[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][PROPHECY] X Wheel of Fortune
[X][PROPHECY] XX Judgement
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
I legitimately have no idea which card we should tutor. If we can hit a card that replenishes willpower, that would be great, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's what the tens do.
Quick keyword summaries from my tarot book:
Lovers—balance, passion, union of heart and mind.
Chariot—triumph, competition, and victory. Possibly a peril, definitely a contest. My book specifically mentions the Goddess Nike.
Wheel of Fortune—fate, destiny, and how endings are actually just beginnings.
The Hanged Man—self sacrifice for wisdom. Think Odin hanging from the tree.
Death—transformation, change, possibly themes of rebirth?
Temperance—harmony, balance, healing, self-restraint.
Tower—haha no. Catastrophe.
The Star—regaining hope, inspiration, serenity and harmony. The light of the stars guides you home.
The Moon—fear and anxiety, illusion, disorientation, chasing after a fantasy. Sounds like a peril to me.
Judgement—release and renewal, a fresh start. The necessity of hard choices. The call of destiny.
The World—satisfaction, peace of mind. A successful conclusion, realised goals, and prosperity. Fulfillment.
Okay, looking at that I'm torn between the Star and the World. I think I'm going to vote Star, the World's promise of a satisfactory conclusion feels a little forced—"satisfactory" to whom? Also I like the Star's vibes more. And I always trust my vibes when it comes to tarot.
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] XVII The Star
EDIT: after voting I pulled out my deck, and The Star was legitimately the first card on top of the deck, I'm not even joking. If that's not a sign then I don't know what is.
EDIT: after voting I pulled out my deck, and The Star was legitimately the first card on top of the deck, I'm not even joking. If that's not a sign then I don't know what is.
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][PROPHECY] X Wheel of Fortune
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring
Still not fond of judgement as something to seek out. What would be judged? What would we lose if the judgement is against us?
I legitimately have no idea which card we should tutor. If we can hit a card that replenishes willpower, that would be great, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's what the tens do.
Quick keyword summaries from my tarot book:
The World—satisfaction, peace of mind. A successful conclusion, realised goals, and prosperity. Fulfillment.
The Star was the very first Trump we added to our deck, way back on Night 1; there would be a pleasing symmetry to finally seeing it now, when one way or another we're almost done. Unfortunately, it also would ordinarily enter the deck simultaneously with the Hierophant, which makes the chances of it being symmetrical to that card (which is to say, one of the Trumps that requires a WP expenditure) alarmingly high.
The World promises a conclusion but is not one of the three cards added through Trials, and therefore is most likely one of our remaining Occult Finales; I would wager Experience but could also believe Connection, not having analyzed all of the remaining Trumps individually in depth.
However, in the end, we are going to be at a mere 3 WP after finishing this interaction. If we want a shot at a Supernal Finale, we need to take a swing right here and right now. So the real question is "which do we want out of The Lovers, The Wheel, or Judgement?" I think we can reasonably infer that the Wheel is going to be about somewhat similar themes to the Archimandrite's sermon, which doesn't sound the most appealing to me for our purposes; the other two we have fewer guides on. That being said - and here we do have an oblique callback to The Star, at least - I'm just gonna take a blind shot on intuition that The Lovers will be a better thematic fit for what we're trying to accomplish. Plus between the two it's by far the less obvious as a "big dramatic conclusion" card - I'm curious what'll be going on with it to put it on par with something like Judgement.
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][PROPHECY] King of Wands
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring
[X] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[X][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[X][PROPHECY] X Wheel of Fortune
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Nice to meet you! The tarot deck has been consistently trolling since day 1, yes. For example we got a period of prep before being bombarded by trials one after another. Or the brief period of time that we became a pokemon master. Or the most recent phenomenon of the oops all temples night. What odds so you give The Lovers of being a temple?
[*] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
[*][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
[*][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
It is weird and distressing and uncomfortable that she is talking openly about how being the dragon's voice is killing her. But you don't seriously consider turning aside on her account: she's clearly enthusiastic about it, eager for it even. This, for better or for worse, is what she has chosen, insofar as that term means anything when talking about greater dream-entities. No, your mind is abuzz with the question of what question to ask. A dozen possibilities race through your mind: faced with the promise of oracular wisdom that could tell you anything, you immediately start thinking about everything you conceivably want to know.
One thing floats to the top. You search around, trying to find a way to say it. You clear your throat.
"I understand, and will hear," you say, and her smile broadens. You continue: "If it please you, Lady, there is a subject on which I would seek your guidance."
She nods and spreads her hands. "The dragon undoubtedly knows the truth of what you seek. Perhaps he will share it with his servant; I cannot promise."
Well, you'll take what you can get. "After I helped engineer an escape from the witch of Sweetsickness Hall, my friend and his beloved were reunited. There was something there that I noticed. Something that was... the shadow of something glorious, or a pointer to it." Magical intuitions are difficult to express in words, but an advantage of dealing with a notionally omniscient being is that presumably he will know what you mean. "I want to find the thing that I was sensing an echo of in that moment."
Her lips curve into a smile. "A worthy goal, Aspirant. Let us see what the depths have to say." She closes her eyes and inhales, taking a deep breath of the miasma that surrounds her. You fancy you can see what it's costing her, see the life-force extinguished, but as you extend your senses, something
shifts
and while you're trying to figure out what the hell just happened, the priestess opens her eyes, looking through you. She extends a hand to point. "If you depart through that passage, and you do not let anything stop you from climbing up, you will reach it."
Your stomach does a flip. After everything you've been through, to finally be so close... "That's where I'll find what I'm looking for?"
Her eyes refocus on your face, and she looks at you like you're an idiot. "You'll find what you asked about."
Well, you suppose you deserved that. You incline your head to her politely and speed on your way through the indicated passage -- holding your breath as you walk near the cloud of vapor.
VI THE LOVERS
The passage leads you through a long unlit tunnel of bare, unworked rock. You spend a while in the darkness, just walking and breathing, before light starts filtering in from up ahead and you emerge blinking on a cliffside. There is very little here: no plants, no dirt even, just a treacherous route up the mountain. But there's nothing to it, so you climb.
And climb, and climb. The cloud cover is thin here, for whatever reason, and the dreaming-realm is stretched out before and below you, a vast and dizzying patchwork of distant geography. The higher you rise, the more you see. It plays on your mind, but you refuse to let yourself be distracted.
Eventually, the route narrows and steepens too much to walk it. This is normally the part where you would turn around and find some other way. But the dragon spoke to you through his voice, and so you begin to really properly climb the mountain, carefully pulling yourself up the Ascent. Previous times you'd tried this, you'd always run out of climbable face before you got anywhere, so you stopped trying, but this time there's somehow always another handhold, and your progress is slow but never wholly thwarted.
Finally, you pull yourself onto a gentle slope, and walk a little up it, and... you're there. On top of the mountain, the fabled goal of wise-dreamers.
There... really isn't much. There's an enormous tree, branches drooping with fruit. There's a boulder, underneath it. That's all. It's hard to imagine this being a great supernal treasure of any kind. Have you been pranked?
You look around, anyway. The view is staggering. It feels like you can see everything, from up here. The tree's fruit is out of reach and you don't fancy more climbing, but it reminds you somewhat of an apple and somewhat of a pomengranate and somewhat of more exotic fruits. The boulder...
Now that you look at it closely, it's not uniform. There's a fracture girding the entire thing. It's not one solid rock: it's two pieces. You lay your hand on it, and get a better look at it with a cantrip of earth magic, and you perceive that it's not simply sliced down the middle: each half is incredibly jagged and irregular, and yet they fit together so well, in their complex intertwinement, that with the naked eye it looked like a single object at first.
Your hand drops away.
You see how the boulder fits together.
You see how it all fits together.
You are perfect and complete. You always have been. You know everything that you will ever need to know. You can have every trait and every talent that you will ever need to have.
It is simply that you are separated from yourself. Your soul is broken in two. Life has taught you that you are this-and-not-that, and so every element of... that... gets hidden behind a wall of occlusion. Such is the human condition.
(You are reminded of esoteric commentaries you read, claiming that the Biblical first human was created two-headed and eight-limbed, and that God divded them into the first man and first woman; there is a similar story in Plato of primordial humanity, mighty enough to threaten the gods and therefore divided by them. And so your kind was separated from itself, and dwindled into mundane mortality.)
But your other-half is there to be found. You just have to open your eyes.
It is your anima, or your animus, or -- whatever word you want to use. Your ideal lover, your complement, who is everything for which you yearn, and who yearns for you in an equal and opposite way. The beauty for which you have always secretly hungered. The wholeness that you have always lacked.
Here, in this place, at this time -- you could realize that dream, undo that ancient hobbling. You could take that other-self fashioned from all the parts of yourself that are not-you and yet still you and make them real, calling them into external existence, demanding that the waking-world make a place for them, and then nothing could stand in the way of your reunion. It would be solipsistic after a fashion, to be sure: one soul united in fullness, rather than different souls reaching out to one another in their brokenness. But it would not be the facile fantasy of a servile puppet that suggests itself, either. That would not be a true complement.
And together, you could do anything.
This is a revelation of supernal grandeur.
It may be the apex of the Ascent. It may be the glory for which you have sought. Depending on your point of view.
[] Let this revelation flow through you, without really believing it or letting it affect your outlook: Gain this card as an Aura.
[] Spend one Willpower, incorporating this revelation into yourself without acknowledging it as the supernal prize for which you have quested: Add this card to your Pneuma.
[] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again.
[][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.
Decks and Resources: Character Sheet Night-specific information: 4/max 9 Explorations
Those of you who predicted the game structure may award yourselves cookies.
Feel free to ask questions if aspects of this are unclear.
[X] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again
When the earth was still flat
And clouds made of fire
And mountains stretched up to the sky
Sometimes higher
Folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs
They had two sets of arms
They had two sets of legs
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read
And they never knew nothing of love
It was before the origin of love
The origin of love
Enbies will LITERALLY confront their incarnate mirror-self in the dreaming-realm instead of going to therapy.
Apologies for how long this took to get out; as I've said a few times, my normal posting pace is in part to try to maintain momentum. Once I slip a little, due to real life or other commitments getting in the way, I slip a lot.
I could have combined the next Day into this, but for narrative pacing I thought it better to end one update there and begin the next Day in the next update.
I have noticed that some of you seem to be reading my notes and I am working on identifying the security flaw in my system that has permitted this.
Here, in this place, at this time -- you could realize that dream, undo that ancient hobbling. You could take that other-self fashioned from all the parts of yourself that are not-you and yet still you and make them real, calling them into external existence, demanding that the waking-world make a place for them, and then nothing could stand in the way of your reunion. It would be solipsistic after a fashion, to be sure: one soul united in fullness, rather than different souls reaching out to one another in their brokenness. But it would not be the facile fantasy of a servile puppet that suggests itself, either. That would not be a true complement.
Rowan, but more than just a might-have-been, more than just a lesson learned. More than what a mere reflection in the mirror with choices unchosen could possibly be.
...
[X] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again.
I can't help but read this as Ash going from Gender: Irrelevant to Gender: All.
So, this is the peak of the mountain. There's three, or maybe four, things here, but Ash only pays attention to the rock. (It's not just a boulder.) At a guess, maybe the other two Supernal Finale cards correspond to the view of the Dreaming Realm, and the tree's fruits? Or perhaps the tree itself is a fourth option. The view is either Wheel of Fortune or The World, right? I can't really tell, but would the fruit and/or tree map to Judgement?
For the choice itself... On the one hand, this isn't directly what Ash's Aspiration was. But on the other, it ties really well into what Ash found along the journey. I don't want to end here just because our Willpower is low, but as a story, this does feel like an appropriate ending. And pushing forward in pursuit of a goal regardless of the... splitting... damage it does to one's self is something Ash doesn't want to do anymore.
[X] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again.
We are extremely low on Willpower, and we have reached the peak. This is a cause for celebration, right? The hard-won good end? But also,
aaaaaaaaaa no I do not want this it does not fit my picture of Ash no
[X] Let this revelation flow through you, without really believing it or letting it affect your outlook: Gain this card as an Aura.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
I won't be mad if they choose this ending and wake up genuinely happy, though.
Edit: hissss. I still do not really like this. But I suppose I would dislike losing the whole game out of hubris even more, and there are, undoubtedly, ways in which this is healing and satisfying for Ash, even if it is not for me.
[X] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again.
Well, isn't this navigation a core part of what makes marriage marriage?
Even if this Truth were ontologically true instead of just being Greater Dream Entity Nonsense, it's still fairly ??? to me and for my interpretation of Ash's character:
[X] Let this revelation flow through you, without really believing it or letting it affect your outlook: Gain this card as an Aura.
[X] Spend one Willpower, incorporating this revelation into yourself without acknowledging it as the supernal prize for which you have quested: Add this card to your Pneuma.
[X][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.
"The prize was the connections we made along the way" - I also think it's time to abandon the Ascent, considering the other Supernal Endings are probably a mixed bag like this one?
So, this is the peak of the mountain. There's three, or maybe four, things here, but Ash only pays attention to the rock. (It's not just a boulder.) At a guess, maybe the other two Supernal Finale cards correspond to the view of the Dreaming Realm, and the tree's fruits? Or perhaps the tree itself is a fourth option. The view is either Wheel of Fortune or The World, right? I can't really tell, but would the fruit and/or tree map to Judgement?
If Ash had drawn a different card, they would have found something different atop the mountain. The tree is a reference to the card art of The Lovers in Rider-Waite-Smith.
Since there are only three cards that represent summiting the Ascent, and Aspirations are fairly unbounded in scope, it's pretty unlikely that those cards will directly correspond to an Aspiration. They might help you get your Aspiration, though, or you might decide that you don't care that much anymore.
Even if this were ontologically true, it's still fairly ??? to me.
[X] Spend one Willpower, incorporating this revelation into yourself without acknowledging it as the supernal prize for which you have quested: Add this card to your Pneuma.
Just to be clear, "incorporating this revelation into yourself" means going "yeah, I think making my soul-complement real would be awesome, but it's not the end of my journey."
It would be solipsistic after a fashion, to be sure: one soul united in fullness, rather than different souls reaching out to one another in their brokenness.
Hmmm. This does suggest that there does not exist a lover, a friend, a fellow [insert characteristic here], or a connection to broaden Ash's horizons who would fit them as well as this other-self does. That it is not possible to have a bond this wholesome not because Ash or other people are too flawed for it, but because this person would be supernaturally complementary to Ash.
It is still kind of... out of the left field (we rejected the Lamplighter for his self-centeredness, because we want to connect outwards and find meaning and be meaningful for others), but I suppose it won't stop Ash from having or wanting other friends, nor from, well, guiding and helping people. And it is a sort of understanding, although only one of the possible understandings.
