Infernal Darkest Self

Is the intention here that the Infernal gives his dark power strings until he reaches 5, enters Darkest Self, then can't give any more strings until he's worked them all off again, so it's a constant oscillation between 0 -> 5 -> 0 _> 5 etc?

Or is the Infernal in his Darkest Self whenever the dark power has a string on him?

Or something else I'm not thinking of?

Once you get five strings, you become your darkest self. You can also become your darkest self earlier than that! Say, the 7-9 lash out physically result, or the MC just makes a move because it's appropriate in the fiction, or you have sex with a Mortal, or whatever.

While you're your Darkest Self, your dark power can still gain strings on you... but you should probably try to limit yourself in using bargains, because the only way to escape your Darkest Self is to get rid of all of those by fulfilling your patron's commands. Well, that, or sign up with something worse.

So generally, yeah, you go up until you hit 5, or you become your Darkest Self through some other means, and then you go (mostly, hopefully) down until you hit 0, at which point you escape your Darkest Self.

Now, here's a fun twist: if somebody from another Skin picks up "Soul Debt", then they go into the Darkest Self for their Skin when the Dark Patron gets five skins. So a werewolf, say, wolfs out if they deal too much with their demon. Also, they don't get the "get rid of strings by fulfilling demands" clause that the Infernal gets in their Darkest Self, which means the only way those strings will go away is if their Darkest Patron uses them according to the normal rules for an NPC using strings on a PC. Which is a kind of interesting dynamic.

That's how I originally understood it, but I didn't really get it. In every other case, the Skin changes into some darker colder nastier version of their particular idiom. What's the change for the Infernal?

In regular Infernal mode, you make bargains with the dark power and he gains strings on you which he spends to have you do things. Then when you get to five, you keep making bargains and he keeps gaining strings and spending them to have you do stuff?

Now, here's a fun twist: if somebody from another Skin picks up "Soul Debt", then they go into the Darkest Self for their Skin when the Dark Patron gets five skins. So a werewolf, say, wolfs out if they deal too much with their demon. Also, they don't get the "get rid of strings by fulfilling demands" clause that the Infernal gets in their Darkest Self, which means the only way those strings will go away is if their Darkest Patron uses them according to the normal rules for an NPC using strings on a PC. Which is a kind of interesting dynamic.

That is a fun twist. I've been looking at some out-of-skin moves for my Vampire...

That's how I originally understood it, but I didn't really get it. In every other case, the Skin changes into some darker colder nastier version of their particular idiom. What's the change for the Infernal?

In regular Infernal mode, you make bargains with the dark power and he gains strings on you which he spends to have you do things. Then when you get to five, you keep making bargains and he keeps gaining strings and spending them to have you do stuff?

Basically the difference, as I understand it, is the inversion of the Infernal's normal motif. In "normal mode" the Infernal gets favors from the dark power in exchange for strings. When Darkest Self hits, the power is calling in the debts the Infernal has built up. The things the power asks of the Infernal during this time should be things that the Infernal probably wouldn't do willingly, which is where the dark part comes in. The Infernal isn't the "nicest" character at any time, but in Darkest Self they are the junkie at risk of losing their supply and should behave in roughly the same way. It's also probably acceptable to have the dark power, rather than offering rewards for completing its requests, to threaten punishment if its demands are not met.