To Herbert
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Karl the Mad
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To Herbert
The armies and forces of the Vices tend to follow a theme in keeping with that Vice, right? Like how Pride's knights are sort of stuck up and easy to manipulate, and they all have big shiny armor and swords, or whatever? How do the various forces follow the theme(s) of their commanding Vice?
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IamLEAM1983
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As Herbert
"Stuck-up and easy to manipulate?! Well, I should at least hope things have changed under my rule, if not for my men's honor. True, the old Bailey keepers are still problematic, but the Burning Legions still deign to answer my call, and the Mortal Plane's influence on Pride is adding much-needed texture to the Vice, as it did to me. I should hope you'll find a few Egoes of note in my forces, albeit tempered with some sympathy or grace.
More specifically, I've reshaped Pride to be a tad closer to my vision of the Vice. We aren't conquerors and have no need to be so, not when Pride involves carrying oneself with the... appearance of certain entitlements. My office in Magnus Tower connects to a myriad of penthouses and private chalets, all of them the demesne of particular lieutenants of mine. A few went for the old I saw the Bulge schmaltz or I fought at Gallipoli rigamarole - fattened gentlemen with well oiled rifles and rapiers, grand estates of their own expanding past their own doors - and a few others take after Heathcliff and keep Pride closer to the chest, as it were. These are my craftsmen, my artists and designers. They may seem humble, but this is because Pride manifests in the quality and precision of their work. Such is the case with most of my cabinet's juniors - all of them previously possessing demons, whom I've freed of the indignity and insult of needing to walk about in dead flesh. I have as many chest-puffing hussars with grandiose mustaches as I do diminitive goblins who followed their Ego to paths that turned dark sufficiently late enough to have me as their master, instead of the Goat.
I'm a tad squeamish, when it comes to murder or sacrifice. Extreme self-commitment is more my taste, and I enjoy repaying those who worked until their last breath out of some perceived notion that only they could perform their craft with something of an admission of truth. Skills are an endless myriad - but each craftsman, artist or creator is unique.
You've met Mister Volker, Benjamin Mathers - or Wrath, as he is now known. Under him, the Vice is the loosest and most elusive expression of the modern-day Private Military Contractor the world will have ever seen. Volker's new allies and employees appear to be well-trained, disciplined and structured to a fault, expanding their reach from mere defense and contracted offensive ops to any matter of dark or unavowable operations, Infosec, hardware revisions - or military contracts with America or the UN's private forces. Volker's Wrath is cold, calculated, precise - almost fun at parties, as I've heard said. Most of them have a criminally hard time not wearing black or deigning to go higher than your average Brooks Brothers and Under Armor retailers, but it's my understanding I would have to stick a particularly large gun to our lupine friend's head, to get him to stand still long enough for one of London's goblins to work their magic with measuring tapes and pins...
It's my understanding that he has... divested himself of common forms of anger. He claims that being merely cross with someone does not deserve the invocation of a Vice, mortals have a baker's dozen's worth of dislikes they all navigate on a daily basis, and you don't see them murdering one another over peccadilloes unless some other factors happen to be involved, do you? No, Volker sees Wrath as acting when Justice fails to do so, and equally understands that Justice gives Wrath its value. A balance has to be maintained, and those who found out how to contact Volker through mundane, if illicit channels, and who did so in order to pursue nefarious ends - typically come to meet their maker in short order.
In any case, Volker is no mere incubus, anymore. He thrives on vengeance, now - either his own or that of others.
Envy's army is particular in the sense that it needs none. It would want one, as it Wants everything there is, but such needs are impossible to fulfill. Envy has no need for a mortal structure, for a face or a code of dress. Envy is a swarm, as it has always been. If it has any recognizing characteristics, it is in clothing itself in swarms of opportunistic predators and parasites, in insects and plaguebearers. You might as well ask how a swarm of black eels organizes, when each desperate head is snapping at the same carcass that was left on the shore..."
He chuckles.
"For this reason, I've taken arrangements to ensure that Envy never learns of either my Vice, or even Wrath's organizational principles. If Envy were to start to think again and especially to think enough, we would have another Beelzebub on our hands, another one who would launch an assault on the Mortal Plane - not out of some hubristic need, but merely because it hungers. It needs every facet of the mortal experience like you need water in the desert - and it will then discard it all without so much as an ounce of consideration.
The same would have been true of Gluttony, if not for the fact that our victory gave a voice to seasoned gourmands and aesthetes, to lovers of the Senses that rival incubi and succubi. You'd perhaps think that we've inherited layabouts and pigs as allies, but if anything were to threaten their ability to delight themselves in whatever ways they choose; they would sharpen their pens, hone their meat cleavers and turn their paintbrushes to points and fall upon our common foe with something you might recognize of Old Harrogath's - a certain sense of craftiness and patience. These are the demons who will lie indolently for days, in apparent ignorance of the war they should be fighting - only to twist the proverbial breadknife inside their mark's flesh at the exact moment and angle needed to serve as a killing blow.
Imagine a throng of demons, all finely-dressed and seemingly not at all suited for combat. Imagine that one of them chops off their enemy's leg and prepares a braisé with it, critiquing its texture and tenderness as they do so. Imagine another one encasing their blood in pills, and then crushing these as recreational drugs, deconstructing the nature of their victim's provided high. Imagine another one pulling the mark's liver out of their chest, to use their bile as yellow pigment for their work. Imagine a gallery of Gluttons and Gourmands approaching their enemy not as a force to be vanquished - but as an unsatisfactory creation to be broken down, pared up, analyzed, consumed - and forgotten. Their particular hunger can be sated - but as Aristotle said, life is a banquet...
Sloth's involvement in the last war was extraordinary. As you can imagine, the notion of Belphegor being involved in anything is a bit of an oxymoron. These are demons who will fight to the bitter end to protect their assumed right of supreme idleness, but as you'd imagine, they do need to be pushed to their last resort in order to consider it. Sloth, then, is as you've seen it on the battlefield: capable of great feats of strength or resilience, if only to collapse on the spot the very next moment because of how unconcerned they now feel. This is why Sloth still deigns to possess bodies, why Belphegor's obese and diabetic cat hasn't left the Greenvale Hotel in months, and why most of his soldiers and representatives carry the flesh of common folk who died during the war. Few bother with weapons or armor, not when they can go from absolute lethargic torpor lasting weeks to suddenly lifting cars off of their newfound mortal neighbours. As his creed might as well be If it ain't broke, don't fix it, the old Chamber Pot Demon doesn't quite see the need to adapt more conventional airs. The most he has done is recall most of his followers to Hell and reduce his presence to a few rooms on the Greenvale's fourth floor, and that might as well be called a change of titanic proportions, compared to the twilit realms of scattered bodies and of a thousand thousand snores filling the air that were once his.
He still governs spurts of ingenuity, however, and still is something to our universe's Morpheus for those who are in need of a certain push to effectively dream, the popular consensus being that Sloth's dream self has a focus on productivity that would put us all to shame. We see splayed bodies and friends who must be prodded and poked to remain conversational, but it could be that the Void Weavers could finally let us see the occult industriousness hidden behind the Vice of Indolence.
We finally come to Lust, Gluttony's cousin... You've seen Tom, you've witnessed his commitment and sacrifices - and these are the result of a rare breed. Most Lustful only seek immediate pleasure, so it takes particular Sadists to take to the battlefield and find sustenance there. Volker was one of them, and they tend to be few in number. Serial hedonists are more common, and Tom has cherry-picked most of his friends amongst the more level-headed ones. The cliché stating that a Glutton could "pig out" as it were, and resemble Monty Python's Mister Creosote, is more representative of some of Tom's brethren. Gluttons are experiential in nature, the Lustful crave sensation above all else. Again, you'd have a hard time imagining sexpots, emotionally-dependent Fiends or those obsessed with food organizing into a fighting force - and like the Slothful, you'd have to push them to their brink to force them to act. The result would be as frenzied and as disorganized as you'd imagine. Some would push forward to gorge upon their enemy's flesh, others would rape them incessantly. Some would attach themselves like lamprey eels and lure their victims into ersatzes of Gremory's constructed illusions...
Thankfully, the Lustful were amongst those who changed the most, following our victory against the Goat. Early physical lives that began in serial crimes and endless assault charges are now beginning to settle into something more human in tone, with even the most abject of all of Tom's compatriots now knowing the virtues of self-control. You could imagine, a few generations from now, that some Earth-borne Lustful could theoretically come to form something of a more common armed forces, perhaps with input from my men or Volker's."
He conjures a silver-plated M16, checks the mag, slots it and adjusts the sight with the level of ease expected of a civilian-grade enthusiast.
"For now, Earth can rely on the Celestials' own military acumen, as well as mine and Volker's, if more classic engagements are to be expected. The other Vices would require a fair bit of prior planning, before being properly integrated into any armed force."
More specifically, I've reshaped Pride to be a tad closer to my vision of the Vice. We aren't conquerors and have no need to be so, not when Pride involves carrying oneself with the... appearance of certain entitlements. My office in Magnus Tower connects to a myriad of penthouses and private chalets, all of them the demesne of particular lieutenants of mine. A few went for the old I saw the Bulge schmaltz or I fought at Gallipoli rigamarole - fattened gentlemen with well oiled rifles and rapiers, grand estates of their own expanding past their own doors - and a few others take after Heathcliff and keep Pride closer to the chest, as it were. These are my craftsmen, my artists and designers. They may seem humble, but this is because Pride manifests in the quality and precision of their work. Such is the case with most of my cabinet's juniors - all of them previously possessing demons, whom I've freed of the indignity and insult of needing to walk about in dead flesh. I have as many chest-puffing hussars with grandiose mustaches as I do diminitive goblins who followed their Ego to paths that turned dark sufficiently late enough to have me as their master, instead of the Goat.
I'm a tad squeamish, when it comes to murder or sacrifice. Extreme self-commitment is more my taste, and I enjoy repaying those who worked until their last breath out of some perceived notion that only they could perform their craft with something of an admission of truth. Skills are an endless myriad - but each craftsman, artist or creator is unique.
You've met Mister Volker, Benjamin Mathers - or Wrath, as he is now known. Under him, the Vice is the loosest and most elusive expression of the modern-day Private Military Contractor the world will have ever seen. Volker's new allies and employees appear to be well-trained, disciplined and structured to a fault, expanding their reach from mere defense and contracted offensive ops to any matter of dark or unavowable operations, Infosec, hardware revisions - or military contracts with America or the UN's private forces. Volker's Wrath is cold, calculated, precise - almost fun at parties, as I've heard said. Most of them have a criminally hard time not wearing black or deigning to go higher than your average Brooks Brothers and Under Armor retailers, but it's my understanding I would have to stick a particularly large gun to our lupine friend's head, to get him to stand still long enough for one of London's goblins to work their magic with measuring tapes and pins...
It's my understanding that he has... divested himself of common forms of anger. He claims that being merely cross with someone does not deserve the invocation of a Vice, mortals have a baker's dozen's worth of dislikes they all navigate on a daily basis, and you don't see them murdering one another over peccadilloes unless some other factors happen to be involved, do you? No, Volker sees Wrath as acting when Justice fails to do so, and equally understands that Justice gives Wrath its value. A balance has to be maintained, and those who found out how to contact Volker through mundane, if illicit channels, and who did so in order to pursue nefarious ends - typically come to meet their maker in short order.
In any case, Volker is no mere incubus, anymore. He thrives on vengeance, now - either his own or that of others.
Envy's army is particular in the sense that it needs none. It would want one, as it Wants everything there is, but such needs are impossible to fulfill. Envy has no need for a mortal structure, for a face or a code of dress. Envy is a swarm, as it has always been. If it has any recognizing characteristics, it is in clothing itself in swarms of opportunistic predators and parasites, in insects and plaguebearers. You might as well ask how a swarm of black eels organizes, when each desperate head is snapping at the same carcass that was left on the shore..."
He chuckles.
"For this reason, I've taken arrangements to ensure that Envy never learns of either my Vice, or even Wrath's organizational principles. If Envy were to start to think again and especially to think enough, we would have another Beelzebub on our hands, another one who would launch an assault on the Mortal Plane - not out of some hubristic need, but merely because it hungers. It needs every facet of the mortal experience like you need water in the desert - and it will then discard it all without so much as an ounce of consideration.
The same would have been true of Gluttony, if not for the fact that our victory gave a voice to seasoned gourmands and aesthetes, to lovers of the Senses that rival incubi and succubi. You'd perhaps think that we've inherited layabouts and pigs as allies, but if anything were to threaten their ability to delight themselves in whatever ways they choose; they would sharpen their pens, hone their meat cleavers and turn their paintbrushes to points and fall upon our common foe with something you might recognize of Old Harrogath's - a certain sense of craftiness and patience. These are the demons who will lie indolently for days, in apparent ignorance of the war they should be fighting - only to twist the proverbial breadknife inside their mark's flesh at the exact moment and angle needed to serve as a killing blow.
Imagine a throng of demons, all finely-dressed and seemingly not at all suited for combat. Imagine that one of them chops off their enemy's leg and prepares a braisé with it, critiquing its texture and tenderness as they do so. Imagine another one encasing their blood in pills, and then crushing these as recreational drugs, deconstructing the nature of their victim's provided high. Imagine another one pulling the mark's liver out of their chest, to use their bile as yellow pigment for their work. Imagine a gallery of Gluttons and Gourmands approaching their enemy not as a force to be vanquished - but as an unsatisfactory creation to be broken down, pared up, analyzed, consumed - and forgotten. Their particular hunger can be sated - but as Aristotle said, life is a banquet...
Sloth's involvement in the last war was extraordinary. As you can imagine, the notion of Belphegor being involved in anything is a bit of an oxymoron. These are demons who will fight to the bitter end to protect their assumed right of supreme idleness, but as you'd imagine, they do need to be pushed to their last resort in order to consider it. Sloth, then, is as you've seen it on the battlefield: capable of great feats of strength or resilience, if only to collapse on the spot the very next moment because of how unconcerned they now feel. This is why Sloth still deigns to possess bodies, why Belphegor's obese and diabetic cat hasn't left the Greenvale Hotel in months, and why most of his soldiers and representatives carry the flesh of common folk who died during the war. Few bother with weapons or armor, not when they can go from absolute lethargic torpor lasting weeks to suddenly lifting cars off of their newfound mortal neighbours. As his creed might as well be If it ain't broke, don't fix it, the old Chamber Pot Demon doesn't quite see the need to adapt more conventional airs. The most he has done is recall most of his followers to Hell and reduce his presence to a few rooms on the Greenvale's fourth floor, and that might as well be called a change of titanic proportions, compared to the twilit realms of scattered bodies and of a thousand thousand snores filling the air that were once his.
He still governs spurts of ingenuity, however, and still is something to our universe's Morpheus for those who are in need of a certain push to effectively dream, the popular consensus being that Sloth's dream self has a focus on productivity that would put us all to shame. We see splayed bodies and friends who must be prodded and poked to remain conversational, but it could be that the Void Weavers could finally let us see the occult industriousness hidden behind the Vice of Indolence.
We finally come to Lust, Gluttony's cousin... You've seen Tom, you've witnessed his commitment and sacrifices - and these are the result of a rare breed. Most Lustful only seek immediate pleasure, so it takes particular Sadists to take to the battlefield and find sustenance there. Volker was one of them, and they tend to be few in number. Serial hedonists are more common, and Tom has cherry-picked most of his friends amongst the more level-headed ones. The cliché stating that a Glutton could "pig out" as it were, and resemble Monty Python's Mister Creosote, is more representative of some of Tom's brethren. Gluttons are experiential in nature, the Lustful crave sensation above all else. Again, you'd have a hard time imagining sexpots, emotionally-dependent Fiends or those obsessed with food organizing into a fighting force - and like the Slothful, you'd have to push them to their brink to force them to act. The result would be as frenzied and as disorganized as you'd imagine. Some would push forward to gorge upon their enemy's flesh, others would rape them incessantly. Some would attach themselves like lamprey eels and lure their victims into ersatzes of Gremory's constructed illusions...
Thankfully, the Lustful were amongst those who changed the most, following our victory against the Goat. Early physical lives that began in serial crimes and endless assault charges are now beginning to settle into something more human in tone, with even the most abject of all of Tom's compatriots now knowing the virtues of self-control. You could imagine, a few generations from now, that some Earth-borne Lustful could theoretically come to form something of a more common armed forces, perhaps with input from my men or Volker's."
He conjures a silver-plated M16, checks the mag, slots it and adjusts the sight with the level of ease expected of a civilian-grade enthusiast.
"For now, Earth can rely on the Celestials' own military acumen, as well as mine and Volker's, if more classic engagements are to be expected. The other Vices would require a fair bit of prior planning, before being properly integrated into any armed force."