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i'll gladly lap up any advice you'll give me.

It's been a while since I read the book, but I'll throw around what I know of him. Most of his character is very built around his universe and a parodic interpretation of the Bible.

Angels and Demons themselves are in a curious place. The book states that God doesn't so much play dice with the universe, but that "He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time." Nobody knows what the hell does God want, nobody knows what His intentions are, not even angels nor demons. This is readily apparent in how he put the goddamn tree of life around them, which is what makes both Aziraphale and Crowley wonder why the hell did he put the gift of knowledge around them in the first place (in fact, the book states he put the dinosaur bones SPECIFICALLY to screw with humanity!). But in the end, humans are given free will, something both Angels and Demons are a little restricted of.

Crowley is stated to be an angel that hung out around the wrong crowd, and because of it he "sauntered forward" rather than "fell". While he does take his enjoyment in commiting and spreading evil, he is actually sympathetic to humans, maybe more than Aziraphale, perhaps much in the manner one has animals that are very serviceable and likeable, maybe even smart. They constantly take him by surprise, they devise things that both of them have a very hard time following with their massively long lives (even dancing!), and do things that neither Heaven or Hell would have been ever able to think of.

This is because while Heaven and Hell were static, humans were given free will, and because of that Earth advanced beyond the reaches of both places, and it's something ingrained in the personalities of both angels and demons (LITERALLY! Crowley cannot give anyone his blessings, so he settles for wishing someone a windfall. And when he admits Aziraphale was a bit of a bastard, THAT is used as a compliment). Their personalities are locked in some manner, but it doesn't make them immune to circumvent those limits in some manner, or simply not being covered for morally gray areas: Such as Crowley trying to preserve the Earth, Aziraphale supporting "freedom fighters", and the rest of the Angels not giving a fuck over what happens to humanity on the Judgement Day.

While there are actions Crowley will take as inspiration to commit and spread evil all over the world, he seems to only do evil in what is only the necessary: He is willing to annoy millions of people so they become so bitter they commit evil, gets his inspiration in how to create Faustian deals through the terms of agreement of PCs, and even drops a bucket full of holy water on Ligur just so he can save or better his own skin. However, see humans commit state-wide genocide and torture without any sort of demonic intervention, or actually transform someone into the song Bohemian Rhapsody, and he will try to drink himself to death.

As a bonus, reading a bit of the Bible may help, as a few of the gags of Good Omens are based off it, and Crowley himself was the snake of Genesis. Maybe it could give you a few ideas on where to take the character.

thank you, anon! i grew up in the bible belt so i'm relatively familiar, but i'll think about giving it a new look as it's admittedly been a LONG time.

People who actually play Crowley?? (Kidding of course, I know several who have played Crowley in the past but I'm beside myself in finding anyone who plays him currently!)

I'm always looking to enable more Crowley players in this world, so if you need some advice let me tl;dr you to death.

I want to start off by saying contrary to the above commenter, while good and evil are in the nature of Aziraphale and Crowley respectively, I don't believe that they are physically incapable of going against their nature in any way. In fact they go directly against their nature constantly throughout the book, with Crowley giving constant words of kindness and actually behaving himself around Aziraphale while refusing to kill anyone (and even sparing Hastur an eternity of being a Best of Queen album), while Aziraphale conversely can be seen cursing, deceiving Heaven, and tricking Shadwell into trying to murder the Antichrist. The big idea behind their "lack" of free will isn't that they lack it, but that their jobs (which they were born with) don't allow acts of free will. Basically they aren't allowed to go against their natures; their ethical choices are decided for them by their bosses. If they get caught (and that's the key here, they can act against their nature so long as they don't get caught) then there are dire consequences involved; Aziraphale would fall, and Crowley would be punished for eternity.

Being on earth for so long has caused both of them to have their alignments swing from the extreme ends towards a more moderate middle instead; they're more human in personality now than angel or demon, and there are several implications throughout the novel that indicate a desire from both of them to be human.

That all being said, Crowley still enjoys being an insufferable jerk, for several reasons. First off, he needs to keep up appearances, not just to save his own skin from his bosses but because he has to deal with an irksome angel that keeps insisting that he has some good in him deep down. He tries to prove that he's really this evil entity hellbent on committing acts of atrocity, and often fails at it since death and destruction aren't really his style. (Aziraphale also tries to keep up appearances in a similar manner, by oozing goodness at any given opportunity, such as the bike scene with Anathema, or keeping Crowley's mischief in check. It tends to fall apart when he forgets himself and does something particularly nasty around Crowley, like setting a cop's traffic notebook on fire.) Second, he does genuinely enjoy it. Evil, to him, isn't a matter of serving Satan, but rather keeping things interesting. It gets very obvious very fast that he prefers petty evil to true atrocious acts against humanity, especially since petty evil works on a much larger scale and it's easy to make even the best of people fall for it. It's important to note that he prefers being a mostly harmless asshole to being a true monster. (He doesn't like transforming into his demonic form because he's always afraid he'll forget how to change back.)

In fact, as the other person mentioned, Crowley quickly becomes shocked and horrified by genuine acts of monstrosity committed by human beings. He fails to understand how humans are capable of performing actions full of more grace and generosity than Heaven has ever been able to, while also committing more crimes of terrifying evil than Hell could ever imagine doing. And he's baffled by how it's often the same person who does both. Aziraphale seems to understand a little better, being extraordinarily smart and observant and infinitely fascinated by ineffability, and tries and ultimately fails to explain human nature to Crowley. Their mysteries, and their lack of care for the struggle between good and evil, is what draws Crowley to them. It's the reason that he had a great fondness for humanity.

If there's one thing that Crowley hates more than anything, it's boredom. The reason he starting hanging around the wrong crowd and became a demon anyway was because Heaven bored him so immensely while Hell made things interesting for him. The fourteenth century bored him so much he spends every moment glad to be moving further away from it. His entire metaphor about eternity which he rants to Aziraphale about, a reference to and parody of a famous quote in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, is about how boring an eternity of Heaven would be. It becomes apparent in his personality, his interests, and how he tries to come off (with his underwater writing pen, his watch that tells the time in every capital, and his fancy modern apartment flat) that he wants to be as interesting as possible and partake in the 20th century, the most fast-paced century yet. He'll do anything to shake things up if he's starting to lose interest in what's going on.

Going into some of the less obvious and more underlying traits that Crowley has, one outstanding trait he has is, ironically, his optimism. The book outright states that he's an optimist, in that more than anything he believes in himself and his own well-being. Beyond all rationality, Crowley has faith that everything will always turn out all right for him, and this is essentially what keeps him going and gets him to pull the most insane stunts ever. He's a very me-focused guy, worried about himself and how things are going to affect him. I wouldn't go so far as to call him self-centered, it's just that being an immortal creature who is constantly in danger because of the kind of job he does, there's not much for him to care for besides himself.

The only exception to this is his friendship with Aziraphale and, let's be absolutely clear here, they have one HELL of a complicated relationship. Being foils for one another, Crowley and Aziraphale have drastically opposite approaches to their social lives. It becomes pretty clear pretty fast that Aziraphale is supposed to be your typical introvert, preferring to be alone for some downtime after being out, while Crowley is more of an extrovert who likes going out and doing stuff. This causes some tension with their relationship, and it's stated in the book that Aziraphale often has to get Crowley to take a hint that he wants to be left alone when the demon overstays his welcome or tries to invite himself in. At the same time, there are times when Crowley wants Aziraphale to be a supportive friend and help him through tough or dreadful times, and Aziraphale fails to pick up on these needs because he's not really the best at this whole 'friend' thing. Because Aziraphale is his only friend- and let's face it, they honestly don't even recognize each other as 'friends' until the end of the novel- Crowley comes off as sort of a lonely guy. If he were human, he'd be the one you see at late night clubs and parties all the time, a guy everyone likes but nobody really knows, who has no real meaningful friendships to speak of.

Expanding on the nature of their friendship, as I said they're extremely reluctant to acknowledge each other as friends. To outsiders looking in, they may look like the greatest of pals (or more? there are a lot of jokes in the novel about them giving the first impression of a gay couple, all because Crowley calls Aziraphale 'angel') but they themselves have trouble seeing it. Honestly the two of them both try to pass off their Arrangement as being strictly business, even going so far as to lie to themselves since they know that getting lunch together and getting drunk together isn't really 'strictly business' behavior. What a lot of people don't tend to pick up on, though, is that before the 20th century and the end of the world coming on its way, Aziraphale and Crowley didn't seem to be constantly in each other's company. It was implied that they'd see each other once or twice every few years, maybe a couple of times a year at the most; the last time they had lunch together (or at least the last time either of them treated the other to lunch) before the start of the novel was in 1793 during the Reign of Terror in France. Crowley even spent an entire century just sleeping, and there are things that the two don't really know about each other because of the time spent apart. (Aziraphale didn't even know about Crowley's sleeping habits until one week before the Apocalypse.)

In the terms of how immortals go, this equates to them probably seeing each other once or twice a month, maybe a little more often depending on the circumstances. So it's not really much of a wonder that they don't consider each other the best of friends, especially if they need to use business as an excuse to get together. They're also obviously in denial of their friendship, again due to their need to keep up appearances. If word got out to others that they were friends with the enemy, they'd probably be not just laughingstocks, but quite possibly considered traitors as well.

Crowley, I believe, is the one who recognizes their friendship more than Aziraphale does. He might not admit it aloud to either himself or Aziraphale, but he relies on their friendship to keep him going quite a lot. Aziraphale, on the other hand, is a terrible friend. For someone so smart, he tends not to pick up on the social cues that Crowley really just wants to know Aziraphale is there for him, and ends up coming off as completely apathetic towards their relationship. This isn't necessarily true, Aziraphale just has very confused priorities. While Crowley is more quick to dismiss his job and the ethics he's supposed to stand for in favor of their friendship, Aziraphale has trouble doing the same, as he knows that by Heaven's standards, their Arrangement is wrong. And sometimes, duty wins out.

I could really just go on forever, but I honestly think that's all of the important basics covered that people tend to mess up, and I don't want to talk your ear off more than I did. Sorry about that. I definitely hope that this helps!!

(I also hope you have this thread tracked or something because otherwise I've been yakking to a wall this whole time if you don't see this, whoops!)

OH SORRY, to add to this, it isn't actually too necessary to understand the bible to play from Good Omens. Obviously you need a basic understanding of Christianity, but if you've grown up raised Christian, you're pretty well set. The only things straight out of the bible I would recommend getting well familiar with is Genesis and Revelations. Although honestly even that's a bit much. Good Omens, while a parody of the bible, is actually moreso a parody of The Omen and popular conceptions of how the end of the world will go down, rather than a literal word-for-word parody of the Book of Revelations.

For some more relevant information, I suggest looking up information on the Hierarchy of Angels, any head honcho Archangels, any big name fallen angels (like Lucifer/Satan, Beelzebub, etc.), and the demon Astaroth (which Crowley is based on). General angelology and demonology helps, too!

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