In Nomine Revisited: Jacob, Ofanite of the Wind.

This is mostly of interest for people curious as to what kind of In Nomine character I would play.  Welp, here he is.  From an campaign in the early Oughts.

Jacob – Google Docs

Jacob
Ofanite of the Wind

Corporeal Forces: 3           Strength: 4 Agility: 8
Ethereal Forces: 3              Intelligence: 6 Precision: 6
Celestial Forces: 3              Will: 5 Perception: 7

Vessel: Caucasian Male/2

Role: “Jake” (Bounty Hunter/2, Status/2)

Skills: Area Knowledge/3 (LA, ‘native’), Dodge/3, Driving/2, Emote/1, Fighting/2, Knowledge (Angelic Lore/1, Demonic Lore/1, Ethereal Lore/1, Occultism/2), Languages (English/3 (‘Native’), Old English/1), Move Silently/1, Ranged Weapon/2 (pistol), Savoir-Faire/1, Small Weapon/1 (Knife), Survival/1 (Ethereal)

Songs: Healing (Corporeal/1), Form (Ethereal/1), Shields (Corporeal/1)

Attunements: Ofanite of the Wind, Mercurian of the Wind

 

Jacob heard this story, once, about a swallow that was flying through the darkness, then entered a lighted room for a bit, then flew right back out again into the darkness.  A bunch of philosophers ran with that metaphor and tried to imagine what that swallow might have felt, in that moment of light — and how it faced the fact that it was going to be in the dark again right afterwards.  A pity they never got a chance to talk to the Ofanite: he could have set them straight immediately. You see, it’s actually no big deal for the swallow: he’s just going to settle down and wait for the next bloody room.

Trust Jacob on this.

Jacob is over one thousand years old.  Well, sort of. His configuration of Forces has been around for a bit more than a millennium: in terms of actual memories, he’s maybe twenty-five, if that.  He blames Legion — mostly because you have to blame somebody in cases like this, and God knows Legion deserves all the blame that can be tossed on it.  

Before the Legion Incident, he was just a newly fledged Ofanite of the Wind, doing his thing.  During the Legion Incident, he was one of the innumerable extras whose major job was to charge in heroically and die well fighting off zombis (for the record, Jacob was cool with that.  Somebody had to do it). After the Legion Incident? Naturally, Jacob was in Trauma. And, when he finally got out of Trauma several decades later, Jacob went right back down to Earth and rejoined the War.  And then he promptly found himself in a situation where the only honorable option available was to charge in heroically and die well doing the Right Thing.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.  Over and over and over again.

By now, Jacob’s at the point where Trauma has stopped being an unbearably mind-shattering experience and started being a good way to catch up on naptime.  At the moment, the cycle seems to be: come out of Trauma, spend about a month or so running around, then get faced with a situation where he has to do something heroic that will send him back to Trauma for about a decade.  Over the years, there has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of Trauma-time Jacob suffers after any particular vessel-death; he’s pretty sure that in another two or three thousand years he’ll be at the point where he might even be immune to it, just like the Malakim!  Assuming of course that the War’s not over by then. It’s something to look forward to, at least.

What needs to be understood is that none of this especially bothers the angel.  Jacob’s gotten used to the fact that, all things considered, he’s apparently going to see at most a year out of every century; it may be inconvenient at times, but at least it’s never boring.  One of the nice things about being immortal is that most of your friends tend to be immortal, too: you can always go back and finish a conversation later. There’s also the bonus that you can pretty much ignore stupid short-term annoyances, because realistically they’ll probably be gone the next time you wake up.  Servitors of the Wind have to deal with that sort of thing all the time: the Ofanite is happy to not have to.

He’s not quite the same entity he was, though.  Jacob, like all Servitors of the Wind, enjoys shaking up the established order whenever and wherever possible: however, unlike many of them he tries to be a bit more complex about it.  For example, he dearly loves to freak out the Dominicans, as is only right and fitting — but he does it by being honestly and truthfully respectful towards them and their tasks. If assigned a punishment (and Servitors of Judgement have been known to give creative punishments to Servitors of the Wind), he’ll cheerfully undergo it without a hint of resentment or sullenness.  He always says ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’, never talks back to the Dominicans, keeps them informed about things, and generally does his best to help them do their jobs properly.

This can confuse the living Hell out of the newer Dominicans, especially since Jacob’s traditional way of celebrating being out of Trauma is to go steal the first Inquisitor’s notebook that he sees and use it as a gambling stake at Archangel Janus’s Eternal Floating Dice Game.  That’s Jacob in a nutshell: simultaneous embraces of somewhat contradictory attitudes and deliberate attacks on stereotypes. Fortunately, the Archangel of the Wind can see the joke.

Currently: well, Jacob just woke up, again, and got assigned a quickie Role maintained by a Reliever of the Wind (go ahead and laugh: everybody else does, including the Reliever), again, and got sent down to Earth on assignment, again.  This time it’s Los Angeles: apparently it isn’t quite Demon City anymore, which is nice, and some of the angels down there need some backup, which is also nice.
Time to go see what interesting things are happening on this turn of the Wheel.

Jacob is a balanced starting character.

The material presented here is my original creation, intended for use with the In Nomine and GURPS systems from Steve Jackson Games. This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games.
In Nomine and GURPS are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.