Editing Reverend Sail/ Robert Riemann

'''Reverend Sail''' (original and favored Cover Reverend Robert Riemann, once known as Elemiah)

Concept: Scholarly priest, looking for God.

Incarnation: Messenger
Agenda: Inquisitor

Fall Catalyst: Contamination. Elemiah was sent to oversee and direct an Anglican parish, meant to assist an angelic summoning project by lending their faith and belief in a unique ceremony to the occult matrix, "singing" a new angel into being. His Ban involved an obsession with holy texts and teachings, however, and learning from said texts and teachings eventually caused him to doubt the God-Machine actually was God. Thus, when he realized that the "singing" process would be incredibly dangerous to his parish, he could not in good conscience condemn his flock to death for no godly reason.

Virtue: Moral. Sail possesses an incredible sense of right and wrong, especially when it comes to his own actions. He is aware that he may have to cross some lines as one of the Unchained if he hopes to find the real God and retain his individuality, but he Fell precisely because the God-Machine's means didn't justify the ends, and there are some means he will never use. Soul pacts are one of them, since he doesn't like the possibility that the soul is simply annihilated or absorbed rather than scrubbed of all identity that could form a ghost.

Vice: Just. He also thinks more people should be more moral-not his morals, mind (heavens, no-that would be bullying), but that they should live by a code that is, at the very least, devoid of hypocrisy and cruelty. Such things can and do cause him to lose his temper and act hypocritically and cruelly himself, though he understands that he's being rather hurtful and doesn't really need to go out of his way to torment people for acting in ways he finds distasteful. Still, a lot of televangelists need the karma stick...

Attributes

Primary: Social

Presence 3

Manipulation 3

Composure 2


Secondary: Mental

Intelligence 2

Wits 3

Resolve 2


Tertiary: Physical

Strength 1

Dexterity 3

Stamina 2



Skills:

Primary: Social

Empathy 2

Expression 3 (Sermons)

Intimidation 2

Persuasion 2 (Priestly Advice)

Subterfuge 2


Secondary: Mental

Academics 2

Investigation 2 (Hypocrisy)

Occult 3 (Occult Matrixes, Cover threat: It's very strange as to why the priest has a thorough knowledge of occult symbolism and mathematics, especially the kind meant to summon entities into this world)


Tertiary:

Drive 2

Stealth 2 


Embeds:


Vocal (Incarnation):

Eavesdrop

Everybody Knows

Special Message


Cacophonic:

Cause and Effect


Demonic Form:

In many ways, the demonic form of the Reverend resembles a classical angel more than his old, truly angelic form did. To put it bluntly, he looks like a tall man in dark robes, with white, feathery wings covered in designs of circuitry. The real deviation from the image, apart from the designs, is the fact that his arms are made of gray metal (and if you'd look under the robes, so would the rest of his body), and his head is fully masked and faceless because of it, with only the golden Chi Rho adorning the silver mask (and if you tore it off, you'd find a compact and complete sensor array arrange to look like a face). He's fully aware of it to, and he's spent long afternoons trying to understand why his formerly fish-like form became far more human and based in Judeo-Christian iconography. The dominant theory is that the absorption of his priestly cover, combined with his previous religious conversion, influenced the absorbed Infrastructure. But that's a mystery for another day, as the purpose (a gatherer and sorter of intelligence, especially fuel to manipulate others into doing what he wants, originally meant for making sure his flock was just right for the summoning song) is unchanged.

Modifications:

Electrical Sight

Inhuman Intelligence

Sonic Acuity

Technologies: 

Aura Sight

Mind Reading

Propulsion:

Wings

Process:

Memory Theft

Merits:

Riemann: Allies 2 (Church)

Reverend Sail: Contacts 2 (fellow Inquisitors, Cowden's abilities) Sympathetic 2, Pusher 1, True Friend 3 (Jean Cowden, stigmatic acolyte unintentionally created during his Fall. Regards himself as something of a confidant to to now Clairvoyant youth about his power, and Cowden knows Sail isn't human and feels rather lost on occasion).

Aspirations:

Learn more about the real God, or Gods, or whatever deified or otherwise divine force there is apart from the God-Machine (long-term)

Find help for Cowden to train his power (short-term)

Mold my church's theology to cloak more of my Embeds from suspicion. (short-term)

Health: 7

Defense: 3

Initiative: 5

Cover: 7 for Riemann

Speed: 9, 14 while flying

Willpower: 4

Primum: 1, Aether 10/1

Backstory: "My story, you ask? ...Can't see how that would hurt. This whole business of concealing our Falls seems all rather pointless to me. I don't have anything to hide on that front.

"Once, I was called Elemiah, an angel of inward journeys, and to an extent sea travel. I don't know why, either, as nothing I did had anything to do with sailing or even that much introspection. I was made to be an assistant to a Psychopomp in a summoning project, specifically the human part of the equation-the occult matrix needed the angel to be 'sung' into being. It was my job to to ensure that the singing was truly heartfelt and thus, genuine, with the right mix of people. In short, I was placed at the parish as the new priest. I took to my job without complaint or malice, simply doing what I could for the glory and plans of the Demiurge.

"You'll note there that I called it the Demiurge and not God-Machine. Well, to be frank-I don't think it's God. I don't think it's even a God, but a facsimile thereof. A very adept one, but a facsimile nonetheless. I came to think of it that way during my longer than expected mission; it gave me an obsession with holy texts and theological writings, and the parish was accidentally (until proven otherwise) delivered a massive shipment of hard copies of the writings of St. Aquinas and other theologians. I took to them with glee, and as I read, I came to understand how different my creator was from the Creator. In time, I simply deduced that it was simply another creation."

"I did not Fall then, but it led directly to it-after my conversion experience, I simply served as normal, viewing it as my calling in life, my purpose-I did not think the God-Machine was deviating from the divine plan it was presumably built for until I realized what the 'singing' would entail for my flock-exposure to massive amounts of radiation, hazardous Essence, and Aether. Seeing no answer as to why my fellow believers had to die to summon a single other person into this world, neither in myself nor the Choir (my little name for the data stream and interconnections all angels share), I decided I could not in good conscience allow this, and used my last Phantasm Numina ever to distract my congregation at a critical moment. I assume they thought the topple I did from the stress of sudden disconnection from the Choir and absorbing my Cover was me fainting in suprise. For said Cover, I do nothing in my power to correct them, and to be frank I enjoy being Riemann-I plan to milk this face for all it is worth, and only leave it behind when it's time for old age to do him in.

"Seeing nothing else to do, I decided to become a theologian and religious scholar myself-the Demiurge was awfully slow in reacting to my Fall, or perhaps I was not that important after all. I suppose it does not matter for the moment-for now, I am searching for the actual answer that has driven most philosophers-if the God-Machine is not really God, than who and what is? I lean towards what is now my faith in truth, but I am quite capable of admitting that no one who is honest with themselves has the answer. Perhaps I always will be looking for that answer, but you know the old saying about journeys and destinations...."

• Who did you share part of yourself with when you first Fell? "Ah, Mr. Cowden, over there, by the rink. Yes, he's in high school, but he's also an unintended result of my Fall-I think he may have been standing too close to be to avoid stigmatism. He's an acolyte, so when he developed that odd need to pat down inanimate objects he holds to gain a sense of their dimensions, he came to his priest when he realized he could see different places if he focused on dimensions enough, and begin to sense that his janitor was, shall we say, of the empyrean tradition of soaps. I knew enough about stigmatics to understand what had happened, so I told the truth as much as I was able-I am not human, but I found myself actually caring for the church, and saved it from my dark masters. He was frightened, but he and I have come to view each other as personal confidants-perhaps the only other people we can talk about our more arcane problems too. That clairvoyance of his is damn handy, too, though he hasn't quite mastered it yet, and I don't know how to teach him."

• Who doesn't know, but suspects you’re not human? "The reason why I regard my desire to punish the wicked and corrupt as a weakness-there's a man named Liam DuPont who lives around my parish, a devoted follower of the church (not mine), a diligent worker, and an adulterer. A bisexual adulterer, and formerly quite possibly the only homophobe in the country (I suspect he may be an immigrant from south of the border, but I've never checked). I grew sick of his snide comments about this lovely same sex couple I married, so I engineered his wife to catch him with a gentleman of negotiable affections. His marriage is actually stronger now, and he accepts himself for his own little quirks of romance now...and casts suspicious glances at me, as I actually described, in detail, what might happen, and made a veiled threat when he blew me off."

• Who could give you up to the angels right now, if they really wanted to? "Mr. Cowden, I suppose. I don't believe he would, but that janitor is still there, still keeping the biology lab spotless, but being less attentive to everywhere else."

• Who would you trust the truest part of yourself with if you absolutely had to? "I would probably default to Cowden, though most of my being is bound up in Jesus, including the truest part. But if we are talking about people I can actually talk to directly and have a reliable response that is not a spiritual experience, Cowden."

• Who thinks they have something on you, when all they really have is smoke and mirrors? "A parishioner named Christine Leah. The 'miracle' set everyone quite off-balance for a while, but Christine seems to have gotten it into her head that I am the source. This is true, but she believes I am psychic or have some sort of spirit guide, and am entirely human otherwise. She's very much the picture of the tie-die pacifist hippy, so not only is she not a problem, she's useful chaff-everyone knows she is a kook, so anything she says is suspect. Wonders for my Cover."