I forgot to add the line where I said I was not specifically talking about tapping, just evil. Tapping is apparently chaos (but...).
>> ...They are just evil, bad, rotten, nasty
>> things to do. This has got to be the case or every Gloranthan
>adventure
>> becomes "heroes vs chaos," and that's kind of dull.
>
>I don't see why, just because a wrongdoer's actions may
>theoreticaly, according to orthodox doctrine have weakened
>the veil between chaos and the world isn't a very immediate and
>convincing reason for hunting him down. The fact he murdered
>his older brother for selfish ends will do nicely thank you,
>chaos doesn't have to come into it at all.
This is exactly my point, though -- most evil (bad, selfish, cruel) actions in Glorantha are, for all intents and purposes, just regular old evil, not chaos in any meaningful way.
>> ...You also erode the
>> difference between scary but natural cultures (like the Exiles or
>the
>> Aramites) and chaos horrors, which cheapens the story.
>
>Actual chaotic creatures and powers are of course an
>order of magnitude worse, because the criminal doesn't have to
>keep on doing bad things to make the world bad; Chaos has torn
>a ragged hole in the cosmos and is busily pulling itself in
>all by itself. The situation has gone from being containable, to
>beign criticaly unstable. Of course it's worse.
I'm not sure, Glorantha seems to be able to contain a lot of chaos....
>> Anyway, this is getting over-long, but there has to be room in
>> Glorantha for evil to be just evil.
>
>I think there is, but I don't think it's risk-free in the way
>you seem to be suggesting.
Um, I don't think evil is risk-free. Leaving chaos out of it, there are three kinds of evil (for the purposes of this argument)(expressed in theist terms for convenience), each with their own consequences:
Your god thinks it's evil -- You are in trouble. Agents of Retribution, loss of magic and divine favor, and, at death, punishment or being cast out of the god's afterlife to wander as a tattered and screaming ghost.
Your culture thinks it's evil (or, at least, unpleasant) but necessary, your god thinks it's OK -- You are safe magically and in the afterlife, but face social problems in this life. Humakti, Uroxi, Marani, and Arroyans line up here.
Your culture and god think it's OK, your neighbors don't -- Somewhat common in Glorantha. Don't visit the neighbors without and army; they feel the same way about you. The rational response of Heortlings to a nearby group of PargAddi, Char-Un, Aramites, or Broos is fairly similar -- kill all the warriors, then kill anyone else associated with them. Take what they have that might be useful (not much for the Broos and little for the Tusk Riders), burn everything else. Curse them before your gods.
I don't think being hunted down at every opportunity with every neighboring culture's hands against you is "risk-free." The Aramites are really brutal and nasty, and their neighbors punish them for it at every opportunity. Unfortunately for the neighbors, the pig-riders are nasty enough that they are often doing the punishing, but that's beside the point.
None of this erodes the foundations of the world, but it's still bad bad bad bad bad.
Peter Larsen
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