Crowley Memorial Society – Google Docs
The Crowley Memorial Society
It has had many names. The ‘Crowley Memorial Society’ is merely the latest alias, and it will probably switch again in the next two decades. When you’re operating a fairly clandestine group to help demons on the run, you tend not to invest too much in fancy letterheads.
Not that the demons need all that much help; they’re powerful supernatural creatures, and the official ‘clients’ of the Society enjoy a certain tacit protection from the forces of Heaven. But the Society is still vulnerable, because the same unofficial understanding that keeps rebellious demons from being harried too strongly also tacitly concedes that Hell can push a bit more at the Society itself. Not at the level of bombs in the mail, or human secretaries being killed and eaten in the parking garage. But disrupting the Society’s business is absolutely allowed.
And what is the Society’s business? Again, it’s helping demons who have decided to rebel further by rebelling against Hell. They have a very specific clientele, too. Demons who have broken with Hell because they are ready to seek forgiveness from The LORD don’t need the Society at all, and demons who merely wish to kill and torment as they please on Earth will find the Society as an implacable an enemy as are the forces of both Heaven and Hell. The Society helps demons who are happy enough with what they are, but who are also capable of acting in a way that human society considers ‘civilized.’ The Society’s clients can be criminals and jerks, but they are expected to avoid being vile or monstrous.
There are three major factions within the Society’s clients:
- The Repentant. This group is in flux; it consists of demons who are in fact contemplating rejoining Heaven, but who have either not yet summoned up the courage to try, or who have not yet given up all on all worldly pleasures and base instincts. Repentant demons tend toward isolation, undergoing voluntary vigorous regimes of self-discipline and denial in order to come to grips with their nature. They sometimes need to be checked on — or bailed out.
- The Immigrants. These are the demons that have ‘gone native;’ something about human society calls to them, and they have seized on it with the urgency of a convert. A lot of them have human spouses, lovers, or even families; while demons can breed with humans, their children are always themselves fully human. Other demons identify with human groups, races, or countries. Put another way: Immigrants surround themselves with softer targets, and while there’s supposed to be a limit on what Hell can do to those targets sometimes Hell has a chance to exploit a blind spot.
- The Exiles. These are the ones closest to ‘regular’ demons. Their position is simple: Lucifer’s rebellion was doomed from the start, and no futile rebellion is ever worth the demon’s own (exceptionally valuable) hide. Exiles would be happy to sign any kind of accord or peace treaty or surrender agreement that would end the fight between Heaven and Hell, as long as it was understood that the Exiles would be ruling over Hell afterwards — in Heaven’s name, of course. This does not appear to be happening any time soon, so in the meantime Exiles stay on Earth and keep a somewhat humiliating low profile. They’re the ones who test the Society’s rules the most, the ones who get the most Infernal attention — and the ones who make the Heavenly Host grit its collective teeth the hardest. On the bright side: Exiles are also typically rich and powerful, and by now they understand that it’s not a good idea to try to stiff the people who do come to bail them out.
As one might imagine, trying to coordinate the actions of these three factions is difficult; many Society staffers like to relax by herding cats. Fortunately, there aren’t that many demons on Earth at any given time, and demons are not social creatures. That means that each individual can be treated on a case-by-case basis, and there’s usually no danger of two or more demons getting together to synergize their troublemaking.
Well, except in the Society itself, of course. There’s usually at least two or three demons in each office: the rest are humans who are aware that Heaven and Hell exist, and virtually all of those humans have since swiftly aligned themselves with Heaven (there’s often one semi-official ‘spy’ for Hell, because the whole situation is complicated). The headquarters has maybe a dozen demons. They’re all mostly Immigrants in the regional offices, with a mix of Immigrants and Exiles in the main HQ; office politics are what you’d expect from a bunch of demons trying to function like they were actually part of a cheerful, chattering pack of talking monkeys, but the business gets done. It has to: after all, they’re the ones with the targets on their backs.
And Heaven isn’t really all that sympathetic; if it weren’t for the slow-but-steady stream of demons repenting, the Crowley Society could probably go whistle for angelic help. Between that, and the Society’s former clients offering their own advocacy, the Heavenly Host still extends its grudging support. For now. The Society had better hope that circumstances don’t change. Or at least that the Society (or its agents) can stop a hypothetical future setback from turning into a full-fledged disaster.