The Unusual Suspects: The Daemon

Time for the final prelude. The Daemon is a digital demon manipulating his cult from the safety of his computer. But this Tempter has big plans.

The Daemon

Daemon’s focus is his cult. On the surface the Knights of Chaos are just an obsessive guild of World of Warcraft Horde players. But members know this is just a staging ground. The worthy will ascend with their master to become one with the Net, purely digital beings free of the trappings and flaws of the material world. Until then they will steal, murder and raid for the avatar of their digital god. Mostly though he uses them to get him pizza and deal with the mundanities of modern life.

When he is occupied, his lieutenants, the highest ranked members of the cult, run things. Zanity and Jabberwoky know the innermost secret: his role in the destruction of the one of the greatest MMOs of all time.

Before he Fell, Daemon worked on Ultima Quest. The company that launched it secretly worshipped the God-Machine, "employing" the Psychopomp to design the code behind the MMO. Drawing power from the players’ collective obsession, Ultima Quest proved too addictive. Several players died from exhaustion exploring the expansive fantasy world. The company’s PR head, Miriam Albright, managed to keep the matter from damaging the game’s sales. But Daemon found himself bothered by the morality of letting people die to keep the game running. He talked to his fellow employees for once but found no one willing to stop it.

Ultimately he snapped. He enabled the Elimination Infrastructure protocols and crashed the game’s economy. Money became worthless and before anyone could do anything, he left. As company stocks crashed, he destroyed his Cover, leaving no one to blame.

Since then he’s built a new life for himself. With some help from the Naturalist, he’s adopted the life of a computer science student. His life repeats the pattern of class, gaming and surfing the net, and sleep.

The cult for the most part don’t know who he is really as he communicates almost entirely via chat. With one exception his real world friends don’t know about the Knights of Chaos or his involvement with them. Tony Irvin does but as a middle ranked member, he isn’t privy to the innermost secrets.

Indeed he shares few of his secrets with anyone. The closest he comes is with a rival hacker, Reactor, who seems to have similar goals to himself: transcendence. Reactor however does not belong to the guild. As near as Daemon can determine, the hacker is highly mobile moving between North America and Europe regularly.

A few outsiders have begun putting some the pieces together. Professor Webb, his philosophy teacher, remains suspicious of the uncanny depth of his knowledge. Bob Jenson, a janitor, has been shadowing him. Perhaps he thinks he might be the next Napster.

Also troubling Daemon is a recent uptick in cult activity of all sorts. A need to belong or find answers seems to be on everyone's minds in Seattle. At the same time, rumors swirl of double agents infiltrating the local cults. New cults have arisen, led by strange men with ebony skin. No one is sure who they are or who they work for.

For now Daemon has taken advantage of the situation, accepting new members to his cult and growing their strength. But he remains paranoid.

He has the condition: New Recruits: the influx of members hardens your cult's resolve and extends its reach. Treat your cult as if it had 1 more dot. However with so many new faces it is hard to know who to trust.

Beat: Take a beat when your enemies learn things only your followers should know, when your followers betray you, or when your paranoia affects your cult.

Resolution: You legitimately raise your Cult merit or you purge all possible traitors.

The Daemon sees things through the lens of a programmer and the builder he is at heart. The God-Machine’s flaws are that of malfunctioning code. He thinks he can do better. By night he works on his own ‘agents’, AIs and digital ‘infrastructure’. Humanity can evolve and he intends to help them (and himself) become pure energy. Perhaps this myoptic focus blinds him the work that needs doing in the real world. Only time will tell.