The Politics of Heaven

By Neel Krishnaswami (neelk@MIT.EDU)

**Flaming
Feather**

Here's a little something I wrote up.


Malphas is not the only one who plays the faction game...GMs do too.

I've decided to break down some of the political tensions that seperate the archangels in my game. Hopefully, this will at least help people fill in the shifting coalition politics that determine the will of Heaven. I've picked a couple of philosophical axes, and decided at which end of the axis the various archangels fall. Notice that this is largely independent of the alliances in the book; some archangels that loathe each other have very similiar views, and some philosophically opposed archangels are on very good terms.

Militancy/Pacifism: Some of the angels are more eager than others in their prosecution of the War. This reflects the relative importance the archangel places on stopping diabolic activity. While no archangel would permit a demon to scheme unhindered, the militants are much more in favor of using lethal force on demons. While the war party is much larger than the peace faction, it is so torn by internal conflicts that the peacers have a disproportionate amount of influence in Heaven.

Strongly militant: Michael, Laurence, David, Dominic, Gabriel
Weakly militant: Janus, Jordi, Jean
Weakly pacifist: Marc, Yves, Eli
Strongly pacifist: Novalis, Blandine

Hierarchy/Anarchy: This is a measure of how much each archangel values such things as tradition, law, and place. A strongly hierarchical angel tends to prefer universal institutions and well-defined lines of command, whereas the anarchic angels tend to prefer situational judgments and independent action.

Strongly hierarchical: Dominic, Laurence, David
Weakly hierarchical: Jean, Novalis, Blandine, Yves, Marc
Weakly anarchic: Jordi, Eli
Strongly anarchic: Michael, Janus, Gabriel

Interventions: On Earth, angels do more than fight demons. They also intervene in human affairs, doing their best to tip human history onto a more divine path. This is a hot question among angels; failing to act in the face of mortal suffering is clearly wrong, but removing the consequences of every action is an equally clear violation of mankind's divinely granted free will. (This one is the one most likely to vary; sometimes even Michael will agree it's time to intervene, and other times even Yves will agree that Destiny can best be achieved with a hands-off approach.)

Strongly active: Yves, Gabriel, Laurence, Blandine, Jean, David, Marc
Weakly active: Eli, Dominic
Weakly laissez-faire: Janus, Jordi
Strongly laissez-faire: Michael, Novalis


Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu

**Flaming
Feather**

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