Strange bedfellows

[Butters]

Hello, I'm looking for some guidance, I'm playing in a fantastic Clockwork and Chivalry campaign at the moment where we are all working on behalf of a slightly sinister Parliamentarian organization known as the Clockwork Underground Burea. Recently one of the long-term characters has finally fallen, killed during a murderous ambush where he sold his life heroicly buying time for his comrades to wake up and defend themselves.

A new character was rolled up and the new team member has arrived as the replacement he has been recently introduced and seems a fine fellow but out of game, we all know that the new character is secretly an Alchemist! 😈

Now that's super cool and he has a great backstory, (he's being blackmailed by the head of the CL.U.B,)  but here's where I need some advice, my character is a puritan who fought at Naseby and as a medical man he treated those soldiers maimed and injured by the conjurations of these selfsame satanic alchemists, so how should I have the Doctor react if and when he finds out this mans dark secret?

I really think he should go barmy and try to kill the devil worshipping wizard but that would be somewhat awkward game wise and whilst I think having a magic user (Kinda) is super cool as it allows us to really use all the awesome rules the setting, and the history makes it a slightly tough sell.

So what do you think, can the Doctor and the rest of the team find a way to work with this thrice-damned devil spawn if only for the common good or should they start gathering the firewood?

Any advice/thoughts are gratefully received.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Butters
Grammar.

[rust]

I think the proper thing to do for the  Doctor would be to  report the alchemist to the authorities so that he can be put on trial for devil worship - and a witch trial could be an interesting scenario for your campaign.

[doomedpc]

I guess your secret Alchemist has to make himself useful and popular before all is revealed! Or your shady bosses might need to enforce cooperation. Or it's trial time I'm sure your GM will have it in hand!

[Julich1610]

I have a book entitled Miracles and the Protestant Imagination by Philip M. Soergel which treats of the Evangelical Womder Book in Germany.  I think the Protestant and Puritan worlds were no less supernatural, but there is a moral element.  For example, the church father Irenaeus in his Mirror of the Waters sees miracles as a way God might intervene in the natural order to convince the godless of their error:

In the sky, parhelia, many suns and moons at the same time, great eclipses and darkness, comets, thrashing brooms, chasmata, burning heat or fissures, fiery flames, fiery rays, fire-shooting, fiery tracks, fiery balls, fire and blood rains, fiery swords, fiery crosses...all of these are considered by Irenaeus to be signs from God. 

So, I think it would be quite possible to convince your Puritan of the divine source and moral end of the miracles wrought by alchemy, as long as your alchemist attends church regularly.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Julich1610

[Butters]

On 7/12/2018 at 10:30 AM, rust said:

I think the proper thing to do for the  Doctor would be to  report the alchemist to the authorities so that he can be put on trial for devil worship - and a witch trial could be an interesting scenario for your campaign.

Unfortunately we are working for what passes for the authorities, though as we have a Witch hunter in the party a trial of sorts might be interesting and as we are by the sea we could easily see if the alchemist floats.😈

5 hours ago, doomedpc said:

I guess your secret Alchemist has to make himself useful and popular before all is revealed! Or your shady bosses might need to enforce cooperation. Or it's trial time I'm sure your GM will have it in hand!

I'm guessing that Evil Jay has plans in place which has me worried to be honest 😓 with the death of his cousin Ralph the good Doctor finally thought his inheritance was safe.

 

4 hours ago, Julich1610 said:

I have a book entitled Miracles and the Protestant Imagination by Philip M. Soergel which treats of the Evangelical Womder Book in Germany.  I think the Protestant and Puritan worlds were no less supernatural, but there is a moral element.  For example, the church father Irenaeus in his Mirror of the Waters sees miracles as a way God might intervene in the natural order to convince the godless of their error:

In the sky, parhelia, many suns and moons at the same time, great eclipses and darkness, comets, thrashing brooms, chasmata, burning heat or fissures, fiery flames, fiery rays, fire-shooting, fiery tracks, fiery balls, fire and blood rains, fiery swords, fiery crosses...all of these are considered by Irenaeus to be signs from God. 

So, I think it would be quite possible to convince your Puritan of the divine source and moral end of the miracles wrought by alchemy, as long as your alchemist attends church regularly.

Really cool, that may be a way around it if handled well and the Alchemist is a bit sneaky at the start and brakes the truth of his satanic powers 😏 gradually. Though to be honest I don't know how puritans viewed miracles.  

[rust]

2 hours ago, Butters said:

 Though to be honest I don't know how puritans viewed miracles.  

You could take a look at this here:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/mcmahonmiraclesandtheresurrection/

[Butters]

2 hours ago, rust said:

You could take a look at this here:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/mcmahonmiraclesandtheresurrection/

Cheers man, I will have to check this out as at the moment I'm leaning to miracles being a more common belief amongst those of the Catholic side of the fence. So even if the Alchemist claims he is merely a tool of the divine the Doctors trigger finger might start to itch.

[soltakss]

I'd have the Alechemost make up some stuff that cures a disease or treats a poison that the Doctor cannot cure. Then have the Alchemist show the Doctor how to make said cure, Then, perhaps, the Doctor can use his knowledge to help find some special ingredients for the Alchemist.

Nothing stops someone reporting someone else to the Authorities better than being sucked into what they are doing. Soom, the Doctor will be as deep as he can go and be tied to the Alchemist forever.

[jagerfury]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

Nothing stops someone reporting someone else to the Authorities better than being sucked into what they are doing. 

The alchemist has joined the party at the behest of the "authorities". Somehow this seems to be getting missed in this discussion. doomedpc not withstanding.

[soltakss]

15 hours ago, jagerfury said:

The alchemist has joined the party at the behest of the "authorities". Somehow this seems to be getting missed in this discussion. doomedpc not withstanding.

It wasn't very clear, then, to be honest and I am still not sure if this is the case.

That might give him a get out of jail free card, especially if the Doctor reports him to his superiors, only to be given a little chat explaining the facts of life.

[jagerfury]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

I am still not sure if this is the case.

That might give him a get out of jail free card, especially if the Doctor reports him to his superiors, only to be given a little chat explaining the facts of life.

I'm the GM. The "compromised" alchemist was sent by their boss, their "handler" of the Clockwork Underground Bureau to work with them on their current mission. Doesn't mean the good Dr. can't shoot him in the face, but where I work if I decide to dispatch a coworker I didn't like I would expect to get written up :)'    

[soltakss]

16 hours ago, jagerfury said:

I'm the GM.

Well, what do you know? 😉

Thanks for clarifying it.

[Butters]

21 hours ago, soltakss said:

It wasn't very clear, then, to be honest and I am still not sure if this is the case.

That might give him a get out of jail free card, especially if the Doctor reports him to his superiors, only to be given a little chat explaining the facts of life.

Sorry, that's on me I should have made it clearer that he was a fellow CL.U.Ber and was "Official"

[Butters]

On 7/14/2018 at 10:24 PM, jagerfury said:

I'm the GM. The "compromised" alchemist was sent by their boss, their "handler" of the Clockwork Underground Bureau to work with them on their current mission. Doesn't mean the good Dr. can't shoot him in the face, but where I work if I decide to dispatch a coworker I didn't like I would expect to get written up :)'    

Soooo Zeal would call in H.R and they would start the paper trail for my "Termination"..... might be worth the risk. 🤪

I think I will just see what happens, though I don't think there will be any violence the Doctor might have to put this down to an acceptable lesser evil needed to stop a greater one. He's already made a deal with a Sorcerer so his soul is already somewhat damned.  

The general feeling I'm getting is that its okay for the Doctor to accept the devil spawn either because he makes himself useful or by using trickery to disguise his true nature and use him to accomplish the mission, a little like Batman did with Harlequin.

Edited July 15, 2018 by Butters

[Butters]

Thanks for all the advice, this has been a very interesting period of gaming and I like the decisions that our characters have to make and seeing how that affects the characters actions/personalities further down the line. Will the Doctor begin praying more, turn to drink or will he add a hair shirt to his wardrobe?

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, Butters said:

Thanks for all the advice, this has been a very interesting period of gaming and I like the decisions that our characters have to make and seeing how that affects the characters actions/personalities further down the line. Will the Doctor begin praying more, turn to drink or will he add a hair shirt to his wardrobe?

Hair shirts sound a very Catholic thing to do, I wonder what the Puritan equivalent would be? MIssing Bible Practice, perhaps?

[Butters]

9 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Hair shirts sound a very Catholic thing to do, I wonder what the Puritan equivalent would be? MIssing Bible Practice, perhaps?

Weirdly and somewhat depressingly Catholics and Protestants did agree that mortification of the flesh is a good thing if for different reasons.

[Julich1610]

On 7/13/2018 at 2:43 PM, rust said:

You could take a look at this here:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/mcmahonmiraclesandtheresurrection/

The question of Puritans and Miracles is quite interesting.

In Chapter V of the Westminster Confession of 1646, commissioned by Parliament, it is stated "God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure."   This would seem to allow for the possibility of miracles.

At the same time, the first chapter defines the "cessationist" position of Westminster divines, insofar as nothing could be added or subtracted to the biblical canon through personal revelation:

"The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." 

This would suggest that an alchemist, if able to persuade of the divine origin of the "miracles" wrought in conformance with the revealed will of God in the Scripture, might avoid outright  condemnation (but perhaps not suspicion!).  Of course, such mediation is at the sole discretion of the GM.

About Spinoza, he seems to rather extend the canon of nature to disallow miracles, which I doubt is what the divines were saying in The Westminster Confession of Faith.  What someone like Chesterton, in speaking of miracles,. might have described as "a deep and sincere faith in the incurable routine of the cosmos".  Would not the Alchemist reply to the effect that one might hope, in accordance with the Westminster Confession, that God's hands were not so tied as the natural philosophies of men might allow?

Written on the wall of a pizzeria:

 God is dead

-Nietzsche

Nietzsche is dead

-God

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Julich1610

[General Kong]

Am not!

- Nietzsche

[doomedpc]

On 7/15/2018 at 9:14 PM, Butters said:

Weirdly and somewhat depressingly Catholics and Protestants did agree that mortification of the flesh is a good thing if for different reasons.

It depends on the individual Catholic and Protestant though. Whilst your Scottish Kirk member might be forced to do public penance, many independents might merely spend every waking hour tormented by their inevitable unworthiness and eternal damnation. So, while some Protestants subscribed to all sorts of unpleasant punishments of the body (particularly for their enemies), others preferred a life of miserable inner turmoil. Very Foucault!

[Butters]

On 7/17/2018 at 11:19 AM, doomedpc said:

It depends on the individual Catholic and Protestant though. Whilst your Scottish Kirk member might be forced to do public penance, many independents might merely spend every waking hour tormented by their inevitable unworthiness and eternal damnation. So, while some Protestants subscribed to all sorts of unpleasant punishments of the body (particularly for their enemies), others preferred a life of miserable inner turmoil. Very Foucault!

Oh dear, I'm starting to see where all those cliches and dodgy jokes come from now. Nevermind I guess I will give these Horseman's word lot a go, is there a pamphlet I could read?

Edited November 29, 2018 by Butters
Sense

[Butters]

Quote

Written on the wall of a pizzeria:

 God is dead

-Nietzsche

Nietzsche is dead

-God

The Pizzeria owner had just wiped clean the bit that said "And with strange aeons, even death may die. Cthulhu woz ere 1666"

I'm starting to worry that God's agents on earth might just be Lawyers. 🙊

[doomedpc]

[doomedpc]

Cliches and dodgy jokes, moi?

[Butters]

Cheers man that was awesome, I believe the good Doctor needs to investigate this pit of drunkenness and sensual lustiness more fully after all as Sun Tzu said 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

"Sniff" the sacrifices that the Doctor is prepared to make on behalf of final victory, I wonder if they supply the wolf or if you have to bring your own?