The "official" story on Malia, told by the Theyalans, is that she was one of the Unholy Trio at the start of Ragnaglar's plot. BUT she left the plot _before_ Thed gave birth to the Devil.
This is why she is not chaotic, but only tainted with corruption retrospectively. This is why she is accepting of chaos worshipers.
Malia is definitely part of the Compromise, but an undesirable part. She did not "repent", nor did most deities in the Compromise, and she was _never_ a Chaos entity. But perhaps it just doesn't matter.
MALIA AND OTHER CULTURES
The Praxians tell a vaguely similar story to the Theyalan
one -- at least they know the part about Malia leaving the Mad God
before Thed was turned inside-out. They speak of Malia as the Queen
of Darkness -- the leader of the unholy beings who crawled from Hell
after the Sun vanished.
The Lunar Empire doesn't really care if Malia is chaotic or not. There are places in the Lunar Empire where Malia is the main Healing Goddess, not Chalana Arroy or Deezola. After all, Malia protects against disease _better_ than these other goddesses. She gives you _certainty_ that you won't catch whatever pestilence you fear most.
Educated Malkioni don't believe in Malia, technically. They know about disease and disease spirits, though they point out that these "spirits" can be interpreted in other, more physical, ways. For instance, a person kept in a dank hole with an open sewer soon generates a disease, even if he is ensorceled with a shell preventing entry by spirits. Most Malkioni know that disease "spirits" are not true spirits, but are spontaneously generated, and that they can be dissipated as well. Manifestations of Malia are a side-effect of plagues of disease spirits -- when a great deal of disease spirits or disease-carrying individuals cluster and invoke their inner mental powers, a semi-sapient personification of disease can be created, which acts and looks like Malia. But she is a spontaneous temporary formation, just like the disease spirits.
The Kralori recognize a Mother of Disease as one of their enemies (The Shadow Cancer), but this might be an effect of the God Learner influence.
The East Islanders believe that disease is caused by dreamwraiths. If told of the existence of Malia, they are accepting, but not especially impressed.
The Doraddi don't know about Malia per se, though they certainly know about disease spirits, and greater spirits who rule other disease spirits.
Sandy P.
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #442
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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