{"id":2333,"date":"2014-01-06T14:25:42","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T20:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/?p=2333"},"modified":"2014-01-06T14:25:42","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T20:25:42","slug":"better-angels-desecrator-dread-of-the-villainous-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/2014\/01\/better-angels-desecrator-dread-of-the-villainous-nine\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Angels: Desecrator Dread of the Villainous Nine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze and illustrated by Kurt Komoda, \u00a9 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Desecrator<\/a>Damon Hastings was an academic, an archaeologist who dreamed of \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d style glory before running into the rather more quotidian milieu of arranging dig sites and wrangling laborers and settling pissy disputes between grad students.\u00a0 Unlike many of the people in the Villainous Nine, Damon had no outstanding claim to decency.\u00a0 But he was well educated about antiquities, and when General Null<\/a> was scouting for demon amulets in the collections of museums, he needed an expert.\u00a0 He and Damon had been on the same high school basketball team, and they\u2019d stayed in touch throughout college.\u00a0 When Null discovered the truth of amulets, there was no one closer to him with the necessary expertise.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a big difference, of course, between finding the residences of slumbering demons and hosting one<\/i>.\u00a0 The original plan Null and Hastings shared was to round up amulets and destroy them.\u00a0 But identifying the trinkets brought them into circulation, where they were vulnerable to being bought, stolen or borrowed.\u00a0 More than once, the process of trying to get an amulet out of storage wound up activating it and awakening demons in the bodies of innocent docents and museum volunteers.<\/p>\n

Things came to a head when two such devilishly empowered foes figured out what Null was up to and tried to stop him while he and Hastings were hurriedly pawing through the collection of a wealthy collector suspected of a string of kidnaps in the 1950s.\u00a0 Hastings had found the device when \u201cThe Curator\u201d and a demon-host who didn\u2019t bother with a flashy persona burst into the chamber.\u00a0 He hosted the demon in self defense.<\/p>\n

Or so he tells himself.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t like to admit that he loves flying, loves effortless displays of physical might, loves the excitement\u2026 and isn\u2019t as burdened by the mission of containment as his colleagues.\u00a0 He suspects that they view him as a weak link, the \u2018mere mortal\u2019 among moral paragons.\u00a0 This is a concern his demon cultivates like a rare hot-house blossom.<\/p>\n

CUNNING<\/strong> 3, PATIENT<\/strong> 1
\nGreed<\/em> 1, Generosity<\/em> 2
\nEspionage<\/em> 1, Knowledge<\/em> 3<\/p>\n

SLY<\/strong> 1, OPEN<\/strong> 3
\nCruelty<\/em> 4, Courage<\/em> 2
\nCowardice<\/em> 2, Endurance<\/em> 0<\/p>\n

DEVIOUS<\/strong> 1, INSIGHTFUL<\/strong> 1
\nCorruption<\/em> 1, Nurture<\/em> 1
\nDeceit<\/em> 2, Honesty<\/em> 1<\/p>\n

POWERS:<\/strong> That Hideous Strength, Armor<\/p>\n

ASPECTS:<\/strong> Wings, Invisibility<\/p>\n

PRIMARY SINFUL STRATEGY:<\/strong> Cunning<\/p>\n

\"Better<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze and illustrated by Kurt Komoda, \u00a9 2014 Damon Hastings was an academic, an archaeologist who dreamed of \u201cIndiana<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[142,11,220],"class_list":["post-2333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-better-angels","tag-characters","tag-greg-stolze","tag-kurt-komoda"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Desecrator-Dread-preview.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wrNI-BD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2338,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions\/2338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}