Darkness and Fear

From: ian (i.) gorlick <"ian>
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 16:25:00 -0400


Allow me to expand more on my concerns about darkness cults having fear powers:

I still believe that this association of darkness and fear is anthropocentric and not appropriate for trollish gods without some modifications.

Darkness is frightening to humans because we are poorly adapted to it. So it would be natural for human worshippers of darkness to associate fear with that element. Thus I can easily see that human worshippers of darkness cults would be able to get fear magic from them. However, trolls (as far as I know) are not afraid of darkness, thus they have no reason to associate the power of fear with that element. On the contrary, trolls love the dark and find it comforting and soothing, they should naturally associate some such magic power with darkness.

If trolls do get fear magic from their dark gods, then that would suggest to me that even trolls are afraid of the dark!! (at least sometimes). If this is so, then it is an aspect of them that has not been much discussed. It might be a good thing for MGF. ( 'It's so dark that even the trolls are scared??!!!' )

Xiola Umbar gets some comforting magic, but she seems to be the only one. I would propose that this sort of magic should be more common among trolls than the published sources might indicate. (I'd love to see a trollish shaman unleashing a cloud of Contentment Spirits on some PCs.)

Simon proposed that the fear powers of darkness come from Subere the Goddess of the Hell Dark, which is very scary. However, I think Subere is also the darkness of Wonderhome which was the Troll paradise, so she wouldn't necessarily be scary to them.

David Cake proposed that trolls have fear powers because they want them. Sorry, David, but the gods don't give you the powers you want, they give you the powers that they have.

Peter Metcalfe:
You may be right that some of the darkness gods have powers of fear (Zorak Zoran) and other may have powers of comfort (Xiola Umbar, Xentha). This would be reasonable, very few could encompass both aspects of darkness (but maybe Kyger Litor could).


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