"Spam Satan!" -- Riff, Sluggy Freelance
Akhemtopek
12 Force Balseraph of The Media
4 Corporeal Forces
8 Strength
8 Agility
4 Ethereal Forces
8 Intelligence
8 Precision
4 Celestial Forces
8 Perception
8 Will
Songs:
Ethereal Song of Charm 3
Corporeal Song of Charm 2
Celestial Song of Charm 6
Ethereal Song of Form 3
Skills:
Fast-Talk 4
Lying 5
Detect Lies 2
Escape 2
Dodge 3
Attunements and Distinctions
Balseraph of Nybbas
Sound Track
Subliminal
Baron of the Fourth Estate
Having recently been promoted back to Hell, Akhemtopek has no
active roles, but maintains a human male Vessel/3 should mortal work become
necessary.
Akhemtopek is an ambitious servitor of the media who has crawled his way into the higher ranks of Nybbas' hierarchy. Unfortunately, he has a problem: too far-sighted to seek a minor word, too generalized to make a play for a major emerging word, and lacking the power to challenge one of the heavy hitters in an established word, he has no independent power base, and is severely limited in his essence supply. For a Baron of the Fourth Estate, this is a serious problem.
So Akhemtopek has assessed his resources as a Balseraph and a Baron of the Media, and come to the conclusion that the way to get essence fast is through the media. Specifically, he's launching the first intra-Hell Pyramid scheme.
"This message has been sent to bring you good luck, and to give you the chance to earn more essence than you've ever seen!
Here's how it works: enclosed, you will find a list of names and contact information. Send one essence to each person on the list, then add your name to the bottom of the list and send it to twenty demons. Each demon you send this to will send essence to you, as will everyone they send it to! In no time at all, you'll be swimming in essence.
But that's not all. If you do this within 48 hours of receiving the letter, not only will you have essence beyond your wildest dreams, but good fortune is certain to be yours! However, if you break this chain, a dire curse is soon to follow.
Furfur received this letter and passed it on; two weeks later, he became a prince!
Gamliel broke the chain, and three days later, he redeemed!
The list:
Remember! The only thing holding you back is you! Act now!"
Akhemtopek has set out a base set of 70 messages. However, only a fraction of mortals pass on chain letters. Demons tend to be selfish creatures with higher wills, and would presumably have an even lower rate of return-- not to mention quite a few demons usurping his place on the list! To increase his chances of success, he has used his Subliminal servitor attunement to imbue the messages with the Song of Charm, lowering his victims wills and rendering them gullible and easier marks. To make this cost effective, he has employed his the and the Baron of the Fourth Estate distinction, allowing him to affect ten times as many potential victims. He hopes to make his essence back after the first batch of responses come in, reinvest in another batch of letters, and let the essence flow!
Of course, there are complications...
Yeronel is a highly-ranked wordless servitor of Valefor in much the same situation as Ak, who has been actively campaigning for the currently vacant word of Mail Scams. Akhemtopek hadn't considered that, with the proliferation of junk mail and junk email, the related infernal concepts would be vacant. His scheme threatens to earn him the word without really trying. As Yeronel becomes aware of the chain, he has immediately launched his own, identical chain letter, and brought his resources (possibly including PCs) to bear trying to steal . Hell is soon awash in junk mail.
However, one of Yeronel's recent heists came with an unanticipated package: a Vaputek eaves dropping device (an insect mounted with transmitter, camera and, mind-control apparatus, naturally). Agents working for Malphas have recently taken to spying on random high-ranking demons, the better to play them off each other. This seems to present possibilities. Malphites will ensure enough copies of the first chain get out to shake things up-- turning a relatively word-duel into a full-fledged spam assault. They'll then act as agent provocateurs to play sides off of each other as necessary to keep the action going.
The Game will, naturally, learn of this early on, and be forced to consider: does Valefor really need another powerful, word-bound servitor? However, this threatens to be disruptive. Be a good PC and prevent Yeronel from getting his word while stopping Ak's chain from succeeding.
One of the early recipients of the chain is Kobal himself, who thinks it's a tremendous idea! In fact, he likes it so much, he's assigning servitors to create a dozen copycat chains, to plunge the whole works into chaos.
More ambitious PCs may decide to ambush either Akhemtopek and intercept their essence flow. They'll find this distressingly easy, as Yeronel is out chasing down Akhemtopek's letters, and Akemtopek is running away from a mob of Lilim who, evidently, suspect that giving him an essence may constitute a Need... Now all they have to do is get past the Djinn of the Media guarding his office...
Of course, with the Kobalites copying messages and blanket mailing demons, eventually this is going to leak earthside-- and probably fall into Angelic hands. Angels are probably best used as an NPC complication here, but Jean just dealt with one Demon of Spam, and would be very disappointed to have to deal with another one so soon... Angelic PCs could try to put the kibosh on all this demonic fun.
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