Re: Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 187 from Andrew Larsen on 2005-06-07 (Glorantha Digest Vol 11)

From: Andrew Larsen <aelarsen_at_mac.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 09:25:28 -0500

> From: Simon Phipp <soltakss_at_yahoo.com>

>> There have been some good answers to this already, but I'd just like to
>> elaborate a bit on the subject of Undeath. There are essentialy two very
>> different sorts of Undeath. Chaotic based and Darkness based.

>
> And the other sorts as well. Kralori use zombie-powered galleys, I believe,
> and they are normally neither chaotic nor dark. Orathorn supposedly uses
> undead, in my game they use all kinds but I am not sure of the official
> approach, but maybe they are dark, although I think they are death-based. In
> RQ days, shamans could raise zombies and skeletons, but that was a game
> mechanic rather than a statement of what they could do, but I think that some
> ancestor cults would be able to raise the dead as zombies to defend their
> descendants. There is a very ancient village in present-day Turkey whose name
> escapes me (damned old age) who kept the remains of their ancestors within
> their houses, I can see these as being zombies in a gloranthan concept - "We
> need to chase away broo, grandson? Let's go and ask my grandad".
>
> There was a zombie/lich in Sun County who was a priest who was so old he
> basically forgot that he had died and just carried on.

All of this raises an interesting question. Presumably Heortling culture considers all forms of Undead to be chaotic, since that's pretty much their entire experience with the Undead (although Delecti's zombies aren't technically chaotic, from what I understand). So how does a non-chaotic undead (like one of Delecti's zombies or a Zorani zombie) register on a Heortling Uroxi's Sense Chaos ability? Does the Uroxi register the non-chaotic undead as being chaotic, thus confirming his notions that all undead are chaotic and leading him to think that Zorak Zoran is a chaotic god and Delecti a chaotic horror, or do the non-chaotic undead fail to register on his seses as chaotic, thus confusing him a great deal and challenging his ideas that undeath must be chaotic?

Andrew E. Larsen