Excessive (s)Wordage
By EDG

(find the yoghurt!)

You'd think it'd take a lot to irritate an Archangel, but someone's
apparently done it to Laurence; he'll tell anyone who asks that something
has, for some time now, been grating at him, every second of every
day.  None of his servitors have figured out what's going on, and Laurence
himself has said that he has no idea what is causing this unearthly,
incessant stress.  It's as though someone took the Symphony around him and
added the sound of a plucked nerve, on infinite repeat.

One of the outward symptoms of this problem is that Laurence started
relegating himself to his quarters increasingly often, and one day
recently, one of his aides looked in to find him completely gone, with a
note saying that he was going to ground to see if he could track down this
thorn in his side.  Laurence, the Archangel of the Sword, had vanished to
Earth.

Granted, it's not exactly unheard of: Laurence does occasionally take
matters into his own hands, especially where his own welfare is
concerned.  However, nobody's ever seen him leave quite like this, and it's
got everybody - including Gabriel, who is for some reason taking a personal
interest in this.

Hell, on the other hand, is delighted.  Several Princes, you see, have
banded together to create a thorn in Heaven's side, to distract the War
faction long enough to make several major strikes.  Their thorn?  A
Habbalite.  With the infernal Word of The Sword.  Making it worse, of
course, is that they've named him Laurence - and since he was created
full-fledged, he's been given the delusion that he is, in fact, the
Archangel in question, captured by Hell.  They've been kind enough to put
him back on Earth, however, and he takes his inability to approach Tethers
as an indication that God still wants him down here.

Unfortunately, the Princes have taken one final precaution: the demon
Laurence's only Vessel is a duplicate of the Archangel's favorite, which
makes telling the two apart more difficult than you might think; with the
body, Name, Word, and basic personality of the Archangel, plus a penchant
for punishment of the weak, the lesser Laurence has a fairly easy time
convincing people of his identity.

Right around this time is when the PCs are called in.  Whether it's to find
the real Laurence or find out what's causing him problems, the characters
are in for a hell of a fight - the real Laurence has fairly buried himself
in the largest problem area in the War (currently Beverly Hills, of all
places) hoping the problem will come to him, whereas the fake Laurence is
rapidly making himself apparent, and is a 17-Force Word-bound with a
powerful Word.

To add to these troubles, if the Princes find out just how well this scheme
is working, they may try pulling this stunt with other Archangels, in order
to see just how confused they can get things before Heaven figures out
what's going on...