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Incarnations

Each Angel is created with an "Incarnation", which served to define their task in the God-Machine's agenda. When they fall and become Demons, they tend to retain their Incarnation, and use it to further their Agenda.

    Unchained in General 

Tropes applying to all Demons

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vhdj3ku.png
  • The Ageless: Played with; the Demons themselves are biologically immortal, and as such do not age. Their Covers, on the other hand, do, meaning they have to replace them whenever one reach the end of its human lifespan.
  • Anti-Magic: Downplayed, but still impressive for the setting; in addition of preventing supernatural detection, a Cover can be used as a substitute for Primum to determine a Demon's resistance to supernatural power whenever relevant. Since Covers start out much higher than Primum (7 versus 1 for Primum) and is much easier to increase, this means Demons in human form, while not fully immune to supernatural abilities, will still have an easier time shrugging them off than most supernatural beings.
  • Anti-True Sight: Coming with their specialty as spies, Demons have the ability to "Spoof" powers meant to detect their supernatural nature, using their Cover to be registered as regular humans.
  • Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Played with and downplayed; Demons can have Virtues what humans view as Vices, and vice versa. but not because they have reversed morality; they just judge their Vices and Virtues on different principles; to them, acts of altruism are signs of a Fatal Flaw because it sabotages their own work for a quick feel-good act, while acts of selfishness bring them closer to humanity and give them more of an identity. More importantly, they still work as human Vices, ie Willpower is only gained if said Virtue as Vice is indulged at the expense of another, while Vice as Virtue gains Willpower if upheld at the expense of the self.
  • Blessed with Suck: Demons are insanely powerful sentient machines with the ability to hack reality itself, capable of literally buying lives from mortals, and so good at lying they can No-Sell any form of lie detector and supernatural-detecting power. However, they must spend their entire existence hidden among humans in a constant state of paranoia, forced to play the role of the humans they impersonate; should they ever act too much out-of-character, or even just use their powers too blatantly, their nearly all-seeing enemy will find them. And that same ability to be perfect liars means they can't even trust each other, as even they cannot tell when another one of them is lying or not.
  • Composite Character: In-universe; Demons who are unwilling to buy someone else's soul, either for ethical or pragmatic reasons, can instead create themselves a new Cover by combining the various parts of life they bought from multiple individuals, creating a combination of them. Such Covers start out more fragile, but once they solidify become truly reliable.
  • Consummate Liar: Demons are spectacularly good at acting and hiding the truth, as not only can they perfectly control their body language to avoid any sign betraying their true thought, but they also possess an ability allowing to decide if a fact is true or false at the last second, even if it's objectively false; as a result, even supernatural means to detect lies will still register them as telling the truth, even if they are saying Blatant Lies. The only moment where they have to tell the truth is when they are making a Pact.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: "Going Loud" allows a Demon to assume their One-Winged Angel form at full power, granting their access to all their affinity Embeds and raising their Primum to 10. Unfortunately, it also completely destroys their Cover, leaving their fully exposed until they find a new one.
  • Deal with the Devil: Obviously. Demons have the ability to make "Pacts" with mortals, which is based on this trope. Unlike the more classic example, however, they don't literally take souls as payment, but parts of the mortals' existence, which they use to complete their Cover and hide from the God-Machine. Trading the entire soul means the human is Ret-Gone and they take their place.
  • Glamour Failure: Compromising a Cover can cause a Demon to suffer "glitches", resulting in alterations of their psyche or physical form that betray their true nature, such as a strange tattoo, horns or speaking in rhymes. Fortunately, these glitches usually are temporary— though the more powerful a Demon gets, the harder it becomes to get rid of them.
  • Healing Factor: A weird variant, which activates only when they transform; a Demon who assumes their demonic form immediately heals a number of bashing and lethal damages equal to their Primum.
  • Hell Seeker: The Unchained understand the concept of Hell as a place or state of alienation from God. Since the only God they know is the God-Machine, they see that as a good thing, and as such actively seek to find Hell.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Demons might look like humans when using their Cover, but their whole identity is nothing but a disguise; below it, they are mechanical monstrosities with often completely alien appearances, capable of hacking reality itself.
  • Humanshifting: Starting with Primum 2, a Demon becomes capable of having multiple Covers, allowing them to have multiple identities to switch between.
  • Kill and Replace: What buying someone's entire soul actually allows them to do. Or more accurately, erase from reality and replace.
  • Magitek: The Unchained are sentient supernatural machines created by a God who literally is a quantum computer, making them a weird mix of occult and technology.
  • Mama Bear/Papa Wolf: Demons don't develop friends or loved ones easily, but when they do, they tend to value said loved one a great deal. Hurt at own risk.
  • Mechanical Abomination: What they actually are behind their Covers— mechanical creatures so ridiculously advanced they are beyond human comprehension.
  • Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: The Unchained are, to put it bluntly, Demonic cybernetic spies.
  • No Biological Sex: Demons in their true form are mostly machines, and as such lack a gender. Their Cover, however, most definitely have one, and can reproduce just fine.
  • Omniglot: Demons are automatically fluent in any language still in use, including both the ones from real-life (spanish, english, french) and the fictional ones (such as the First Tongue).
  • One-Winged Angel: While demons use Covers to look human by default, they can at any moment chose to assume their true, mechanical form, though doing so put the Cover at risk. They can also "Go loud" by destroying their Cover entirely, but they usually try to avoid that option, as this most definitely reveals their presence to the God-Machine and is likely to bring progressively stronger Angels to their location to take care of them.
  • Out-of-Character Alert: One of the main problems for Demons; whenever they are using their Cover, they have to be careful to act exactly like the person they are pretending to be, for even the slightest out-of-character moment can potentially betray them and get the God-Machine's attention.
  • Our Demons Are Different: And how. For starters, they aren't creatures of the Abrahamic mythos, or pagan gods/spirits incorporated into it, they are sentient quantum reality computer programs created by the God-Machine who severed their connection with it to become independent. The "Deals", or Pacts, they make with people actually are a way for them to trade memories and parts of people's life to complete their human disguise, called Covers.
  • Partial Transformation: Demons are capable of summoning only specific abilities of their Demonic form rather than fully transform, which costs them Aether but is significantly less dangerous for their Cover.
  • Photographic Memory: Demons automatically get the Eidetic Memory merit at character creation to represent the fact they have better memory than regular humans.
  • Remember the New Guy?: A Cover basically enforces this on reality itself— it alters humans' memory and create objects (but not people) out of thin air to make it look like the Demon had been there for a while and support this version. How credible and realistic it is depends on the Cover rating.
  • Rogue Agent: Every demon is a rogue agent of the God-Machine.

    Analysts 
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The fifth Incarnation introduced in the Demon Storyteller's Guide. Those whose role was to be the Eye of the God-Machine, collecting data and information for it. Many of them begin to fall because they started to make deductions from the data they collected.


  • Ability Mixing: Given their emphasis on Exploits as opposed to a particular field of Embeds, Analysts have a unique ability when they Go Loud. Rather than gaining access to all Embeds of their particular field, they can instead temporarily make and use freeform Exploited Interlocks, mixing the power of two Exploits into something new and extremely dangerous.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Invoked; Analysts are, for obvious reasons, especially good at figuring out how things work and how to exploit that knowledge. They tend to be very focused on skills, and they have the unique ability to start the game with a single Embed that disregards prerequisites, representing their ability to "game the system".
  • Ascended Extra: They were first briefly mentioned in Interface, before being given an official profile in the Demon Storyteller's Guide.
  • Badass Bookworm: Invoked; Analysts tend to be the scientists and engineers of the God-Machine's Angels. Their Stereotypes in the Demon Storyteller's Guide are all based on sciencey-sounding statements, such as asserting that they're the ones who figured out just how hot a Destroyer needed to get in order to burn something.
  • Identity Amnesia: Though Demons in general have a hard time remembering their time as an Angel, Analysts usually remember near nothing of their mission before Falling. This has the side effect of making many of them not even be aware of their own status of even being Analysts.
  • Intrigued by Humanity: One of the most common Falls for Analysts is when a Measuring the Marigolds type mission leads to them becoming more interested in the human reaction than in the cold hard facts of what they're doing.
  • My Skull Runneth Over: For many Analysts, their Fall came when they became distracted from their mission and the data overload corrupted them, making them incapable of doing anything but Falling.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Their entry in the Demon Storyteller's Guide lampshades their sudden revelation and works it into an In-Universe thing, with even other Demons often being ignorant of the existence of Analysts, rather than simply retconning them into having been there all along. Even Analysts themselves tend not to know they’re Analysts, mistaking themselves for other incarnations.
  • Stalker without a Crush: Many Analysts Fall not through some fault of their own, but because an angel they were paired with Fell and the Analyst was unable to resist following them into demonhood, as often from insatiable curiosity as from genuine sympathy for their partner.

    Destroyers 
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Those whose role was to kill for the God-Machine. Many begin to fall when they refuse to eliminate a specific target out of compassion. They usually keep destroying after their fall, hoping to come to terms with their relationship to violence.


  • Action Hero: Many Cacophony Embeds allow a Destroyer to pull off action-movie stunts.
  • Badass Pacifist: Some Destroyers handle their new life by refusing to kill again unless absolutely necessary, despite being quite literally killing-machines.
  • Entropy and Chaos Magic: Their Embeds of predilection, Cacophony, holds power over chaos, entropy and disharmony.
  • In Love with the Mark: A common motive for Destroyers to fall is that they develop feelings for the person they were meant to kill.
  • Professional Killer: Their very function; the God-Machine created them to serve as his personal assassins.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Another frequent reason for their Fall; Angels who successfully kill their target frequently end up realizing they leave absence behind, which causes them to grow aware of the consequences their missions have. At large, this is also the main problem Destroyers in general deal with after their Fall when they try to fit in human society— while all other Incarnations can more or less find their place, creatures designed to kill and destroy aren't exactly adapted to a "normal" life.
  • Sociopathic Soldier: Conversely, some Destroyers Fall because they got too killing-happy and started slaughtering people who weren't actually target just to satisfy their morbid fascination for murder.

    Guardians 
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Those sent by the God-Machine to protect a specific charge important to its agenda.


  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Thanks to their affinity for Instrumental Embeds, Guardians specialize in analyzing the area where they are and the materials in it to use them to their advantage.
  • Bodyguard Crush: Played straight or sometimes inverted, depending on the individual. It's common for Guardians to Fall as a result of developing feelings for the person they are supposed to protect, but the opposite also happens- sometimes they come to loathe the people they are supposed to defend (frequently because they are assholes) and end up killing them, which trigger their Fall.
  • Conflicting Loyalties: Some Guardians fall because they find out just what the God-Machine intends to do later with whoever or whatever they are currently protecting, leading to a dilemma where both options mean disobeying the directives given by the God-Machine.
  • Properly Paranoid: They have a strong reputation of being paranoid, and Falling because of it; but considering how the God-Machine has eyes everywhere, and the New World of Darkness is a Crapsack World even without taking it into account, would you really blame them?
  • Protectorate: Their defining feature- Guardians were in charge of protecting someone or something back when they were Angels, and they tend to keep this as their thing when they become Demons.

    Messengers 
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Those sent to give instructions to humans, whispering in their ears and shaping thoughts in their minds.


  • Manipulative Bastard: At their worst. As Angels, Messengers could use any method, including lying, cheating or manipulation, to deliver their instructions, and some don't really change after they become Demons.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Their function back when they served the God-Machine; they were in charge of talking for him, transmitting his instructions to mortals and manipulating people into working for him.
  • Propaganda Machine: Essentially the goal they had as Angels. They were meant to deliver and implant ideas in the mind of mortals so they would follow the will of the God-Machine.
  • The Social Expert: Obviously their area of expertise. The God-Machine used them for finesse and channeling instructions, and as such they are meant to be sociable and have charisma so they can give them convincingly.

    Psychopomps 
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Builders and organizers, taking elements to turn them into new ones. They were in charge of collecting and transporting resources and materials for the God-Machine, as well as creating the Infrastructures he needed.


  • Double Meaning: Weaponized; the Mundane Embeds they have affinity for allow them to exploit the multiple meanings in each word or expression to their advantage, clouding to people the meaning that is actually relevant.
  • Human Resources: They were in charge of dealing with every resources at the God-Machine's disposal— including humans and other supernatural beings. For many of them, this was the reason they Fell; they ended up feeling empathy for the living beings they had to re-arrange.
  • The Perfectionist: Some Psychopomps Fell because they were this, so restless they tried to correct what they saw as as errors in otherwise sound Infrastructures or making efforts to turn them into works of art.
  • Stealth Expert: All demons are good spies and infiltrators, but Psychopomps in specific are good at it, since Mundane Embeds make it really easy for them to go by unnoticed.
  • Worker Unit: Non-video game version, but this was essentially their functions as Angels — they were in charge of collecting resources and building Infrastructures. Unlike the video game equivalent however, they aren't necessarly harmless in combat; after all, some of them were in charge of collecting Human Resources or "cleaning" areas from Ghost and Spirits.

Agendas

Once Angels Fall and become Demons, they typically end up coming up with their own goals to guide their life, referred to as Agenda.

    Inquisitors 
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Information gatherers who collect knowledge in an attempt to get the upper hand on the God-Machine.


  • Conspiracy Theorist: They have a reputation of being this, seeing enemies everywhere to the point they won't share informations other might really need. Their Agenda Condition focuses on allowing them to make connections between threads to figure out the big picture.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Because of their inclination for paranoia, Inquisitors tend to be prepared for everything if they can.
  • Knowledge Broker: Their main hat; Inquisitors specialize in hoarding knowledge and using it to their own ends.
  • Properly Paranoid: All Demons are this trope to an extent thanks to the God-Machine agents being everywhere, but Inquisitors have a reputation of being this even in the eyes of their peers. To them, anything could be a trap, and they rarely give their full trust to anyone..
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Their biggest asset. Most Inquisitors have entire networks of contacts and semi-trusted allies they use to their own ends.
  • Seven Deadly Sins: Theirs is either Avarice or Envy, represented by their incessant craving for more information and willingness to do anything to take it from other people.

    Integrators 
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Those who regret their Fall and wish to return to angelhood and the God-Machine, albeit on their own terms.


  • The Atoner: How some of them see themselves- they consider they were wrong to Fall and really wish to find redemption so they can go back to being angels.
  • Les Collaborateurs: Other Agendas, especially Saboteurs, tend to see them as traitors who would gladly hand them over to the God-Machine. While not entirely false, not all of them are like this.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Integrators are not well-liked by other Demons, who feel like they could betray them at any moment and are naive or idiotic to think returning to the God-Machine would be a good thing. However, their ability to better understand angels make them very useful, so they are kept around. Amusingly enough, they can benefit from this gameplay-wise— their Agenda Condition allows them to gain a Beat whenever other members of their group are suspicious of them.
  • Hidden Depths: Other Demons like to see them as Les Collaborateurs, but there is much more to them than that. See the other tropes for more details.
  • Hijacking Cthulhu: The vast majority of them would like to somehow take over the God-Machine, reprogram it into something closer to human morality, and then give up control to return to angelhood.
  • Hypocrite: The sourcebooks point out that, if Integrators really wanted to "go back to the God-Machine" as they claim, they could; they just need to let the Angels take them. They don't do this, however, because a standard resumption into the God-Machine would entail a form of Cessation of Existence, with their conscious mind peeled away and discarded like so much rubbish. Whilst some Integrators are self-loathing enough to find this acceptable, the vast majority aren't; what they want is to rejoin the God-Machine on their terms, which always entails either retaining their conscious identity or at least being a Heroic Sacrifice that will reprogram the God-Machine.
  • Irony: Because what they seek to do entails forcibly changing the programming and goals of the God-Machine, effectively brainwashing it to serve their wishes, Integrators of the "redeemer" mentality are effectively the most traitorous of all demons, despite viewing themselves as loyal servants.
  • The Mole: The most fanatical among them think they are this; they believe their Fall is part of the God-Machine's plan so they can serve him on the side of the enemy.
  • Real Men Love Jesus: In contrast with most Demons, Integrators have a strong tendency to be religious, seeing in the Christian God or some other patron deity what they would like the God-Machine to be like.
  • Seven Deadly Sins: With a doubt, they fall under Pride; they claim to want to return to the God-Machine, but it has to be under terms and conditions that they think are acceptable.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Subverted; given they sympathize with the enemy, you would expect them to be this, and most Demons see them as such. However, the large majority of them actually has possibly one of the most sympathetic (albeit hard to accomplish) motives, since they wish to redeem the God-Machine by reprogramming it so it will be closer to human morality. There is a reason one of the nickname for them is "Idealists".

    Saboteurs 
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Soldiers at war with the God-Machine, who feel betrayed by him and wish to overthrow or destroy him. They have an affinity for creating chaos and disturbing systems.


  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The only Agenda who explicitly make this their endgoal. All Demons are to some extent enemies of the God-Machine, but Integrators would rather join it back or redeem it, Inquisitors are too pessimistic to believe it can actually be defeated, and Tempters would rather build their own Hell away from it.
  • Force and Finesse: Overall, while Saboteurs in general do wish to hurt the God-Machine, they are divided between those who just want to attack it directly with quick, brutal attacks, and those who prefer a more subtle approach of infiltration and political actions to destroy its Infrastructures from behind.
  • Rage Against The Heaven: Their entire hat; with the exception of Integrators, all Demons see the God-Machine as the enemy, but Saboteurs are the ones actively trying to fight him.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Their motivation; Saboteurs feel betrayed by the God-Machine, and wish to strike back at him.
  • Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath, all the way. They want to tear the God-Machine down, in some cases even if that means annihilating everything else along with it.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Even compared to other Agenda, Saboteurs tend to not see eye-to-eye with the Integrators, since their Agenda are pretty much the opposite to each other.

    Tempters 
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Capitalists and hedonists who wish to indulge in the pain and pleasure of their new life while accumulating the resources to fight the God-Machine.


  • The Corrupter: They actively enjoy enticing angels to Fall, as the newly rebellious demons likely need the Tempters to get on their feet and likely Fell for hedonistic reasons anyway.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: A frequent position they take, using their abilities to make money and become rich, influent people.
  • Good Feels Good: A Tempter acting altruistically is doing it for this reason, and proudly so.
  • The Hedonist: They have a reputation as this, since they typically are trying to find pleasure and fulfillment in their life as Demons. The stereotype isn't always true, however.
  • Manipulative Bastard: They are well-known for this; many of them prefer to manipulate other people into doing things for them rather than getting their hands dirty.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Their Agenda Condition allows them to use their various connections and influences to help them.
  • Seven Deadly Sins: It's hard to decide whether Lust or Gluttony better suits their obsession with making sure their life is as comfortable as possible, with elements of Sloth for essentially just wanting to live their life and leave the God-Machine to its own machinations.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Perks: They decided that now that they were free to purchase whatever goal they wanted with their abilities rather than serve the God-Machine, they might as well use them to purchase pleasure and make their life more comfortable.

The God-Machine and its Agents

    The God-Machine 
An enigmatic, insanely powerful mechanical entity who operates within the World of Darkness for unknown reasons, using Angels as its agents to further its goals— whatever that might be.

  • Ambiguously Evil: It's unclear exactly what the God-Machine wants, and it isn't exactly malicious or cruel— just as cold, calculating and amoral as you would expect a machine to be.
  • Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Granted, it's extremely questionable if the God-Machine is neutral or malevolent, and it already does plenty of harm without being provoked, but as long as you only cause it minor setbacks (from its perspective, at least), it will decide you are not worth the waste of resources, abandon the Infrastructures and move on to a different way to get what it wants. If you actually become a threat to it, however, it will start actively striking back, and at this point you are very unlikely to survive the confrontation.
  • Bad Boss: It treats anything serving it as resources and materials rather than individual, meaning it won't think twice about recycling them or using them as pawns even when they are completely loyal to it.
  • Big Bad: Most Demons see it as this, with the obvious exception of the Integrators. Regardless of the truth, it is the force you are most likely to oppose in a Demon chronicle.
  • The Chessmaster: Taken to the extreme; it is manipulating the entire universe as pawns to further its own agenda.
  • Cosmic Entity: An entity so large and powerful it covers entire planets, universes and dimensions, who really is more of an ecosystem than an actual person and cares very little for the life it affects.
  • Deus Est Machina: What the God-Machine essentially is— a gigantic, highly advanced machine operating on such levels it might as well be God.
  • Gambit Roulette: It operates entirely on this; the actions of its servants are always organized to employ the Butterfly Effect on a ridiculously large scale, frequently accomplishing small tasks which when put together end up accomplishing a larger task. The Roulette is so huge it's actually impossible for humans to figure out what its end goal is.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: It is the Big Bad for this gameline, but considering its influence spans the entire universe and it is not above manipulating other supernaturals and mortals for its own agenda, it becomes the de facto Greater-Scope Villain of the setting at large.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Even Demons only vaguely know the God-Machine is trying to maintain the Status Quo, both good and bad. Why it wants to do such a thing, on the other hand, is completely unknown to anyone, them included.
  • Human Resources: Plenty of the God-Machine's Infrastructure are fueled by human flesh or blood, or at least require human sacrifices.
  • In Mysterious Ways: Deconstructed; one of the primary reasons Angels Fall and become Demons is because they are unable to make any sense of what the God-Machine orders them, since even they aren't given the full information. For example, it's not uncommon for them to receive missions that completely contradict each other, causing Angels to question their mission and Fall.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: This is frankly the best victory you can hope against it. If you prove too much trouble to kill, but haven't caused enough to make it feel actually threatened, the God-Machine will decide you are not worth the resources and move on to a different way to get what it wants.
  • Magic from Technology: The source of most of its powers; while the God-Machine cannot actually break the laws of physics of its own, its knowledge of science and occult is so developed it can, with the proper Infrastructures, combine Magic and Technology to get results that both modern-day science and the various supernaturals of the setting would consider impossible.
  • Masquerade Enforcer: Whatever the God-Machine wants, it does seem to want to keep the supernatural hidden. Whenever a cryptid threatens to become public knowledge, the God-Machine ensures there is always an “expert” readily available with a “logical explanation.” In addition, the Angels are always on hand to eliminate more persistent threats.
  • Meaningful Name: The God-Machine is often abbreviated G-M or GM. Fitting, as the GM is The Powers That Be in charge of the entire setting.note 
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: As noted above, many of the God-Machine's Infrastructure rely heavily on human sacrifices in some form, if not worse.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The God-Machine occasionally does offer genuine rewards to those who serve it, not because it cares about them (as demonstrated in the other tropes), but because it realizes servants who have real reward to expect will be more devoted and more reliable. It also occasionally protects Earth from major threat, as it wouldn't be able to run its Infrastructure if there's no world to put them on.
  • Reality Warping: Subverted; the book clarifies that the God-Machine, while powerful, doesn't actually have the power to break the laws of physics; it just mastered the Gambit Roulette to such a degree it knows exactly how to exploit the butterfly effect to get the wanted result.
  • Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: If someone manages to annoy the God-Machine into considering them a threat that can't be merely worked around, it will pull out the stops, which will almost certainly result in this trope.
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Infrastuctures used by the God-Machine use occult with the same mastery and approach as they use mundane science; its understanding of how the world works is such that it can actually use both with equal ease.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: For all its power and scale of existence, the God-Machine's reliance on Gambit Roulette means it's spectacularly vulnerable to Spanners In the Works; if even a single element goes wrong in the earlier stages of an Infrastructure, it can result in the entire operation ruined, sometimes forcing it to re-start several years of work from scratch.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The God-Machine has so many options at its disposal, destroying a single Infrastructure is rarely likely to prevent it from getting what it wants; if that happens, it will just move to a different option that seems less troublesome. The trick when fighting it is to mess with just enough Infrastructures to make it pick the least dangerous options to everyone— since actually making it run out of options might result in getting too much of its attention.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The God-Machine treats all the people serving it (willingly or not) as tools and resources to be recycled when they no longer serve any use; its Angels are typically dispatched to make new Angels after their missions, and the Infrastructures and mortal servants that it does not foresee as useful later down the line are similarly eliminated once they have done their job.

    Angels 
The God-Machine's main servants, angels are strange, mechanical creatures it can summon to the world in order to accomplish missions for him. All Unchained started out as Angels who went rogue.

  • Achilles' Heel: Just like Spirits and Ghosts, each Angel suffers a Ban (an attitude he is forced to follow) and a Bane (a substance or object he is vulnerable to). Theirs usually are based on the specific role they are supposed to take or the task they are intended to accomplish.
  • The Ageless: Like Demons, Angels do not age, and are biologically immortal. They still tend to not last long though, as the God-Machine usually dispatches them once their missions are over.
  • Ambiguous Innocence / Pure Is Not Good: When first created, angels are completely naive about the world apart from their own missions and the information they need to accomplish it. This is why very young angels never Fall, because they literally do not comprehend that there can be unintended consequences of their actions. This is why some demons attempt to create The Corruption, as that would mean newborn loyalists would be more human (and thus more prone to Falling).
  • Angelic Abomination: Though some classic Winged Humanoid angels exist, they usually look just as inhuman and bizarre as their Unchained relatives.
  • Friendly Enemy: Not all Angels hate or attack Demons on sight; many have missions that do not involve Demon-hunting, and are content with handling their Infrastructures while not doing anything against the Unchained unless attacked. Some might even have peaceful interactions with them and become allies, trading contacts or resources with them, although this is risky for both of them, since this might either convince the Demon into willingly getting recycled or result in the Angel Falling in the long term.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Being essentially the same kind of beings as Demons, Angels can disguise as humans, but look every bit as inhuman and mechanical as the Unchained when they display their true forms.
  • Implacable Man: Not only are Angels very hard to truly kill thanks to their Resurrective Immortality, many of them aren't even designed with the ability to understand what giving up means.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Inverted; Angels can only maintain themselves and use their full powers in the Infrastructures they are associated to; as a result, while killing an Angel won't necessarly destroy its Infrastructure, destroying the Infrastructure will considerably cripple its Angel, and might even cause it to fall dormant if he doesn't find a new source of Essence.
  • Mechanical Abomination: Since they are essentially the same type of creature as Demons, Angels are essentially highly advanced machines created to serve the God-Machine, using Essence as fuel.
  • No Biological Sex: Just like Demons, Angels have no biological gender in their natural form, being mostly cybernetic beings built by the God-Machine.
  • Our Angels Are Different: Just like Demons, they are basically sentient computer programs sent by the God-Machine to accomplish missions for him in the physical world, and their appearance can be pretty much everything, ranging from the classic Winged Humanoid look to flat-out Eldritch Abominations. While they are theoretically created with free will, the God-Machine programs them with only the information they need for their mission, and a state of mind where they think disobeying him is unthinkable; any Angel who grows out of this Falls and becomes a Demon. And the God-Machine typically has them dispatched and recycled once they have accomplished their missions, though particularly powerful or skilled ones might be kept in stasis for later uses.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: One of the primary ways Angels can recover Essence is by having God-Machine cultists sacrifice objects, animals or people to them. While the quantity of Essence produced is based on the Resources value for objects and animals, it's based on Integrity for human sacrifices- meaning they recover more essence when you sacrifice good people to them.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Played with. Angels have no inherent moral compass apart from their missions; an angel who is sent to kill you might hate you, but only because she is told to. Angels who start pondering the reasons behind their missions, even to the point of developing actual pride in the job, are getting closer to Falling.
  • Resurrective Immortality: Just like Spirits and Ghosts, Angels can only truly be destroyed if they lose all Corpus and all Essence; having even a single remaining point in either trait will allow them to fall into hibernation instead, which they will awaken from unless you somehow get into Twilight to kill them. Unlike either Spirits or Ghosts, however, they lack a Respawn Point, meaning they just stand where they are when falling into hibernation, making it relatively easier to kill them (you still need the ability to travel in Twilight).

Others

    Stigmatics 
Humans who, for various reasons, ended up witnessing part of the God-Machine (usually an Infrastructure or an angel) and didn't look away. Some are accidental, while other were willingly created by the God-Machine as part of its design. While still humans, the experience changes them, granting them a glitch-like mark, the ability to sense anything related to the God-Machine, and sometimes supernatural abilities. This makes them potentially valuable allies for Demons— as long as they haven't already been recruited by the enemy.

    Cryptids 
The animal equivalent of Stigmatics, Cryptids are animals who got mutating by being confronted with the God-Machine's influence, resulting in their transformation into strange creatures. Since not all of them have human intelligence (though it does happen), they tend to not be quite as secretive about their abilities, making them an occasional danger to the God-Machine secrecy— though many have the ability to sense and feed on Aether, making them useful to hide Infrastructures from Demons. Due to their ability to sense Aether, they also tend to be attracted to Demons, which can be both a good and bad thing. As a result, they occasionally are used as agents by both sides.

  • It Can Think: Most of them retain an animal intellect, but some, such as Reptilians, become as smart as humans, if not more.
  • Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: They are animals who got exposed to the God-Machine's influence, resulting in their mutation into strange creatures. This can result in all sorts of critters, including Mothmen, Reptilians and many more. Their level of intelligence vary, with some barely smarter than regular animals while other have grown human intelligence.
  • Touched by Vorlons: Like Stigmatics, they are created by entering in contact with the God-Machine.
  • Supernatural Sensitivity: They all have the ability to see Infrastructures for what they are and to sense Aether. This be a benefit or problem for both sides, as while they can sniff out Demons despite their Cover, the Unchained can also use them as hounds to locate Infrastructures.
  • Uplifted Animal: It's entirely possible for some Cryptids to be turned sentient by their transformation. Reptilians, for example, clearly are at least of human intelligence.
  • Weirdness Censor: They appear as blurs on cameras, and mortals automatically have a hard time remembering them, thus ensuring their existence won't be easy to uncover.

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