Demon: The Fallen

Overall score:

It's been years since I had anything to do with the White Wolf angst-fest commonly known as the World of Darkness (Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalyse, Mage: The Ascension, etc.) Although I still enjoyed the games in many ways, I was more than a little glad that I'd put the whole ordeal behind me (I've found a more than adequate substitute in White Wolf's new anime-fantasy epic Exalted series, anyway). But, just like the mafia, they sucked me back in. I'd managed to avoid any spark of interest in Hunter: The Reckoning, but the new addition to the World of Darkness, Demon: The Fallen, just seemed too good to pass on. White Wolf had broken some new ground with their modern gothic setting when they first introduced it, but in recent years they have played it safe and not ventured far from their dependably angst-ridden fan base. White Wolf fans have joked for years about a Storyteller game based on demons - they didn't think that the company would ever have the guts to release something so imminently controversial. But they did.

The result is Demon: The Fallen, complete with a flaming pentagram on the cover. It's an interesting and challenging game, even though it's full of contradictions and problematic ethical suppositions. The game starts exactly where it absolutely has to: with an explanation of how in the hell (or, more appropriately, out of the hell) you can excuse demon protagonists in a roleplaying game. After a brief short-story prelude, the first four chapters (a huge chunk of the book) are spent giving the proverbial other side of the story. The story of the Creation, War in Heaven, and Fall from Grace are told from the perspective of the conflict's losing side, and the differences are significant. The story begins with the angels, glorious multi-dimensional beings in the service of God, creating a work of art and beauty—the world. They populate the world with life of all kinds, but God refuses to give the mortals full consciousness for reasons that are never explained. Some of the angels believe that this inaction will lead to a future catastrophe of some kind, and decide to awaken the mortals on their own out of love for their creations. God casts these angels out of heaven for their interference and names them "demons." The loyal forces of heaven begin to wage war on the outcasts, who have made the world their home, living among the mortals. The war lasts a thousand years, during which time the demons enlighten mankind (the Age of Babel), but the fallen angels gradually become corrupt and twisted by the ravages of war. Eventually, God casts them into the Pit, where they suffer in darkness and torment for millennia. Then, some spiritual shift weakens the gates of their eternal prison, and some of the lesser demons are able to escape. They return to the mortal plane, inhabiting the bodies of mortals who have lost all their will. The demon's psyche melds with the mortal's, and the demon's twisted proclivities become tempered by their host's morality. As a result, many demons find themselves having impulses to serve good that they have not felt since the early days of the War Against Heaven. Also, they find that God and his angels have disappeared from the universe, and they are left as the only angelic protectors of mankind.

This epic story is told as a series of short stories, in which demons discuss their history with mortals and other demons. This narrative-style exposition makes the history much more interesting to read, but it makes later reference to specific facts much more difficult. The fifth chapter of the rulebook departs from this exposition for the first time, introducing each of the seven Houses of demons in turn (there had been seven kinds of angels - one for each day of the creation). Each House is discussed in a two-page spread, typical of White Wolf games, and the write-ups do a good job of showing the angelic origins of these beings and how their original purposes were twisted when they became demons. However, the grandeur you would expect is largely missing - the illustrations portray the demons as regular dudes, and little mention is made of their vast power and former glory. This chapter also discusses the current factions existing in demon culture, from those who seek to reconcile themselves with heaven to those who want to simply destroy and corrupt mankind.

Chapters Six through Nine cover character generation and game mechanics. The character generation system focuses more on social and interpersonal matters than most games—characters get a wide variety of social Backgrounds and Abilities to choose from, and they have Virtues to deal with on top of the typical World of Darkness mechanics. The focus on politics and social interaction is unexpected if you, like me, thought this game was going to be all pitchforks and flaming wings. The system seems to push for a more cerebral kind of gaming, relying even less on action and combat than most other White Wolf games. This theory is born out by the demonic powers granted to PCs as well—some of them are cool, but they seem to function more often as ways to show the character's nature than as ways to defeat the forces of evil. The system is also disappointingly inflexible, offering only three distinct hierarchies of powers to each demonic House. The mechanics, on the other hand, benefit from multiple editions of the system from White Wolf, incorporating the best of past games for a smooth set of rules that aren't too clumsy or esoteric.

Chapter Ten covers the basics of running a campaign for Demon: The Fallen. And this is where, at least for me, the conceptual problems of the game all came crashing in. The premise of the game is basically this: the universe was created by a power that was unknowable and uncaring and who has apparently abandoned his/her creations. This God struck down those who attempted to love and serve mankind, creating a force of evil that has since spent its time tempting mortals in whispering voices from the Pit. Believing in a benevolent creator is fine - believing that the universe was created through natural process is also fine. Believing that mankind was created by a malevolent power, however, is the bleakest imaginable foundation for a belief system. Demon: The Fallen doesn't answer a lot of the unanswered questions relating to this premise - like what happened to Lucifer (he didn't go to the Pit) or where God went off to - but I get the feeling that the answers, if White Wolf gives them eventually, will not be pretty.

In spite of this ugly premise, the themes involved in Demon are largely hopeful, dealing with damnation and redemption. Gamemasters running the game are encouraged to have their PCs fight evil demonic powers and demon-worshipping cults and to seek a purification that is possible because they inhabit mortals who have an inherent goodness. However, if redemption is the theme of the game, then why did Lucifer and his followers have to be right in the first place? It seems like the theme would work better if the fallen angels had been flawed in their initial motives. It looks almost like White Wolf made Lucifer wholly unselfish and benevolent for no reason other than because it's more edgy that way.

It looks to me like Demon: The Fallen is a good game for players who like dark, political/cerebral roleplaying with a supernatural edge. The game requires a certain degree of maturity—in the wrong hands, the themes of inner struggle and redemption could fall to the wayside in favor of mindless amoral violence and carnage, but this is true of all White Wolf games (and RPGs generally). Overall, Demon is a novel and interesting game presented with impressive attention to detail and nuance. It has some flaws, but they shouldn't stand in the way of players interested in the game's setting and themes.

Written by Kid_Kilowatt on January 15th, 2003