Return to Chaos

From: Sir Alisander <sir.alisander_at_earthling.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 21:20:31 +0200


Morgan Konrad (#523) wrote:

> Nick Brooke <Nick_Brooke_at_csi.com> writes:
- -..
> >

 The world of Glorantha
> >arose from Chaos, and nature only exists within the world. This does not
> >mean that Chaos is natural: just because it's the source of a
> thing, doesn't
> >make it that thing. When Chaos comes into the world, it is unnatural. All
> >Chaotic things in the world are unnatural. And when things in
> the world are
> >tainted by Chaos, they become unnatural. Being tainted by Chaos
> is never a
> >"natural" process.

- -..
> Let me first point out that your words do not agree at all with Simon's.
> You say that Glorantha arose from chaos, he states that they are different
> manifestations of some other precreated state (which for some unknown
> reason is unnatural), with zero creative interaction. In fact, he implies
> that interactions with chaos are always destructive, never constructive.
>
> Then you seem to say that nature only exists within Glorantha, which is
> patently false to all us here on Earth. (I really dislike your use of the
> term nature, which seems to actually mean "Glorantha" in your definition)
>
> Then there's some weird distinction that Chaos is unnatural. If Glorantha
> == nature, and there's Chaos in Glorantha, then sorry, it's natural. Are
> you stating that the dragonsnail in front of my character is on some other
> plane of existance, not "of this world", so it can't hurt me?
>
> >From what I've read, it was the Great Compromise decided that Chaos was
> "not of the world". (e.g. CoT). However, this is pretty much like the
> gods decreeing that pi = 3. The Gods can say a thing, but that don't make
> it true. (I think is was Einstein who wondered if God "had a choice" in
> making the universe) If Chaos is "not of the world", why did so damn much
> of it survive the Compromise to eat my characters? :-)
>
> Sincerely,
> Morgan Conrad

Aargh! Has this something to do with RPGs anymore? Anyway, being Chaos such a profound and important issue (as opposed to, if I may, "Clans in Prax"), let me add something directly from *my* Glorantha.

Disclaimer: highly God-Learnerish/Illuminate Monomyth nonsense follows... If you are not ready please don't read! :-)

AXIOM (fairly orthodox): everything in Glorantha is embodied, personified, has a name and a surname. The behavior of the Gods gives us insight on the workings of the world. The Quests they've done give us insight on their behavior.

As Nature is the defined by the actions of Arachne Solara and Arachne Solara's defining Quest is the Ritual of the Net, we may conclude that:

Proposition: Nature is defined by the Great Compromise.

Chaos is part of the Compromise, for it *had* to be included for the Ritual to work properly. Thereby:

Corollary: Chaos belongs to Nature.

        Chaos is in fact the driving, creative force of Nature. Order, as embodied by the culture-defining Gods, represents stagnation, for it is forever fixed by the Compromise. The driving myth of many cultures is about the battle between its main Hero and Chaos. The former tries to keep things as they are, the latter tries to change them. Thus the World Machine moves on (although a Dwarf would never put it this way)...

        Chaos is a creative force: we speak of *Creatures* of Chaos - Broos, Gorps, Manlings etc. You may say that they are just mutations, and it'd be true, but is not all life a mutation from some other form (at least from a Western POV)? For me, there are only two genuine creations: at the end of the Philosophical Age and the recreation at the end of the Greater Darkness.

        On the contrary, the Lawful Gods (e.g. Orlanth, Yelm, Waha...) don't create anything new. They preserve stability, they represent the fitful, but on the average predictable, winds, the unfailing path of the Sun in the Sky, the only way you could survive in a Desert which offers so little and yet demands so much... Society has to be stable, and indeed its Gods offer stability for they are stables themselves, indeed they never change!

        Think of a many-body system, kept together by internal forces (the Lawful Gods), moving in an external field (the Chaos Gods), embedded in a Universe we call Nature.

	Bye
	A Melnibonean Alex

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