this is really high praise 
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I’m in the saaaaame boat.
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But is it really wrong for him to at least want to get her back to her hometown? She is only in his life again because of the Mara, so shouldn’t undoing that be okay? (Of course, the only reason the Mara had her is because Berg can’t forgive himself for letting her die, so maybe getting rid of her isn’t a strange idea from a karmic standpoint…)
On a side note, how do the servants of the Lovers feel about mourning lost loved ones? I feel like even though the Tower certainly doesn’t think so, I feel like the Arcana as a whole have some precedent to holding on to past experiences in order to become a better self. It seems a large amount of the reason Berg can’t move on is because he can’t forgive himself for failing to protect her, but if he could finally forgive himself, would still feeling close to her be bad? (Again, anything that promotes protective instincts is probably a no-go for the tower, but I’m more interested in how the accumulation of Dharma is seen to work as a whole)
Sorry if any of the assumptions I made here were outright wrong, I had a hard time wording my questions.
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I see it more of him taking on more debt/burden so he doesn’t give her to them, trying to hide her from the Towers destruction and miserable life she would end up leading.
I mean think about it, a child life which is most represented of the Star(hope, future, new beginning) going straight into the hands of the tower again? Trying to destroy something which has nothing to destroy is kind of like the Tower skipping every other step of the Arcana.
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Loved that moment tonight when @dansgaming listed all the people who had died when travelling with Berg. So simple but so powerful. Gave me chills while reminding me of the great swathe of stories CoS encompasses.
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[spoiler]There’s also been a growing desire in me that wants to see what a post-Farang victory CoS looks like, where either the Gold Farang or Tulpa gain access to the Fountain and the world becomes a colony of theirs. I would hope that if one of them gets their way, it would be apocalyptic for the world as we know it but not be a campaign-ender, and we could see how life struggles to survive under their filthy antimagic thumbs.[/spoiler]
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I think something worth considering in the whole right/wrong conversation is that the PCs are probably stuck with the worst divine handler they could possibly have. If Hazan is [spoiler]a man made immortal to better serve the Tower, then his current stance could be seen as more than a little hypocritical. If the Immortals have gone mad with their attachment to their worldly station, he’s just as madly attached to the idea of burning everything and letting the other arcana pick over the ashes.[/spoiler]
The workings of the Fountain might be a known quantity in the world, but the interpretations of them are a whole different story.
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[spoiler]Which is what I was trying to say in chat. Even the Tower needs to be destroyed every once and a while. Heaven is poking out both of their eyes. I see it as the World having two eyes, Heaven and the Earth(and maybe third eye Mara, but let’s not get into that), and the Heaven can’t see the Farang… So they just poke their other eye out, which is the only thing that can even see them.
Heaven’s plan is ultimately flawed. Destroying the city just stops the Farang from just getting strong. But who is to say that those Farang don’t go to another city, they just going to burn every city killing all the people before the Farang gets there? Heaven is only slowing them down, not stopping them.
[/spoiler]
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I would love it if Berg would speak to one of the Mara (if he knew what we know), and said, “If you don’t help fight off the Farang, I will destroy the Fountain,” just to find out how the Mara would react to that prospect.
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Well I think that is the part that you were misinterpreting here. Berg said it himself- the Tower is about returning them to the Wheel. If Berg handed her over, they would kill her and let heaven sort it all out.
Exactly! The Farang know that there’s magic in the world, the best case scenario if they just torch the city and abandon the magic-scoured ruins to the Farang isn’t a hard victory, it’s just slowing them down without contesting their beachhead in the world. Creating a dead zone around their ziggurats doesn’t solve the problem of how Heaven can actually push back against the Farang, and if anything only gives them room to dig in deeper.
The worst part is that if they actually presented a unified front, the beasties we’ve seen the Tower allied with in the city could be incredibly effective if pointed against Farang armor. There’s still the self-destruct mechanisms in them, sure. But between the flying monsters and the giantkin that is a hell of a shock force.
But don’t forget [spoiler]Hassan doesn’t have a lower soul. He is the exact opposite of Ramus. He is purity of purpose in serving the will of heaven, and so he can’t really be hypocritical at all. Hypocrisy would require him to have personal motivation of some kind, and he really doesn’t have that.[/spoiler]
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They wouldn’t kill her, they would train her to be an agent of the Tower, like Berg and Ramus are. Because that is even worse than her dying to Berg. Death would be a gift. But her as an agent of the Tower? She would basically become Berg, and he would demise that he made her become like him. To quote Plato “Death is not the worst thing to happen to men.”
Adam has slowly taught me how to be a better player/gm I have realized.
[spoiler]But unlike Ramus, his dharma still affects him right? His actions still mess with his soul.[/spoiler]
I just wanted to say that Dan has been doing god roleplaying, he has really stepped it up lately.
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[spoiler]I think you’re right in that Hassan himself can’t be hypocritical because he exists to destroy, but that’s because he represents the Tower’s will and Heaven is still split on the proper course of action. I think it would be very hard for the PC’s to convince Hassan specifically to come around to their point of view because of that, but perhaps they can go over his head, since Hassan wouldn’t agree with them on anything involving saving the city? [/spoiler]
That’s a good point. [spoiler]But we also know he’s been bending the rules to carry out said purpose. Ramus really shouldn’t exist anymore, but our Boy in the Tower made it happen anyway. Maybe it’s not Hypocrisy, but purity of purpose doesn’t mean infallible purpose. I mean, the Arcana as a whole are kind of just humanity’s invented lens to make sense of the divine. The Tower only exists so long as its ideological structure and supporters exist. If all of heaven was on this bandwagon, we wouldn’t have priesthoods of the other arcana working to save the city.[/spoiler]
Man, Hazan is really making me miss Grasping Hands 
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[spoiler]I think all they have to convince him is destroying the city doesn’t save Heaven because that is all Heaven cares about.
I wonder if it would be possible for a Clerics to just call bullshit on the Arcana and just draw power from the Fountain itself, skipping the Arcana. Just believing/worshiping it’s powers. Maybe Paladins do?
I would have to go back and see what they said about that with the while Aasimar arch. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]I’ll admit, I’m personally rooting for a chain of events where the grand illusion comes crashing down (at least for the PCs) and seeing where that takes them. This whole mess with the Farang makes it seem like the actual “gods” in Heaven are really more like a bunch of divinely-empowered working stiffs, compared to the usual fare in D&D settings.[/spoiler]
Great episode! The combat seemed decent, and its nice to see the group having less of an issue w/ resistances (though that’s a bit to be expected w/ more casters). Went way smoother than those werewolf fights!
I’m interested to see if you are angling to reintroduce other aspects of your prep still such as [spoiler]the “Scout” or the “Lady Sorceress”[/spoiler] or leave it all up to chance so to speak.
On a sidenote, were Kalimat and Berg actually able to find a suitable family for Maad, I think it’d be magically delicious if the person’s name or station was as a Herald…
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Berg could have raged to keep his roll when meeting the devine.