This wasn’t really all that serious, either.
HellCows of Ronald – Google Docs
HellCows of Ronald
The Prince of Cows absolutely refuses to seek out human servants (he gets a few, anyway, mostly servants of various demons ‘assigned’ to the Service of Cows). However, Ronald needs corporeal agents as badly as any other Demon Prince, so he’s come up with a fairly, ah, unique way of getting them.
Yes, he has Hellsworn cows.
Normally, a cow has two Corporeal Forces (Strength 5, Agility 3), and nothing else. Ronald is able to raise this by two Forces (always 1 Ethereal and 1 Celestial). The new Soldier (usually called a Hellcow) will be Symphonically aware, may regulate his or her Essence expenditures, and may learn any Cowporeal Song (see below). Ronald wouldn’t mind giving Hellcows access to Band Attunements by handing out Forces from Infernals (they could hardly do a worse job), but unfortunately all of said Attunements are resonance-based.
Unlike mortal Soldiers, Hellcows get the Forces before they sign up to serve Ronald. Being Hellsworn is a matter of choice, and normal cows simply aren’t bright enough to deliberately serve evil. However, most cows sign up right away. Suddenly achieving sentience, discovering that you’re food, or finding out that your mind will be taken away from you if you don’t behave would be traumatic, all by themselves. Discovering all three at once merely makes your choices clear.
So, what do Hellcows do? Pretty much the same things that human Soldiers do for other Princes. Granted, they’re usually not too smart, the entire lack of hands is a problem, and bovines don’t blend into cities too well, but Hellcows have their uses. Ronald uses them as spies, Essence reserves, and occasionally executioners. One of the myriad problems the Prince of Cows has with Western society is that his darlings aren’t allowed to just wander through towns anymore, which means he’s much more effective in less industrialized societies (with the glaring exception of India: see below).
It should be noted that animals (even Hellcows) normally don’t go to Hell when they die. Ronald has been trying to work on this for thousands of years, with no success. However, he’s worked out a variant of the mummification techniques used by Saminga to make his loyal Hellcows Undead. The principles remain the same, with a few exceptions. First, no Forces are ever lost, and none are gained by the mummification procedure. Second, the Need gained by vampire cows is always human blood, and the Need gained by zombie cows is always human flesh. Finally, mummy cows do not Need to eat human flesh, but they seem to gain a delusion that they do (treat as a level/3 Ethereal Discord, -1 reaction per level, worth full points). When an Undead Hellcow dies, they die just as thoroughly as their human counterparts.
Resources
Supercow
This Attunement is only available to cow Soldiers. It doubles their Forces, for the purpose of calculating Song rolls, hits, and Essence capacity only.
Cowporeal Songs
These Songs are normally the only ones a Hellcow may learn. They are all considered Corporeal Songs, and follow normal rules for use and learning, except that disturbance is always increased by 1. Apparently, even the Symphony considers a Song-wielding bovine to be even more wrong than usual.
After the name of each Song is listed a cut of meat. Anyone who eats said cut of meat that was taken from a Hellcow who knew that Song will be able to automatically perform that Song once. For example, eating the liver of a Hellcow who knew Numinous Corpus: Fangs will make that Song available, at the level known by the Hellcow. The consumer doesn’t even have to be Symphonically aware (or any other kind of aware): the next time he needs six-inch fangs and he’s got the Essence, out they come.
Once Kobal finds out about this (and there’s a Lilim of Cows who thinks – correctly – that apprising him of this will get her back into Dark Humor’s service), he’s going to be gibbering at the thought of all the possibilities…
- Charm (equivalent to the Corporeal Song of Charm) / cow eyes
- Entropy (equivalent to Corporeal Song of Entropy) / sirloin
- Healing (equivalent to the Corporeal Song of Healing) / ribs
- Motion (equivalent to the Ethereal Song of Motion) / hamburger
- Numinous Corpus: Fangs / liver
- Numinous Corpus: Wings / shoulder cut
- Shields (equivalent to the Corporeal Song of Shields) / rump
- Tongues (equivalent to the Ethereal Song of Tongues) / tongue
Brightcows
It wasn’t until Ronald started his quest to promote cows that celestials realized that animals had the potential for extra Forces, too. Some cows have the potential for 3 Forces, and the pact that Ronald makes doesn’t affect that at all. Sometimes, one of these Hellcows will manifest said Force, bringing up their total to 5.
When that happens, it invariably results in the augmented Hellcow breaking with its Infernal master. Most are destroyed quickly, but a few manage to make their way to either the Archangel of Animals or the Hindu Pantheon. There, once of course they repent of their evil ways, they stop being Hellcows and become Brightcows.
Many angels (and not a few demons) do their best to not laugh about any of this, but it isn’t easy. The parallels with Lilim are just too glaringly obvious, which might be one reason why Lilith goes after Brightcows hammer and tongs.
Brightcows are built on 5 Forces, with the Supercow Attunement and no restrictions on Song use. Their other abilities remain unchanged (including their ability to inadvertently gift others with access to Cowporeal Songs). Jordi uses Brightcows to investigate Infernal meddling in rural areas: the Hindu pantheon uses them to keep Ronald firmly out of India.
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