and expenses. But it's basically GM fiat, with the hope that if you have to roll for a new powers, the one you'll get won't suck too much (with a number of allies or hideouts "powers" that are going to be another layer of GM fiat).
But my second conclusion is that the setting is really good. Not that it's particularly coherent or that it has great metaplots; it's just that it allow the gamemaster to play humorous adventures, à la Simpsons or South Park, as few games managed to. Yes, the authors did not always hit the right note of bad taste, and some adventures are not as funny as they probably expected. But the setting makes it possible, because the PC and their opponents are on mission for the fundamental forces of Good and Evil, the PC can move forward, no matter the silliness or inconsistency of the situation and the characters (when in doubt, kill the guys from the other faction). The part where you start asking what the fuck is going on this planet and what are you doing here is part of the game, unlike other games where you are just going to drop the ball when things stop making sense around you.
So, to give some extra information on the vikings in INS/MV, they were originally introduced in the 1st edition sourcebook Berserker. In spite of the name, the rules for vikings only make up the first third of the book (the second third contains the rules for sorcerers, and the last third two adventures, one that can be played either angels, demons or vikings, and one where the antagonist is a viking.
Vikings are the spirit of fallen warrior that reincarnate into the body of living persons. While angels use the bodies of volunteers and demons those of people as they die, the vikings simply take over the bodies of (almost) normal people. The only criterion is the person must have a connection of some sort to the viking lore: history teacher, reenactor, owner of viking archeological pieces, or simply getting interested in local culture during a touristic trip in a Scandinavian country or Iceland. The viking spirit takes over and the soul get sent to Purgatory, Heaven or Hell, and that's it. Unlike the angels and demons, vikings can go back to Valhalla and return.
According to the book, the vikings consider Ragnarok started on December 24th, Year 0. Which makes absolutly no sense with regards to the historical viking period. That date I think, was never mentioned in any following book. Berserker is equally flimsy on a number of other things regarding the real vikings. You are basically expected to play B-movie viking barbarians.
So, since this is Ragnarok, viking warriors are coming back on Earth to fight Loki, Hels, Fenrir, Garm, Midgard, Sutr, Ymir and Aegir. Which actually all are INS/MS demon princes in disguise. Playing vikings is just about finding and killing demons, without having to bother being good like angels (as a side note, the introduction suggests you could play similar type of characters from any other culture).
Like angels and demons, each viking is the servant of a god, which grant access to a specific power and also to roll for powers on a shorter list related to the god's occupation (vikings don't have ranks and associated power though).
There are only eight gods available, two of whom have already been killed by demon princes (no consequence except you can't summon your boss for extra help).
Thor, god of the thunder (dead)
Odin, god of war (dead)
Freyja, goddess of love
Frigg, goddess of earth
Njord, god of travels
Heimdall, keeper of the rainbow bridge
Tyr, god of justice
Ullr, god of hunting
Some other gods like Freyr are sometimes mentioned, but for some reasons where never offered as choice.
And that's about everything I have to say, along with the fact that the sci-fi sin-off Stella Inquisitorius do feature space vikings, flying spaceships powered by the fragments of Mjolnir.
Vikings are the spirit of fallen warrior that reincarnate into the body of living persons. While angels use the bodies of volunteers and demons those of people as they die, the vikings simply take over the bodies of (almost) normal people. The only criterion is the person must have a connection of some sort to the viking lore: history teacher, reenactor, owner of viking archeological pieces, or simply getting interested in local culture during a touristic trip in a Scandinavian country or Iceland. The viking spirit takes over and the soul get sent to Purgatory, Heaven or Hell, and that's it. Unlike the angels and demons, vikings can go back to Valhalla and return.
According to the book, the vikings consider Ragnarok started on December 24th, Year 0. Which makes absolutly no sense with regards to the historical viking period. That date I think, was never mentioned in any following book. Berserker is equally flimsy on a number of other things regarding the real vikings. You are basically expected to play B-movie viking barbarians.
So, since this is Ragnarok, viking warriors are coming back on Earth to fight Loki, Hels, Fenrir, Garm, Midgard, Sutr, Ymir and Aegir. Which actually all are INS/MS demon princes in disguise. Playing vikings is just about finding and killing demons, without having to bother being good like angels (as a side note, the introduction suggests you could play similar type of characters from any other culture).
Like angels and demons, each viking is the servant of a god, which grant access to a specific power and also to roll for powers on a shorter list related to the god's occupation (vikings don't have ranks and associated power though).
There are only eight gods available, two of whom have already been killed by demon princes (no consequence except you can't summon your boss for extra help).
Thor, god of the thunder (dead)
Odin, god of war (dead)
Freyja, goddess of love
Frigg, goddess of earth
Njord, god of travels
Heimdall, keeper of the rainbow bridge
Tyr, god of justice
Ullr, god of hunting
Some other gods like Freyr are sometimes mentioned, but for some reasons where never offered as choice.
And that's about everything I have to say, along with the fact that the sci-fi sin-off Stella Inquisitorius do feature space vikings, flying spaceships powered by the fragments of Mjolnir.