Hush Puppies
(6 points for demonic, 1 for angelic)
Class II Servant, level/6 (demon), level/1 (angel)
Ethereal Forces: 1 Intelligence:
1 Precision: 3
Celestial Forces: 0 Will:
0 Perception: 0
Skills: Move Silently/4, Tracking/4
Form: one of a pair of sneakers.
Yes, they're made from real puppies. Servitors of Theft swear by them: they
aren't normally as good as a Magpie would be, but it's nice to have your shoes
looking out for you when you've somehow inexplicably messed up being all
sneaky-like. It's also nice in general
to have footgear with an automatic tracking feature. Best of all, using puppies to further the cause of Hell is just
so evilly cool. True, if Jordi
catches you, you're toast - but then, wouldn't you be anyway, just on general
principles?
How Valefor actually gets Hush Puppies in the
first place is a minor mystery. Nobody
admits to making them: it's hard to explain precisely why the Archangel of
Animals frightens the average demon so, but he does. Actually, now that I think of it, it's really not hard at all:
Jordi spends a lot of time on the corporeal plane, has no sense of humor about
his precious animals and doesn't bother with such niceties as saying hello
before he kills something. At least
with Michael or Laurence you might see them (briefly) before your Forces
unravel... Anyway, Valefor apparently
has some sort of arrangement with somebody to make these relics: he gives them
out as rewards for minor services.
Needless to say, Jordi was livid when he first found
out about this. He got even more livid
when the first captured Hush Puppies appeared in Heaven and some fool angel
suggested that they actually be used.
The idea itself was considered depraved...
...by Jordi, not the Hush Puppy.
You see, the process by which puppies are bound into
these relics permitted a one-way sensory link - they'd have to - and it turned
out that the puppies loved the results.
New smells, color vision, opposable thumbs, no need to pee...
this wasn't bad at all. Sure, they
didn't like it when bad things happened to people who smelled nice, and it
could get boring sometimes, but sometimes it was fun. This presented the Archangel of Animals with
a bit of a dilemma: defending his
charges from being exploited by humanity and celestials was one thing, telling
a puppy that it can't go off and have adventures was quite another. Reluctantly - very reluctantly - he agreed
that perhaps volunteer puppies could be very carefully given the
opportunity to become living artifacts for a finite amount of time.
Naturally, there'd have to be some changes
made. For a start, the link was now
two-way: the puppy could now communicate with it's - no, not its
owner. Most emphatically, not
its owner - try 'partner', instead.
This means that someone with an Angelic Hush Puppy is going to quickly
learn the Canine phrase for "What's that?
What's that? What'sthatwhatsthatwhatsthat..." Second, if the puppy
wants you to look at something, you will take its wishes into
consideration. If it wants you to eat
something, it would be wise to humor it.
If it wants to play by having you roll around in the mud and then go
chase a stick, guess what? Yes, the War
takes precedence, but the War is not an excuse to not properly take care of the
Hush Puppy partnered to you. Third and
finally, Jordi will be checking up from time to time - just to make sure
everything is going smoothly. If he
can't come himself, he'll send one of his Seraphim. Fair warning.
With all of this, you're probably wondering why on
Earth any sane angel would voluntarily agree to cart this relic around? The answer is, no sane angel would
voluntarily possess one.
That's why Dominic loves them so.