[UA] Cookie Monster assault

[Matthew Rowan Norwood]

> The trick, I suppose, would be discerning the demon's
> identity.  I've never been really clear on how you go
> about doing that.

Oh, the ideas I was throwing out were mostly for the few cases of demons
who have been around for a while and are clued in. Some astute
investigators/necromancers might follow the demon around long enough to
figure out who it is, and start playing with proxies to gain power over
the demon.

Other attempts might be made to target the demons of
friends/family/famous people. If the person in question is operating as
a demon somewhere, your proxy will affect it.

> But demons lie to get what they want, good or bad.
> So, Proxy-wise, you're desperately trying to create a
> magical ritual which allows you to assume the identity
> of someone you don't really know or understand.

Sure, the smart ones lie. But there are probably plenty of demons who
don't think twice about going back and murdering their old enemies,
stalking their old family members, hanging out in their old (ahem)
haunts... being in a body probably breeds overconfidence, and most
demons don't count on having cabals of sorcerors targeting them.

> Furthermore, an adept demon still
> pursuing the power of, say, masks from beyond the
> grave is gonna have trouble performing a Proxy ritual
> unless he gets a body(I know you mentioned this,
> Norwood, but I felt it needed to be reiterated.)

Absolutely. The demon isn't going to be able to create a proxy unless he
can influence someone in the world. But there may be adept or avatar
demons who have possessed people, gathered followers (not too hard when
you've got real-life supernatural powers), then lost their bodies but
retained their cult. This would be a convenient way for a demon to
retain lots of power while moving from body to body. In fact, it might
be cool to run UA as a game where the most powerful magic-workers are
all dead people: you have a bunch of demon-worshipping cults out there,
gathering magical power for their masters. You get a nice balance there:
the big demons are powerful and unkillable, but they are also
predictable and single-minded. Also, only the living can ascend to the
IC. 

[Side note: This ties into my take on Iconomancy: rather than treating
it as a magical school, I'm more inclined to treat it as some
combination of archetype channeling and demon proxying.]

Matt Norwood

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