Vapula

### Rites

Work in a lab or factory. Covince someone to increase their reliance on technology.

## Relations

### Hostile

Saminga

While Vapula is unlikely to ever become the principal demon of Hell, he has been more than happy with the boost that humanity gives his Word.

## Subsidiary Words

Computation, Construction, Cosmology, Divinity, Etymology, Field Testing, Free Inquiry, Ontology, Reason, Scientific Administration, Social Sciences, Typos, Variables

## Band Attunements

While you are more than welcome to let Vapula’s servitors have their choice of band attunement, the vast majority of his servitors are limited to one technology due to each band.

### Calab (numerous options)

Vapula still does not accept any calabim into his own ranks, but he has recently developed a working relationship with the Baron of Planned Obsolescence ~ a servitor of Haagenti with a technological bent. Calabim in service to this baron may gain access to Vapula’s obsolete technologies so long as they also take Vapula’s dissonance condition. This collaboration has caused Vapula to give some new thought to how he might incorporate Destroyers into his work, and he's currently field-testing a number of possibilities:

#### Damage Mitigation: Chaos Fuse (restricted)

Vapula is experimenting with outfitting some calabim with a chaos fuse. The first time this demon loses control of their resonance, the fuse burns out and there are no other consequences. It requires 1 Essence to “replace” the fuse.

#### Industrial Sabotage (restricted)

Just as Vapula uses his lilim for industrial espionage, he is wondering if he might not be able to use calabim for industrial sabotage. He's trained a few to integrate themselves into research environments tied to Jean or otherwise working for the benefit of mankind. Once there they ensure that the data is unusable or that the device cannot go into mass production. So long as they have access to the relevant facilities, these calabim may use their resonance in opposition to any roll made for purposes of research, production, or fabrication. However, the more often they use their resonance, the more obvious the effects will become (it still causes the normal amount of damage, but that damage is usually so spread out that it will be non-obvious).

#### Mobile Generator

Towards the end of the 19th century, Ludwig Boltzman was able to demonstrate that entropy and energy were intimately connected. Taking this knowledge and combining it with Abraham-Louis Perrelet’s self-winding pocket watch design, Vapula was able to create a watch that stores up celestial energy when it is exposed to a chaotic aura. These watches gain 1 Essence for each day they spend inside of a calab’s chaotic aura, and another Essence whenever they (or the wearer) take damage from the calabic resonance. Calabim in service to Vapula may receive one of these Vapula/Boltzman watches as their attunement. It can store as much Essence as they have Corporeal Forces. Even though these watches are granted as an attumenement, the essence inside must be accessed as if they were reliquaries. Most “traveling” Vapula/Boltzman watches can only be tapped for Essence by calabim (and ofanim). However, it is rumored that Vapula also has giant Boltzman tanks where he puts any calab who sufficiently displeases him, and that any authorized servitor can draw the Essence off of those generators.

#### Quality Assurance: Failure Testing

The most promising calab integration project yet is to put them to work for Vapula’s engineering division, determining just what it would take to make one of Vapula’s new creations fail. These calabim are highly analytical, and may add their Ethereal Forces to the target number of any Electronics, Engineering, or Knowledge roll made to determine why an object or device failed.

#### Quality Assurance: Field Testing

Rather than giving his calabim a permanent attunement, they may be assigned a new relic that’s “under development” at the start of each mission. The calab will be personally responsible for the relic’s well-being and for reporting on its performance in the field. The relic may or may not be relevant to the mission at hand. Generally speaking, you should aim for a relic worth somewhere between 4 and 6 character points. The more relevant the relic is to the current mission, the weaker it should be.

### Djinni (two options)

Some of Vapula’s djinn have been issued smartphones. These devices allow a djinni to attune himself to anyone in his contact list, or who has "friended" him via social media. It does not increase the number of attunements he can maintain at one time.

Other of Vapula’s djinn have been given clearance to use infernal drones. For the most part they operate like a typical surveillance drone.  However, should the djinni use their ressonance to locate the drone, they will gain the ability to control it by thought for a number of minutes equal to their check digit and will also be able to perceive the world as if they were at its location.

### Shedu (two options)

Recently Vapula has been giving his Corrupters smartphones and tablets instead of laptops. This opens up some new potential actions, but the mechanics are otherwise identical to the default attunement.

Although it is still considered experimental, Vapula has found a way to emulate the multiplicity of the kuriotates. With this attunement he can force one of his shedim into a “vessel” comprised of multiple drone bodies. However, these Corrupters lose the ability to possess anything other than machines which have been tied into their control network. This is not a pleasant experience for the shedu, who will gain a point of dissonance every day it is unable to corrupt someone.

### Impudite

In addition to their previous abilities, these glasses can now do everything that Google Glass can do (though they are significantly less obvious). At the GMs discretion, five minutes of research and a successful Computer Use roll may also provide a +1 TN bonus to Charm. However, failing the Computer Use roll will most likely reduce the reactions of everyone around the demon.

### Rapha (restricted)

Items made by the Vapula’s raphaim cannot be tracked back to them by any means.

### Tannean

Tanneanim of Technology can triple their effective strength for moving machinery.

### Malak

Oaths for malakim of Technology might include:

* I will never stop searching for the truths of the Symphony.
* I shall not undermine Vapula or their works.
* One way or another, I will correct anyone who considers technology to be evil.
* I will always upgrade to the newest device I can afford.

## Servitor Attunements

### vApp Store

The vApp Store allows a demon to download an app containing a Song or Skill from Vapula’s mainframes into any smartphone relic they possess.

The demon must spend a number of points of Essence equal to the cost of a corresponding artifact (including any convenience costs). However, there are some limitations. They cannot download more levels of Skill than they have Ethereal Forces or more levels of Song than they have Celestial Forces. In addition, no Skill or Song can have a rank higher than the level of the base relic (Attunement Relics may be considered rank 6).

In addition, all vApps operate on a subscription basis. After a number of hours equal to the user’s Celestial Forces, the enhancements stop working. They may be resumed with another expenditure of essence.

## Distinctions

### Department Head

The change in title is not just an affectation. Each department is a full administration in its own right, with its own subdivisions and research goals. Not only do the heads have the power of a duke, but by encouraging his researchers to self-sort, Vapula has actually hit upon a system which allows demons to work together reasonably well (at least when they’re not engaged in plagiarism or industrial sabotage).

With the whole of Tartarus to himself, and more than just a couple extraterritorial holdings, Vapula can support several major fields of research.

#### Department of Ethics & Behavioral Sciences

**Department Head:** Buer, impudite of Social Sciences

**Areas of Research:** How humans, ethereals, and celestials react in response to certain stimuli. This includes sociology, psychology, politics and economics. Also, opposition research on malakim.

#### Department of Computer Science

**Department Head:** Butatar, shedu of Computation

**Areas of Research:** Artificial intelligence, the internet of things, self-driving government, SimSymphony, completing projects too large and ornery for the Department of Universal Laws and Mathematics.

#### Department of Cosmological Science

**Department Head:** Astaroth, djinni of Cosmology

**Areas of Research:** The corporeal, ethereal, and celestial realms including outer space, the Far Marches, and the Deeper Hells. The infamous Lab 26 is overseen by this department.

#### Department of Epistemology

**Department Head:** Urizen*,* balseraph of Reason

**Areas of Research:** Faith, instinct, memory, the nature of knowledge, internal policing, and anything to do with the archangel Raphael.

#### Department of Engineering

**Department Head:** Sabnock, djinni of Construction

**Areas of Research:** Practical application of whatever the other departments come up with. It can’t become *technology* until Engineering gets their hands on it, something which makes members of this department a bit stuck up (as if the same weren’t true of all demons of Technology).

#### Department of Field Testing

**Department Head:** Azod, djinni of Field Testing

**Areas of Research:** Making sure the items in the Department of Engineering perform as delivered. It was split off into its own department after Vapula learned that Kobal had convinced Lucifer to give the Word “Specifications” to a balseraph. Also responsible for monitoring calabim, and guarding penal colonies (such as Lab 11).

#### Department of Ontological Sciences

**Department Head:** Barbatos, balseraph of Ontology

**Areas of Research:** Organization and categorization. Also, the nature of corporeal, ethereal, and celestial beings, including anatomy and physiology. Most of Vapula’s medical labs are run by this department.

#### Department of Personnel Management

**Department Head:** Lilu of Scientific Administration

**Area of Responsibility:** While the Department of Personnel Management does engage in some limited research of its own, it is mostly responsible for ensuring that the other departments are appropriate manned with personnel, resources, facilities, Essence, and test subjects. Lab 1 is controlled by this Department.

#### Department of Theology

**Department Head:** Damian, djinni of Divinity

**Area of Research:** The Department of Theology is mostly seen as a laughingstock, full of cranks who invest inordinate amounts of time and energy into researching something that is inherently unknowable. The chief exception to this rule is the balseraph of Etymology, a senior researcher focusing on the history and nature of Words.

#### Department of Universal Laws and Mathematics

**Department Head:** Shaphel, habbalah of Variables

**Areas of Research:** Numbers, physics, chemistry, and just about anything else that can be nailed down with precision in both theory and lab research. The department head is something of a busybody who is known to offer unsolicited “suggestions” to other department heads and their lab directors.

## Internal Politics

Shaphel sees himself as Vapula’s natural successor. He may even be right. However, when it comes to the day-to-day operations of Vapula’s research apparatus, the lilu of Scientific Administration is the de-facto #2. Given the number of favors that allows her to rack up, the other department heads would need to be particularly foolhardy to take her on (Damian is the only one who has been known to do so regularly).

But that’s just the heads, the *departments* which are most prestigious are Engineering, Field Testing, and most recently Computer Science. Vapula is the demon of Technology, after all. Impressive as the other departments are, they must work significantly harder to get the same recognition as those three and are often viewed as overgrown support systems.

On the other end of the scale is the Department of Theology, which often doesn’t even have a lab of its own.  Instead, it collaborates with researchers on related projects organized by other departments, or worse: being organized by the less scientific princes. The Department of Behavioral Sciences & Ethics has to deal with this particular stigma, as well. There is also a small, poorly supported division of independent study inside of Personnel Management. Early in her tenure the department head appointed one of her sisters as a lab director and that director subsequently became the demon of Free Inquiry. Nowadays the Head of Personnel won’t allow a demon to get such a promotion until they’ve already been granted a Word (unless Vapula himself vouches for them).

## Servitors

### Undistincted

#### 9 Forces

* 01111010, a shedu
* Titivillus, the balseraph demon of Typos