Chaos, Judges and Sea Dragons

From: Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 13:05:54 +1300


Sandy Petersen:

I had written:

>>The Law Rune is opposed to the Chaos Rune in the God Learner view of
>>things

Which prompts Sandy, Ever PC, to leap to their defense...

> Oh no, it's not. They knew better than that. They could
>even tell the difference between Disorder and Chaos, and specify the
>Six Types of Chaos. I'm not sure there's _any_ major group in
>Glorantha that opposes Law to Chaos.

It was a logical followup to the statement that Glorantha was a bubble of law randomnly formed from within Chaos. The fact they never explicitly stated this Moorcockian proposition means they knew how stupid it was but they were unable to say what was wrong with it. A similar situation to Lord Kelvin calculating last century that the Sun must be 100,000 years at the most (he assumed it was burning coal - although he never did think it was stupid or even admit its false assumption).

Curtis Shenton:
- ---------------

>I've got a few ideas for a Cult of Law for the Judges. With all of them
>walking around with great, huge Law Rune badges I think it's only
>natural that some of them would essentially worship the Law. Judges who
>are part of the cult get a Sense Perp skill. But it's more akin to
>Telepathy than something like Sense Assasin. It only works on Perps
>other judges have decided were criminals, correctly or not.

Or perhaps a spell called Sense Caste. Given that the Judges know Five Castes: Lords, Wizards, Knights, Peasants and OFFENDERS (as the SCU Guidebook informs us), detecting perp would be really easy to handle. Normally a person of the Caste of OFFENDER are those who have committed acts which subvert the Social Order as promugulated by the Great Lawgiver Malkion (Murder, Vice and also some broad-spectrum Caste Offenses like a peasant riding a horse). It is not senstive enough to resolve all the major religious disputes which rack Malkionism, nor will it reveal the actual crime which he has committed. I think the stigma fades as far as the spell can tell after a day (for using a toilet not meant for those of your caste) to a esason for more serious offenses. But what of those who do not venerate the teachings of Malkion (like those spugging Orlanthi)? Quite simply they all register as OFFENDERS! Unfortunately the Motherdrokking Vadeli do not register on this spell cause they are slimely little spuggers! Grudd on a Grennie!

>What's a Sea Dragon then? A great big monster from the deeps that is
>just called a Dragon? Or is it something with actual Draconic Ties?
>Because I'm liking the idea of aquatic Dragonnewts more and more I'll
>probably have the Sea Dragons in some way reflect Draconic powers.

The Draconicism of the Sea Dragon is a bit of a red herring. It would be far better to say that they represent a different path to Draconic Status other than the 'newts of Dragon Pass. The Inhuman King does not have the monopoly on what goes on in Draconicism (EWF betrayal aside). The Kralori alone show up the falsity of that belief. The Dragonewts of Teleos appear to follow someone called the Mottled One of the Homeward Ocean (source: Cerulean Glory Oversees Tides, Dragon #200), whereas Ryzel is independant and the Ralian 'newts do not even have an Inhuman King! (Ouroboros alone knows how they manage to reproduce!). I think the the Sea Dragons start off as immature dragons who just get bigger rather than having any aquantic dragnewts. If however Master Lord-Prince of the Four Jewels is successful in his mutation, then you will see at Sog City a race of aquantic 'newts, IMO.

End of Glorantha Digest V1 #322


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