Re: Becoming a Chaos creature

From: simonh_at_...
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:41:44 -0000

Chaos is un-nature, the death of the gods. Canibalism is chaotic because it is unnatural. Trolls eat their dead, but they do not prey on each other. It is in their nature to behave this way, so it is not chaotic. Eating the dead contributes to troll society because the resources in the corpse are recovered, so it is natural behaviour. Killing others in order to eat them damages society and so is chaotic.

The problem isn't so much in defining what is chaotic and what isn't, as what is natural and what is unnatural (not to be confused with supernatural, of course). If you can confidently describe a behaviour or activity as being natural, then you can be confident it is not chaotic.

Of course the definition what what is natural and what is unnatural is open to a broad range of debate. Rape is unnatural because it destroys society, ditto for cannibalism. In Fonrit, it is essential for society to have strong leadership and a clear line of succession, so 'rationalising' the line of succession is necessery.

As for 'healing' chaos taints - I don't think so. Chaos is uncreation, a flaw in reality. Healing magic is part of reality. If you apply healing magic to chaos, it just ends up getting tainted with the flaw. IMHO that's what happened to Malia.

To put it another way : Everything in Glorantha has an ideal, perfect form, of which the real thing is a copy formed of base matter. Healing magic (or repairing magic) brings the subject closer to it's ideal form. Chaos taint isn't just a flaw in the object itself, like a wound or ordinary damage, but is also a flaw in it's ideal form, so healing magic is ineffective. I think that's how a sorcerer would explain it.

My guess is that the Cleansed One in the RoC supplement became Illuminated.

Simon Hibbs

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