Infernalism is Wrong, Damn It!

Eric's Rant #3! Collect them all!

Okay folks, let me just set the record straight here for a second. I dislike Infernalism, which is an artificial game-construct created by White Wolf. This rant has nothing to do with Satanism or Anton LeVey's Church or that stuff. (Personally, I don't care what you believe, as long as it doesn't conflict with my way of life.) Is that clear? I don't care if you worship demons in real life, but I do care if you want to do it in my game.... Clear? Good.

(Sorry about that, I just don't want to offend people - for the wrong reasons. You can get offended by my rant, but get offended for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. Does that make sense?)

Now, where to begin.... See, this is a hard rant to write, I'd admit it. The major reason why I dislike Infernalism, as presented in White Wolf, is that it just seems so.... Bland and Insipid. Really. You sell your soul to a demon, and you get "kewl powerz." That's essentially what White Wolf's Infernalism is. It's a shopping list. For portions of your soul (you don't even have to sign over all of your soul! Keep some for yourself! What a bargain!) for get miscellaneous powers.... And they aren't even good powers!

You want to be able to summon up hellfire and throw it at people? Give me 10% of your soul. You want to be immune to fire? 15% of your soul. You want to be a demon? Okay, that's 95% of your soul. You want "Dark Thamaturgy?" 50% of your soul. Just sign on the dotted line, and it's all good! Would the demons lie to you?

How.... Well, how simple and cheesy! Trading with demons becomes another way to "twinkify" yourself! As if the World of Darkness didn't have enough ways to turn a character into a munchkin, right? That's reason #1 why I don't like Infernalism. It's pointless in terms of powers. I have yet to see a single power that demons can give people that cannot be replicated with Disciplines/Gifts/Spheres/Arcanoi/Arts and other non-infernal supernatural powers.

The second reason why I don't like Infernalism is more detailed. I don't like how Infernalism is portrayed in the first place, I guess. I mean White Wolf wants to have it both ways.

First, Infernalism was presented as a real simple thing: God, the Devil, Heaven and Hell were all real. Vampires were the descendents of the Biblical Caine (a fancier way to spell Cain), and Vampirism was a Divine Curse. When you dealt with a Devil, you were dealing with a devil, and you were damning your Soul to Eternal Damnation. It was very black and white - there were dire circumstances. I mean, God and Hell were real, so by practicing Infernalism, you were ultimately and irrevocably dooming your character.

Then, as time passed, White Wolf tried to change things. It wasn't pure Christian theology anymore. (I don't use the phrase "Judeo-Christian Theology" here because, well, Judaism doesn't really have a Heaven or Hell. You die, you go to Sheol, which is a big waiting room. Eventually, after a year, Yom Kippur rolls around, God forgives you whatever sins you might have had left over, and you join him. End of story. No suffering, no eternal damnation. Just a year of pseudo-Limbo.)

See, all of a sudden, the Demons became strange-other dimensional beings that needed your essence (Soul) in order to perform some strange alien things. The Demons were just aliens now. No God, no Satan, no Heaven, no Hell. Just alien beings. Then White Wolf went a little further (in the Mage: The Ascension and Wraith: The Oblivion books, mostly). The Demons that Infernalists were dealing with weren't even real beings any more. They literally the dream-manifestations of other, even stranger alien beings (the Malfeans). When a Malfean awoke, Demons disappeared! (I can quote the exact books in which this occurs later, I don't have them on me right now, sorry.)

It's as if White Wolf wanted to back away from the idea of Demons as, well, Demons! Hell wasn't real - it was just a place where these Malfeans slept. God wasn't real. Caine and Abel, the Garden of Eden? Probably not real either. Except for the fact that White Wolf also kept pushing the biblical connections (The Book of Nod and the Erynices Fragments show this connection very well).

They were wishy-washy. That's reason #2 why I don't like Infernalism - White Wolf can't make up their mind about just what the hell (pardon the pun) Infernalism really is!

The #3 reason why I don't like Infernalism is the reason why I think Infernalism is ultimately "wrong."

Infernalism is presented without any opposition. No mention of Divinity is really mentioned. Yes, White Wolf does talk about True Faith, but, guess what? True Faith doesn't require a God in any way shape or form! All it requires is that you really believe that there is a God! He doesn't have to be there, but you can still have True Faith! Hell, White Wolf also says that you can believe in anything and have True Faith! You can believe in Buddha, Jehovah, Jesus, Moses, Kali, Gandalf, Elvis, Ghod, Phillip K. Dick, or anything else! As long as you believe enough, you have True Faith. You don't need to make a deal with anything, you just have it.

In fact, you could, according to White Wolf's rules, be a Satanist, a member of the LeVey's Church of Satan, and have True Faith. Odd huh? You can even make a deal with a Demon to gain True Faith! What the hell, why not? Sell your soul for the knowledge that God is real!

In the end, that's why Infernalism is just wrong, I guess. The minuses outweigh the benefits, you don't really know what it is, and it is ultimately self-contradictory.

At least, that's what I think.