Ask a simple question, get a simple answer (Demon the Descent)

[Tessie]

I believe the answer to all three questions is "not inherently".

Demons finding mages or vampires: Perhaps an Embed, Exploit or Demonic Form could do it, but I don't know of any. (Edit: Aura Sight)

Mages finding mages: Mages with Active Mage Sight can tell when another mage is casting a spell, and there's a Prime spell for determining whether the subject is a Sleeper (regular human), Sleepwalker (not regular human) or Awakened (mage). Mages also know when most supernatural effect occurs (due to Passive Mage Sight) so they can get reasons to go snooping around even if the other person isn't behaving suspiciously.

Vampires hiding from demons: Vampires can use Obfuscate to hide themselves. An Obfuscate Devotion would be able to hide their nature without hiding themselves. Vampires can also use Blush of Health to appear alive in order to fool mundane senses. Otherwise vampires with low Humanity will appear deathly pale or corpselike.

[KieranMullen]

This question is for a possible storyline: If an angel runs out of Essence in Twilight (say, Discorporates after a terrible fight and uses up its last Essence on some task) and is suitably isolated, will it just stay inert until the GM (or someone else) claims it?

What happens if someone drags it into our material world?

[Satchel]

This question is for a possible storyline: If an angel runs out of Essence in Twilight (say, Discorporates after a terrible fight and uses up its last Essence on some task) and is suitably isolated, will it just stay inert until the GM (or someone else) claims it?

I mean, if it Discorporates it's winding up back at secure Infrastructure where it can presumably refuel, but yes.

What happens if someone drags it into our material world?

That will depend heavily upon the method, because Twilight is mostly not a separate place from the material world.

[KieranMullen]

I mean, if it Discorporates it's winding up back at secure Infrastructure where it can presumably refuel, but yes..

D'oh! I thought Discorporation simply sent you back into Twilight. Nope - it burns all your Corpus, and your reform back "in a safe place." I had thought that you simply shifted back to Twilight, and if you were at zero Essence you had a dead battery.

That will depend heavily upon the method, because Twilight is mostly not a separate place from the material world.

Ok, I find the vocabulary confusing. I understand that Twilight is also part of "the material world" in contrast to The Shadow, which is separated from the material world by The Gauntlet. The Shadow is also not The Underworld, which is related to the afterlife. But what is the proper term for our part of the material plane that is not in Twilight? Since the power to move from Twilight and take on a body is Materialize, I want to call our normal physical plane the "material plane" but that's not the canon vocabulary.

[Satchel]

Ok, I find the vocabulary confusing.

"The material world" suffices. I'm not quibbling over the choice of words, I'm saying that "dragging an angel into the material world" is going to be largely indistinguishable from forcing it to materialize, which is not a thing that is usually accomplished without specific abilities or exploits, the particular examples of which are going to strongly influence the answer to "what happens if someone does this?"

[Tessie]

I usually just say "the material". When an ephemeral entity is in the material they default to their Twilight Form. If they, for whatever reason, are forced to take a physical form you can just say that they're Materialized (as per that Manifestation Condition), or perhaps physical if you want to distinguish between applying Materialized and other methods of forcing them out of Twilight Form (like removing Twilight from the area).

As for what happens, it really depends on how it happens (and sometimes what you think should happen). Most methods of forcing an angel to Materialize applies that Condition to it, which protects it from Essence bleed. If they become physical without a Manifestation Condition (for example, by removing Twilight from the area) then it's up to the table to decide. Is it the state of Twilight that enforced Essence bleed, or is it that they're too alien for the material that they can't sustain themselves without anchoring themselves to the material through use of Manifestations? You decide.

[KieranMullen]

I believe that a demon making a physical attack would roll Strength + Brawl - Defense dice. However angels have Power, which is not broken down into Physical/Mental/Social subcategories. So would an angel roll Power + Brawl - Defense dice? I ask because "The Lambent" angel in the "How an Angel Dies" story had a Power of 12, and other sample angels have a Power of 8. This seems like a large dice pool.

[Tessie]

Angels don't have Skills. They have their own rules in the appendix that you might want to read through. Attacks are Power + Finesse - Defense.

[lnodiv]

I believe that a demon making a physical attack would roll Strength + Brawl - Defense dice. However angels have Power, which is not broken down into Physical/Mental/Social subcategories. So would an angel roll Power + Brawl - Defense dice? I ask because "The Lambent" angel in the "How an Angel Dies" story had a Power of 12, and other sample angels have a Power of 8. This seems like a large dice pool.

They don't use skills, as Tessie advised - however yes, their dice pools for most actions quickly become very, very large after Rank 2.

This is true for all ephemerals, and is one of the things that makes them a large threat.

[KieranMullen]

Thank you for the information and the friendly corrections :-) I am finding the mechanics to be a bit confusing.

[KieranMullen]

If a mortal had acces to a Gadget that allowed them to shift in and out of Twilight:

1. Could they use that to commit robberies, sneaking in places invisibly and intangibly, materializing, committing the theft, and shifting out to escape?
2. If the can shift belongings with them, could they set up a "parallel apartment" in their own apartment, invisible to normal mortals?

Now, I'm not saying that these would be good ideas - the mortal might run into something that is very dangerous. But this is the sort of gadget I could see a mortal might think is a great idea and only find out later that it can be dangerous.

[ArcaneArts]

If a mortal had acces to a Gadget that allowed them to shift in and out of Twilight:

1. Could they use that to commit robberies, sneaking in places invisibly and intangibly, materializing, committing the theft, and shifting out to escape?
2. If the can shift belongings with them, could they set up a "parallel apartment" in their own apartment, invisible to normal mortals?

Now, I'm not saying that these would be good ideas - the mortal might run into something that is very dangerous. But this is the sort of gadget I could see a mortal might think is a great idea and only find out later that it can be dangerous.

Nothing could go wrong!

Also both are possible.

[Vent0]

If a mortal had acces to a Gadget that allowed them to shift in and out of Twilight:

1. Could they use that to commit robberies, sneaking in places invisibly and intangibly, materializing, committing the theft, and shifting out to escape?
2. If the can shift belongings with them, could they set up a "parallel apartment" in their own apartment, invisible to normal mortals?

Now, I'm not saying that these would be good ideas - the mortal might run into something that is very dangerous. But this is the sort of gadget I could see a mortal might think is a great idea and only find out later that it can be dangerous.

Well, a Gadget that can shift in an out of Twilight is tricky. Demons usually don't have direct access to Twilight, so you are going to be using liberal interpretation and Near Field effects if you want that exactly.

Another option is the Exploit Living Shadow - you turn into a 2D Shadow. Similar effect.

For the "parallel apartment", you could use the Exploit Rip the Gates or maybe Solitary Confinement.

Keep in mind, your mortal is going to go Stigmatic in a hurry, due to all this ambient Aether.

[KieranMullen]

The vendor of such items is a very exclusive auction house, (Warner, Hunter and Web) of three Tempter demons who cater to the rich and foolish. They are not nice demons. They are going to be one of the antagonists in a chronicle I am trying to design.

The Gadget will have charges, with each charge taking your from the Material to Twilight or from Twilight to the Material.

It has an odd number of charges. >:-)

[Mr.F.I.X.]

If a mortal had acces to a Gadget that allowed them to shift in and out of Twilight:

1. Could they use that to commit robberies, sneaking in places invisibly and intangibly, materializing, committing the theft, and shifting out to escape?
2. If the can shift belongings with them, could they set up a "parallel apartment" in their own apartment, invisible to normal mortals?

Now, I'm not saying that these would be good ideas - the mortal might run into something that is very dangerous. But this is the sort of gadget I could see a mortal might think is a great idea and only find out later that it can be dangerous.

The frequency of twilight would have to be selected and as with many things a demon would likely be limited to ghostly, spiritual or astral twilight but not have direct access to angelic twilight. For all but ghostly twilight your first point would be easily a yes. Ghostly twilight has to worry about occasional ghost buildings that could be a complication but those are rare enough to not be a common issue.
As to your second point, if they had a gadget that could shift themself and carried items, its possible they could have another gadget that did a similar effect to an area. For leaving items in twilight however that would depend entirely on the gadget in question. Though generally I'd say if you dropped an item either a) it immidiate returns to physical form and leaves twilight or b) remains in twlight for the duration of the ability or for the scene, whichever is shorter.

As to your later post on 'charges' it sounds best if you were to do this as a oneshot gadget as they are the only limited use gadget currently. On your idea of 'odd' number of charges I do not think that would work personally. The gadget would shift you and maintain your pressence in twilight for the duration and then return you at the end, at least going by conventions of similar abilitlies regarding twilight but gadgets are varied enough that it is possible that one could be made to not function in that way. I'd recommend against 'permanent' shifts to twlight being possible as an unexpected side effect of this could actually be evasion or immunity to angelic attack.