Re: Death Rune and creating undead

From: Richard Hayes <richard_hayes29_at_fnchIYydIb-D5LiNXvMTo1CxCAtYDanx97V1V4Cbt7eGZkW64tQQ_c-cGSqe>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:56:36 +0000 (GMT)

I like "Philbert's" theory in lots of ways -- but it raises  further questions too:  
The creation of ghosts, vampires, thanatari heads, mummies etc.  also involves tying a soul to the material plane, and the creation of ghosts is not something that only Chaotics can do (Indeed ghosts sort-of retain their souls (and usually even regenerate their own magic points)  
Secondly, if there are two kinds of zombies (one where the soul goes to hell and the corpse is reanimated by magic, and one where the corpse is trapped), shouldn't the second category retain more of its magic points than the first kind? If it doesn't, where do these magic points go? (This would seem to make the Chaotic zombie/skeleton very inefficient to create, unless the chaotic necromancer gets to put the spirit to one puropse and the body to another?)  
Thirdly, what about mummies in Glorantha -- which are undead but retain their INT and some magic points (although the latter do not regenerate naturally) and presumably therefore also some of their character? Is there any link between mummies and Chaos? Also isn't there a Zorak Zoran mummy in Griffin Mountain, though if I remember correctly there is also no explanation of how it was created  
Richard Hayes
 

• On Mon, 26/1/09, philbert6000 <philbert6000_at_--8dqoI2YxL4ycgvbhBCbDc3xYB1RvUWQsB63YAFKKtoHZy2EV23RM5uB1q8BwTDLPkZcokDgOwsWqTD.yahoo.invalid> wrote:

From: philbert6000 <philbert6000_at_--8dqoI2YxL4ycgvbhBCbDc3xYB1RvUWQsB63YAFKKtoHZy2EV23RM5uB1q8BwTDLPkZcokDgOwsWqTD.yahoo.invalid> Subject: Re: Death Rune and creating undead To: WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, 26 January, 2009, 11:08 AM

• In WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com, "valkoharja" <rintasaa_at_...> wrote:
  >
  > Hello all,
  >
  > I wonder if the Death Rune gives a magician potential to raise undead?
  >
  > I know there's the hunger/undeath rune outside the core runes, but
  > I've always been a bit unhappy with that.
  >
  > Basically, are undead a manifestation of chaos? Is the path for
  > creating undead through Death and Chaos runes? Am I missing something
  > (probably)?
  >
  > -Adept
  >
  

Seems to me that there are two things that are missing from this discussion. Isn't Gark the Calm the god of Zombies? Gark is listed as a chaos god, which would suggest that Zombies are linked to the Chaos rune. Zorak Zoran, if this is true, borrows from this power, so we have a contradiction here.

Secondly, Darkness is not associated with Zombies, or rather, skeletons and zombies are not necessarily associated with the darkness rune. Ghosts, wraiths and other discorporate spirits are (through subere), and these are also "undead", but animated corpses are not, since there
are no other troll gods that seem to practice zombie making. ZZ is unique in this regard, but then again, he is unique in many ways, he is not even really a troll god originally, he is a "adopted" god like Elmal was adopted from the sun tribe and Issaries was adopted from the Sea tribe into the Storm tribe.

I think ZZ powers have more to do with his origins as a god that came to hell from the outside. Denying hell of a spirit by fixing it to a corpse seems to me like a thing that a true god of hell wouldnt do.

Basically I think ZZs practice of corpse animation is unnatural even to trolls. After all they eat their dead in funeral rights, a zombie robs from both the community and the god of hell.

I think undead making becomes chaotic when it involves the annihilation of something in the world, any magic that permanently robs the world of energy is chaotic, thus Vampires are inherently chaotic, thanatary heads, chrimson bat, etc...

I also think there are two kinds of zombie/skeleton magic: One type involves enslaving the soul to the corpse (Gark), and this is chaotic since the soul is denied transit to its god's afterlife, the other type is purely the animation of a corpse with magical power (Sorcery, ZZ). Animating a skeleton does not enslave a soul, the soul is long gone to its god realm and your magic doesnt bring it back into the mundane world to power a set of bones.

Basically I think there are 2 kinds of zombies, the chaotic type that Gark makes, and which Delecti is a master practitioner of, and then there is the inanimate object zombie, purely a magically powered construct that doesnt actually contain a soul, just a permanent piece of the creator's soul. This is the ZZ zombie.

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