Vadeli: amoral or immoral?

From: ian (i.) gorlick <"ian>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 17:08:00 -0400


Some voices have suggested that the Vadeli should be considered as amoral. The actions that they perform are natural to them and are not violations of any cultural taboos or prohibitions that the Vadeli recognize. I'll concede that one might be able to work from this premise but I find it disagrees with my entire concept of magic and ritual.

If the killing and eating of a human infant is an action without any moral weight for a Vadeli, then it is an action without any psychic or magical weight as well. It will generate no more magical energy than killing and eating a suckling pig. (Yes, you can get a little magic out of pigs, but not the quantity or kind you would need for immortality spells.)

Consider a troll eating a human, this generates no significant magical energy, because trolls regard it as normal to eat humans. If a human were to eat a troll, then that would be a magically significant act, because most humans are conditioned not to eat sentient beings.

The Vadeli must still regard their bizarre coupling/spawning/cannibalism activities as immoral or they would not be able to draw magical energy from them. They are aware that what they are doing is wrong, but they choose to do it out of self-interest.

They choose to do, and persist in doing actions that they regard as immoral. This is unique in Gloranthan cultures. They are naturally going to end up as an amazing mess of psychological problems.

Any Vadeli who is truly sociopathic and does not feel any social restrictions will find that he can not cast the necessary magic. He will age and die. They have to retain some trace of concience and compassion yet they must continue violating those very aspects of themselves.

One reason their actions are so extreme is that all the lesser taboos have lost their force among them and have become customary standards of behaviour. Small things like dietary laws or menstual taboos just can't sustain their immoral flavour over centuries. Only the most obscene of acts can keep the magic flowing through Ages of the world.


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