Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf
From: brus@netcom.com (Brus Wasson)
Subject: Re: "Good Death" Question
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 22:05:58 GMT

Hello all, I thought an example of one Euthantos' "Good Death" selection
criteria might be useful. By no means is this the definitive means by
which the tradition practices their paradigm, merely one example.

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Memo to U.S. coordinator for the Euthantos

I have recieved your request for Euthanatos field agents to explain their
selection criteria for the Good Death. In my eternal compliance to the
wishes of the order, following is an overview of my general guidelines.

I believe anyone can Ascend, given enough time, incarnations, and a
suitable environment in which to grow and develop. There for I restrict
my investigations to basically two groups, the lost, and the inhibitors.

The lost are easily found. They are those who have given up, or been broken
down in the current incarnation, and cannot continue any meaningful
development. These are the people who have closed their eyes, merely
trudging their way through existance. They do not seek out the experiences,
think the thoughts, or ponder the questions that will lead them to break
from the static reality at all. I, of course, confirm my independent
observations with a mental scan of the subject before making a final 
decision. Also among the lost are those who's lives are going to end
naturally anyway. Using my sense of time I sometimes see people who will
die meaningless deaths. As the are fated to die anyway, I will try to
set up a Good Death that will at least stimulate their avatars with
the shock, the strangess, or at least the sheer stimulation of senses so
that their next incarnation would remember the death, and aid in the 
breaking of the static paradigm. Often, during my investigation, I find
that the lost become so because of an inhibitor.

The inhibitors are a cruel, and often overlooked, segment of sleeper
society that deserve the Good Death. I define these people are those
that worsen the human condition for others in such a way that they give up.
Inhibitors would include drug pushers (how the Cultists ever ascend
when their brains can't even perceive the static reality is beyond me)
who dope out people so strongly they can't think, or the hoodlum that
cause people to live in fear, and therefore are too scared to look out
and wonder, question, or even think beyond their next meal. Oddly enough
there are many inhibitors in the world. I once pursued a fundamentalist
preacher who was so good at closing people's eyes that they didn't even
think to wonder about the God he claimed to speak for. They were his
sheep, in the worst possible sense of the word.

Caution must be exercised though, when investigating the inhibitors.
Their behavior may be an example of their own person development. I
came very close once to freeing an avatar of one such inhibitor, only
to discover that his senseless sadism that destroyed other people wills
was his experments at what was real. With his constant torture, he
was slowly learning that there was more in reality than the technomancer
would like people to believe. I also learned a very interesting trick
involving fire and vaseline from him.

My selection criteria has brought me under the traditions scrutiny before,
as in the case of Lacey. She had all the signs of a member of the lost,
and I came very close to freeing her avatar, only to discover at the
last possible second (my time sense had somehow missed it) that she
was pregnant. Fortunately my entropic abilities were able to dislodge
the food that she was choking on.

I realize that the number of Good Deaths I perform in a year is below
the tradition norms, but due to my limited abilities to date, I have
taken great care in making sure I do not free any avatars prematurely.
Hopefully, as I progress in my knowledge of true nature, I will become
more proficient.

Your humble servant,
Lt. Hector J. Rassmussen (Albuquerque Police Department)
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Hector is a pretty new mage. When I stopped playing him his magickal
powers totalled Entropy 4, Mind 3, Time 2. But his character was firmly
set. He generally killed the already dieing, the dead of spirit, and
those that hampered the growth of others for no good reason. He killed
winos, campaign workers, people on the street, and the occasional low
end criminal. He worked in the APD's homicide department, allowing him
to cover his tracks as needed.

And, he went out of his way to protect children (to the point of being
a staunch anti-abortion proponent (weird when characters take on very
antitethical natures, no?)).

Hope this helps demonstrate a playable Euthantos. If I had to rank
his humanity in vampire terms, I would give him about a 6 (not counting
the actually killing part). He was by no means a psychotic slaying machine.
-- 
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|Brus@netcom.com |  There is no sin except stupidty.                     |
|Brus Wasson     |  --Oscar Wilde (The Critic as an Artist)              |
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