Nils on Nick on chaos:
> > Therefore, I would say, it does not count as a Gloranthan Otherworld.
> > (Perhaps it'd be a non-World -- a Void of Chaos?)
>
> That is rather more palatable than seeing a separate chaos realm:
> chaos as Gloranthan antimatter sort of. I know Greg has been
> hinting at chaos realm(s), but I see one problem: the three
> otherworlds are currently stated as (objectively?) universally
> observable. I.e. you can find the gods' world, the spirit world
> and the sorcery world all over (even though most people won't
> know about the other two). Chaos, however, is stated to be an
> unknown and meaningless distinction to the easterners. That
> wouldn't fit with a distinct, definite otherworld. I'll have
> to ask Greg about that...
Easterners would only care about the distinction between theism, animism, and sorcery as far as practictioners of those crop up (as they all do, so it is a material distinction). But I don't think that mystics are exactly hung up on the distinction: refute 'em all, Vith will know his own. Whereas raw chaos isn't really known in the East (or if it is, it doesn't seem to merit a 'category' of its own). Thus, whether the (alleged) Chaos World is 'reachable' from the East (which I think is effectively what you mean when you say it's 'universally observable' is something of a moot point.
This idea of the Other Worlds being _discrete_ places is exaggerated, indeed bordering on the silly, IMO. As far as the proposition goes that there exist 'places' and 'entities' which all evidence is that "don't work" with any but a single method, that's fine. But the notion that it's possible to neatly compartmentalise the whole Other Side, I don't see how that helps anyone. Besides, to paraphrase the Doraddi, "We tried that already, and our continent got sunk."
What would a chaos realm look like? I submit that many chaos entities are worshipped theistically, are enemies of theistic deities (and cultures), and the realms of such thingies are for most purposes, 'of a piece with' those of the theist deities. Few would be in any way out and out alien, in a meaningful sense.
Cheers,
Alex.
Powered by hypermail