Chester
Demon of Quitting Smoking
Ethereal Forces: 3 Intelligence:
6 Precision: 6
Celestial Forces: 6 Will:
12 Perception: 12
Word Forces: 3
Skills: Dodge/6, Emote/3, Fast-Talk/6, Knowledge
(Addiction/3, Psychology/3), Savoir-Faire/3
Songs: Charm (Ethereal/3, Celestial/6), Healing
(Corporeal/3), Sensation (Corporeal/3), Shields (All/3)
Attunements: Shedite of Drugs, First Time, Score,
Knight of Addicts, Demon of Quitting Smoking
Demon of Quitting Smoking: The Word focuses on the
activity itself, rather than whether or not it's successful (both Fleurity and
Chester are of the opinion that either way, humans obsess over Drugs, so it's
pretty much a win-win situation).
Chester thus fulfills its dissonance conditions (both Word and Band)
simply by making its host (which must be a smoker trying to quit) seriously think,
long and hard, about having a cigarette.
A nonsmoking host must be corrupted in the usual way; Chester tends to
avoid those...
Rites:
: Cause a person trying to quit to have a
cigarette. A single puff is enough.
Look, it's just a cigarette.
No, come on, think about it. Hiding yourself away from it is
unhealthy. You want to face your
problems, not run away from them, right?
Good. Now,
let's think about this for a moment.
First off, we - I mean 'we' in the most generic terms here; it's just
you and your subconscious having this conversation, after all - have to really look
at this situation, clearly and dispassionately. You need to quit smoking.
It's ruining your lungs, numbing your tongue, staining your skin,
rotting your teeth; your clothes smell and you wheeze when you run. No dispute there; we've got to get off of
the things. Good call on deciding to
take the plunge, by the way.
But we've got a problem. The damned things have got their hooks in, and getting them out
is going to be a stone-cold bitch kitty.
The headaches aren't so bad; they're half tension, and Hell, that's what
Drugs are for, right? The mood swings
are more irritating. But it's the
psychological problems that hurt the worst.
Not just the habit patterns that have to be changed, or gotten rid off,
oh, no, not just that. It's
worse than that.
I mean, how long have we been doing this? Ten, twenty years or so? Started up when we were teenagers and wanted
to look like adults, kept doing it when we were adults - now, everything about being
an adult is tied up with cigarettes.
Worried about something? Have a
cigarette to calm down. Anxiously
waiting for something to happen? Have a
cigarette to have something to do.
Bored? Well, a cigarette and a
book work wonders for that sort of problem.
Just had amazingly good sex?
Shoot, cigarettes are traditional for that sort of thing. Cigarettes are the things that wake you up
in the morning and let you drift off to sleep at night. They're intertwined with your life,
that's all that I'm saying.
But you've got to quit. It's tough - tougher than heroin, tougher than cocaine, a lot
tougher than booze - and everybody who's ever gotten clean of nicotine is going
to be a real snot-nose about the entire thing.
Don't bother looking for sympathy from that crowd, let me tell you. But you will do it. You've slashed your intake to a fraction of
what it used to be, you've got an prescription for the patch, you're practicing
your deep breathing and the hypnotherapy is finally starting to kick in. You'll tame this bitch goddess yet.
But there's still that edge to everything, it's
12:45 AM and you can't sleep. And you
know where there's an emergency pack, close to hand and ready to help you
out. You don't even need an entire
cigarette: just enough to take the edge off.
Just the smell will do...
Look, it's just a cigarette.