Angels and Mind Magic

[Taldorblackfire]

Hey everyone,

So, I am hosting a campaign with some players that are mostly mortals (one Awakened) and they have stumbled upon a task the God-Machine is working on. They have a friendly mage that has come to the town to investigate the strange events occurring in town and wants to determine the root cause. While there he has taken some of the players under his wing, promising to help them find out the weird things going on in town if they in return help him find information. So, the Mage is an Acanthus and has Mind 2. The foreman that is overseeing the project for the God-Machine is an Angel and the Mage plans to cast Psychic Domination on him since according to Mage Sight he would look Human from my understanding of Angels.

What would be the end result? In my mind, the spell proves ineffective and the Mage now grows wary of the foreman since things did not work as expected.

Would the Angel realize that someone has tried to cast a spell on him? My gut says the Angel would not have a clue that any type of Mind shenanigans were performed and would go about their business.

[WHW]

Apparently if something has a mind, it can be Psychic Dominated. I think there was a ruling on it in a thread in past two months or something. Doesn't matter if it's human, vampire, spirit, ghost, animal, True Sapient AI, or intelligent awakened brick.

[Taldorblackfire]

Your comment made me dig a little deeper and I think i found something from way back when:

Targeting an Angel, its Numina, rewriting the Pattern of someone claimed, etc, requires equal parts Prime and Spirit. Angels cannot be summoned. You can try to force one to act in a certain way, but angels are inflexible - if carrying out your wishes conflicts with carrying out the God-Machine's wishes, the Angel's programming wins and the spell has no effect.

Or, put another way, God has rolled more successes than you on "angel brainwashing". Also, no creating members of another major template (by making angels Fall!) without Archmastery. Bad mages, go to back of class

This was a statement from Dave on the GMC Stop-Gap Rules.

[Ashenrogue]

You're pretty much both right. As long as something has what could be considered a mind (regardless of how simple or complex) it can be effected by the Mind Arcanum. But, when it comes to angels, the God Machine essentially already has them under a mind controlling affect, and any attempt to take control of an angel effectively causes a Clash of Wills with the God Machine with which is it always assumed to win.

At least that's how it is with normal mages, Archmages can probably pull it off if they were willing to deal with the consequences.

[21C Hermit]

So, it would depend on exactly what the mage commanded the angel to do.

If it's unrelated or inconsequential to the Mission, then the angel just does that. Angels already have that amount of free will, since that's what allows them to Fall. However, they might find their sudden drop in faith... curious, and might investigate further on their on, which could bite back the mage.

On the other hand, if the mage's command was "Stop doing XXX", where XXX is what the angel is doing as a part of Mission, or "Do YYY", where YYY directly sabotages the angel's Mission, then the mind control fails. And even in this case, I wouldn't be surprised if angels come with a firewall that alarms them in case of a hacking attempt.

[Falcon777]

Well, you also have to take into consideration withstand. Psychic domination is withstood by Resolve.

[ElvesofZion]

Well, you also have to take into consideration withstand. Psychic domination is withstood by Resolve.

Which in an Angels case is Resistance (as would any other Withstand), so depedning on the Rank of the Angel the Mage might have a real hard time getting past that.

[Satchel]

Which in an Angels case is Resistance (as would any other Withstand), so depedning on the Rank of the Angel the Mage might have a real hard time getting past that.

Ephemeral beings Withstand with Rank.

[ElvesofZion]

Ephemeral beings Withstand with Rank.

Oh, you're right, that's what I get for just going off of someone else's post and not thinking about it enough.

So yeah, not as bad as I implied earlier.

[nofather]

YThis was a statement from Dave on the GMC Stop-Gap Rules.

About this comment.

The God-Machine seems to have put the angel there in a human disguise for a reason, and 'pretending to be human' is part of the God-Machine's wishes. While I admit I don't know what the angel is actually doing there, unless it's something like, 'Watch this 24/7' it seems like you would have a lot of leeway to look into something else. In other words, you can still be ordered to do stuff that doesn't conflict with what the God-Machine wants.

[lnodiv]

The God-Machine seems to have put the angel there in a human disguise for a reason, and 'pretending to be human' is part of the God-Machine's wishes. While I admit I don't know what the angel is actually doing there, unless it's something like, 'Watch this 24/7' it seems like you would have a lot of leeway to look into something else. In other words, you can still be ordered to do stuff that doesn't conflict with what the God-Machine wants.

Yep. Basically, you can't make the Angel do anything that would result in a Fall.

[Johnny Awesome]

Unless you're running a Mage-centric game and don't consider the GM to be anything too special.

[lnodiv]

Unless you're running a Mage-centric game and don't consider the GM to be anything too special.

Removing / Inflicting other major templates is forbidden below Archmastery, save Time magic fuckery, mage-centric or no.
This has been made explicit by the devs.

As always, you are free to ignore that in your own games, and as always, discussions hinging on the STs ability to do whatever they want can't really go anywhere.

[Johnny Awesome]

Yes. I was simply talking about my own game.

I generally throw out anything they put into the rules for crossover balance.

[Satchel]

Yes. I was simply talking about my own game.

And nobody else was, which begets the question of what you thought this added to the discussion.

I generally throw out anything they put into the rules for crossover balance.

That's not even crossover balance, that's basic setting assumptions. "Supernal magic and Abyssal corruption are not responsible for all or even most of the supernatural phenomena in the Chronicles of Darkness" is a basic truth of Mage's cosmological placement, as is "godlike entities are beyond the reach of Travelers' spells to command."