It all seems so simple, in the beginning: cruel, but
simple. The word on the street is that Servitors of
Factions are planning to spice up this year's Purim by
ostentatiously assassinating some of the most vocal
opponents to the nation of Israel. The idea, of
course, is to suggest that more extreme Jewish groups
are attempting to recreate the meat of the Book of
Esther in the modern era. Ought to be good for a
laugh (and maybe even a war), especially as those not
wanting either to happen now have to play impromptu
bodyguards to a whole bunch of people, some of whom
are not very nice. That'll tie up the Servitors of
Faith and Stone.
Then, just as the entire things getting into high
gear, comes the news that it all might be a trick:
what Hell is really going to do is wait until Heaven's
committed its forces, then crash a jetliner into Notre
Dame. _That'll_ get the Servitors of the Sword
sitting up and taking notice, let me tell you -
especially since his Holiness was thinking of being in
Paris that day.
No, wait, there's another ploy going on. Somebody's
infiltrated an Indian chemical refinery, and now his
fingers are on the switches that will turn the entire
Ganges River toxic. The Hindu ethereals are screaming
bloody murder, and gee, aren't there a lot of
Servitors of War flitting around, steadfastly not
saying a word and glaring at anyone who looks at them?
Odd how Michael isn't saying a word about his troops
helping out, too. Or Jordi, for that matter.
Hold on! Everyone drop everything! It's all a ruse!
What's really going to happen is that an annual
convention of the most influential West Coast
neopagans is going to suddenly realize that their
drinking water is absolutely drenched with LSD and
PCP! Now _Novalis_ is screaming bloody murder,
especially since it's going to take place in the
middle of her favorite San Francisco Tether.
Do you get the picture? All of a sudden, just about
every major religion is going to have something bad
happen to them, all at the same time - and in a method
guaranteed to piss off royally at least one Archangel.
There's already been a shouting match in the Council
about resources. Normally, Marc would be doing his
best to keep the peace, but right now he's kind of
busy trying to find all the pipe bombs secreted
throughout Wall Street. Heck, even Jean's showing the
strain (of course, that might be from the seven
hundred new 'fry everything electronic' viruses that
got uploaded into the Internet last weekend).
Dominic's scribbling notes so fast that it would take
a nuclear explosion to get his attention.
So, which crisis is real?
Actually, none of them.
OK, the pipe bombs and the viruses are real. But as
for the rest, Kobal's just bored. He knows that the
Other Side will figure it all out, eventually, but so
what? This didn't cost him much in the way of
resources (after all, it just has to look like all of
this is about to happen) - and in the meantime, a lot
of entities are saying unkind things that they'll
regret later. Not that everybody will actually
apologize for saying them, of course. From Kobal's
point of view, the less actual damage that this stunt
causes, the better, as he wants the various and sundry
Archangels to feel like idiots for overreacting.
True, they'll want to kill him afterwards: but then,
they want to kill him now. The Prince of Dark Humor
knows that this scheme may cost him in the long run,
but he really couldn't resist.
Perceptive GMs will wonder what the PC's roles will be
in all this.
They're along for the ride, baby; there isn't much
that they can do to solve this problem. Run them
ragged trying to solve one 'crisis' after another, and
let them get more and more worried when they can't
uncover any nefarious schemes. Every so often, let
them find a pipe bomb or something, otherwise they'll
twig to this too fast. When they look sufficiently
frightened (or you start getting bored), trot out the
videotape of Kobal pointing and laughing. It'll be
good for their humility.
Fair warning, though: running this may not be good for
_your_ health...
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