The First Stone

“Tell me if you’ve heard this one . . . .”

“A couple thousand years ago a young rabbi was sitting outside the temple when a mob hauled an adulteress before him. ‘Oh rabbi,’ they cried, ‘we caught this woman in the very act of adultery, the law of Moses says we should stone her, but what say you?’”

“But the rabbi was looking for something amid the rocks and paid them no heed no matter how much the crowed pressured him to condemn the woman. Finally the young holy man finds what he’s looking for, picks up a stone and tosses it to the crowd declaring, ‘Let the person among you who is without sin cast the first stone.’”

“Not a person stirred until a little old woman in the back picked up the stone and hurled it at the adulteress.”

“‘Mother, stop that!’ Jesus cried at the old lady, but the damage had been done and the adulteress was stoned to death just as Moses decreed.”

Kobal pushes an unassuming rock across the table.

“You want to condemn me? There’s the stone.”

“But I’m willing to bet your name isn’t Mary, so you’d better think long and hard about where you are and how you got here.”

## What is The First Stone

In addition to being the stone from John 8:7, the First Stone holds the heart and soul of an ancient Transcendent eloah who worked with David and Eli some hundred million years ago to form the matrix that would eventually become the Earth’s crust. Picking up the stone causes it to sing the Song of Harmony, preventing any violence in its vicinity. Only the touch of someone who is without sin will quiet it.

No one is quite sure how the stone came to be in Jerusalem, much less how Kobal managed to transport it from there to Hell without anyone knowing about it. Valefor is suspected, but the Prince of Theft is silent on the matter, and the Prince of Dark Humor keeps the truth to himself as one of his more quiet amusements.

Even an angel will set the stone singing. Only a true innocent will quiet it.

Malphas in particular would like to get his hands on the First Stone as corrupting the eloah inside could cause no end of trouble for David. That is reason enough for the archangel of Stone to want to reclaim the rock, but he also considers the angel inside to be a close friend and would be willing to fight off armies with his bare hands to keep his "brother" safe.

Laurence and Khalid have less personal involvement with the angel, but both find it anathema that Hell should hold such a powerful hostage and artifact. And, of course, any prince of Hell would be glad to get their hands on such a powerful bargaining chip.

Unfortunately, the very nature of the stone makes it all but impossible to remove by guile or force. Negotiation is probably the only way to get Kobal to release the stone, assuming he wants to do so at all.

## Mechanics of a Stone

The First Stone is basically a McGuffin. It’s far too powerful to leave in the hands of PCs for long unless you want them to be treating with demon princes and archangels as near equals.

When someone picks up the stone, the angel inside will gain a full understanding of all their motives (same as eloahic resonance with CD 6). It will also begin to sing all three Songs of Harmony as an angel with 6 Forces and 6 levels in all three variations of the Song. As previously mentioned, it can only be quieted by someone who has never sinned.

Also, the particular variation on the Song of Harmony that the First Stone sings has the property of calming lava and causing it to set into stone ~ a mostly beneficial effect, but one that would cause no end of damage should some Prankster decide to toss the singing stone into the caldera of Gabriel’s Volcano.