Created by: Neel Krishnaswami <neelk@MIT.EDU>
"The tree of liberty must from time to time be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system and too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe
Stats: Zeredah is a very powerful servitor of Michael. The stats below are as I would run him; you should scale him up or down depending on your own campaign. He is suitable for use as a patron angel, or major (campaign-long) opponent. If you use him as a patron, the PC should get Z's rites and dissonance instead of Michael's, but should have Michael's attunements with an option to buy Z's special attument.
Corporeal Forces -- 6 Strength 12 Agility 12 Ethereal Forces -- 5 Intelligence 12 Precision 8 Celestial Forces -- 6 Perception 12 Will 12
Human/6 x3, +3 Charisma
All attunements of War, Revolution attunement
Vassal of War, Friend of Fighters, Master of Valor
Songs: Many
Skills: Also many
If a human, without coercion and of his own free will, speaks out against an injustice, for 2 Essence the angel can cause all the listeners to realize the truth of that human's words. For an additional 10 (!) Essence, the words can be in any medium. Soldiers of God don't count as uncoerced; the speaker has to fully be a part of the Symphony. Furthermore, the listeners' responses to their realization of the truth are also unconstrained: anything from rationalizing away the truth to shaking their heads in disgust to rising up in rebellion.
Michael, the Archangel of War, fully understands the value of the tactical withdrawals for a revolutionary force. So retreat from combat is *not* dissonant to Zeredah. However, tolerating institutional oppression of any sort is dissonant to Zeredah. His response doesn't have to be violent, but he cannot sit back quietly and ignore repression.
When Lucifer first began spreading his heresies, one of his most eager listeners was an ardent young Ofanite named Zeredah. Zeredah was as intellectually adventurous as the rest of his Choir was physically, and the thought of remaking Creation into a new and better thing drew him into his Fall. However, Zeredah renounced Hell and Redeemed precisely as soon as he saw exactly what the Devil's new order would be like, and he made his way to Michael, to demand a chance to make up for his errors.
Michael saw his new servitor perhaps more clearly than Zeredah saw himself, and accepted him into his service, granting him the word of Revolutions to boot. He was given the job of teaching mankind to rebel against old, corrupt ways and replacing them with new and better forms.
Zeredah's dealings with man have caused him to become extremely interested in human political philosophy, everything from feudal customary law to divine right of kings to social contract theory to the Marxist theory of surplus value. What's more, in true Ofanite style he has come to *believe* in all of these theories all at once. Talking with Zeredah should be a brain expanding experience, especially when he starts talking about how human political science can be applied to improve the administration of Heaven, and how modern statistical methods can be applied to figure out the will of God...
As can be inferred from the previous paragraph, Zeredah likes humans a lot, even if he doesn't always understand them. He thinks very highly of them, and will tell anyone who listen about the neat ideas they come up with. As a result, his MO for encouraging the word of Revolutions is to simply keep demons away from promising political theorists or revolutionaries, and to let the Symphony take its course.
This approach is not especially kosher in the activist administration of Laurence, but Michael has noticed its success, and has successfully convinced Laurence not to mess up a good thing. Sadly, Michael has not been able to talk the archangel of the Sword into diverting any *additional* resources to Zeredah, and Hell is often able to warp many revolutions to create brutal despotisms or violent anarchies.
As adept as Zeredah is at mortal politics, he is neither interested in nor capable at Celestial politics. An angel tasked with tearing down orders and structures is not something a David or Laurence could really understand, and the ones who do understand the need for change and flexibility -- like Blandine and Marc -- don't understand the violence with which Zeredah pursues his mission. Janus, and Gabriel when she's lucid, are understanding of Zeredah's zeal to bring down oppressive orders, but obviously, neither one makes for a terribly reliable ally. But as Zeredah spends very little time in Heaven, he is basically indifferent to the opinion of any Superior but his own.
He does, however, possess a dangerous knack for earning the enmity of Demon Princes. He has earned the particular attention of Malphas and Lilith, both of whose schemes he has thwarted time and again.
Malphas has seen Zeredah lead too many of his most promising prospects into the mires of idealism to tolerate it any longer. He has promised the word of Terrorism to the demon who soul-kills Zeredah, and has also promised to dissipate the Forces of the demon who does it in such a way that Michael can trace it back to Factions. (Hey, would you want to anger a being that can beat up *Lucifer* without breaking a sweat?)
Lilith, however, represents the greater danger. She *likes*
Zeredah...or at least, what he could become. The angelic word of Revolution
represents the oppressed rising up against an unjust order, and Lilith thinks
it is a fine word, except for that chop-logic distinction between just and
unjust order. And Zeredah has Fallen once before, hasn't he? So the Demon
Princess of Freedom has it let it be known that anyone who Trips Zeredah
will be owed a favor by Lilith herself....