KoW, again.

From: MSmylie_at_aol.com
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 14:27:19 -0500


Hello all.

Despite being one of those posters (happily) engaged in the recent KoW tactics thread, I wanted to make a quick comment on some of the recent suggestions about the origins of the KoW and Deathy-poo on Pokums. [As a quick aside, I just wanted to mention to Tom and Jonas that there isn't a KoW in my Glorantha either -- though come to think of it, there isn't a Fronela, period (nor are there any Waertagi, or for that matter really any Argraths).]

I agree with Peter Metcalfe that the notion of the KoW as a haven for Krjalki Chaos Fiends seems a bit redundant or passe; I disagree with him, however, that making Deathy-poo some kind of Gbaji incarnation is a real substitute for the tendency towards Chaosization, though I do find his historical conjecturing persuasive. To me, the KoW is probably best represented as the War Machine gone awry (and here my language is taken from Deleuze and Guattari's essay "The Nomadology of the War Machine"), a culture wherein the warmaking function, rather than acting as a tool of the state or culture at large, has usurped the state itself and become the culture's sole motivating factor. In this scheme, the intensive fighting that Peter described during the Ban (which I would personally ascibe initially to arguments over dominating limited territory, rather than a method of population control) created a warfighting culture which began to practice war for war's sake long after the initial reasons for conflict had been settled, descending into a series of ritualized internal wars until the Ban was lifted and the War Machine was free to follow its natural course of conflict and agression.

Following this line, I kind of dislike the notion of Deathy-poo as some sort of evil genius (the Mordorization of the KoW, if you will) directing the KoW with some sort of evil, hidden agenda (All Hail Nyarlathotep, etc.); rather, I see Deathy-poo on Pokums as a potentially bewildered figurehead, someone riding the wild bronco of the War Machine with no idea of what's going on, knowing only that he (or, I suppose, she) must engage in war as an imperative because the KoW knows no other choice. I think that for Genertelans, who are used to finding Chaos under virtually every wayward stone, the KoW might present an even bleaker opponent if, in fact, it is decidedly non-Chaotic.  While I continue to find a ZZ cult presence at the KoW's core an intriguing possibility, I think even more disconcerting to many Genertelans (and in particular many player-characters) would be the option that Deathy-poo is nothing more than a loyal Sword of Humakt in a state where, rather than being a military or heroic arm in the service of a wider cultural pantheon, Humakt and his Hundred Attendants have _become_ the pantheon.

In this way, the threat of the KoW to Loskalm and Jonatela becomes twofold -- not simply as a territorial threat to their frontiers, but also in the risk of those nations _becoming_ the KoW. As they martial more and more of their human, cultural and economic resources towards fighting the KoW, Loskalm and Jonatela are, in effect, giving birth to their own War Machines, risking, in the end, that they will become nothing more than mirror-images of the culture they are fighting ("we have met the enemy...", etc.).

Just a thought.
Mark


End of Glorantha Digest V2 #189


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