Hell's Garden

TEST MODE CHARACTERS HERE

"Welcome, students! Welcome to your new and eternal home.

Within these halls, you will not reach your potential, because you have no potential.

You will not discover yourself, because there is nothing to discover.

You will not embark on the adventure of life, because it has already ended, and you failed.

This is your punishment, and your destiny: to submit.

Welcome to Pandaemonium Academy."

-from Student Council President Venus Heylel's commencement address to the class of eternity.

Inspirations: Disgaea, Kill la Kill, Zdzisław Beksiński, John Martin

Hell

Hell is made of the souls of the once-living. It is a mirror of their lives. And in the deskilled, reskilled, knowledge-economic hothouse of modernity, their lives are consumed by schooling. Naturally, Hell follows suit.

Pandaemonium Academy stands in the capital of the Inferno. Those whose hell it is deemed proper to include education or re-education are consigned there, or to one of its sister establishments.

Devils are fallen angels consigned to Hell for the crime of following Lucifer in his rebellion. They typically appear as twisted, or sometimes untwisted, versions of their former heavenly selves.

Demons are the native inhabitants of Hell, manifestations of the unbeing in the shadow of the light of the Absolute. They are typically monstrous.

Damned are the souls of sinful mortals. They typically appear as they did in life, but warped somehow by their crimes.

In Hell, nothing is material. You are only your soul. Those who are ground down by their experiences lose their will, their power, and finally their identity, and become mere bedrock for the Inferno. Those who manage to cling onto themselves must fight for this privilege, to rise above the quagmire and win a breath of independence and power.

That's you.

Action

Fights go in turns by team.

Order of Play

Player characters can take two actions per turn, up to one of which may be a domain action. On their turn, characters declare all of their actions together, then resolve them in a sensible order.

Normal Actions

Roll your stat, plus any relevant bonuses. Compare to target value. If you exceed, the action is successful.

Assist Actions

One of the most common types of bonus. Rather than directly attempting something, you can use an action to assist another action - either a later action of your own, or another's action. If you do so, roll the relevant stat (plus any bonuses), and apply the successes as bonus dice to the roll of the main action.

Defense Actions

Roll your stat, plus any relevant bonuses. Half of the successes (round up) go to increasing your defence target value for the next attack, or against a particular specified attack.

Domain Actions

Roll double your Ego and count successes against target value to produce some reality-warping effect. You may only take one domain action per turn.

Character Creation

Everyone in Hell is there for a reason.

Ego

Without a body, the only thing you can hold onto is your own sense of self.

Ego

The strength of your core identity. More powerful and discrete infernals have a higher Ego. Lesser beings have a lower Ego. Those who have become scenery have an Ego of 0. Starting PCs have an Ego of 3.

Your Ego is your base passive defence value against attacks.

Each point of Ego gives you 10 EP.

Drive

Your reserves of will to change the world. You can spend a point of Drive to add a success to a roll, reroll a roll, or mitigate (but not necessarily negate) an attack. It is recovered by drama and stunts.

Each point of Drive costs 2 EP. Starting maximum Ego x2.

Heart

Your reserves of will merely to survive and endure. This is decremented by successful attacks, and if it hits 0 you are KO. It is recovered by time and rest.

Each point of Heart costs 2 EP. Starting maximum Ego x2.

Attributes

Those with Ego can define their own existence. Each point of attribute costs 1 EP. Starting maximum 7.

• Strength: Hefting and punching. Used for most melee attacks.
• Speed: Moving real fast.
• Perception: Detecting clues and details.
• Precision: Aiming well. Used for most ranged attacks.
• Communication: Being persuasive, or a good liar, or some similar nature.
• Qualities: Qualities are abilities such as 'has wings', 'heavy carapace', 'sword master', 'philosopher', 'scientist', 'huge' that affect how you interact with the world without fitting into one of the numerical attributes. They have varying cost.

Domains

Defining yourself means dominating others. For each point of Ego you can define a domain, which is a way in which you can affect the world, or an aspect of the world you can affect. Alternatively you can magnify a domain, and add one success to rolls made with it. You cannot strengthen a domain more times than you have number of domains to begin with.

Typical domains are a class of object (swords, chains) or substance (stone, fire) or phenomenon (fate, lust, wrath).

Domains are usually rationalised or stylised in some way, activated through magic words or special martial arts techniques or technological devices. If they are, this expands the possibilities for stunting, at the cost of being possible to negate.

Characters

Muraxi

Background: Like many demons, Muraxi was originally an infant's soul in Limbo, one still unformed and not cleansed of original sin and easily pulled downwards to the Netherworld and into the proximity of a fire elemental and the Childer of a deposed President of Hell; what many in the Netherworld chose to call family. Shaped by proximity and infernal parenting, Muraxi become a true demon and as reflection of both Sires; from one, strength and power over flames and from the other, charisma and ambition.

Type: Demon

Ego: 3

Temporary Ego: 3

Drive: 5

Heart: 3

• Strength: 2
• Speed: 2
• Perception: 4
• Precision: 2
• Communication: 4
• Qualities: N/A

Domains: Fire, Iron, Oratory

Inoue Chikako

Type: Damned

Ego: 3

Temporary Ego: 3

Drive 3 (5)

Heart 5 (10)

• Strength: 4
• Speed: 2
• Perception: 2
• Precision: 3
• Communication: 3

Powers: Fate, Determination, Swords

Background: A normal highschool girl (sorta), Chikako committed a great plethora of minor sins. Over a life time it wouldn't have added up to much, unfortunately Chikako's life was very short. She cracked her head open while running in the winter and died before anyone could find her. Now she's in hell school, a new transfer student from life, trying to survive against all the odds. There was also the whole time she beat that boy to death with her kendo sword for cheating on her and hitting her when she found out. That might actually have something to do with why she's here. Running away from his gang onto an icy road certainly contributed to her death.

Hoktuhetiel

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Type: Devil

Ego: 3

Temporary Ego: 3

Drive 3 (6)

Heart 2 (4)

• Strength: 7
• Speed: 7
• Perception: 1
• Precision: 2
• Communication: 3

Powers: Heat, Passion, Rebellion

Background: Hoktuhetiel was once a seraph, a six-winged being of fire who circled around an ineffable godhead proclaiming the glories of existence and the holiness of the Creator. Among those of his circle he was uniquely blessed with a gift of empathy, and through it was able to see the distant achievements of a fledgling humanity. His flames grew hotter as his passion for the created grew, but so did his position slowly lower from view of the throne. After aeons, he said his very first words beyond a proclamation of the greatness of the divine, and in that moment precipitated his fall to Hell as one of the devils. With much of his cataclysmic power lost and essence now trapped in a finely-hewn body of ashen flesh and boiling blood, he now wanders the wasteland in the company of the humans that excite him so as a vagabond and troublemaker.

Iriuel

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Type: Devil

Ego: 3

Temporary Ego: 3

Drive 3

Heart 4

• Strength: 3
• Speed: 3
• Perception: 4
• Precision: 4
• Communication: 2

Powers: Time, Space, Mind

Background: The Fall of Iriuel is a mystery. A loyal Lt. of Lucifer's at one point was given a mission to find a way to make the rebellion work. What was found was forbidden knowledge that drove her insane and useless. Since the fall a cycle has emerged where she comes back to and climbs upon the path her previous footsteps had traveled, apparently discovers what drove her insane again and goes insane. The cycle repeating with ever longer periods of pure madness, and now it begins again.