You think that demons are the experts at character
assassination? Please: those guys have no inter-Word
cohesion. Sure, you can get individual experts, and
certain demonic organizations are very good, in a
limited arena, but if you want breadth and
flexibility, go talk to the Host.
To be fair, it's only been in the last century or so
that Heaven started using their inherent advantages.
Like a lot of other nastily fun activities, it was all
due to Marc's gradual assumption of Heaven's
intelligence agencies: his Collators uncover a lot of
useful scraps of information in the course of their
duties. Amass enough of them about someone, and a
particularly bright celestial and/or blessed soul can
gather enough evidence of secret Hellsworn status (or
at least general nastiness) to justify a
investigation.
Once that happens, the Adjustment Department comes out
to play.
The Adjustment Department is mostly comprised of
Servitors of Trade, Protection and Revelation, but
anyone willing to participate (and able to get
permission to do so from their Archangel) is welcome.
Mercurians are always welcome for their insights into
human psychology (although few if any can actually
actively participate), Kyriotates usually end up
performing preliminary investigations - or inciting
the obligatory angry mob afterwards - and
Elohim/Malakim make excellent bait (albeit for
completely different reasons). Other Choirs are less
represented, but not unknown.
The Department's targets are mostly Hellsworn and/or
demons who have been found out without - and this is
the important part - actually realizing that they have
been found out. Suitable candidates are then s u b
jected to a very careful and quiet investigation of
his or her particular weaknesses, with special
emphasis on ferreting out any secret perversions or
antisocial behaviors. Once one has been found (or
evidence of same has been faked), a scenario to
exploit it is crafted with loving care. After that,
all that remains to place the temptation in the
target's path while making sure that there's a camera
crew in the vicinity.
Such a scenario usually avoids the death of the
target, at least directly. The problem is that simply
killing someone may not actually solve a particular
problem: there's always someone ready to take the
tragically-slain leader's place. Thoroughly smearing
a person's reputation, on the other hand, will also
neutralize a target's influence - and the muck can
often be counted upon to splatter onto the target's
public causes. More than one would-be political
movement has been shut down cold before it starts by a
judicious Adjustment.
It didn't take long for Heaven to realize that Hell
would always kill a servant with a blown cover, if the
alternative was to let the Host destroy his or her
reputation. Adjustment missions thus tend to combine
very stealthy preparations with a fairly dramatic, and
public, revelation. There are many in the Host that
criticize the Adjustment Department work for just this
reason: the argument that this sort of thing just
feeds Nybbas' Word has a lot of force behind it. The
Department's stock response to this is that this sort
of thing also encourages the rest of Hell to think
that the Media would cheerfully let them go down in
flames if it would mean better ratings, thus eroding
demonic trust levels even further. The essential
Truth of this position has kept the Department a going
concern for now.
What makes all of this truly obnoxious is the fact
that there are very few corporeal situations that will
discommode a 'victim' who has a backup body and a
strong dose of righteous indignation. The actual
level of outrageousness (in every sense of the word)
of a typical Adjustment should be carefully tailored
to fit the campaign...
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