Someone mentioned Asmodeus using the Song of Correspondence and the Celestial Song of Motion to yank Renegades to him at will. I'd like to point out why this it isn't quite that easy, and why it's _possible_ for a Renegade of the Game to remain on the loose (though very, very difficult). I will be going into some mechanical details. (This is partly to forestall future arguments that the Song of Correspondence makes going Renegade impossible...)
All of the following applies to other Superiors too, of course.
.From a mechanical point of view, in order for Asmodeus (or anyone else) to snatch a Renegade with this trick, there are several requirements. (We can assume that Asmodeus knows the Songs of Correspondence and the Celestial Song of Motion at level 6.)
(1) Asmodeus has to be on the same plane as his target. The Celestial Song of Motion can't transport things between realms.
(2) Asmodeus has to use the correct version of the Song of Correspondence -- at any given time, a Renegade may be in corporeal or celestial form, or in the Marches.
(3) Every time he tries it, he has to spend Essence equal to the Renegade's total Forces -- minimum of 9 -- for the Song of Correspondence, plus 2 Essence for the Celestial Song of Motion.
(4) Then target has to be within range of the Celestial Song of Motion -- CD x 10 miles. (Someone mentioned using the Song of Correspondence to also reduce the range to 0. Doing that would require _two_ performances of the Song of Correspondence -- one to target the Renegade and one to make the range between them 0 -- and would require Asmodeus to know the location of the Renegade. And of course if he knows the location of the Renegade, all this is moot!) Presumably, Asmodeus is a virtuoso with the Celestial Song of Motion, so he can take a penalty and increase the range, but he still has to at least be in the general vicinity of his target (e.g., within 100 miles, say), or else spend another very large sum of Essence to boost the CD to cover a massive area.
(5) The Renegade then still gets to resist being yanked with a roll against Strength plus any Essence he has at the time. Asmodeus can overcome the Renegade's resistance by spending more Essence to boost his CD.
(6) The Song of Correspondence makes a disturbance equal to the performer's total Forces. For a Demon Prince, that's a lot of disturbance. Asmodeus certainly isn't going to want everyone knowing that a Renegade has vexed and eluded him so thoroughly that it's become worth his time to _personally_ hunt him down and spend a ton of Essence doing it.
Bottom line: yes, if Asmodeus is willing to spend a LOT of Essence to get you and doesn't care who knows it, you're got. But for a lowly 9-Force Renegade, Asmodeus would have to know the Renegade's approximate location, go there, and then spend a _minimum_ of 11 Essence to get him, and quite possibly a lot more. More powerful Renegades and/or less specific knowledge of the Renegade's location radically increases the amount of Essence it will take -- if it's a powerful demon and Asmodeus only knows he's somewhere on Earth, you could be talking about triple digits!
11 Essence is not a trivial expenditure even for a Superior (not if you have to multiply such expenditures many times during the day), and 100 definitely is not. Asmodeus is the most obsessive Renegade hunter of all, and even he would probably think twice about spending 100 Essence to retrieve a Renegade when it still might not even work.
Multiply all these considerations by the number of Renegades on the run at any given time (for the Game, it's probably not a lot, but more than one), plus all the _other_ things Asmodeus has to spend his Essence on.
That's why he has Servitors. It's their job to find Renegades so Asmodeus doesn't _have_ to spend his own Essence doing it personally.
Now, if Asmodeus knows your approximate location, would he be willing to spend 11 Essence to jump down there and grab you? Maybe -- although he's still more likely to send Servitors to that approximate location and tell them to find you.
So, if you're a Renegade, do you have to worry about your former Prince using the Song of Correspondence and Celestial Song of Motion to reach out and grab you, wherever you are? Yes you do. You have to constantly keep moving, try to keep anyone from even knowing what city you're in, spend some time alternating between planes if possible, try not to spend all your Essence...and live with the knowledge that if your Prince ever decides he wants you so bad he's willing to blow his entire daily budget of Essence on getting you, he can have you. So you have to hope you never cross that threshold of annoyance too.
Keeping all these things in mind, and enforcing them in your campaign, is a good way to make being a Renegade _really_ suck. If Renegades become utterly paranoid, terrified of being recognized, feel compelled to spend Essence to keep dashing between planes or running to another city, but then fear the disturbance they've made and worry about being out of Essence when they feel a Celestial Song of Motion reaching out for them, if they realize they can never settle in one place and will have to move on as soon as other demons know there's a Renegade in the neighborhood, if they are going crazy trying to figure out how long they can frustrate their former boss before he goes over the edge and decides to GET them NOW, you're probably creating the proper mood for life as a Renegade. If you apply all that pressure several times over, you're creating the proper mood for life as a Renegade of the Game. There's a _reason_ why there are so few of them.
-David
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Elizabeth McCoy <arcangel@prismnet.com>
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