Page 44 of Flowers of Hell

Demon: The Descent

Over on the forums, folks were asking for teasers. And yeah, it has been a while. So I asked for a number between 1 and 175, and Satchel wisely gave me 44 (the number four being a thing for demons).

Now, there’s probably a way to take a single page out of a pdf and post it, but buggered if I know how, so here’s the text of page 44 of Flowers of Hell: The Demon Players Guide:

The God-Machine communicates in strange symbols and arcane glossolalia. Saboteurs are ideally suited to decode and subvert these messages for their own ends. Most Unchained don’t consider the Soldiers as the mental sorts, but these demons disprove that theory. Ideally, a demon decodes a message and rewords it to disorient his enemies or send them into traps. When that isn’t possible, simply eliminating the message is a suitable secondary objective.

Hit & Run

Saboteurs don’t have the luxury of becoming too attached to their Covers. To a Soldier, a Cover is simply another tool in his arsenal, to be used when effective and discarded if necessary. Like any tool, a Cover is deliberately selected based on the job it is designed for. Saboteurs tailor Covers to the job at hand and, if capable, switch between them based on the nature of a given mission.

Perhaps more than any other Agenda, Saboteurs run a greater risk of compromise through their common activities. A Soldier knowingly takes these risks, believing that the rewards of taking down the God-Machine outweigh the danger to his Cover. Even so a newly Fallen Soldier must choose his targets with care, lest he bring too much attention on himself. A dead — or worse, recaptured — demon is of no use, after all.

As such, a Saboteur almost always has at least one “bug-out” Cover. Named after a “bug-out bag,” wherein a person holds a number of easily portable survival items in case of emergency, the demon keeps a Cover in reserve, hidden from even his most trusted associates. If he draws too much attention down on himself, the Soldier can switch to his bug-out Cover, lying low until the heat is off and then resuming his normal activities. Fac?ades (p. XX) make good bug-out Covers and they’re fairly easy to arrange on short notice.

Demons find two dangers inherent in the bug-out Cover, however. First, as a sort of safe haven, a demon may grow too comfortable. It’s an illusion, of course. No demon is ever truly safe. It only takes one slip for the God-Machine’s angels to be on the Unchained’s trail.

Second, no matter how many precautions a demon takes when switching Covers, she always runs the risk of witnesses. If anyone can connect her to her bug-out Cover, even the thin veneer of security is ruined, rendering the Cover’s benefits useless. Because of this, cunning Saboteurs take care not to adopt their bug-out Cover unless it is absolutely necessary.

Cracks in Reality

All Saboteurs learn how to examine networks, systems, and reality itself, locating and taking advantage of these weak