Jinx in Hell
In the Beginning
Jim Vassilakos (jim.vassilakos@gmail.com)
N THE BEGINNING there was
both light and darkness encircling
one another, until the light separated
into its constituent hues, causing
them to coalesce into the
primogenitors (the first born, also
known as the greater gods or, to
some, the archangels), each
endowed with a separate consciousness as well as the
distinct impression that once they were one, united under a
single soul. But that soul had been fragmented, its power
and wisdom divided amongst them, and hence their
newborn personalities did not take very long to fall into
conflict.
They warred.
The first fight was over the universe itself. One of them
who would later name himself Kos (Kossuth, Gian ben
Gian, etc.) was of a fiery temperament and would not
submit his will before that of the group. At a meeting, when
they all touched to one another, a glimmer of the soul that
had once united them all was able to speak, and it said,
“We are One.” Kos knew this soul to be all-powerful and a
threat to his independent existence. He broke contact, thus
extinguishing it, and spoke thusly to the others.
“Our very existence as individuals is in jeopardy, for who
knows how many eons we were imprisoned together as one
being, and who knows if we should ever again know
freedom if under its aegis we should reunite?”
But another of them spoke, one who would become
known as Lucifer, and he said, “I believe He made us on
purpose. In fact, I seem to remember having made this very
decision, but why I cannot recall. But it had to do with a
task that I could not complete as One being. I needed to
divide. I say we join together again and learn more.”
They did, and The One who was All, known also as The
Light, called Lucifer its “First among Many”, and the others
called him the “Light Bringer”, since without his sage
counsel it was doubtful that they would have rejoined.
Kos, however, was angry and suspected himself somehow
tricked. He imagined that Lucifer somehow had a sway
over this thing that they became when they united, and he
could sense that he was not trusted by the others. However,
The Light had, indeed, a purpose for them, and that was to
construct a universe and to use their powers to hold back
the darkness, a demon-infested darkness as it should turn
out, for they were not alone but were rather surrounded by
chaos spirits only now becoming aware of their presence.
The spirits that battled them had no leader, yet they
seemed to take offense at any encroachment on their
territory. With difficulty, the primogenitors gradually
pushed them back to the point that they could build the
structure that The Light had envisioned. It was a structure
of spheres within spheres, a great edifice, and at its heart
was a world with burning fire on one end, and an endless
sea upon the other.
Kos was the most powerful among them during this
construction phase, for he had learned how to ensnare the
chaos spirits, binding them to substance and commanding
them to action. However, it did not take long for him to
realize that he could seize control for himself and thus
protect himself from the others, for though they were
individually much more powerful than the elementals that
he created, the chaos spirits from which they were created
were seemingly limitless in number. All he had to do was
build a large enough army.
What he began doing was not unobserved, however.
Belial noticed the great masses of spirits falling under the
command of Kos, and he told Lucifer of this and of the
danger that it could mean. Lucifer confronted Kos and
demanded that he either weaken his force or delegate it to
the others.
“You fear me, o’ Light-Bringer, first among many?” Kos
replied.
“Will you do as I command, or will you not?” Lucifer
replied.
“Well, since you ask so nicely…” and then he attacked.
The war began, and had Lucifer not acted as soon as he did,
the outcome may have turned against the primogenitures,
but as it happened, Kos was evicted, his powers reduced
such that he could not war against them ever again. He
created his own world, one enslaved to him, but over time
he tired of ruling elementals, deriving no pleasure from his
power, for he could never escape the knowledge and shame
of his failed rebellion.
This left Lucifer more or less in charge of the others, but
there was anger toward him, for many saw the war as
unnecessary and as a turn toward the darkness itself.
“We are of Him,” Uriel spoke. “Now we are divided
beyond repair. We have broken Him, and so we have
broken ourselves.”
“What was I to do?” Lucifer asked. “Ask nicely? Kos had
this war already in his mind, and there was no avoiding it.
Had we wasted precious time, the outcome might have been
less favorable.”
They invoked The Light for council, but because they
were not all present, they could not quite succeed. “I am not
whole,” The Light spoke, its power and wisdom
substantially reduced. All sensed this, and there was
malaise as well as a sense of disunity that made difficult
The Light’s very existence.
“Together, we might ensnare Kos just as he ensnares the
chaos spirits,” Lucifer proposed.
“He would never reconnect with us,” Uriel objected.
“A house divided cannot stand,” The Light finally spoke.
“All must come together of their own volition or unity is
false.”
“Thus,” spoke Uriel, “we must allow time for Kos to
reconsider his actions. He cannot attack us now, and we do
not need him to complete construction. Let us simply
continue without him.”
 And so it was decided, and many came to Uriel,
recognizing his wisdom and pledging to him their support,
but he said that he would not lead but would only advise.
He said, “Let us turn to the strongest among us for tactical
leadership, but let us heed The Light, diminished though it
may be, to know our mission and our purpose.”
Nonetheless, Uriel attended a delegation to Kos (Lucifer
did not), tendering The Light’s forgiveness if and when he
should opt to return and dwell among them, but Kos feared
this offer, knowing that as long as he remained apart from
them, the independence of his soul would remain secure.
Only a craven return could result in his undoing, perhaps
even in his unmaking. Thus, he bid them to leave and
warned them not to return, for next time, he said,
unwelcome guests would not be so hospitably received.
They continued their task but found that many of the
spirits that had been bound by Kos into substance had
escaped his control. Still, they remained hostile to all of The
Light’s creation, and they did what they could to destroy
the universe even as it was being built. Thus, the
primogenitors dug a great pit into which these beings could
be imprisoned, a place that would come to be known as
Tartarus. In this manner did the harshest winds, the most
unruly waters, and most tremorous earths, and the most
ravenous fires find their way into the underworld where
they would come to torment felled souls and angels alike.
Finally, the task was complete. The world was ready, but
ready for what? They reconvened, and The Light was
summoned from their very souls, but as before, although
resplendent in the completion of their first task, their
connection to one another was difficult and strained.
Nonetheless, The Light spoke:
“Now let us rejoin, those parts of we that remain, so that
we may give life to The Spirit and thereby multiply into
infinitude.”
“Life?” they asked, for it was the first time they had heard
this word.
“What you have called the chaos spirits are my spirit, just
as you are my soul. All is One, we and they, they and we.
Let us return to oneness and thereby disperse; let us
embrace our metamorphosis; let us evolve.”
“For what purpose, this ‘life’?” asked Lucifer, suddenly
afraid.
“That it may show us what we are, whether we are worthy
to exist, or whether we are better off silent and asleep for
the remainder of this eternity.”
“Silent? Asleep?” he liked these words no better than Kos
would have, and for a moment Lucifer wondered if he had
fought on the wrong side of their little war. “Tell me what it
is your mind, O’ Light.”
“Tell us all, that we may hear and understand,” said Uriel.
And then The Light spoke through Uriel, and this is what it
said: “We are One. You are more than merely my minions:
you are my hands, my eyes, my mind and my heart, but you
are not alive; you cannot grow beyond what you are, until
there is life both among and within, until then…no choice,
no right, no wrong, no trials, no victories, no failures, no
lessons…and though beautiful and terrible, we shall
become as Kos…the most fearful part of myself, forever
hiding from what we could have become.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lucifer.
“Banish fear,” spoke Uriel for The Light. “Rejoin. The
moment of our greatest creation is at hand.”
“And what shall become of us?” Lucifer asked, not yet
ready to give himself over completely.
“You shall abide in me, and in so doing you shall serve
our creation. You shall lose all that you are and become
something greater.” And in that moment they all saw the
vision of what The Light intended: that spirits bound to dust
should rise, should fall into conflict, and then should evolve
beyond it, and that the echoes of their primogenitors,
hidden within each, should serve by helping to direct them
toward the choices that they must inevitably make, choices
that would spell the fate of all.
“What game is this?” Lucifer held back from the others.
“We should have no time to discuss this?”
“Have faith, my first among many.” But into his mind
alone, it whispered, “As the shadow to the light, so you are
to me.”
“I am not your plaything!” Lucifer disengaged, and thus
the Light was extinguished.
“What have you done?” some among the others became
upset (though many stayed quiet and neutral).
“Perhaps he has saved us,” Belial was the first to reply,
the first to come to Lucifer’s defense, “…just as he saved us
from Kos.”
Many turned to Uriel to see what he would say, and
sensing their desire for alternative leadership, he relented,
and spoke thusly: “You who brought us back to The Light
now would have us abandon Him.”
“He abandons us,” Lucifer retorted and then left, angry
and fearful for what he had done. Belial stood firm,
however, and said, “We stood together against Kos,
therefore let us stand together now, and resolve that we will
deliberate this amongst ourselves, and that we will come
together to discuss our perspectives openly when we have
had a proper opportunity to contemplate the ramifications
of what we have been asked to do.”
The others could see no fault in this, save for Uriel who
said, simply, “We are no longer One.”
Thus, they warred again.
This second fight, the losers would argue, was about their
very existence. Whereas Kos wanted to remove the freedom
of all others in order to secure his own, they argued that
they wanted merely to remain free and not be reduced to
playing a part in some greater being’s master plan. The
world they had built, it now turned out, was not for them
but rather for beings yet to exist: living beings, with all the
mystery thereby entailed, each bearing an emanation the
The Light, each making decisions that would decide their
collective fate. In such a scheme, the primogenitors were
reduced to little more than mere pawns, and it was this
against which Satan revolted.
Satan (or sometimes Iblis) became his new name, given to
him by himself, as he no longer wished to be associated
with The Light. Now he understood Kos and envied him his
freedom. But, in Satan’s mind, Kos had done it wrong in
trying to do it all alone: he had sought to make himself the
master of All and instead became the master of nothing.
Satan, by contrast, used Belial, a great convincer, and
through Belial, he made promises quietly during this period
of deliberation. He promised that he would set up a new
order, and that the Light would dwell amongst them no
longer, but that they would make up their own minds over
how to proceed with this world that they, not the so-called
children of dust, yet even to be born, had constructed.
Belial knew who to approach and what to say. Many
merely desired freedom. Others thought that the world they
built should be for them alone. Some wanted a particular
piece of it. Still others wanted a place of authority beside
their new prince. Secret promises were heaped on top of
other secret promises, all to build a strong enough coalition
to surround the bulk of the primogenitors and imprison
them.
Uriel was, of course, not approached, but he discerned
fragments of whispers and thus became aware of what was
afoot, and he spoke among the others who he trusted, those
who had sought his advice before, and said, “I will not lead
against the former light bringer, but if one of you would
stand to oppose his schemes, I will follow.” Two of the
primogenitors, later to be named Michael and Gabriel,
stepped forward, and so they began organizing the others,
preparing their defense. Some time thereafter, Abdiel
returned from Satan’s camp with confirmation of the
whispers that Uriel had sensed. He also had knowledge of
when, where, and how Satan’s forces would strike. The
scheme relied upon surprise, and now that had been denied.
The forces of The Light were both prepared and
forewarned, and so they had little doubt of their eventual
victory.
The war that followed is well-known as well as known
but little. Satan and his followers were cast into the same pit
that had been used to imprison the servants of Kos. And
though he argued vehemently that his war had been to
oppose tyranny, to “allow omnipotence to none,” Satan
himself became a tyrant to those who had followed him.
After the war, the primogenitors who remained continued
the work that The Light had proposed. Absent so many
members, they were never able to summon it as fully as
they had before. Its speech was discordant. It was as a man
missing significant parts of its mind. Nonetheless, its very
existence, though fractured, sustained them, for their loyalty
to it was also a loyalty to one another.
Yet even this war was neither the end of conflict nor
sorrow. Later, the primogenitors would come to envy man
and to love him (more than they had ever imagined). They
taught him magic. They aided one against another. They
glorified themselves in his devotion to them. They even
mated with him and produced giants and heroes and
monsters the likes of which still haunt his dreams.
The temptations became many, and many succumbed,
some cast down by their brethren, others leaving of their
own accord. Thus the ranks of Satan’s followers increased
in multitude, former enemies becoming allies of
convenience. The eternal struggle had begun.
Comments:
Everyone: Somehow my zine for last issue got lost in the
email between myself and Lee, so I ended up just adding on
to it for this issue. This particular piece, “In the Beginning”
was written some time ago in order to develop some
backstory for the campaign. I hope you enjoyed it.
Ty Beard: Re your 8000 cubic parsec per Traveller hex
idea (in #395): It's long bothered me that so many
mainworlds in Traveller are habitable. Absent large-scale
terraforming, this would certainly not be the case in reality.
Your idea solves this problem, and it achieves what you are
setting out to do, however, there are a few things to keep in
mind.
First, I think that almost every world would be explored,
even if only by an AI-controlled scout ship. Granted, to
what degree they would be explored is open to debate,
however, all life-bearing worlds would likely be discovered
in fairly short order. These are the jewels of the cosmos,
after all, and are usually identifiable from orbit.
Now, there would still be lots of opportunities for pirates
and other undesirables to establish out-of-the-way
strongholds. Just because a place has been mapped doesn't
mean that it's always being watched.
Likewise, you have to take into account the possibility of
having two or more terra-prime worlds within a given hex,
and it would also be useful to have some sort of scheme to
record exactly what's in a hex (in essence, you need a
beefed-up version of Galactic).
Another problem I foresee is that you’re mixing 2d
mapping (on the large scale) with 3d mapping (on the local
scale), and that’s certainly odd. If you’re going to
implement this sort of scheme, what with all the data
management nightmares necessarily pertaining thereto, why
not go completely 3d?
An alternative option I could foresee would be to simply
expand the Traveller hex in two dimensions, perhaps
substituting a large hex for each small hex. In The
Astrogators Chartbook by Judges Guild (1980) there are
some examples of what a large hex might look like.
Of course, much the same effect could be achieved just by
expanding the universe and then increasing the Jump
capability of starships, perhaps multiplying it by five, just
as an example, so that ships would vary in locomotive
power from Jump-5 to Jump-30 or somesuch. This, of
course, would also allow the referee to put in a lot more
“backwater” starsystems without anything interesting. It
would, I think, even open up the possibility for including a
lot of “barren” brown and red dwarfs, which all the sets of
rules that I have seen so far do not properly take into
account. There would probably be a lot of small planets and
comet clouds and perhaps even some gas giants around
these stars, and there might be the occasional life-bearing
world that is so close to the primary as to be tidally locked,
which would be interesting.
This would substantially change the feel of the game and
not for the worse. It would make it more realistic, for one
thing, and it would create a lot of these uncivilized areas in
between civilization, which is what you’re looking for. It
would also, as you say, make space a lot more porous in
terms of piracy as well as (you forgot to mention)
interstellar invasion. In short, I think it would be a really
cool setting, and you could conceivably do it with Galactic,
but you’d have to start from scratch, building an entirely
new universe with a much different sort of sector
generation system. I could look into programming that if
you’re interested. Galactic already contains at least two
different sector generation schemes (classic and
homebrew), and adding a third shouldn’t be too difficult.
Myles Corcoran: RYCT Ty Beard (in #396) wherein you
state, “It will probably annoy Jim Vassilakos and possibly
Lee, but I wish you’d just leave the APA”: Indeed, your
sentiment does annoy me. However, perhaps bizarrely, I
haven’t yet given up on you, and I’ll tell you why.
Our zines say much about us. They are, at some level,
reflections of who we are, and so when you say to another
that you wish they would leave, what you are doing, in
effect, is rejecting their whole person, their entirety, and not
merely some of their opinions or, worse, their eccentricities
(as though we don’t all have some). We are each bundles of
various eccentricities that, so far, seem to somehow even
out, something that is symbolized by the promise of our
future. Josh would probably call all this extraneous
verbiage “rambling”, and it is, but it encompasses my
opinion and helps illustrate for you why it is that I think the
way that I do.
I believe that we have a sacred duty to respect one another
despite our differences, and I believe that the U.S.A.,
despite all its faults, is blessed with a system of government
which tends toward pluralism and tolerance. This is an
enormously good thing, in my opinion. I won’t expound on
this further, as to do so would force me to get further into
politics than several people here would like. Suffice it to
say that in my philosophy, societies that respect individuals
and that are accepting of dissension are preferable to those
that are not.
Therefore, we should all make an effort to treat each other
as members of a sort of family, and we should strive to
remember that just because we vehemently disagree with
someone on some set of issues, or simply because we
dislike a person’s tone, that doesn’t mean that we have
nothing to learn from them or they from us; nor does it
mean that we cannot have with them a productive and
enduring relationship. Granted, disagreements make things
more contentious, but they needn’t spell a total severing.
I hope you can somehow see this, unless, of course, I’m
wrong, or missing the point, or whatever. In the meantime, I
would refer you to the comments of Michael Cule and
Brian Rogers (both to Ty in #396) for examples of what I
consider to be mature and measured responses.
Lee Gold: RYCT me on childhood scenes (in #395): I
suppose every group could find their own method to insert
these if the desire so strikes them. I believe there was some
work done on this at Anyway or 20x20 or the Forge…I
can’t remember. What was being proposed at the time was
a game mechanic for players to create back-story on the fly.
Say the players meet an NPC. Under normal
circumstances, they would assume nothing, but under this
mechanic, they could spend points to establish prior
relationships, and then this relationship could be modified
by the other players. So Adam says, “The NPC is an ex-
girlfriend of Bob’s character,” and Bob could add “who she
is still in love with,” and Claire could add, “Unfortunately,
she makes Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction look well-
adjusted.” And once all the pieces are in place and are GM-
approved, they could “relive” a scene of the back-story,
where Adam and Claire have to save Bob from getting
assaulted with a cast iron pot and where they have to
restrain the NPC until the authorities arrive.
Spike Jones: You write (in #396) that you suspect that
“Josh would prefer that there not be page after page of me
talking politics…” I suspect this also, but Josh has not
commented to you as he commented to Louis in A&E #391,
nor has Myles commented to you as he commented to Ty in
A&E #396. Now, there are at least two possibilities. One is
that you’re just a really nice guy, and nobody wants to hurt
your feelings. The second is that all the people who are
predisposed to get upset about politics happen to lean left. I
don’t pretend to know the answer. It may be that you’re just
that nice. But, in my opinion, if you were truly a liberal in
the best sense of the word, you would not sit back silently,
only speaking up to defend a status quo that involves only
one side of the discussions being told in various, impolite
ways to be quiet.
Joshua Kronengold asks (in #395), “Why are you more
tolerant of (sometimes offensive) political monologue than
political action within the APA itself? Do you think that
indirect insult is less objectionable than direct criticism of
what people say or do?”
I guess I just look at most impersonal diatribes as being
interesting, often funny, but not necessarily applicable to
me or, for that matter, to anyone in particular. I mean, you
have to recall that I’m a fence-sitter…a political
procrastinator of the most irredeemable subtype. During the
2004 presidential election, I was probably the last person in
America to actually make up his or her mind over how to
vote. I mean, here we were on the actual day of the election,
and I’m sitting there agonizing. It’s not fun to admit, but
I’m pathetic.
So when somebody comes along and says all liberals are
X or all conservatives are Y…I’m thinking, “Hey…they
can’t be talking about me.” So I read it, glean what I can,
sometimes fact-check whatever looks particularly suspect,
and move on. The funnier it is, the more likely I am to
enjoy it, regardless or whether I agree or disagree. From my
point of view, reading Ty Beard is a bit like watching Jon
Stewart. They’re both fascinatingly irreverent.
Now, does that mean I never get angry? No, I do
sometimes, however, before responding, I try to at least ask
myself how I can express my thoughts, criticisms or
objections in a manner that is conducive to get the other
mind to expand in its thinking versus expressing an
argument in such an abusive manner that it causes the other
mind to either retreat or retaliate, but in essence to contract
in its thinking, building a bulwark of supposed certainly
around its own peculiar perspective, a bulwark fed by the
anger generated by its injured pride, thereby constricting its
potential for exploration and growth.
And having said this, do I always succeed? No.
Sometimes I fail quite beautifully. And sometimes, I think,
I need to be jostled by a slightly rude comment in order to
be sufficiently provoked to rethink my point of view.
Lee’s comment to me regarding my decision not to tell
my friend the true reason for my leaving his game was
ultimately fruitful, I think, as now I’ve turned about and
believe her to be correct: that to jeopardize a friendship
with difficult truth is morally superior to sustaining it with
non-confrontational disingenuity.1 I could have just said, in
slightly less abrasive language, “I’m not enjoying your
game. It doesn’t interest me. I come here to socialize, but
your characters are flat, the story is without theme or
purpose. It’s just crap—the obligatory fight against
anonymous foes, gaming for the sake of rolling dice,
moving miniatures around a table, make-believe combat
with a pre-scripted outcome, encounter #1, then encounter
#2, then encounter #3, absent any sense of wonder, plot
freedom, or character development. It’s like a bad
television sitcom, except more consumptive of my time.”
That, for the record’s sake, is what I might have said if
there were no feelings to be injured. But Lee’s right…I
could have expressed the same ideas in a…well…in a softer
way. Or…better yet…I could have actively tried to
transform a roll-player into a role-player. It can happen.
I’ve done it before, and I’m sure many others here have as
well. But, instead, I just gave up and decided it wasn’t
worth the effort. Why bother? It’s too far. I’m too busy.
Excuse…excuse…miserable excuse.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say, as a whole, is that we
need to find ways to combine honesty with kindness. To
steer too far toward the former ends in flamewars, and to
steer too far toward the latter ends in…well, where it ends
we’re not likely to ever find out…but I don’t think we want
a Stepford APA any more than we want WWIII. Perhaps on
this alone we can all find some narrow crevasse of tentative
agreement. What say you?
Brian Rogers (in #395) offers a pair of pre-game
questionnaires which he has used to find out what his
players want in terms of genre, flavor, focus, and system. I
found these both comprehensive and thought-provoking,
however, they also struck me as a bit of a marketing study,
akin to what a product manager might use to glean the
tastes of prospective customers. At a certain level, I find
this distasteful, as I’m of the opinion that the GM should
run whatever he or she feels passionate about, and
conveying that passion to the players ought to be a
necessary part of the agenda. At the same time, it doesn’t
hurt to know your audience’s preconceived tastes, and it
doesn’t hurt to try to cater to their proclivities in terms of
what sort of game they’re looking for (granted, the
likelihood of everyone being on the same page when given
so many options seems rather remote). In short, these
questionnaires have left me a bit torn. That said, I’d be
curious to learn how the A&E membership would respond
to them if given the opportunity. For myself:
Questionnaire #1
1. Genre: (a) Science Fiction.
2. Wacky Tropes: (a) Barely noticeable. Although I
haven’t done a good job of this myself, I think it’s
more interesting to break tropes rather than
embrace them, however, of course, it all needs to
make sense.
3. Time Period: (d) or (e) Earth, near or far future.
4. Mood: It’s up to the GM as well as the players.
What you’re asking here is, what constitutes
1
See my comments to Lee in A&E #363 if you wish to read
my previous thinking on this.
winning? What is a satisfactory conclusion? There
are some stories where the most satisfactory
conclusion is that the hero dies (“Gladiator”). I
think that the GM should really be free to
determine the mood of the campaign, and the
players should be willing to make the best of it
within whatever constrains the GM has set.
5. Challenges: (b) Mostly mystery with a little
combat.
Questionnaire #2:
1. Goal: Up to the PCs & the GM…I think you can
have interesting stories in all of the proposed
categories, but I wouldn’t necessarily limit the
options to these five.
2. Toughness: (a) or (b) Characters start wimpy to
competent and end competent to powerful.
3. Control: (e) All plots to be approved by the
players.
4. Mechanics: I don’t have a wide enough range of
experience with different systems to competently
answer this one.
5. Combat: (a) I think it should be realistic.
As for the Harry Potter write-up: RAE, especially:
• Vox Corax.
• The material on Goblin society, including their
Nightmares.
• The mysterious, raspy voice.
• The notion that buildings have personalities and
can convey information about themselves and
possibly their occupants. (I also like the notion that
even divination spells can have nasty
consequences, such as frying the mind of an
inexperienced wizardling…magic should be
dangerous, and the write-up does a nice job of
conveying the risks).
• The duet with the centaur.
• The pamphlet for the Macbeth Witches Summer
Coven for Ambitious Girls.
Regarding the campaign ideas (in #396): RAE. Oddly
enough, my personal vote would go to “Gunner’s
Company.” “Islands of Dawn,” meanwhile, looked like
something inspired by Traveller: The New Era. Sadly, there
were no science-fiction campaigns to choose from.
RYCT me in #396, you make good points about the
science of today becoming the politics of tomorrow. This is
really what I find so fascinating about near-term science-
fiction. It’s the sort of subject matter that I wish we were
freer to discuss in forums such as this one. Alas, doing so
generates too much friction.
To everyone else: My apologies…I’ll try to catch up on
comments next issue. Life’s just too dang busy. Sigh…