December 3, 2025 • 34 mins
What if rebellion began as an act of love? Demon: the Fallen was the final game in the original World of Darkness line, and we chart it's - painfully - short history. Was it fun to play fallen angels from the dawn of time, or was this just more angst hiding under a different colour of trenchcoat?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Iain (00:09):
Welcome to Roll to Save, the RPG history.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Roll to Save.
(00:29):
Today we're tackling yet anotherWorld of Darkness game, this
time Demon the Fallen.
Released in November of 2002,Demon holds the rather
unfortunate distinction ofhaving the shortest run of any
World of Darkness game, lastingbarely two years before the
entire classic World of Darknesscame crashing to a halt in 2004.
(00:52):
Despite this truncated lifespan,Demon managed to carve out
something genuinely unique inthe rather crowded by that point
supernatural RPG landscape.
I do have a bit of a soft spotfor this game.
When it came out, I was deepinto the world of darkness
ecosystem, having spent yearsrunning Vampire and also playing
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games like Wraith, Mage, andHunter.
And when I heard that White Wolfwas releasing a game where you
played actual fallen angels,beings who'd participated in the
creation of reality itself, Iwas intrigued and also somewhat
sceptical.
After all, a game dealing withbiblical mythology could be
cool.
It also could be fraught withpotential pitfalls.
(01:37):
If you got it wrong, you'dprobably end up with something
that either felt really preachyor disrespectful, neither of
which makes for particularlyenjoyable gaming.
Thankfully, when I finally gotmy hands on the core rule book,
I found something a bit morenuanced than what I'd expected.
This wasn't a game where youplayed cartoon devils with
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pitchforks.
Instead, it was a surprisinglythoughtful exploration of
rebellion, consequence, and thepossibility of redemption.
The following weren't simplyevil spirits who wanted to
corrupt humanity, although youcould play them like that.
Many of them had rebelledagainst God because they loved
humanity too much.
They wanted to give themknowledge and awareness before
the creator deemed them ready.
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These were beings wrestling withmillennia of guilt, torment, and
the crushing weight of their ownfailures.
That's a far cry from thecackling antagonist you might
expect.
Of course, there were somecomplaints at the time that the
characters were overpoweredcompared to other World of
Darkness splats, but honestly,that felt entirely appropriate.
(02:39):
These were immortal spirits fromthe dawn of time, after all,
who'd been involved in creatingreality itself.
They should feel powerful.
The challenge wasn't in makingthem weak enough to fit in with
the other game lines, it was inexploring what these ancient
beings do with that power nowthat they finally escaped to
prison.
So, grab your beverage of choiceand perhaps a snack if you feel
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like it.
Sit back and relax as we diveinto the history of Demon the
Fallen.
Released in November 2002, Demonthe Fallen took a very
interesting approach to itsbackground.
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Unlike most World of Darknessgames whose history sections
were a mix of half-truths,legends, and conspiracies, Demon
the Fallen flat out told youwhat happened in the past.
After all, your character thatyou'll be playing has literally
been around since the dawn oftime, since Fiat Lux, when God
said let there be light.
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Therefore, it's more importantto have a firmed up background
section because chances are yourcharacter will remember some of
these events, events thathumanity has passed off as myth
and legend.
So, what is the background ofDemon the Fallen?
Well, the basic premise is this: at the beginning of time, God (03:57):
undefined
created angels called Elohim andtasked them with building and
maintaining reality.
These were divided into sevenhouses, each responsible for
certain aspects of creation.
For example, you had the Namaru,who were the heralds and the
leaders, the Asharu, who werethe guardians of the firmament,
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who granted the breath of life,and all the way down to the
Halaku, who were the angels ofdeath, those who guided the
souls to their final rest.
Each one of them was essentiallythe splat that players would be
playing, but it gave a reallybroad breadth of character types
that people could choose from.
Now, when God created humanityin this setting, he placed Adam
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and Eve in the Garden of Eden,but he kept them in a state of
innocent ignorance.
They had potential for awarenessand knowledge, but God hadn't
yet unlocked that, it seems.
Some of the angels, led byLucifer, believed this was a
mistake.
They foresaw humanity's divinepotential being wasted and
decided to act.
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They had a big debate decidingwhether they should intervene
against their creator's wishes,and ultimately they decided yes,
we should do that, and revealedforbidden knowledge to humanity.
This act of rebellion led to aneons-long war between the loyal
angels and the fallen, known asthe Age of Wrath.
And surprise, surprise, givenit's a game about demons, the
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rebels lost and they were castinto hell, or as it calls it in
this setting, the Abyss, aprison hidden beneath the lands
of the dead, and there theyremained for countless
millennia.
Their suffering there twistedthem, and this manifests in the
game as something calledtorment.
The higher a demon's torment,the more their angelic nature
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has been corrupted by pain andbitterness and loss.
Fast forward to the present day,or rather 1999, because that was
the present day in the world ofdarkness setting.
Humanity has moved on, they'veforgotten all about the war, the
fallen, etc.
They've passed off as myth andlegend and have built into their
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religions.
But the barriers around theabyss have begun to crack.
This is directly tied to thesixth great maelstrom, an event
from Wraith the Oblivion.
The weakest of the fallen havemanaged to squeeze through these
cracks and return to the mortalworlds.
However, because the world haschanged and people don't have as
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much faith as before, they can'tmanifest as they once did.
They can't have these bodies ofpure faith.
Instead, they need hosts, whichare mortal bodies with weakened
souls.
These might be comatosepatients, drug addicts, deeply
depressed, or those on the vergeof suicide, or maybe even
someone who's just recentlydied.
The demon slips in, merges withthe host memories, and starts
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their new existence.
This whole possession piececreated fascinating roleplay
opportunities.
Your character isn't just ademon, they're a fusion of this
ancient celestial being and avery broken human.
The human memories act as abuffer against the full horror
of what the demon experienced inthe abyss, but they also create
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emotional entanglements.
Maybe you're hosted a family, acareer, debts, enemies, a job.
All that is your problem now.
So that's the setting.
Demons possessing humanswandering around a fallen and
broken world, a world that'sdevoid of faith, and probably
thinking that we had a lot to dowith it ending up this way, and
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then deciding how they want tointeract with it.
So pretty cool setting.
What about the system?
Well, let's start with the mostobvious part of it, the
ubiquitous supernatural fuelstat that every World of
Darkness game has.
In Demon's case, this is calledFaith, and this is the juice
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that runs their supernaturalengine.
All World of Darkness games hadsomething like this: Vampires
had blood, Wraiths had Pathos,Changeling had Glamour, Werewolf
had Gnosis, etc.
etc.
And in most cases, there wassome sort of interaction with
mortals involved to get it.
Vampires had to drink blood, forexample, to get more blood
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points, Wraiths had to indulgetheir passions and feel emotions
in order to generate pathos.
In the case of faith, demonsrequired belief.
Humans who believed in thedemon, who worshipped them, or
simply acknowledged theirexistence provided faith.
However, this differed from someof the other World of Darkness
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games and it created aninteresting little wrinkle in
the setting.
Most other supernaturals in theWorld of Darkness setting had
some sort of rule that basicallysaid you will not reveal
yourself to humans.
Vampires had their masquerade,werewolves had the veil, wraiths
had their dictum mortem.
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In Demon, no such rule existed.
Now, given that demons got theirpower literally from human
belief, this begged thequestion: at what point did the
fallen start revealingthemselves en masse to humanity
to harvest more faith?
This made the setting feelinherently apocalyptic, almost
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as if it was designed toescalate towards some grand
revelation.
Now the counterpart to faith wastorment.
I mentioned this earlier.
It worked somewhat like humanityin vampire, but it was flipped
the other way.
Whereas in vampire, having highhumanity was good and low
humanity was bad, and demon youwanted it the other way around.
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Low torment was good, hightorment was bad, but it also
operated more like a dual-edgedsword in a mechanical way.
Your demon's powers, the lows,had different effects depending
on your torment level.
High torment versions ofabilities were often more
destructive, but they came withrather nasty side effects.
Low torment versions weregenerally more beneficial but
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less immediately powerful.
This meant that even the mostbasic uses of your supernatural
abilities could become moralchoices.
There was also something calledthe apocalyptic form that
deserves special mention.
Each demon could manifestaspects of your true celestial
self, taking on an angelic ordemonic visage depending on
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their torment level.
These forms came with variousabilities and could be
customised through the course ofplay.
The visual contrast between alow torment demon's beautiful
radiant appearance and a hightorment demon's nightmarish
aspect really drove home thegame's themes of being twisted
by torment and regret.
Now I mentioned faith before,these manifested in the form of
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pacts and thralls, and this wasa real core element to the game.
Demons could make deals withmortals, granting them
supernatural abilities inexchange for service and more
importantly, faith.
These thralls became bound tothe demon and could be enhanced
with various powers.
The whole Faustian bargain anglewas obviously central to the
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setting, and the game providedrules for creating and
maintaining these dark pacts.
There was also the ability fordemons to leech faith from these
mortals in a pinch, even to thepoint of draining them of their
health to keep the demon morepowerful.
Obviously, you didn't want to dothat, you have more powerful
thralls, but it did mean that ifa demon was pressed and pushed
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into a corner, they could be alot more powerful than
unsuspecting hunters might thinkthey are.
Mechanics aside, one thing we doneed to talk about though is
demon's cosmology.
I alluded to this before, butthe game assumes a
Judeo-Christian creation myth,which is fine, but it then
attempts some rather elaboratemental gymnastics to explain how
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this could coexist with theorigin stories from the other
world of Darkness games.
The explanation involves realitybeing far more fluid in the
ancient past with multiplecontradictory truths existing
simultaneously.
Basically, the game is sayingthat creationism and evolution
somehow both happened at thesame time during those primal
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days.
Let's be honest, thisexplanation is a little bit
hand-wavy.
It works well enough if youdon't poke at it too hard, but
it's clearly an attempt to patchover the fundamental
incompatibility having one gameline built around biblical
cosmology, whilst others havecompletely different origin
stories.
It's a bit like games in fictionthat try to explain how the
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impossible works withexplanations like oh yeah it was
magic or oh yeah it was nanites.
Another little gripe I havethough is about the way the book
is laid out and presented.
Now, as I alluded to before, itcomes with an extensive
background section.
I think it's like over 40 pagesdetailing everything from the
creation of World all the waythrough the war with heaven and
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the long imprisonment in theabyss.
It's a really genuinelycompelling read, it's got a lot
of tragedy in it, and there's alot of philosophical weight
behind people's decisions.
However, the game then pointsout the most player character
demons can't actually remembermuch of this, their memories are
fragmented by millennia oftorment.
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So, what this means is there wasa whole load of front-loaded
space given to background, thenyou jump into character creation
and realise you didn't actuallyneed to read half of that stuff.
From an organizationalperspective, I think it would
have made much more sense tohave a much more limited
background section and includeall the real background stuff in
a storyteller section.
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I was also rather puzzled by themain rule book's approach to
demonic society.
The game includes descriptionsof the legions, which were the
military organizations for thewar with heaven, and factions,
which were the philosophicalgroupings that emerged during
the demons' imprisonment in theabyss.
You had things like theFaustians who wanted to uplift
humanity to use them againstGod, the cryptics who sought
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knowledge about what actuallyhappened and why.
There were the Luciferans whostill sought their absent
leader, the raveners who wantedto destroy everything, including
themselves, and the reconcilerswho sought redemption with God.
All of this was superinteresting, but the rule book
never actually explained howdemonic courts should be
structured or how political playshould work.
(14:30):
This was a significant oversightfor a game that was really well
suited to political intrigue.
Now, the rules for infernalcourts eventually appeared in
the City of Angels supplementrather than the core book
though, which felt like a bit ofa miss.
Comparing it to Vampire, atleast the core rulebook for
Vampire gave you an idea of whata cameraless city should work
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like in the main rulebook, evenif it took Chicago by Night to
fully flesh things out.
She'd also mentioned that Demonreceived no Mind's Eye Theatre
support during its entire run.
No LARP rolls whatsoever.
This was a genuine shame becausethe game's social dynamics and
political potential would havetranslated beautifully to live
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action.
Honestly, after reading the mainrule book, I thought, why isn't
a LARP rules next to Vampire?
This is the setting most suitedto live action play, mainly
because it is so political.
I actually ended up writing myown LARP rules for it because I
really wanted to run a DemonLARP and it turned out to be an
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awful lot of fun, but it wasjust frustrating that this was
never officially fullysupported.
Closing out my section ongripes, I have to talk about the
games or rather the main rulebooks approach to antagonists.
The main antagonists presentedin the core book were demon
hunters, which were mortals likeExorcists, Other Fallen, and the
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Earthbound in their cults.
This last group deserves a bitof explanation for people who
aren't familiar.
The Earthbound were demons whohad been summoned from the abyss
centuries ago through humansorcery, but because they didn't
have human hosts, they werebound into objects like statues
or sacred sites instead.
And without a human soul tobuffer their experiences, these
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demons had gone completely madand become completely monstrous.
They were immensely powerful bututterly alien, operating on
agendas that made sense only totheir maddened fractured minds.
So as a result, they madeexcellent villains along with
their cultists that supportedthem.
However, one notable absencefrom the core rules was detailed
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information on how other worldof darkness supernaturals would
interact with the fallen.
This was really curious,especially given how tied in
Demon was with other World ofDarkness games metaplots.
Vampires and werewolves andmages they all existed in the
same setting, but the mainrulebook only focused on
internal conflicts.
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It wasn't necessarily a problem,it kept the game focused, but it
did mean that crossover playrequired additional work from
the storyteller.
It was also, as far as I'maware, the first time that the
other game lines had beenexcluded from the main rulebook
of another main game.
Anyway, Ian's gripes aside,let's get into the publication
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history proper.
As I mentioned, Demon had theshortest run of any World of
Darkness game line, but yetWhite Wolf managed to pack in
quite a lot in those barely twoyears.
In 2002, the game's launch waspreceded by a rather delightful
promotional comic in September2002.
It was designed as a satire ofthose anti-DD pamphlets that
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circulated in the 1980s, theones warning parents that
roleplaying games were gatewaysto actual Satanism.
The Demon Promo comic playedthis completely straight faced,
presenting itself as a warningfrom a fictional father Ramos of
the Eternal Grace CongregationalChurch about the dangers of
roleplaying, even linked to afake website continuing the
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joke.
Given that you were literallyplaying demons in this game, the
parity was particularly pointed.
But the main rulebook, Demon theFallen, arrived in November
2002.
It was a substantial hardback,running to over 250 pages, and
it included everything you'dexpect from the World of
Darkness core book, charactercreation, the extensive setting
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chapters I mentioned earlier,rules for laws, which were the
powers and apocalyptic forms,and systems for running the
game.
The recommended source materialin the book gives you a good
sense of the intended tone.
Obviously, Paradise Lost byMilton, the Screwtape Letters by
C.S.
Lewis, American Gods by NeilGaiman, and films like The
Devil's Advocate and AngelHeart.
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The prologue fiction followed ademon named Mel Bogartha who
possessed a stage actor and wasgrappling with his new existence
and it set the mood perfectly.
Also in November, White Wolfreleased a set of demon dice,
because of course he did.
Every game line needed its ownunique dice, and they also
released the first fiction forthe line, Lucifer's Shadow, an
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anthology of short fictionexploring various aspects of the
setting.
December 2002 brought theDemon's Storyteller Companion.
It came with a storytellerscreen and it expanded on
several crucial areas.
It provided much more detail onthe Earthbound, explaining their
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history, nature, and variousagendas.
It also deepened the informationon factions, exploring how these
philosophical groupingsfunctioned in practice.
And there was probably myfavourite chapter, one on the
spirit realm, explaining how theslayer named Charon had helped
create the Shadowlands as aplace to hide the dead from
Heaven's gaze.
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This tied demon directly intoWraith the Oblivion's cosmology
and helped justify the settings'interconnections.
The book also contained achapter called Monsters, which
was basically how the fallenplay with the other Denzens of
the World of Darkness.
So we had rules, for example,for hunters, mages, vampires,
werewolves, etc.
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There was also a bestery whereif you really wanted, you could
get stats for things likealligators, bears, big cats, and
boars, amongst other creatures,which was a nice little touch.
I guess demons need to keep petstoo, right?
The bulk of demons' releasescame in 2003.
It's one full calendar year ofexistence.
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February saw the release of Cityof Angels, a source book
detailing Los Angeles and itsdemonic population.
This was a significant releasefor several reasons.
Firstly, Los Angeles was whereLucifer himself had reportedly
settled after the war, wanderingthe earth aimlessly until
finally stopping in the City ofAngels.
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His presence, even though hewasn't directly appearing in
Chronicles, cast a long shadowover everything happening there.
Secondly, this book finallyprovided the rules for the
infernal courts that the mainrule book had lacked.
It detailed the Pentarchy systemwith its five ministries and
explained how demons organisedthemselves politically.
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If you wanted to run a politicaldemon game, and honestly, Demon
was incredibly well suited topolitical play, this book was
essential.
This book also covered thehistory of Ellie's supernatural
underworld, the current factionsvying for control, and provided
write-ups of numerous falleninhabiting the city.
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The intrigue possibilities wereextensive.
March 2003 brought Fear toTread, a chronicle source book
designed as a companion to Cityof Angels.
It contained three-linkedscenarios set in Los Angeles.
Suffered the Children, saw theplayers dealing with Fallout
from an Earthbound-causedincident at school for troubled
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teens, into the fire, pitied theplayer characters against demon
hunters, and the Judas Kissinvolved investigating a charity
hiding servants of anotherearthbound.
There was a lot here thatplayers could get their teeth
into and I could keep achronicle running for months.
The same month I also saw therelease of Ashes and Angel
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Wings, the first novel in thetrilogy of the Fallen.
April brought us Saviours andDestroyers, a source book
focused on demon hunters.
This book explored varioushumans who had dedicated
themselves to fighting thefallen, it covered their
origins, their methods, andcrucially provided rules for
creating exorcist characters.
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These could serve as antagonistsin a standard demon chronicle,
or intriguingly, as playercharacters for groups wanting to
experience a setting from theother side.
The book included systems forresearching and performing
different types of exorcisms aswell as sacred items that
hunters could employ.
There was, in typical white wolffashion, fiction interspersed
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throughout and followed varioushunters' stories, from a young
man dealing with a possessedrelative to former thralls
seeking revenge on their demonicmasters.
And in the same month, April,the second novel in the trilogy
of the Fallen, The SevenDeadlies, was also released.
June of 2003 brought a massiverelease.
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No, I'm not talking about theDemon The Fallen Mouse Pad that
was released that month, but theDemon Players Guide, a
substantial expansion for playeroptions.
It opened with the usual FEQ andarata that a lot of White Wolf
publications were doing at thattime, but this book was intended
to help players flesh out boththe demonic and human aspects of
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their characters, providingexpanded information on true
names, the history of therebellion, and explored how
gaining a human host affected afallen psychology.
From a rules standpoint, onemajor addition was a
comprehensive list of merits andflaws, something that the core
book had notably lacked.
These covered infernal,physical, social, mental, legal,
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and economic aspects ofcharacters.
The book also included detailedrules for customising
apocalyptic forms, allowingplayers to create truly
personalised, angelic andmonstrous visages.
An expanded system for creatinginfernal relics and rules for
combining lore paths throughrituals rounded out the
mechanical additions.
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July gave us the final novel inthe trilogy of the Fallen,
Wreckage of Paradise, and Augustsaw Damned and Deceived, which
focused entirely on therelationship between Fallen and
their mortal thralls.
This was essentially a deep diveinto the Faustine bargain
mechanics.
Who do demons seek as potentialthralls?
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What gifts do they offer?
Can a mortal make a deal with ademon and survive with the soul
intact?
The book was structured aroundthree interwoven stories
following different thralls fromtheir initial temptation through
to their ultimate faiths.
The rules section providedextensive options for creating
and playing thrall characters,including unique enhancements
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each house could grant.
September brought Demon theEarthbound, which gave these
terrifying antagonists the fullsource book treatment.
The book details the fivearchdukes, Lucifer's lieutenants
who had been summoned back toEarth and bound to reliquaries
as Madeus, Azrael, Dagon,Belial, and Abaddon.
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It explored how these demonsexisted and exerted their
powers, the cults that formedaround them, and how they might
be fought.
Most significantly, it providedrules for playing earthbound
characters, although these wereincredibly powerful and clearly
intended more for high-levelantagonists than starting PCs.
The book introduced new lawsunique to the Earthbound, the
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lore of chaos, contamination,and violation.
Six detailed earthboundcharacters were provided, ready
to drop into Chronicles as majorthreats.
November 2003 brought us Housesof the Fallen, a detailed
examination of each of the sevendemonic houses.
This book explored the historyand exploits of each house
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during the Fall and the War ofWrath, their philosophies and
relationships with each other,and provided new relics and
rituals specific to each.
If you wanted to understand whatmade a devil different from a
slayer beyond just theirmechanical abilities, this was
the book for you.
December 2003 saw the release ofDays of Fire.
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Like Vampire's Book of Nod, Daysof Fire was presented as an
in-universe document.
It purported to be a translationof an ancient Greek text
prepared by a scholar named EvesDara, and Yesna is an anagram of
Adversary shortly before hismurder.
The content presented propheciesattributed to Lucifer himself,
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warning of a coming cataclysm.
The book was divided intosections covering the seasons of
the world, from its springtimethrough to the winter, and
presented three possible pathsthrough the coming apocalypse.
It also included a dossier ofmodern investigations into
supernatural phenomena tying theancient prophecies to
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contemporary events.
Days of Fire was genuinelyexcellent, atmospheric and
evocative, building towardssomething momentous.
It included details of whatmight be the potential end times
for each of the other World ofDarkness lines, too.
And everything was quiet untilMarch 15th, 2004, when we got
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World of Darkness, Time ofJudgment, the book that ended it
all.
Now this wasn't specifically ademon book, it covered endings
for Changeling, Hunter, Demon,Mummy and Kindred of Ace, the
five game lightens that didn'tget their own dedicated finales
like Vampire's Gaena orWerewolf's Apocalypse.
The demon chapter in Time ofJudgment provided storytellers
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with tools for creating signs ofthe apocalypse and presented
three possible endings.
Twilight of the Gods saw theEarthbound triumphant, bringing
around Eternal Night, Better toRule on Earth, had the Fallen
summon back greater demons andestablishing the dominion over
humanity, and Paradise 1effectively offered the
possibility of redemption and anew beginning.
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The fiction and time of judgmentcontinued directly from Days of
Fire, with Lucifer himselfcontemplating the end of
everything.
And here's my frustration.
Days of Fire had been buildingtowards something genuinely
momentous.
The fiction and time of judgmentfollowed through in that
build-up with compellingmaterial, but the actual
scenarios in the book theydidn't really pay off any of it.
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And this was really true for allWhite Wolf Time of Judgment
endings.
None of the stuff mentioned inDays of Fire actually came true
in any of the game lines, andthis kind of makes Lucifer for
this all-seeing prophet somewhatblind when it came to White
Wolf's own material.
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Anyway, that ending aside, I'verambled for about 30 minutes
now, so what's the verdict onDemon the Fallen?
Looking back, I think it's agame that deserved better than
its abbreviated run allowed.
The core concept was genuinelyinspired.
Playing beings involved in thecreation of reality itself,
wrestling with the consequencesof a choice made before humanity
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even existed properly.
That's fertile ground for roleplaying.
The mechanics supported thethemes well, with torment
creating genuine moral tensionand faith encouraging engagement
with the mortal world ratherthan isolation from it.
The game lent itself to multiplestyles of play remarkably well.
You could run political gamesfocused on infelling.
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Cult macinations, investigativegames with a fallen piece
together of forgotten memoriesand ancient conspiracies, mythic
adventures exploring theremnants of the Age of Wrath, or
personal dramas about creaturesseeking redemption they might
not deserve.
That versatility was a genuinestrength.
The publication schedule, whilecompressed, covered the
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essential bases.
The core book provided a solidfoundation, the storyteller's
companion filled in crucial gapsabout the other supernaturals,
City of Angels and Fear to Treadgave you a detailed setting with
ready-to-run scenarios, theplayer's guide expanded
character options significantly,and the other various source
books each added meaningfuldepth without feeling like
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padding, and of course theEarthband book gave you some
perfect antagonists.
All that being said, the gamewasn't without its flaws.
The cosmological explanationstrying to reconcile
Judeo-Christian myth with therest of the world of darkness
never quite convinced.
The lack of LARP support was agenuine missed opportunity.
(31:02):
The main rule book's a missionof infernal court structure
meant storytellers had to waitfor City of Angels to run the
political games the system wasso clearly designed to support.
And of course, the ending wassomewhat frustrating.
Days of Fire genuinely builttowards something epic, and
while the scenarios in Time ofJudgment provided closure of a
(31:22):
sort, they never quite deliveredon what was promised in Days of
Fire.
The scenarios felt like theywere ticking boxes rather than
providing the grand finale thegame deserved.
Saying that the demon scenarioswere considerably better than
those provided for Hunter, andin fact, one of the demon
endings actually served as apretty good ending for Hunter
(31:44):
the Reckoning 2.
These minor gripes aside, ifyou've never explored Demon the
Fallen, I'd encourage you toseek it out.
The books remain available inPDF form, and the setting
retains its power even twodecades later.
There's something genuinelycompelling about playing
characters who participated inthe grandest rebellion
imaginable and are now grapplingwith its consequences in a world
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that has largely forgotten them.
The Fallen aren't heroes orvillains by default, they're
beings making choices about whatto do with the second chance,
whether that means seekingrevenge, pursuing redemption,
acquiring power, or simplytrying to understand what went
wrong all those eons ago.
And for those of you who, likeme, always thought it would make
(32:28):
a brilliant LARP, well, you'lljust have to write your own
rules.
But trust me, it's worth theeffort.
(32:52):
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We have got almost 80 episodesnow on our channel covering all
sorts of things like historyepisodes like this, all the way
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If you're a fan of gaming'sgolden age, there will be
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with us.
But until then, we will see younext time.
Welcome to Roll to Save, the RPG history.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Roll to Save.
(00:29):
Today we're tackling yet anotherWorld of Darkness game, this
time Demon the Fallen.
Released in November of 2002,Demon holds the rather
unfortunate distinction ofhaving the shortest run of any
World of Darkness game, lastingbarely two years before the
entire classic World of Darknesscame crashing to a halt in 2004.
(00:52):
Despite this truncated lifespan,Demon managed to carve out
something genuinely unique inthe rather crowded by that point
supernatural RPG landscape.
I do have a bit of a soft spotfor this game.
When it came out, I was deepinto the world of darkness
ecosystem, having spent yearsrunning Vampire and also playing
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games like Wraith, Mage, andHunter.
And when I heard that White Wolfwas releasing a game where you
played actual fallen angels,beings who'd participated in the
creation of reality itself, Iwas intrigued and also somewhat
sceptical.
After all, a game dealing withbiblical mythology could be
cool.
It also could be fraught withpotential pitfalls.
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If you got it wrong, you'dprobably end up with something
that either felt really preachyor disrespectful, neither of
which makes for particularlyenjoyable gaming.
Thankfully, when I finally gotmy hands on the core rule book,
I found something a bit morenuanced than what I'd expected.
This wasn't a game where youplayed cartoon devils with
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pitchforks.
Instead, it was a surprisinglythoughtful exploration of
rebellion, consequence, and thepossibility of redemption.
The following weren't simplyevil spirits who wanted to
corrupt humanity, although youcould play them like that.
Many of them had rebelledagainst God because they loved
humanity too much.
They wanted to give themknowledge and awareness before
the creator deemed them ready.
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These were beings wrestling withmillennia of guilt, torment, and
the crushing weight of their ownfailures.
That's a far cry from thecackling antagonist you might
expect.
Of course, there were somecomplaints at the time that the
characters were overpoweredcompared to other World of
Darkness splats, but honestly,that felt entirely appropriate.
(02:39):
These were immortal spirits fromthe dawn of time, after all,
who'd been involved in creatingreality itself.
They should feel powerful.
The challenge wasn't in makingthem weak enough to fit in with
the other game lines, it was inexploring what these ancient
beings do with that power nowthat they finally escaped to
prison.
So, grab your beverage of choiceand perhaps a snack if you feel
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like it.
Sit back and relax as we diveinto the history of Demon the
Fallen.
Released in November 2002, Demonthe Fallen took a very
interesting approach to itsbackground.
(03:21):
Unlike most World of Darknessgames whose history sections
were a mix of half-truths,legends, and conspiracies, Demon
the Fallen flat out told youwhat happened in the past.
After all, your character thatyou'll be playing has literally
been around since the dawn oftime, since Fiat Lux, when God
said let there be light.
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Therefore, it's more importantto have a firmed up background
section because chances are yourcharacter will remember some of
these events, events thathumanity has passed off as myth
and legend.
So, what is the background ofDemon the Fallen?
Well, the basic premise is this: at the beginning of time, God (03:57):
undefined
created angels called Elohim andtasked them with building and
maintaining reality.
These were divided into sevenhouses, each responsible for
certain aspects of creation.
For example, you had the Namaru,who were the heralds and the
leaders, the Asharu, who werethe guardians of the firmament,
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who granted the breath of life,and all the way down to the
Halaku, who were the angels ofdeath, those who guided the
souls to their final rest.
Each one of them was essentiallythe splat that players would be
playing, but it gave a reallybroad breadth of character types
that people could choose from.
Now, when God created humanityin this setting, he placed Adam
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and Eve in the Garden of Eden,but he kept them in a state of
innocent ignorance.
They had potential for awarenessand knowledge, but God hadn't
yet unlocked that, it seems.
Some of the angels, led byLucifer, believed this was a
mistake.
They foresaw humanity's divinepotential being wasted and
decided to act.
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They had a big debate decidingwhether they should intervene
against their creator's wishes,and ultimately they decided yes,
we should do that, and revealedforbidden knowledge to humanity.
This act of rebellion led to aneons-long war between the loyal
angels and the fallen, known asthe Age of Wrath.
And surprise, surprise, givenit's a game about demons, the
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rebels lost and they were castinto hell, or as it calls it in
this setting, the Abyss, aprison hidden beneath the lands
of the dead, and there theyremained for countless
millennia.
Their suffering there twistedthem, and this manifests in the
game as something calledtorment.
The higher a demon's torment,the more their angelic nature
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has been corrupted by pain andbitterness and loss.
Fast forward to the present day,or rather 1999, because that was
the present day in the world ofdarkness setting.
Humanity has moved on, they'veforgotten all about the war, the
fallen, etc.
They've passed off as myth andlegend and have built into their
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religions.
But the barriers around theabyss have begun to crack.
This is directly tied to thesixth great maelstrom, an event
from Wraith the Oblivion.
The weakest of the fallen havemanaged to squeeze through these
cracks and return to the mortalworlds.
However, because the world haschanged and people don't have as
(06:28):
much faith as before, they can'tmanifest as they once did.
They can't have these bodies ofpure faith.
Instead, they need hosts, whichare mortal bodies with weakened
souls.
These might be comatosepatients, drug addicts, deeply
depressed, or those on the vergeof suicide, or maybe even
someone who's just recentlydied.
The demon slips in, merges withthe host memories, and starts
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their new existence.
This whole possession piececreated fascinating roleplay
opportunities.
Your character isn't just ademon, they're a fusion of this
ancient celestial being and avery broken human.
The human memories act as abuffer against the full horror
of what the demon experienced inthe abyss, but they also create
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emotional entanglements.
Maybe you're hosted a family, acareer, debts, enemies, a job.
All that is your problem now.
So that's the setting.
Demons possessing humanswandering around a fallen and
broken world, a world that'sdevoid of faith, and probably
thinking that we had a lot to dowith it ending up this way, and
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then deciding how they want tointeract with it.
So pretty cool setting.
What about the system?
Well, let's start with the mostobvious part of it, the
ubiquitous supernatural fuelstat that every World of
Darkness game has.
In Demon's case, this is calledFaith, and this is the juice
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that runs their supernaturalengine.
All World of Darkness games hadsomething like this: Vampires
had blood, Wraiths had Pathos,Changeling had Glamour, Werewolf
had Gnosis, etc.
etc.
And in most cases, there wassome sort of interaction with
mortals involved to get it.
Vampires had to drink blood, forexample, to get more blood
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points, Wraiths had to indulgetheir passions and feel emotions
in order to generate pathos.
In the case of faith, demonsrequired belief.
Humans who believed in thedemon, who worshipped them, or
simply acknowledged theirexistence provided faith.
However, this differed from someof the other World of Darkness
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games and it created aninteresting little wrinkle in
the setting.
Most other supernaturals in theWorld of Darkness setting had
some sort of rule that basicallysaid you will not reveal
yourself to humans.
Vampires had their masquerade,werewolves had the veil, wraiths
had their dictum mortem.
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In Demon, no such rule existed.
Now, given that demons got theirpower literally from human
belief, this begged thequestion: at what point did the
fallen start revealingthemselves en masse to humanity
to harvest more faith?
This made the setting feelinherently apocalyptic, almost
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as if it was designed toescalate towards some grand
revelation.
Now the counterpart to faith wastorment.
I mentioned this earlier.
It worked somewhat like humanityin vampire, but it was flipped
the other way.
Whereas in vampire, having highhumanity was good and low
humanity was bad, and demon youwanted it the other way around.
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Low torment was good, hightorment was bad, but it also
operated more like a dual-edgedsword in a mechanical way.
Your demon's powers, the lows,had different effects depending
on your torment level.
High torment versions ofabilities were often more
destructive, but they came withrather nasty side effects.
Low torment versions weregenerally more beneficial but
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less immediately powerful.
This meant that even the mostbasic uses of your supernatural
abilities could become moralchoices.
There was also something calledthe apocalyptic form that
deserves special mention.
Each demon could manifestaspects of your true celestial
self, taking on an angelic ordemonic visage depending on
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their torment level.
These forms came with variousabilities and could be
customised through the course ofplay.
The visual contrast between alow torment demon's beautiful
radiant appearance and a hightorment demon's nightmarish
aspect really drove home thegame's themes of being twisted
by torment and regret.
Now I mentioned faith before,these manifested in the form of
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pacts and thralls, and this wasa real core element to the game.
Demons could make deals withmortals, granting them
supernatural abilities inexchange for service and more
importantly, faith.
These thralls became bound tothe demon and could be enhanced
with various powers.
The whole Faustian bargain anglewas obviously central to the
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setting, and the game providedrules for creating and
maintaining these dark pacts.
There was also the ability fordemons to leech faith from these
mortals in a pinch, even to thepoint of draining them of their
health to keep the demon morepowerful.
Obviously, you didn't want to dothat, you have more powerful
thralls, but it did mean that ifa demon was pressed and pushed
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into a corner, they could be alot more powerful than
unsuspecting hunters might thinkthey are.
Mechanics aside, one thing we doneed to talk about though is
demon's cosmology.
I alluded to this before, butthe game assumes a
Judeo-Christian creation myth,which is fine, but it then
attempts some rather elaboratemental gymnastics to explain how
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this could coexist with theorigin stories from the other
world of Darkness games.
The explanation involves realitybeing far more fluid in the
ancient past with multiplecontradictory truths existing
simultaneously.
Basically, the game is sayingthat creationism and evolution
somehow both happened at thesame time during those primal
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days.
Let's be honest, thisexplanation is a little bit
hand-wavy.
It works well enough if youdon't poke at it too hard, but
it's clearly an attempt to patchover the fundamental
incompatibility having one gameline built around biblical
cosmology, whilst others havecompletely different origin
stories.
It's a bit like games in fictionthat try to explain how the
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impossible works withexplanations like oh yeah it was
magic or oh yeah it was nanites.
Another little gripe I havethough is about the way the book
is laid out and presented.
Now, as I alluded to before, itcomes with an extensive
background section.
I think it's like over 40 pagesdetailing everything from the
creation of World all the waythrough the war with heaven and
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the long imprisonment in theabyss.
It's a really genuinelycompelling read, it's got a lot
of tragedy in it, and there's alot of philosophical weight
behind people's decisions.
However, the game then pointsout the most player character
demons can't actually remembermuch of this, their memories are
fragmented by millennia oftorment.
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So, what this means is there wasa whole load of front-loaded
space given to background, thenyou jump into character creation
and realise you didn't actuallyneed to read half of that stuff.
From an organizationalperspective, I think it would
have made much more sense tohave a much more limited
background section and includeall the real background stuff in
a storyteller section.
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I was also rather puzzled by themain rule book's approach to
demonic society.
The game includes descriptionsof the legions, which were the
military organizations for thewar with heaven, and factions,
which were the philosophicalgroupings that emerged during
the demons' imprisonment in theabyss.
You had things like theFaustians who wanted to uplift
humanity to use them againstGod, the cryptics who sought
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knowledge about what actuallyhappened and why.
There were the Luciferans whostill sought their absent
leader, the raveners who wantedto destroy everything, including
themselves, and the reconcilerswho sought redemption with God.
All of this was superinteresting, but the rule book
never actually explained howdemonic courts should be
structured or how political playshould work.
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This was a significant oversightfor a game that was really well
suited to political intrigue.
Now, the rules for infernalcourts eventually appeared in
the City of Angels supplementrather than the core book
though, which felt like a bit ofa miss.
Comparing it to Vampire, atleast the core rulebook for
Vampire gave you an idea of whata cameraless city should work
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like in the main rulebook, evenif it took Chicago by Night to
fully flesh things out.
She'd also mentioned that Demonreceived no Mind's Eye Theatre
support during its entire run.
No LARP rolls whatsoever.
This was a genuine shame becausethe game's social dynamics and
political potential would havetranslated beautifully to live
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action.
Honestly, after reading the mainrule book, I thought, why isn't
a LARP rules next to Vampire?
This is the setting most suitedto live action play, mainly
because it is so political.
I actually ended up writing myown LARP rules for it because I
really wanted to run a DemonLARP and it turned out to be an
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awful lot of fun, but it wasjust frustrating that this was
never officially fullysupported.
Closing out my section ongripes, I have to talk about the
games or rather the main rulebooks approach to antagonists.
The main antagonists presentedin the core book were demon
hunters, which were mortals likeExorcists, Other Fallen, and the
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Earthbound in their cults.
This last group deserves a bitof explanation for people who
aren't familiar.
The Earthbound were demons whohad been summoned from the abyss
centuries ago through humansorcery, but because they didn't
have human hosts, they werebound into objects like statues
or sacred sites instead.
And without a human soul tobuffer their experiences, these
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demons had gone completely madand become completely monstrous.
They were immensely powerful bututterly alien, operating on
agendas that made sense only totheir maddened fractured minds.
So as a result, they madeexcellent villains along with
their cultists that supportedthem.
However, one notable absencefrom the core rules was detailed
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information on how other worldof darkness supernaturals would
interact with the fallen.
This was really curious,especially given how tied in
Demon was with other World ofDarkness games metaplots.
Vampires and werewolves andmages they all existed in the
same setting, but the mainrulebook only focused on
internal conflicts.
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It wasn't necessarily a problem,it kept the game focused, but it
did mean that crossover playrequired additional work from
the storyteller.
It was also, as far as I'maware, the first time that the
other game lines had beenexcluded from the main rulebook
of another main game.
Anyway, Ian's gripes aside,let's get into the publication
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history proper.
As I mentioned, Demon had theshortest run of any World of
Darkness game line, but yetWhite Wolf managed to pack in
quite a lot in those barely twoyears.
In 2002, the game's launch waspreceded by a rather delightful
promotional comic in September2002.
It was designed as a satire ofthose anti-DD pamphlets that
(17:45):
circulated in the 1980s, theones warning parents that
roleplaying games were gatewaysto actual Satanism.
The Demon Promo comic playedthis completely straight faced,
presenting itself as a warningfrom a fictional father Ramos of
the Eternal Grace CongregationalChurch about the dangers of
roleplaying, even linked to afake website continuing the
(18:07):
joke.
Given that you were literallyplaying demons in this game, the
parity was particularly pointed.
But the main rulebook, Demon theFallen, arrived in November
2002.
It was a substantial hardback,running to over 250 pages, and
it included everything you'dexpect from the World of
Darkness core book, charactercreation, the extensive setting
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chapters I mentioned earlier,rules for laws, which were the
powers and apocalyptic forms,and systems for running the
game.
The recommended source materialin the book gives you a good
sense of the intended tone.
Obviously, Paradise Lost byMilton, the Screwtape Letters by
C.S.
Lewis, American Gods by NeilGaiman, and films like The
Devil's Advocate and AngelHeart.
(18:52):
The prologue fiction followed ademon named Mel Bogartha who
possessed a stage actor and wasgrappling with his new existence
and it set the mood perfectly.
Also in November, White Wolfreleased a set of demon dice,
because of course he did.
Every game line needed its ownunique dice, and they also
released the first fiction forthe line, Lucifer's Shadow, an
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anthology of short fictionexploring various aspects of the
setting.
December 2002 brought theDemon's Storyteller Companion.
It came with a storytellerscreen and it expanded on
several crucial areas.
It provided much more detail onthe Earthbound, explaining their
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history, nature, and variousagendas.
It also deepened the informationon factions, exploring how these
philosophical groupingsfunctioned in practice.
And there was probably myfavourite chapter, one on the
spirit realm, explaining how theslayer named Charon had helped
create the Shadowlands as aplace to hide the dead from
Heaven's gaze.
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This tied demon directly intoWraith the Oblivion's cosmology
and helped justify the settings'interconnections.
The book also contained achapter called Monsters, which
was basically how the fallenplay with the other Denzens of
the World of Darkness.
So we had rules, for example,for hunters, mages, vampires,
werewolves, etc.
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There was also a bestery whereif you really wanted, you could
get stats for things likealligators, bears, big cats, and
boars, amongst other creatures,which was a nice little touch.
I guess demons need to keep petstoo, right?
The bulk of demons' releasescame in 2003.
It's one full calendar year ofexistence.
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February saw the release of Cityof Angels, a source book
detailing Los Angeles and itsdemonic population.
This was a significant releasefor several reasons.
Firstly, Los Angeles was whereLucifer himself had reportedly
settled after the war, wanderingthe earth aimlessly until
finally stopping in the City ofAngels.
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His presence, even though hewasn't directly appearing in
Chronicles, cast a long shadowover everything happening there.
Secondly, this book finallyprovided the rules for the
infernal courts that the mainrule book had lacked.
It detailed the Pentarchy systemwith its five ministries and
explained how demons organisedthemselves politically.
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If you wanted to run a politicaldemon game, and honestly, Demon
was incredibly well suited topolitical play, this book was
essential.
This book also covered thehistory of Ellie's supernatural
underworld, the current factionsvying for control, and provided
write-ups of numerous falleninhabiting the city.
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The intrigue possibilities wereextensive.
March 2003 brought Fear toTread, a chronicle source book
designed as a companion to Cityof Angels.
It contained three-linkedscenarios set in Los Angeles.
Suffered the Children, saw theplayers dealing with Fallout
from an Earthbound-causedincident at school for troubled
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teens, into the fire, pitied theplayer characters against demon
hunters, and the Judas Kissinvolved investigating a charity
hiding servants of anotherearthbound.
There was a lot here thatplayers could get their teeth
into and I could keep achronicle running for months.
The same month I also saw therelease of Ashes and Angel
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Wings, the first novel in thetrilogy of the Fallen.
April brought us Saviours andDestroyers, a source book
focused on demon hunters.
This book explored varioushumans who had dedicated
themselves to fighting thefallen, it covered their
origins, their methods, andcrucially provided rules for
creating exorcist characters.
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These could serve as antagonistsin a standard demon chronicle,
or intriguingly, as playercharacters for groups wanting to
experience a setting from theother side.
The book included systems forresearching and performing
different types of exorcisms aswell as sacred items that
hunters could employ.
There was, in typical white wolffashion, fiction interspersed
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throughout and followed varioushunters' stories, from a young
man dealing with a possessedrelative to former thralls
seeking revenge on their demonicmasters.
And in the same month, April,the second novel in the trilogy
of the Fallen, The SevenDeadlies, was also released.
June of 2003 brought a massiverelease.
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No, I'm not talking about theDemon The Fallen Mouse Pad that
was released that month, but theDemon Players Guide, a
substantial expansion for playeroptions.
It opened with the usual FEQ andarata that a lot of White Wolf
publications were doing at thattime, but this book was intended
to help players flesh out boththe demonic and human aspects of
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their characters, providingexpanded information on true
names, the history of therebellion, and explored how
gaining a human host affected afallen psychology.
From a rules standpoint, onemajor addition was a
comprehensive list of merits andflaws, something that the core
book had notably lacked.
These covered infernal,physical, social, mental, legal,
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and economic aspects ofcharacters.
The book also included detailedrules for customising
apocalyptic forms, allowingplayers to create truly
personalised, angelic andmonstrous visages.
An expanded system for creatinginfernal relics and rules for
combining lore paths throughrituals rounded out the
mechanical additions.
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July gave us the final novel inthe trilogy of the Fallen,
Wreckage of Paradise, and Augustsaw Damned and Deceived, which
focused entirely on therelationship between Fallen and
their mortal thralls.
This was essentially a deep diveinto the Faustine bargain
mechanics.
Who do demons seek as potentialthralls?
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What gifts do they offer?
Can a mortal make a deal with ademon and survive with the soul
intact?
The book was structured aroundthree interwoven stories
following different thralls fromtheir initial temptation through
to their ultimate faiths.
The rules section providedextensive options for creating
and playing thrall characters,including unique enhancements
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each house could grant.
September brought Demon theEarthbound, which gave these
terrifying antagonists the fullsource book treatment.
The book details the fivearchdukes, Lucifer's lieutenants
who had been summoned back toEarth and bound to reliquaries
as Madeus, Azrael, Dagon,Belial, and Abaddon.
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It explored how these demonsexisted and exerted their
powers, the cults that formedaround them, and how they might
be fought.
Most significantly, it providedrules for playing earthbound
characters, although these wereincredibly powerful and clearly
intended more for high-levelantagonists than starting PCs.
The book introduced new lawsunique to the Earthbound, the
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lore of chaos, contamination,and violation.
Six detailed earthboundcharacters were provided, ready
to drop into Chronicles as majorthreats.
November 2003 brought us Housesof the Fallen, a detailed
examination of each of the sevendemonic houses.
This book explored the historyand exploits of each house
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during the Fall and the War ofWrath, their philosophies and
relationships with each other,and provided new relics and
rituals specific to each.
If you wanted to understand whatmade a devil different from a
slayer beyond just theirmechanical abilities, this was
the book for you.
December 2003 saw the release ofDays of Fire.
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Like Vampire's Book of Nod, Daysof Fire was presented as an
in-universe document.
It purported to be a translationof an ancient Greek text
prepared by a scholar named EvesDara, and Yesna is an anagram of
Adversary shortly before hismurder.
The content presented propheciesattributed to Lucifer himself,
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warning of a coming cataclysm.
The book was divided intosections covering the seasons of
the world, from its springtimethrough to the winter, and
presented three possible pathsthrough the coming apocalypse.
It also included a dossier ofmodern investigations into
supernatural phenomena tying theancient prophecies to
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contemporary events.
Days of Fire was genuinelyexcellent, atmospheric and
evocative, building towardssomething momentous.
It included details of whatmight be the potential end times
for each of the other World ofDarkness lines, too.
And everything was quiet untilMarch 15th, 2004, when we got
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World of Darkness, Time ofJudgment, the book that ended it
all.
Now this wasn't specifically ademon book, it covered endings
for Changeling, Hunter, Demon,Mummy and Kindred of Ace, the
five game lightens that didn'tget their own dedicated finales
like Vampire's Gaena orWerewolf's Apocalypse.
The demon chapter in Time ofJudgment provided storytellers
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with tools for creating signs ofthe apocalypse and presented
three possible endings.
Twilight of the Gods saw theEarthbound triumphant, bringing
around Eternal Night, Better toRule on Earth, had the Fallen
summon back greater demons andestablishing the dominion over
humanity, and Paradise 1effectively offered the
possibility of redemption and anew beginning.
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The fiction and time of judgmentcontinued directly from Days of
Fire, with Lucifer himselfcontemplating the end of
everything.
And here's my frustration.
Days of Fire had been buildingtowards something genuinely
momentous.
The fiction and time of judgmentfollowed through in that
build-up with compellingmaterial, but the actual
scenarios in the book theydidn't really pay off any of it.
(28:57):
And this was really true for allWhite Wolf Time of Judgment
endings.
None of the stuff mentioned inDays of Fire actually came true
in any of the game lines, andthis kind of makes Lucifer for
this all-seeing prophet somewhatblind when it came to White
Wolf's own material.
(29:18):
Anyway, that ending aside, I'verambled for about 30 minutes
now, so what's the verdict onDemon the Fallen?
Looking back, I think it's agame that deserved better than
its abbreviated run allowed.
The core concept was genuinelyinspired.
Playing beings involved in thecreation of reality itself,
wrestling with the consequencesof a choice made before humanity
(29:39):
even existed properly.
That's fertile ground for roleplaying.
The mechanics supported thethemes well, with torment
creating genuine moral tensionand faith encouraging engagement
with the mortal world ratherthan isolation from it.
The game lent itself to multiplestyles of play remarkably well.
You could run political gamesfocused on infelling.
(30:00):
Cult macinations, investigativegames with a fallen piece
together of forgotten memoriesand ancient conspiracies, mythic
adventures exploring theremnants of the Age of Wrath, or
personal dramas about creaturesseeking redemption they might
not deserve.
That versatility was a genuinestrength.
The publication schedule, whilecompressed, covered the
(30:20):
essential bases.
The core book provided a solidfoundation, the storyteller's
companion filled in crucial gapsabout the other supernaturals,
City of Angels and Fear to Treadgave you a detailed setting with
ready-to-run scenarios, theplayer's guide expanded
character options significantly,and the other various source
books each added meaningfuldepth without feeling like
(30:41):
padding, and of course theEarthband book gave you some
perfect antagonists.
All that being said, the gamewasn't without its flaws.
The cosmological explanationstrying to reconcile
Judeo-Christian myth with therest of the world of darkness
never quite convinced.
The lack of LARP support was agenuine missed opportunity.
(31:02):
The main rule book's a missionof infernal court structure
meant storytellers had to waitfor City of Angels to run the
political games the system wasso clearly designed to support.
And of course, the ending wassomewhat frustrating.
Days of Fire genuinely builttowards something epic, and
while the scenarios in Time ofJudgment provided closure of a
(31:22):
sort, they never quite deliveredon what was promised in Days of
Fire.
The scenarios felt like theywere ticking boxes rather than
providing the grand finale thegame deserved.
Saying that the demon scenarioswere considerably better than
those provided for Hunter, andin fact, one of the demon
endings actually served as apretty good ending for Hunter
(31:44):
the Reckoning 2.
These minor gripes aside, ifyou've never explored Demon the
Fallen, I'd encourage you toseek it out.
The books remain available inPDF form, and the setting
retains its power even twodecades later.
There's something genuinelycompelling about playing
characters who participated inthe grandest rebellion
imaginable and are now grapplingwith its consequences in a world
(32:08):
that has largely forgotten them.
The Fallen aren't heroes orvillains by default, they're
beings making choices about whatto do with the second chance,
whether that means seekingrevenge, pursuing redemption,
acquiring power, or simplytrying to understand what went
wrong all those eons ago.
And for those of you who, likeme, always thought it would make
(32:28):
a brilliant LARP, well, you'lljust have to write your own
rules.
But trust me, it's worth theeffort.
(32:52):
We are a semi-regular podcast onhistory of RPGs.
We have got almost 80 episodesnow on our channel covering all
sorts of things like historyepisodes like this, all the way
to round tables, productreviews, interviews, and actual
plays.
If you're a fan of gaming'sgolden age, there will be
(33:13):
something there for you.
If you want to get in touch withus, you can do so by email on
rule.save.pod at gmail.com, oryou can find us on Instagram or
Facebook by searching forRoll2Save.
If you'd like to support us, youcan do so either by reposting
(33:35):
our episode announcements onsocial media or by dropping us
five stars on your podcastdirectory of choice.
These really help with thevisibility and they help massage
our fragile little egos and helpus want to make more episodes.
That's all for this episode.
If you have any ideas for futureepisodes, please get in touch
(33:57):
with us.
But until then, we will see younext time.
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