go ahead, blai, read this
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Now that the VILE TYRANNY of ASMODEUS has been swept away by our GLORIOUS QUEEN, we must all be on Guard against his Subtle Snares, lest we stay Entrapped in his Lies, and thus he Ensnare us into his Realm in the Next Life!

As you may have heard, the Way of the Gods of Good is in WORKING TOGETHER, with NO MAN ABOVE ANOTHER, that All may Prosper in this Life and reach Heaven together.  But Asmodeus has ensured this is Strange to us.  He has molded our Country, and even our Recreations, to guide us off this Path, that we may Fall into his Damnation!

To amend our Recreations - while our Righteous Queen amends our Country - is our Necessary Task.

Therefore I say:  No man must go to the Theaterhouses, where Vile Deeds are enacted on stage for our Cheers, which deeds would make the Gods of Good rather weep and wail.  Nor must any man go to the Gladiator Rings, where men are Slaughtered and Asmodeus opens the very Mouth of Hell to bring them to Damnation before our Eyes - first the Fighters, and later the Spectators.

Yet the Snares of Asmodeus are also more Subtle.

Nor must any man play Cards.  The very Cards themselves denote a Tyranny, where some cards are Innately Above others.  When one player plays one Card or a Set, the other Player can only hope to Defeat him by playing a Higher Card or Set.  A Lesser Card cannot hope to Rise to equal its Better.  Is this not the very Tyranny of Asmodeus?  Did he not set it in our Very Lives, that we may think it Natural, and so be Damned?

A man may Rather play games such as Mancala, where All Pieces are Equal and None is Above Another.

Yet, one might say, the world is not a game of Mancala.  Some are indeed Stronger and Wiser than Others.  'Tis True, yet ALL must WORK TOGETHER with NO MAN ABOVE ANOTHER.  And there is Another Game which practices this.

I speak of CHESS.

In the Virtuous Game of Chess, some pieces are Swifter and Stronger than others, able to Strike from a Distance.  Yet they do not Tyrannize their Fellows, but all Work Together to fight the Foe.  Each is given like Space and moves in the same Order.  What is more, each can equally Slay any piece of the Foe.  Even the noble Priest and Knight welcome the Guard of a mere Pawn, with No Piece Above Another.

And there is still another Virtue of Chess:  a Piece is not Fixed in its Rank.  A mere Pawn, if it fights Valiantly, may be Promoted to be a Priest or Knight or even Royal Consort.  If a Player believes the Lies of Asmodeus, and treats the Hierarchy as Fixed, he may well Lose!

Lest any Doubt, I have Inquired, and indeed, the game of Chess is played in noble ANDORAN and other countries of the Gods of Good.

Let us all play CHESS, and other VIRTUOUS GAMES, and so All Together reach HEAVEN!

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This is a very stupid way to think about chess. Which Iomedae is indifferent to. The concept of handicapping the stronger player to allow a challenging game against a weaker one, that's maybe anti-Asmodean, but pawn promotion? When Asmodeus's country plucked farmers' daughters and tailors' sons out of its schools to make them wizards and clerics if only they could endure the long slog to the other end of the board? There's no contrast there.

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It is another outright nonsensical pamphlet… but it does spark one good idea in her.  Thea’s gotten the impression that she and her sisters get a lot less fun than ordinary child, probably especially so compared to children in Good countries.  And Thea’s been trying to guide her sister to cultivate their minds more in line with Irori’s teachings.  So some intellectually stimulating games like chess might serve to provide entertainment while strengthening their mind as well.  She’ll purchase a chess set or two when she has the chance and make them available.

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Oh come on. Maybe in the backwoods there were lazy or burnt-out clerics of Asmodeus who, having seen their own ambitions fail, in turn failed to teach everyone about proper ambition in an Asmodean hierarchy. But this isn't some peasant village, this is Westcrown. There were lots of young, ambitious clerics jockeying for advancement, all too full of themselves and consequently prone to droning on about how ambition was the truest service to Asmodeus, complete with frequent reference to the example of promotion among devils. She even remembers a sermon explicitly analogizing it to chess, down to how a pawn couldn't promote to king because only Asmodeus was the singular, irreplaceable tyrant at top.

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