[LMB] death & choice

[Linde Brocato]

More than just CoC and the number of deaths, I think, in TSK:B, but the
matter of choice, and choosing to die for a higher purpose.  I'm rereading
Paladin of Souls, and dy Cabon says of Arhys: "Choice is the trial of all
who are trapped in time; and <em>that</em> choice [of welcoming or rejecting
the arms of the gods] is the last one time imposes."

A Malice has no higher purpose than its own pleasure and profit, at the
expense of any and everything else, which is the essential difference
between them and humans, esp. lakewalkers.  The lakewalkers are a bit like
Ista, cursing the gods as absent because the gods don't or can't speak or
act directly in the world.  Dag's genealogy of -- and hints at the relation
between -- Lakewalkers and Farmers may well point to some of the source of
the Malice in the arrogance and self-serving of some of the Mages of before
the cataclysm that brought the Malices into this world.

best
Linde