I like the idea of all Vadeli starting off brown and 'graduating' to worse things, but there is one loose end; I can't see why a cowardly brown, with infinite life expectancy, would ever want to become a red, whose life I would expect to be brutal and usually pretty short. After all, they are tough, but so are lots of other Gloranthans, and sooner or later they are going to meet someone tougher.
How about this for an idea (the Grand Unified Theory of Vadeli):
Vadeli start off as browns, the children of other browns. 'Poor' Vadeli (a relative term) consume their children early, richer ones leave it till later when they are more ripe (about 16 is best). Keeping a child for 16 years in maximum luxury (and security) is an expensive business, which explains why the lazy browns exerted themselves to build a world trading empire.
For mythical reasons, fathering(1) a child is a tricky job for a brown Vadeli, and they are always on the lookout for potions, charms etc. to improve their fertility.
No matter how potent the fertility potions, and how large the harem, sometimes a brown's worst nightmare happens and he doesn't produce a child for several seasons in a row. His fertility starts to drop further, leading to ever more desperate means to try to recover it, and his skin takes on a reddish taint.
If a (mature) brown doesn't eat properly for a year or more, his fertility
is gone permanently and he develops bright red skin, horns and a tail.
He can only keep his immortality spells going by the crude expedient
of killing others, in much greater quantities than a brown needs(2).
Torturing actually doesn't help, but most reds do it anyway for fun - by
this point they are not exactly sane.
When things are going well, this can turn a profit in life force, allowing the
red to become stronger, and hence kill more people, etc. Best to deal with a red
quickly, while they are still relatively weak.
Really rich Vadeli keep some of their children alive to breed more, taking every other child for their own use(3). A head of large blood-line, perhaps five generations deep, gets to eat their favorite food every day (perhaps they get bored of it, and have to have foreign cooks imported to add some imagination to the dish).
If a brown eats nothing but his own descendants for 49 years, has no living ancestors, and meets other ritual requirements, he becomes a candidate for becoming a blue. This is a major and risky undertaking, and not everyone eligible attempts it. If it comes off, the blue is truly immortal - - his immortality spell needs no more maintenance(4). What's more, he can take on others aging, which doesn't affect him, other than to turn his skin bluer, and perhaps make him smell worse(5).
This is the basis for the blue's power - they can support an army of reds or a townful of browns, so that neither _need_ to kill to live - instead everything they do can be channelled into making themselves stronger.
Of course, the only reason to become a blue is if you are a power-crazed maniac, so all(6) blues are power-crazed maniacs. Power-crazed maniacs with large armies.
1 Female browns have no such problem, and in fact have unusually short and safe pregnancies. Of course, females rarely get to the stage of having their own immortality spells as browns, as they simply can't produce children fast enough for their own use.
2 This is why there were no reds during the Closing - they were killed off as soon as they started showing symptoms, as there was no-one else available for them to feed on.
3 All Vadeli children are brought up to worship their father, and look forward to the day they can make the ultimate sacrifice for them. Only those found un pure or unworthy are denied this opportunity, and must instead bear the next generation. Consequently, all adult Vadeli consider themselves to be 'bad', as all 'good' Vadeli die during childhood.
4 As well as being unaging, blues are almost unkillable. However their spell always has some kind of flaw - perhaps an object that must not be destroyed, an action that must not be performed or a word that must not be said. If someone takes advantage of this flaw, the withered corpse of the blue rapidly ages in reverse, turning, within seconds, into a young adult red. Meanwhile, the same thing happens in reverse to all the Vadeli they were 'supporting'.
5 For those of you that like necrophilia, perhaps the immortality is passed on by sexual means.
6 Actually, there aren't any blues yet (1621), as there hasn't been enough time since the Opening for the brown population base to build up enough. There several browns close to being eligible, though...
Richard (hoping no-ones going to psychoanalyse me on the basis of the above...)
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