You start off with a very well reasoned argument against tarring Malia with the 'chaotic' brush. However I must disagree with this bit -
> In a certain sense, I feel that Chaos is actually Good, because it
>represents Nature as it tends to re-establish itself, while the Great
>Compromise is Evil because it constrains Nature's free flowing. It would
>seem that Chaos, in the end, is stable, while Order is unstable (more
>precisely, metastable).
Chaos is anti-nature. The world of Nature was created from the precreated firmament, of which chaos is a manifestation. We should not confuse creation from a thing with identity with that thing. Nature is not a part of chaos, and chaos is not a part of nature. Corruption by chaos is a degeneration into a precreated state, which is unnatural by definition.
The precreated void of nonbeing may be eternal, and the world of nature may be doomed to destruction, but that does not necesserily make it desirable. (Other than to mystics, of course......)
> Maybe this is too dark a view, but I think that the kind of Black & White
>morality that equates all Chaos with all Evil is out of place in Glorantha.
This is why playing Lunars is so much fun! This black and white moral clarity regarding chaos certainly doesn't exist in my Glorantha, and it doesn't exist in the published glorantha either.
>I don't like most Gloranthan supplements published after RoC because they
>picture Chaos Gods as big bad demons too similar to Lovercraft's monsters.
>Most of all I hate the "important note" on page 3 of Lords of Terror:
>"...these cults be used solely for [NPCs] antagonists...".
That warning was not new to Lords of Terror, something similar was also clearly stated in RQ2 Cults of Terror.
I think that note is reasonable. Thed, Baggog and Thanatar aren't intended to be PC cults any more than non-chaotic enemies such as the Cannibal Cult, Annila, The Black Sun or the Vadeli are intended to be played. Only limited cultural background, sufficient to present these cults and cultures as NPC bad guys are supplied and little attempt at game ballance has been made.
Simon Hibbs
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