It's difficult to put yourself in the mindset of a being who wishes to destroy the world. I think that Ogres genuinely know that the world is a bad thing which needs to be destroyed and that humans were put here for them to eat etc. For them evil would be something like tending a garden or building a big city - "how disgusting, the sad little food things are trying to preserve the world, they truly are evil. We must eat them more quickly..."
That's why I tried to rewrite the myth from the Ogre's perspective.
>
> As regards the Other Side, the whole question of where
> chaos gods reside is still (to me, at least - heavy hint
> for anyone able to enlighten me to do so!) unclear. I'd
> prefer to think that Cacodemon now roams and preys as he
> pleases, and therefore could be anywhere on the God Plane,
> in nooks and crannies between established realms.
I agree, I'm not happy with the situation where all Chaos gods tend to become animist traditions. It seems unbalanced - it also doesn't fit with the fact that Thed and Tein etc. are all gods, not great spirits. Perhaps I'm being too literal that said, we do know that these guys live in the god plane, not the spirit plane.
> He
> promises no afterlife - indeed, I'd say that part of the
> very foundations of 'Cacodemonism' would be "get what you
> can now, forget the future" - so that his worshippers
> either (as in the RQ version) become part of primordial
> chaos or (as I'd prefer) have their spirits consumed by him
> for sustenance. After all, he has a small worship base on
> which to rely, so needs everything he can get from them!
I like this, it also meshes fairly nicely with Ian Thomson's: "the only comment I have is that whenever an ogre makes a successful DI in my system, a fiend bursts forth from their remains (the body bloating and expanding in cthulhic style)". Which I also like very much.
I guess the Cacodemon's "guarantees" of life after death become something like:
After death, the Cacodemon eats his worshipers souls; there is no afterlife. For Ogres who have been true to Cacodemon on the mundane plane a successful appeal to Cacodemon will cause him to send a fiend to consume their soul. The fiend will remain near the death site until the next cacodemon holy day.
I think that you can also use this to explain the cacodemon's relative power next to his small worshiper base by saying that when someone is eaten using Cacodemon's eat feat their soul is also eaten by the Cacodemon. This would affect the hero quest needed to resurrect such people, indeed, you'd probably want to go on a HQ just to save their soul, never mind resurrect them.
> I don't think I'd take 'skills' to mean 'skills taught' -
> the latter implies structure and hierarchy, but it is more
> a case of what sort of skills would a Cacodemonist have or
> aspire to. In this context, I'd say:
Fair enough.
> Another thought that just occurred to me is that Cacodemon
> might work very well as an animist tradition
See above, I'm not happy with this as it makes the god's plane a little like the AD&D happy hunting grounds. Lot's of bad stuff happened in the gods war but, after time began all the bad guys had to retire to the spirit plane because they didn't have enough worshipers.
I think that there must be something else going on - either like my suggestion for sending souls to feed the cacodemon or, something someone else suggested earlier that by worshiping (say) Urox and recounting the way he slew Wakboth, you're also inadvertently worshiping Wakboth himself. Anyone care to nip round to their local Urox temple and tell the lads this theory?
Actually, this could be one of Nysalor's secrets.
> It's worrying how interesting one can find such an
> unpleasant bunch!
Hey, they're just misunderstood. They're not the most 'misunderstood' either; can't wait until I need a Thanatari :-)
Cheers
rog
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