Re: Head Taking

From: simon_hibbs2 <simon.hibbs_at_...>
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 09:55:16 -0000

> In a fairly old post, Simon writes:
>
> "What makes Thanatar cultists different from this is that, rather
> than simply taking the heads of their foes, they actualy go out
> of their way to kill people who are otherwise not their enemies
> _just_ so that they can take their heads for personal power and
> profit."
>
> Sorry, but everybody is a Thanatar enemy, right? So that
distinction
> doesn't make hold water for me.

Not everyone. Many chaos cults are neutral!

> ...Certainly they are primarily doing
> their nasty deeds for power and profit, but
> <cynical realism mode on>
> that describes most player characters and heroes too.
> <cynical realism mode off>

Criminals do nasty things to people for personal profit. Honourable men and women need better reasons than that. Cynical or not, surely you can see the difference between taking the heads of people you kill (for non-head-taking reasons), and killing people in order to take their heads?

> I know I'm playing a bit of Devil's Advocate here, but this
> whole "headtaking is cool, let's make myths about stealing powers
> with it" thread is pretty disgusting to me since Thanatari have
> played key roles in a lot of my past campaigns.

Nevertheless the head takers exist in glorantha, and are significant enough to merit their own counter in Dragon Pass/WBRM. It seems reasonable to want to know who and what they are?

> ...And Argrath has a
> real problem using them - won't the Lunar propagandists have a
field
> day decrying his "Thanatari"?

Of course.

Simon Hibbs