The White City infamously welcomes both Angels and Demons into its citizenry. They live among the population, take part in the image games, and vote as human citizens vote - the White City practices a limited form of democratic decision-making around state affairs, with the Emperor and his court setting the agenda for general elections held in the municipal stadia.
Before they are given their citizenship, angels and demons must perform a penitent military tour of twenty human years. They are built iron puppet-bodies for the purpose, and in battle are primarily used to generate a hideous war-music called the battle drone, through huge pipes and organ machines built into their bodies. The drone cannot be played effectively by humans, and it is a key component in the White City's war machine. Soldiers use the drone, which is loud enough to drown out a human shout over entire battlefields, to enter a dissociative killing trance. It also has a catastrophic effect on the morale of their enemies.
The drone, and the mad, lilting, recurring round that is usually layered on top of it, also have a symbolic significance to the citizens of the White City. The drone is the eternally occurring present, and they say that playing it merely brings its formal consistency into temporary sensory intelligibility - the drone is always there, beneath things, whether you can hear it or not. The round is the play of intention across the present. Intention repeats, although not precisely - it layers refrains, themes, and moods.
This is important because the citizens of the White City know what waits for them in the future. They know that both God and the Hating Engines work towards a system of perfected, absolute, and totalising stasis - towards the material resurrection of all conscious beings, from all of history, and their integration into perfected systems. Every single intelligence, from the whole sweep of history. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the total image, the total project.
To match these visions of a total future, the White City have invented their own image of a total present. It is one of the immutable and final forms of the image game, and the product that best demonstrates the infecting, killing potential inherent in its practice. In the total present we have already reached the end of the intelligible world, and what remains are actions, dissociation, the wailing of the pipes and the beating of the drums, hot breath like smoke falling from your mouth, your body moving under the sun, your muscles in their place, swelling to their work, your eyes cutting the world into its legible units. Your words dissolved into the drone, and the round, and the sky that churns above you, and the earth that you have poisoned in your malice; screams without end.
Citizen angels and citizen demons are tangible proof of the efficacy of this project against the future. None can tell if they were originally sent from Heaven or Hell, and their steel bodies are uniform and show no distinction. When the fighting starts and the horns begin they stride across the boiling mud and blasted fields on their longs iron legs, clubbing and tearing the limbs from those who stand against the empire and its impossible insurrection.
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CITIZEN ANGEL, CITIZEN DEMON
Puppet Body
HD2, iron fists d8x2 bludgeoning, armour as plate, speed: faster than a human.
The puppet body of an angel or demon given honour by the metropole will carry a Guillotine Sword (2d10 slashing, only one attack, always crits a prone target), or an Imperial Bombard (fires once per combat, 2d12 on a hit, deals d10 to everything within 20ft of the target whether it hits or misses, including the target itself on a miss). These puppets will wear capes and flags that proclaim their deeds in service of the City.
Drone and Round: The body will be emitting either the Drone or the Round from the complicated series of pipes that make up its torso. If the Drone, all verbal communication in the combat is impossible, and any Imperial Soldiers, Militia, or Courtesans gain d10hp (they no longer feel pain). If the Round, all verbal communication in the combat is impossible, and any Imperial Soldiers, Militia, or Courtesans gain an extra attack.
Iron Body: Takes 1 damage maximum from slashing or piercing damage. The bodies are often painted or embellished in the citizen style, and have a 1 in 20 chance of acting as an image from the Citizen of the White City's Player of Games ability. The DM will decide which effect is coded into it.
Angel or Demon
The animating intelligence inside the body. 10hp, disposition: patriot zealot.
Takes a single trait from the entity list, and can use it at will. If it takes a spell, it casts from its own HP. Like any entity, the Citizen Angel/Demon is difficult to damage. See the entity rules for details.
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| Carlo Carrà, The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli, 1910 |
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