There's one thing that's told to every demon assigned
to Earth duty, at the earliest possible opportunity.
In fact, for the first few weeks, every other demon
that the trainee meets will make it a point to mention
said thing, in blithe disregard for Word or
Band-hostility. They have to, as most demons don't
want to hear this piece of advice, even when it's in
their best interest to do so, and constant repetition
(and negative reinforcement) is the best way to make
sure that it sinks in. The advice is simple:
Do NOTHING to attract attention on Good Friday. Stay
home, watch TV, order in your meals and cause NO
disturbance. If it's a choice between racking up
dissonance and doing anything to call attention to
yourself, no matter how small - eat the dissonance.
This reticent attitude has nothing to do with piety,
and has everything to do with fear. You see,
experienced demons know what's going on in Heaven on
that day: every Christian angel is (after a short
but heartfelt formal religious service) spending the
day inflicting guilt upon themselves.
You see, they failed. God came back, and nobody saw
Him in time. He had to come back, too, because the
Host did not do their duty by humanity. He had to
clean up their mess, and He didn't even give anyone a
word of richly-deserved reproof. Then, because the
angels screwed up so badly, God had to be nailed to a
tree and had to die to properly fix things. And
He still didn't say anything, which doesn't mean
anything, because He's... well, just that merciful and
benevolent. The Host could have messed things up even
more (although precisely how is hard to imagine), and
God would have forgiven them. This really makes all
of them feel even worse.
All the Christian angels feel this way, and it just
gets worse as the day goes on. Laurence himself is
the epitome of the above attitude - after all, he was
around and able to protect his Creator, but did he?
He didn't even recognize God when He took human form -
and whose fault is that, really? Obviously, it's
Laurence's. The fact that he hadn't even seen his
first century (and wasn't even a Word-bound) at that
point is absolutely immaterial to him. He could have
done something.
Now, imagine that you're an angel (or Archangel)
wrestling with this incredible amount of frustration
and shame. Misery loves company, so you've all
gathered together to give each other what comfort that
you may. Now imagine that you get told of demonic
activity - any demonic activity. Guess what happens?
It's worse, from Hell's point of view. Long
experience has shown that the Christian contingent of
the Host will react to any infraction that they
perceive on Good Friday in a manner normally
associated with the Order of the Eternal Sword - and
serious infractions go off the scale. The base chance
for invoking Laurence is a 6 on this day, and reaction
modifiers are meaningless (if you've got a demon to
Smite, Laurence will be happy to answer your call, no
matter who you are).
The level of response has a hideous flavor of overkill
to it: we're talking about sending a squad of twenty
to punish some unlucky demon that's snatched a purse.
Some demons have tried to use this gut reaction to set
up an ambush: it never works. If the twenty don't
rectify the situation, then the next batch of
celestials that show up (within about a minute) will
number two hundred. If that doesn't work, then the
next bunch will be two full legions with Laurence
himself leading the charge. And they'll all be the
mood for washing out guilt with noise (Disturbance?
Who cares?) and blood.
Demons aren't stupid creatures. Heaven can't maintain
this level of intensity full time (if they could, the
War would have ended a while back), but when they
do... well, only a fool goes looking for trouble.
Unfortunately, Demon Princes refuse to let this matter
lie (no matter how sensible it would be to just wait a
bloody day or two before setting a plan in motion).
They traditionally use Good Friday to cull their
Servitors. If a demon gets a specific assignment to
do on that day, said demon can be assured that his or
her Prince is not happy with their performance (or
that some Servitor higher up in the organization is
giving said demon the shaft). Failure is not
'officially' an option - but "success" is equivalent
to "survival", in this special case only.
The implications for this for adventure hooks should
be obvious.
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