Questions regarding apparently non-sentient Demons (f. ex. technological)
lachek:
Marv, thanks! Just to make it clear, most of the ideas (text, even) is lifted directly from Afterglow. I've added a few details to flesh the world out in the direction I wanted to take it.
Quite a few subtle changes are needed to the one-sheet to incorporate Seth's suggestions into it. In particular, the overarching assumption that sorcery in the setting is science and technology needs to be turned on its head: science and technology exists, but is only useful for manipulation of perfectly mundane tech (which could still be represented with certain "demon" abilities). Sorcery is the application of magical thinking to the science. A sorcerer understands that a computer doesn't just need electricity to do its work - it needs (Needs!) respect, frequent attention, and (like my home PCs) a commitment demonstrated by the continuous and expensive acquisition of more parts.
The Dragon Master:
Reading this has me totally wanting to run a post singularity/techno-animist Sorcerer game!
And GreatWolf? That's definitely been my experience with computers. When I was a kid I had a comodor64, followed by an IBM POS, both of which required certain rituals in order to keep them working. This led to me building my own PC, named Loki due to it's personality and the way it responded to every... single... change I made (change the background color? well now we need to reboot, clear the cache, reboot again, and better wipe the browsing history... ok, now it runs right... crap, forgot to update the IE version. Okay, reboot, clear the cache...)
Then I went to college for my AAS in Microsoft Networking Tech. Learned that most of the ritual Loki and I went through had nothing to do with the changes I was making. Went back home and... If I didn't follow the rituals (or at least punish Loki with loud voices and large thumping instruments) the changes either wouldn't take, or they'd take the system down.
I've been in tech support now for about two years and... yeah, they're sentient. They just don't want us to know yet. And I'm not going to spill their secret (they know where I live after all ;-).
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