The Blazing Evil Art of World of Darkness: Inferno
Demon: The Fallen (2002) was the last of the major systems released for White Wolf’s World of Darkness. The main book was followed by ten sourcebooks, the last of which, Days of Fire, was released in 2003. Then White Wolf blew up the World Of Darkness and started a new system and timeline. Seven years later, World of Darkness: Inferno was released, relegating the full system to a side note of demonic darkness. It’s a pitiful end for the demons and angels game that never really got off the ground. Even the title of the newer book is a little confusing, because the new system is technically called Chronicles of Darkness and the old system was World of Darkness. Thankfully, this new book is packed full of just as much evil artwork!
Zack: Did you ever play Demon?
Steve: Nope. I have a copy of it somewhere, but that was at the tail end of me and Keith playing World of Darkness. Jamie borrowed my Vampire books because he said he was going to run a campaign and then he never returned them and I was so mad I refused to invite him to my Earthdawn campaign which caused a whole thing where he threw a cake at me.
Steve: But that’s a boring story.
Zack: No, Steve.
Zack: No.
Zack: You are telling me about Jamie throwing a cake at you.
Steve: There’s not much to tell.
Steve: I wouldn’t let him play in my Earthdawn campaign, he wanted to make a nethermancer based on Riddick and I told him no because he hadn’t returned my books and I was sick of him making characters based on Riddick.
Zack: Then he threw the cake?
Steve: Well he called me a big baby bitch and I said his mom is the big bitch and that set him off.
Zack: Where did the cake come from?
Steve: It was his sister’s birthday cake. It looked like a giant hamburger, only like half of it was missing.
Zack: Oh, well, at least it was a leftover cake.
Steve: I think it was supposed to be refrigerated because when it hit me it exploded like a waterballoon full of whipped cream. It went down my shirt, up my nose, in my ear. It was crazy. I was so mad.
Steve: Then we got banned from Jamie’s house for like a year because of that. We had to play our Robotech campaign on his back porch that summer.
Zack: At least you were enjoying the fresh air.
Steve: Eh, Jamie lived down the road from a water treatment plant so the air was pretty much farts.
Zack: Standard tabletop gamer biome.
Zack: How did the Earthdawn campaign go with Jamie?
Steve: We really needed a nethermancer to round out the party.
Zack: Guess you shouldn’t have left him in Butcher Bay.
Zack: Solid cover, have to say. Nice hell creature.
Steve: I’ve looked through this a bit, but I’ll admit I haven’t read nearly all of it. This one seems much more focused on demonic possession than Demon: The Falllen.
Steve: That one was more like that old Christopher Walken movie Prophecy with literal demons and angels on earth.
Zack: Oh, you mean the Elias Koteas vehicle, “The Prophecy.” Didn’t they make three or four of those?
Steve: Five, I think.
Zack: Those were the days of the mid-90s when a weird horror fantasy movie could do decent box office and get 4 straight to video sequels.
Steve: Nowadays it just gets two to three seasons on Netflix and costs 200 million dollars somehow.
Zack: Hell yes, reboot the Prophecy. Are you listening Amazon? Spend some of that insane Frodo money on 10 episodes of angels and demons killing each other.
Steve: Well this is a dang depressing way to start.
Zack: Of all things, this makes me think of Deities & Demigods and how that had hit points and armor class for metaphorical religious figures.
Zack: This is doing the same thing, but with suicidal ideation.
Steve: That’s nothing new though dude. Bad thoughts and unwanted feelings = demons is a very old idea.
Zack: Yeah, but bad thoughts can’t take damage from a consecrated sword.
Steve: Says someone who clearly never battled a case of the Mondays with Zulfiqar.
Zack: “The potpourri pills aren’t working! THE POTPOURRI PILLS AREN’T WORKING!!!!”
Steve: Here he sits, broken hearted…
Zack: His wife told him he had to deal with his demons, she didn’t know there was literally a demon that deals him pills in the bathroom.
Steve: What it’s really saying is about society and how the demons are all around us waiting to prey upon our weakness.
Steve: I learned about them in my favorite Dungeon Master’s Guide: The Bible.
Zack: Too many splatbooks for The Bible.
Steve: Actually, Old Testament is definitely for DMs only. New Testament is the Player’s Guide where you think you get to be a hero even though the DM is just going to kill your whole party.
Zack: That makes the Koran the Psionics Guide that one guy everybody wanted to play a wizard brings to the game and he makes a psionicist, which is cool, pretty much like a wizard, but everyone hates him for it because it’s not quite the same.
Steve: I don’t know if that’s offensive to muslims or to everyone else.
Zack: Yes.
Zack: Oh no…
Zack: I am getting unpleasant One Night in Chyna vibes from this image.
Steve: EW! No!
Steve: That’s just unfortunate circle placement on a fallen angel.
Zack: She did battle in the squared circle and she was an angel.
Zack: Some would say her time with D-Generation X might represent her Biblical fall from the graces of the wrestling godhead, Vince McMahon.
Steve: Who is Lucifer in this scenario?
Zack: I’m just going to say Kevin Nash. In all scenarios. He is Lucifer.
Steve: And also Super Shredder!
Steve: I do not like this one.
Zack: Cursed image 666.
Zack: This guy would be perfect for one of those moments in a horror movie where it’s quiet and you just see something terrible.
Zack: Like a character walks into the kitchen late at night to get something out of the fridge, stands there half asleep, and this guy slowly waddles into the room and licks his lips horribly.
Steve: No. Nope. I do not want to see that.
Zack: No screaming or attacking or anything. It’s just that horrible moment like in Communion with the alien peeking around the door.
Steve: Or The Shining with that dog man.
Zack: Exactly. Something super wrong, you don’t want to see it, but not directly threatening.
Steve: I think it would be even more terrifying to see this guy at the gym working out, getting buff. He’s already buff, but getting buffer.
Steve: Or shopping at the grocery store. A whole cart full of those rawhide things.
Zack: Gradually the whole world becomes these silent, squat-bodied hairless dog men.
Zack: Cities full of them. No more people. They don’t talk to you or seem to notice you.
Steve: No thank you.
Zack: There are several of these photo collage images in the book and they all suck big time.
Steve: Continuing the whole mental illness equals demons theme, I guess.
Steve: Pyromania is a demon floating over your head making you set fire to houses.
Zack: I’m going to take a step back from being offended and just marvel at how bad this art is. It’s like five different photos layered together and that’s it.
Steve: It looks like it could be a sketch or something.
Zack: I don’t think so because some of the other art by the same person has some really obvious filters and digital drawing on top of the photos.
Steve: Oh, that’s like old school Shadowrun. Like they would run out of money and then start having photos of people in weird hats.
Zack: Or that more recent edition of Cyberpunk 2020 that featured a bunch of photos of dolls for all of the interior art.
Steve: Oh god not that one.
Zack: If that were more than one joke we might feature it here but it is literally the same shitty dressed up GI Joe 12 inch dolls or whatever in a bunch of different positions.
Steve: That makes it sound better than it is. It’s so embarrassingly bad.
Zack: Hang on, let’s give people a taste of those:
Steve: Nooooo it’s so embarassing dude. How could they do that?
Zack: It was one of the best game systems.
Steve: In addition to the shockingly bad art they changed the setting around. It all sucks.
Steve: I pray every morning that CDProjekt Red goes back to the previous edition for their inspiration and not this garbage.
Zack: Well so far all they have released is that video where the characters did look sort of like dolls…
Steve: Noooooooooo!
Zack: This is a little too much like Roger Stone having a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back.
Steve: He’s just a fan of Satan.
Zack: Roger Stone? Yeah, checks out.
Steve: No, this dude.
Steve: And it looks like he goes to the same gym as the dog demon guy.
Zack: Yeah, but dog guy does not skip leg day. This guy never goes near the leg machine. He is sweating all over the bench and doing curls and not returning the weights.
Steve: He has a mental illness.
Steve: Hulkamania.
Zack: I forget is that where you eat like a pig and bang your friend’s wife or where you are used as a tool by a psycho billionaire to sue a media company out of existence?
Steve: Ya know, brother, it’s definitely the lawsuit one. Pastamania is where you eat like a pig and have sex with your friend’s wife.
Zack: Allora?
Zack: Did you see Melanie’s senior pictures? They are wild…
Steve: Holy crap this one is cool as heck.
Zack: This is how it feels for a woman when she gets mad about something and her boyfriend asks, “Are you having PMS?”
Steve: I said that once to my mom when she got mad about me watching the opening for Dawn of War over and over again at max volume.
Zack: Did she throw a cake at you?
Steve: No, she banned me from playing the computer in the family room after 9:00 PM.
Zack: That seems reasonable.
Steve: Yeah, sure, and it’s why I moved out.
Zack: I thought you moved out because you wanted to be an adult.
Steve: Exactly. As an adult she shouldn’t be telling me what to do after 9:00 PM.
Zack: And now you can watch the Dawn of War intro at any volume you want at any hour of the day.
Steve: Any hour I want but my neighbors bang on the wall if I play it too loud.
Zack: Society is a prison, Steve.
Zack: B̠͇͎ͯ̐̊ͨ́̍̀̍͟Ṙ̸̙̳̭͈̤̗͖͐̉͑ͤ̌ͮ̅͘I̧̧̠̱̜͕͈ͯ̾ͬ̌̓̋͜Ḑ̖̪͙̳͕̱̬͙̈͊͛ͪ̉̋͌̇A̵̵͙͑͆̌̾̽ͧ̐͒L͉͉̬͂̎ ̩̼̪͙͎̅̉͠ͅS̀̐̌̊̇͞҉̢̣͉E̷͋ͮ̿̐ͥͮͯ̽͏̮̱C̄̚҉̹͖̱̥̜Ŗ̘̟̩̩̄̏̍ͩ͗ͭ́͡É̛͙̮͠Ţ̛̫̰̦̘̪̦͔̈́͗̊ͩͦ̍̊̐̚͜Ṡ̵̵̜̗̝͎̘̙̩͖ͦͥ̀
Steve: The bridal planner for her wedding is a real jerk.
Zack: Growling at her, “Your theme for your wedding is ‘stabbing and burning’.”
Steve: He is going to need to flay the bridesmaids.
Zack: So the gist of this picture is that the demon lured this woman into being either a slut or a prostitute and now she isn’t going to have a nice wedding?
Steve: That scans.
Zack: I mean, didn’t this fiend see Pretty Woman? The real dream isn’t a nice wedding, it’s a millionaire swooping in to turn a rough-around-the-edges hooker into his actual girlfriend.
Steve: Yeah and Julia Roberts was a pretty big slut in that movie. She had sex with one man.
Zack: And her hell is having her fingers eaten by snapping jewelry boxes.
Steve: It’s not really noticeable, is it?
Zack: Nah, you just put a little concealer on that, maybe get a plaster knife and spackle it up. You’ll be fine.
Steve: I’m going to assume that’s his wife back there and she is all like, “Honey, have you been seeing that wolverine again?”
Zack: I asked you to *snikt* I said it was the only thing that turned me on and you just weren’t GGG.
Steve: You were about more than wolverine claws when we got married!
Zack: People change, Betty! They change! You decided you like air plants and I decided I want my body raked by wolverine claws.
Steve: She always thinks the devil made him into a pervert just because he has a devil floating over his head and telling him what to do.
Zack: “We’re not talking about Yathagorn again, Betty! He understands me! He knows what I like!”
Steve: Now we’re talking!
Steve: Truly horny demons!
Zack: When I die, may a horny naked demon lady fly in through my window to carry my soul to Valhalla.
Steve: That’s not really how it works dude the horny demon ladies always do something bad.
Zack: Hell yes they do and that’s why we love them.
Zack: Although they don’t really fit in with most of the rest of the stuff in this book.
Steve: Yeah, right, 99% of the demons in here look like a ghost or like a bunch of eyeballs and teeth some guy is wearing as a hat.
Zack: At least we can end on a positive note!
Steve: We’re done already???
Zack: Yes and special thanks to all of our supporters on Patreon!
Steve: You guys and gals are saints!