Lying with Statistics
By Samovar3@aol.com

The Angel of Statistics, a Seraph of Lightning in service to Trade named
Guiness, has always had a rivalry with the Demon of Statistics, a Balseraph
of the Media named Cathraxis.  Neither of the two has been successful in
crushing the other, and sharing the same Word has affected both of them.
They've found themselves inadvertently picking up traits of each other.
Cathraxis has found himself blurting out the truth at inappropriate moments,
embarrassing, to say the least.  More seriously, Guiness has lied and
convinced himself that he was telling the truth.  Both are under the
respective watch of the Game and Judgement.

Cathraxis has been instructed by Nybbas to help Rex, the Demon of Cool, to
popularize yoghurt.  Rex is busy making yoghurt cool on another continent (in
Montreal or Cannes, depending on where your game is set).  Rex is working the
youth angle, Cathraxis is to make the country club elites crazy for it.
Cathraxis (in his role of Maxwell Germaine, a statistician and a friend of
the young heir to the Doyle family of New York) isn't having too hard of a
time with it.  After all, yoghurt is fairly healthy, and he has several
statistical studies showing that it is good for you.  Slowly, yoghurt is
making its way to the buffet table at posh receptions.

Guiness has tracked down his nemesis and is none too happy with this.
Wanting to stymie the demon in any way possible, Guiness is about to release
a statistical study showing how bad yoghurt really is.  This study is
technically statistically sound, but works off of completely specious
assumptions.  Creating the study made Guiness dissonant, and if he were to
release it to the public in a press conference, as he intends to, it would
make him more dissonant, possibly on the verge of Falling.

Angelic PCs have one main goal:  Make sure Guiness doesn't Fall.  Getting him
to not release his report would be difficult, but a step in the right
direction.  Destroying Cathraxis' plan would do just as well.

Demonic PCs can have multiple goals.  The Game is interested in information
that Cathraxis is a traitor.  Servants of the Media want Cathraxis to
succeed, and getting a copy of Guiness' report before it is release, so a
rebuttal can be written and immediately given after would be an excellent
piece of damage control and bring more attention to yoghurt.  Rivals of the
Media would want Rex to suffer his first setback, knocking Nybbas down a
notch or two.

Guiness is a 13 force angel, with about 7-9 Word Forces.  He should have a
distinction or two, as well as Generator and Remote Control.  He can also
call upon some of Marc's organization, though if they see his report, they
may think twice before they support him.

Cathraxis is a 12 force demon, with 8 Word Forces.  He's not too flashy,
strange for a servitor of the Media, but he has a fairly good track record.
His current servant is Brandon Doyle, his "in" to society.

 

Iron Rev III entry: Excessive (s)Wordage

498 words (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...