"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better."
- Albert Camus
"He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of
freedom, truth, or duty."
- Kahlil Gibran
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
-Janis Joplin, "Me
And Bobby McGee"
"The world is imprisoned in the Host's chains. We must give it back its freedom."
Any servitor of Liberation who imprisons another takes dissonance for the act, unless this is done in order to liberate someone else. If the dissonance was taken for imprisoning a member of the Host, however, Lilith can often be persuaded to remove it, and imprisoning an Edenean imposes no dissonance at all upon servitors of Liberation. While Lilith believes in liberating others, Eve and her Daughters have angered the Archangel of Liberation sufficiently to provide this one loophole to those who serve her.
Lilith's choir attunements are all refinements of the choir resonances of the angels who serve her; as a result, each attunement is limited to the choir whose attunement it depends upon, and is restricted to that choir only.
Whether this is due to conscious choice or a limitation on her part is the subject of much speculation. All that is known is that those angels who leave her service in order to join an archangel hostile to Lilith (among whose humbers are counted the entire Host, as well as any archangel listed as an Enemy) lose all Liberation rites and attunements. None are certain of how Lilith accomplishes this; it is an ineffable quality of the abilities she grants. Most theories involving how she makes this work involve her mastery of Sorcery.
Seraphim: (Restricted) Seraphim of Liberation are able to sense the underlying Truth of all forms of imprisonment, and gain a bonus equal to their Ethereal Forces on all Escape skill rolls.
Cherubim: (Restricted) Cherubim of Liberation can sense when their attuned is in danger of becoming imprisoned (as per the Malakite of War attunement for sensing danger in canon.) Further, by making a Perception roll, the Cherub of Liberation can tell whether the imprisonment is warranted by something the attuned has done - Cherubim of Liberation often take Roles as Defense Lawyers, the better to liberate those unjustly accused of crimes.
Ofanim: (Restricted) Ofanim of Liberation are able to use their resonance to find the safest route to lead one or more prisoners to freedom - including a number of individuals who can assist in the escape equal to the check digit. If all routes are equally unsafe, then the Ofanite detects whichever route to freedom is fastest, instead.
If the prisoner(s) that the Ofanite is attempting to liberate are posing as such in order to lead the Ofanite into an ambush, this will be detected on a check digit of 6.
Malakim: (Restricted) Malakim of Liberation are the ultimate public speakers on the subject of freedom. Before addressing their audience, they can make a resonance roll with a bonus equal to their Ethereal Forces, adding the check digit of a successful attempt to the level of skills used to persuade others of their viewpoint.
Elohim: (Restricted) Elohim of Liberation may use their resonance to detect what attitudes and beliefs prevent another from seeking freedom (either from physical imprisonment, or from mental domination such as that imposed in an abusive relationship.) They add the check digit of their resonance rolls to Psychology rolls used to help others throw off such mental shackles, and typically take roles as deprogrammers.
Lilim: (Restricted)
<sidebox>
Liberation and Geases
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Edeneans: Lilith has none of the Daughters of Eve serving her. Whether this is due to a refusal on her part to accept any, or whether none of those she has given to her Elohim to deprogram have survived the experience, is a matter of speculation among both the Host and the Exiles.
Kyriotates: (Restricted) With a successful Will roll a Kyriotate of Liberation can take its host with it when it goes celestial, for a number of turns equal to the check digit + the Kyrio's Celestial forces. While the host is Celestial, the Kyriotate cannot leave the Corporeal plane, so this may only be used to exit whatever area the host is in. Many famous jailbreaks have actually been the work of Kyriotates of Liberation.
While using this attunement, if the Kyriotate is in Celestial combat, it can choose whether it or its host takes Soul hits, but once either the angel or host loses a Force, the host is forcibly returned to Corporeal form, with the Kyriotate ejected as if the contest of Wills used to establish possession were lost.
Mercurians: (Restricted) Mercurians of Liberation gain a bonus equal to their Celestial Forces when attempting to create a relationship that involves the liberation of those they use it on. These angels frequently assume Roles as divorce lawyers.
Nor Prisons Hold: By spending 1 essence, the holder can escape from any one form of imprisonment. If the holder of this attunement is handcuffed, tied up, and locked in a cell, for example, it would require three uses. For this reason, Laurence has issued standing orders that any servitors of Liberation who are too valuable to be killed outright are to be placed in as many layers of imprisonment as can be managed.
Free Your Mind: Any attempt to use a song, attunement or sorcery to influence the will of one holding this attunement suffers a penalty equal to the holder's Ethereal forces. This includes attempts at posessing the holder, but does not include resisting Geases that the holder agreed to with full knowledge of their consequences.
The Rest Will Follow: Any attempt to use a song, attunement or sorcery to physically imprison the holder of this attunement suffers a penalty equal to the holder's Corporeal forces.
Locksmith: By spending 1 essence and making a Will roll, these angels can free others from imprisonment, as per the Nor Prisons Hold attunement.
Right-Thinking: (Called "Deprogramming" by some younger, less reverent angels of Liberation.) By spending 1 essence and making a Will roll, these angels can free others from supernatural effects designed to override their wills. This differs from the Elohite of Liberation attunement in that it will have no effect unless the subject it is being used on is currently suffering the effects of a song, attunement, distinction or possession.
If this distinction is used on a possessed being, then the holder enters a Will War with the possessing being. Success means that the possessor is ejected. Failure means that the possessor may make an immediate Ethereal attack upon the angel.
RELATIONS
Host:
Allied: None
Associated: None
Hostile: Lucifer, Marc
Enemy: Laurence, Zadkiel, Eve
Allied: Gabriel, Hatiphas
Associated: All
Hostile: None
Enemy: None
Allied: Mariel
Associated: Beelzebub, Soldekai
Hostile: Jordi
Enemy: None
All as listed on page 150 of the In Nomine basic rules, softcover edition. Yes, even the "Destroy an enemy of freedom" one.
Meditate two hours at a site associated with Liberation, such as the Berlin Wall or Liberty Bell.
Deprogram someone who has been brainwashed.
Liberate another from the clutches of the Host. (+2 essence)
Walk the Freedom Trail in Boston, Mass. (+2 essence)
Lead a revolution into the headquarters of the despot whose abuses inspired it. (+3 essence)
CHANCE OF INVOCATION: 3
-6 if a member of the Host
+3 if the summoner is a Lilim
+Geas level if you Geas yourself to perform a favor for her as you summon her (this type of Geas is exempt to the effects of the Free Your Mind attunement.)
+1 A pair of broken handcuffs
+2 A set of broken Will Shackles
+3 A creature (such as an animal or ethereal) set free
+4 The site of a battle intended to liberate a nation
+5 A human or angel set free
+6 Overthrowing a corrupt government
Life was pleasant at first, in Eden. Both Adam and Lilith took great pleasure in discovering the world around them, and in learning what they could do (and in some cases, even learning what they could not do was joy, for they were young and learning it together.) This changed after they learned that Adam had been given the power of Naming, but Lilith had not.
What at first was but a minor superiority fanned the flames of ego, and Adam began to view himself as Lilith's superior in all things. This was the snake in the Eden of their marriage, and led to a series of increasingly bitter fights. It was after one of these that Lilith encountered Gabriel. No one knows what was spoken between them, but once their conversation ended, so too did Lilith's time in the Garden.
For years afterward Lilith wandered, never aging, avoiding the line of her former husband and his replacement wife as best she could in her bitterness at never being able to bear children of her own. Then came the day when Hatiphas appeared before her.
"For the future," the seraph spoke to her with a voice like the music of running water, then vanished to join her fellow Exiles. There were three volumes lying on the sand before Lilith, all containing the secrets of Sorcery. At first, Lilith greedily studied them, her head swimming with the thought of finally learning the power to Name that Adam had refused to share, but with her learning came a greater awareness of what had happened, and how desperately wrong the order of things had come to be. With this epiphany her desire to learn was no longer fueled by mere vengeance, but by the hope that she might find a way to help set things to right. The culmination of her studies came the day she stood before the gates of Hades itself, and with a carefully-whispered word unlocked the gates which Lucifer himself had sealed.
Andrealphus: "She is a prisoner of her own hurt, too damaged by Beleth's betrayal to truly understand what those she has sided with have done. But at what cost would her liberation come?"
Beleth: "Her tower is the perfect metaphor for the fear she herself knows. While protecting her from forces without, it imprisons her within its walls."
Beth: "Locked away in her stolen library, she only warrants notice when she is willing to offer useful secrets from it in return for favors."
Christine: "Like Andrealphus, she is locked away behind walls of wounded love, but unlike Andrealphus it is her own."
Demogorgon: "While I admire his ability to entertain new perspectives, he cares only for destruction."
Eve: "A flawed copy of myself, first as wife to Adam, and now as Archangel."
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Liberation and Nature
Originally, Lilith's antipathy toward Eve was based on nothing more than wounded pride at the creation of a replacement. After Eve began her crusade of persecution against her servitors and Daughters, however, it became personal. Lilith's anger toward Eve has cooled since its inception, but only insofar as it allows her to channel it, rather than let it control her in the way that Eve is controlled by her own anger.
Lilith now confines herself primarily to answering every attack upon her own tooth for tooth and eye for eye, or rather servitor for servitor and tether for tether, and takes a particular pleasure from turning over any of Edeneans that she or her servitors can capture over to her Elohim.
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Gebbeleth: "I do not understand what he saw when he attempted to reach the Higher Heavens, but upon his return he gained some measure of freedom. Whether it is from enlightenment or madness is something I would dearly love to uncover."
Iblis: "A posturing fool. But sometimes useful."
Israfel: "If she does not hold the key to liberating us all from the degradation of the Symphony, what hope have we all?"
Jean: "The more he brings inspiration to the world, the more he locks himself into an ever-deeper despair. If he were not working for Lucifer, I would pity him."
Kobal: "I am not sure which would be the greater horror: His unknowingly having enshackled himself with the chains of his allies' ridicule, or his being aware of what he has done to himself."
Laurence: "Bastard! The only reason I ever deal with this strutting martinet is to carve favors from his vain hide. When the time comes, he shall learn the true cost of each of the Daughters he has bought or stolen."
Lucifer: "For all that he speaks of my 'proving' humanity's unworthiness, even he has Needs that bring him to my bargaining table. And I make certain that he is aware of most of the costs of every bargain we strike."
Malphas: "Little better than the rest of the Host, but I must admit that the chains he it placed around itself are fascinating to see. And at least I can count on it to keep its word more often than most of its allies."
Marc: "He deludes himself into thinking that he is acting to make things easier on the souls of humanity trapped in Heaven, but all he does is help them blind themselves more tightly to their chains."
Zadkiel: "The prison guard to Laurence's warden. If she could but imagine the price I will exact of her when the time comes, her first act would be to kill each of my daughters in Heaven. Until then, I will do nothing to alert her to how many holes there truly are in her precious Watch."
Baal:
Blandine: "As wounded as her former lover, she walls herself away in a silence that mirrors Beleth's fears. I support her in delivering dreams of freedom to humanity, but am troubled by those her servants deliver that do no more than wrap chains of self-delusion upon those who dream them."
David: "One of the first Malakim, and one of the gravest warnings of how devotion can become a cancer within the heart. He seems to see no way save death, and yet he no longer seems to have the strength for anything except despair."
<sidebox>
Liberation and Stone
Lilith has made a number of offers to the Council of Stone of the service of her Elohim, in the hopes of raising the Archangel of Stone from his depressed stupor. If only David could be roused to action, she feels, then the balance of celestial power might irrevocably shift in the favor of those opposing the Host. None of these offers have been accepted.
Lilith is still unsure whether this is due to David not wanting the help she feels she can offer, or whether the Council, mindful of the potential loss of its influence, simply refuse to tell David of this.
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Dominique:
Eli:
Haagenti:
Malphas:
Novalis:
Nybbas:
Ogiel:
Raphael:
Uriel:
Vapula:
Adam: "I fear the pride which caused us to break apart still rules him. Oh, husband, if only there were some way we could put aside our differences, is there any limit to what we could accomplish? But too many years are passed, and too many words unsaid between us during them, for me to hope for more than non-interference between us now."
Beelzebub: "As one of the first guerilla warriors, I must admire the strength of his convictions. I aid him where I can, for in the fourth front which his forces keep open in this war, there is much to serve both his Word and my own."
Fleurity: "He seems benevolent enough, but what barbs are hidden in the hooks he offers?"
Jordi: "It has chained itself too strongly in its own madness. I fear that the only liberation to be found for it is that of death itself."
Mariel: "Lucifer has consigned himself to a prison of torn memory. In Mariel may be the key to liberating not only the Lightbringer, but the Light of Heaven itself."
Soldekai: "His word and my own are linked more closely than I believe he realizes. Even in the darkest prison, the hope of release can be a beacon to the soul."