Trolls and Chaos

From: Nick Brooke <Nick_Brooke_at_compuserve.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 04:50:22 -0400



Dave Cake writes:

> An Orlanthi would distinguish between a broo (Very Bad) and a =

> troll (very scary and often an enemy, but fights chaos, so when
> it comes down to it, Good)

What a liberal, woolly-thinking wuss that Orlanthi must be!

Trolls Eat Babies! Trolls are, therefore, Bad. Just because, in their insensate violence towards all other forms of life, they occasionally kill Chaos as well as Farmers, Game Animals, etc., does *not* mean they are "a Good Thing". Trolls are scary, evil monsters to those Orlanthi who live near them; and the opinions of those Orlanthi who don't hardly matter, now, do they?

(The Orlanthi who think "Trolls are like us, and are Good" are probably all Kitori or Torkani troll-loving types, hardly typical).

It's also worth remembering that, from both the Orlanthi and the Yelmic POV, it was Orlanth's act in slaying Yelm that weakened the universe to permit the incursions of Chaos. An orthodox Yelmic view sees the forces of Storm, Darkness and Chaos as *interchangeable* foes of Yelm's Divine Order, each as bad as the others.



Fabian asks:

> Are the Chaos-gods part of the Great Compromise?

Based on Cults of Terror, no. Only two "Chaos gods" are included in the Great Compromise: these are Time (child of Kajabor and Arachne Solara), the entropic deity upon whom the Compromise was sworn, and the Red Goddess, who entered into the Compromise at Castle Blue. I can't think of any other candidates.

The others are skulking remnants of the Darkness, prevented by the united strength of the other deities from exerting themselves freely in the world of Glorantha. They are *unwillingly* bound by the net of Time, whereas the gods of the Compromise chose to accept this loss of freedom in order to restore and revitalise the universe.

In a sense, Chaos cannot enter the universe when the Divine Order is strong. Orlanth's slaying of Yelm weakened the Divine Order (allowing Chaos in); the Compromise created a new Divine Order (keeping Chaos out), but not as good as the previous one, hence those Chaos entities which had entered Glorantha already continue to infest the world.

The Chaos gods are not "free from the effects of the Compromise", able to abuse Rune magic or travel through Time or manifest at will insid= e
Glorantha: the Compromise was established to restrain them from freely exercising their destructive powers within the created universe.

NB: this is a very "orthodox" RQ2/GLish answer, but I guess that's what you wanted!

::::
Nick
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End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #80


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