The Tempters

SUMMARY

The Tempters, also called Decadents or Builders, are the quintessential demons. The Tempters know that they have entered the antechamber of Hell, and how glorious it is! They are the wheelers and dealers of the Unchained world — manipulative bastards who never do an honest day’s work if they can send someone else to do it, or possibly the only Agenda who realizes that the God-Machine can’t be fought without a robust resource base to work from.

Two main reasons exist for demons to join the Decadents’ ranks. The ones who perhaps most personify the Agenda’s reputation are those who hold a hedonistic view of existence. No simple debauchers, the Builders who are driven by this motivation argue that life and freedom do not have intrinsic value, but that the value of life is what the individual makes of it. To put it simply, life is a means to an end, and that end, the Tempters argue, may as well be pleasure. The goals of the other Agendas are important, but keeping your life is worthless if your life isn’t worth keeping. The Tempters make sure that the gift of life and free will does not go wasted — life exists to be enjoyed.

The other main motivation, often combined with the first one, is power. The Tempters are the wealthiest members of the Unchained on average, many owning stocks and less visible — and sometimes less legal — assets in different places. Those who profess this motivation say that the God-Machine is so powerful because of its assets. It’s not enough to try to take down its Infrastructure and agents — it’s a demon’s duty to build up the power to succeed. To that end, the Decadents, even those with hedonistic views, build their connections and wealth, wielding them as weapons against their common enemy.

TEMPTER CLEF

BUILDER: An informal term for a Tempter.

DECADENT: A demeaning term for a Tempter.

THE DESCENT

The Builders don’t subscribe to the idea of Hell as a state, either of the world or themselves. To them, Hell is a place. It’s possible to go there physically, although there’s some disagreement as to how. Roughly half the Agenda believes that Hell already exists and the way there must simply be found, whereas the other half believes Hell must be created, whether on Earth or elsewhere.

The goal of the Decadents is to build the resources to create either Hell itself or a pathway there. They have many different methods to that end, but the one most outsiders associate with the Agenda is that of the businessman — debauchery hidden behind a veneer of respectability. In truth, quite a few Tempters don’t really believe in their own goals. Angelhood is certain and definite, with a clear purpose — mortality isn’t. Many Tempters find this hard to accept even while they cherish their freedom of will too much to let it go. The reckless hunt for power and pleasure gives them a purpose again, even though a somewhat hollow one.

To achieve Hell, the Builders would give up anything they must, save one: quality of life. Why bother with Hell if you’re going to be miserable there? They need money and connections, anyway, so why not enjoy the side-effects of their struggles?

TEMPTERS AND HUMANITY

Tempters are very attached to their Covers and to the humans involved in them. As a rule, they adopt Covers that let them live in comfort. Tempters are oil men, minor celebrities, and the idle rich. Remember, though, that not every demon’s idea of comfort matches human expectations — after a life as an angel, a Tempters might be content as a suburban housewife, a Midwestern farmer, or a starving artist. What matters to Tempters is that the Cover, whatever it is, be deep, rich, and full — that’s why they Fell, isn’t it?

Because they are ultimately self-serving, Tempters usually spare no effort to ensure their personal safety, with multiple redundant eventualities should their Covers be compromised. Tempters already like to sit in the center of a web of pacts and promises — it takes very little effort for them to make sure some of those debts could be called in to provide the Tempter with a new Cover.

Tempters have complicated feelings about humans. On the one hand, they live off humans, conning them into pacts that most humans don’t truly understand. Very few humans leave an encounter with a Tempter with their lives entirely intact. On the other hand, Tempters are the most likely to deal with humans on a daily basis. Like Saboteurs, Tempters tend to fall into two camps when it comes to humans: either they view humans as marks, sheep to be shorn and nothing more, or they develop sympathy for humans and engage in complicated explanations to justify their manipulation. Humans chide one another on a lack of self-control evinced by wanton fulfillment of desire, building entire religions around the concept of virtue garnered from sacrifice and self-deprivation. But the truth is that the difference between want and need is sharper than the point of a needle, and on that point the Tempters dance.

TEMPTER PHILOSOPHY

To the Tempters, Hell is a place that doesn’t yet exist — an architect’s vision, a schematic. These demons believe in hoarding resources so as to be able to build this arcane inferno they dream of. The main schism in this philosophy is between those who want to establish this Hell on Earth, those who think it would be wiser to find it in some other plane of existence, and those who believe the Builders should focus their attention on space exploration instead, reasoning that a demon’s body can survive far better out there than that of a human.

This view, constructivism, does not go unchallenged among the Decadents, though. Perhaps their main rivals are the aesthetes, who hold that they have already found Hell — it’s right here, and all they need to do is enjoy it. Anything else is a foolish wild goose chase, and a waste of those days of happiness each demon is allotted. The second group, called the mystics or the hermetics, believe that Hell can be found in the wisdom of humanity — the wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus, or Isis, or the Sufi. They often organize their associations into a cult-like form, initiating new members gradually through the ranks. The final major point of view is the Prometheus theory, which holds that humanity is the key to Hell, being something the God-Machine can never understand. They slip outside its calculations, undo its plots, and all of this while unaware of the Machine itself. If they can be awakened to the truth en masse, the God-Machine would be defenseless against their attacks.

MAJOR PHILOSOPHIES:

The Constructivists seek to build Hell themselves via Infrastructure, either in this plane of existence or another (like the Shadow or the Astral Realms). The questions is if Hell already exists or has to be constructed by the Unchained
The Aesthetics believe that they already are in Hell and should enjoy their stay.
The Mystics believe that the wisdom of humanity, amassed in the works of religion and philosophy, will be the key to Hell and often place themselves as leaders of secret societies.
The Prometheus Theory believes that mankind is the key to Hell, as they are outside the understanding of the God-Machine. They seek to recruit as many as possible for a final revolution against the Creator.

IN GROUPS

Tempters are the glue holding the ring together. They’ll play devil’s advocate and sympathetic friend with equal aplomb, in whatever measure the situation is due. They vie with Inquisitors for the place of the power behind the throne and enjoy the finer things in life with the Saboteurs. As long as you’ve got something to offer the Tempter — even just honest friendship and companionship—they’ll have something to offer you. At a price, of course.

Even though they build much of their associations out of more mundane favor-trading, pacts are a mark of status among demons and Tempters are the masters of the well-crafted pact. Their cults and associations are often centered by a single figure with a heavy pact, but an association can involve multiple demons, and thus the Tempters are also keepers of the social networks of the Unchained. And because Tempters of two or more different rings may (and often do) share the same association, they’re also masters at piecing together the full picture of a God-Machine project by combining the mosaic accounts of Infrastructure. They rarely give up this knowledge without price, however, even to each other. Tempters are pretty good at what they do, so lines of communication between rings endure across Covers and years.

SAMPLE HELLS

Tempters have a reputation for seeking out places to build their own Hells, over which they rule absolutely. At the most basic level, however, a Builder wants to experience all that life has to offer. Everything they create exists to ensure he has easy access to sources of sensation.

MERE IMMORTALITY

In some ways Immortals are the Tempter answer to the Inquisitors’ Suburban Hell, but whereas the Paranoid seeks safety and stability, the Decadent pursues a never ending parade of great and small pleasures. They use their supernatural powers to live it up for a decade or three, after which they abandon their aging Cover in favor of a newer, younger, and more attractive one. Most Immortals don’t stay in one place for long. They tend not to be shy about using their demonic advantages, which means they eventually run afoul of the God Machine’s servants, but they also tend to get bored easily and don’t like to be tied down to any one place or Cover for long. Immortality is not the most ambitious Hell. One must simply avoid dying and secure a new Cover before they die of old age, a feat some have managed for centuries.

TEMPORAL EMPIRE

This is the image of Hell that comes to most demons’ minds when they think of Tempters, and it is one of the most common ambitions among those who ascribe to that Agenda. The Decadent builds some form of worldly empire that simultaneously protects them from most God-Machine threats and allows them to enjoy all the delights a human body can experience. A Builder has as many ways to achieve this Hell as there are organizations and in-groups for them to infiltrate, suborn, and seize control of. Some rise to positions in mortal institutions, whether these are political parties, government bureaucracies, churches, or corporations. Others foster connections with those who possess occult powers. A number of Builders join or found Temporal Agencies in order to establish themselves among the Unchained.

COLONIAL POWER

The God Machine’s influence is almost omnipresent throughout the Earth, so Colonists strike out for places where Its reach doesn’t extend. In their colony, the outcast’s word is the only law that matters. They can stay in demonic form as much as she wants without risking compromise. Building an empire beyond the reach of the God Machine almost always means creating some form of otherworldly retreat. While a few construct underwater fortresses or cities miles below the surface of the Earth, the Enemy’s agents can often be found there, too. Most demons seek out safe havens in parallel dimensions like the Shadow, the Underworld, the Hedge, a pocket dimension, or a time splinter with no God Machine activity. Some seek out occult paths to distant planets with resources and conditions capable of sustaining the Unchained.

HELLSCAPE

Tempters are more likely than most to embrace the image of demons as monstrous creatures of sin and excess, but Devils take that to an extreme that even makes other Decadents moderately uncomfortable. The Devil aims to build a literal Hell where they can watch their enemies suffer any number of handpicked tortures, while the Devil watches from a comfortable place. Captured angels are a common target of a Devil’s wrath, but rival Unchained, annoying mortals, Exile, or anyone else who has slighted them are equally likely to suffer their ire. Some claim that such a Hell already exists somewhere, ruled by an ancient Devil who occasionally invites outcasts inside to enjoy the entertainments there — or to suffer Hell’s torments in ways that entertain them and their honored guests, depending on who tells the tale.

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