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[COURT OF SWORDS // E70 Q&A] Chariot Crashes Against the Walls

RollPlay®: Court of Swords
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#81

First off, “purifying” the hammer is probably not the right word for it, as the hammer certainly did not become anything pure or holy after bathing in the Fountain. Also, even more so than purity, the main characteristic of the Fountain is that it is the magical energy of existence. This same energy is what the Farang literally consume, so of course dipping a Fey bonded hammer in the Fountain would effect both of them. If anything, dropping a Mara hammer into the fountain would likely have the opposite effect that it did, destroying the hammer and leaving the Pseudo-Fountain a weird possibly corrupted mess.

Also, either from drinking its water or dipping the hammer into it (its unclear which since Berg didn’t enter combat between the two), Berg’s necrotic damage changed into psychic, which seems to have a very direct connection with the Farang and only happens when Berg’s wielding the Conduit.

In addition, it seems extremely likely that the power Tulpa consumed from the Pseudo-Fountain is what gave Tulpa the power to finally fully appear to Berg and create the Conduit in the first place, since Tulpa has said the Fountain’s energy makes him more powerful and has asked Berg to get more of it.

In conclusion, I’m still 99% sure there isn’t a Mara inside Berg. Only Tulpa, which may or may not be worse, depending on your philosophy. You can get rid of a Mara via magic, but the Farang are immune to it and invisible to heaven, so getting one off of your soul is probably tricky.

#82

The problem is that farang as you said, consume, energy so dropping the hammer in there should make the fountain lose its power but instead it cracked and a black thick liquid started gushing out, such a corrupting effect has never been attributed to the farang.

#83

Good point, but even assuming you’re right, at best the Mara moved from Berg to the hammer after he drank the water, and even if it survived the hammer being dunked into the Fountain, there’s no way it could have survived the Apology becoming the Conduit. I feel like if it had tried to move back into Berg at that point, Tulpa was strong enough to keep it out, or at least mention it to Berg. Plus, depending on what the Mara actually are, they also might not be able to see the Farang, and more importantly the Farang could possibly be able to consume them.

Best explanation I have for what happened to the water is that the black liquid is what happens when you take the magical waters of existence and remove the magical existence from it. I think at some point Adam mentioned the water of the fountain being as much a non-literal metaphor as being actual water, so its not completely absurd to assume it doesn’t just turn into normal water when drained of power.

The liquid also came from Berg’s hammer as well as the Fountain, and this was the last time that we see anything magic happen with the Apology. It could have been the enchantment on the Apology literally seeping out of it, which would be why it turned into basically a normal hammer after that, instead of being a magic hammer that Berg couldn’t connect to.

#84

Yeah, it might be, although I think the first scenario with farang taking the life out of water must be false since the farang scarabs consumed raw stone with no such side effects, so it might have been the apology just being corrupted, although if farang can indeed drain the earth of its power even by consuming materials then it might the reason why someone is trying to blow up and change the lay lines in the city. Either making the lay lines somehow blow up and taking along the farang or making the earth around the farang non magical in order to siege them until their magic runs outs so they can contain and wipe them out later. Although i wonder if affecting such a huge amount of the natural energy flow of the earth will cause disturbances on the 4 primordial elemental beings sleeping inside it (and maybe awaken them, also the OG D&D entity sleeping inside earth, the Tarrasque, whose slight disturbance might cause severe damage to the world).

#85

Here’s a weird question, how long has Tulpa been part of the hammer? Was he in it back when it was The Apology? Maybe this isn’t the first time their Farang faction has tried to “consume” the fountain? Maybe they tried before with Emperor Fe and he discovered what they were and tried to get rid of and/or destroy the hammer?

#86

When he first got the hammer it seemed uncorrupted. It seemed to start getting corrupted once Berg touched the prism that got him the passenger and then began using the hammer will he was absorbing souls with his necrotic damage.

#87

IIRC, the goo that was coming out of the Apology was described as purple. And purple is usually the color of psychic energies, while Mara color is established to be green. I think that Tulpa instinctively tried to corrupt the fake fountain “reaching” through the hammer. But since the fountain was fake, it couldn’t take such corruption and the process was left unfinished. So, part of Tulpa was left tied to the hammer, when it transformed into Apology Accepted. And when Berg re-attuned to the hammer and resonated with it through his rage, parts of Tulpa’s mind in Berg and AA clicked together and he regained the ability to communicate, and AA turned into Tulpa’s Conduit.

I think that maybe Apology Accepted is a hint to the idea that Emperor Fe fought the Farang, but i think that the artwork on it referred only to fighting the Mara.

Also, Tulpa and Apology have different origins. Tulpa was the passenger that attached itself to Berg’s soul when they were touchin the humming crystal, and almost overtook his personality during the fake death experience(back when Gale tried using fake death to try and remove the bracer).

I never realised how much of this show i remember. Though probably made some mistakes.

#88

OH MY GOSH Berg as Bodhisattva is kinda the best thing ever I dig it so hard

#89

I finally watched the Tower fight, two rules that were missed. Healing Word has only 60 feet, so Ramus would have had to move closer to heal Berg. And Healing Word only adds +your spell casting modifier, not your proficiency bonus.(So Berg should have gone down again).

#90

In the old format, what would the xp value for this fight have come out to?

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