At 07:47 AM 2/16/2004 -0800, Greg Stafford wrote:
> > From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_...>
> >Subject: Re: Re: Broos at Moonbroth
> >
> >But,
> >given the whitewashing of Chaos in HeroQuest and
> >the recent HQ
> >publications, maybe this is the new party line.
>
>I am pretty curious about this aspect myself.
>Whitewashing?
>Where?
"Whitewashing" may have stronger implications than I intended; maybe the word I should have used was "understating". To understand, read HeroQuest as though it's an introduction to Glorantha for the newbie, and assess the threat of Chaos. It's present, and there are a couple of sentences that tell you that Chaos is bad, but it primarily appears to be a source of monsters to fight. Those monsters are bad, but not worse than some other monsters. Demons appear to be scarier, and they're not of Chaos. Also, the sole appearance of Chaos in the sample heroquests (Fish Rain) treats it as funky and weird, not scary. There isn't sufficient justification anywhere in HeroQuest for Erissa's Heal Chaos Wound feat. Besides the lack of a general Heal Wound feat, why should Chaos wounds be singled out? Not one Chaos creature (in HeroQuest) causes wounds that can't be healed with any general healing abilities. Broos are bad, filthy/disease-ridden (disease is not of Chaos), and may remind one of Alien, but the 'r' word is absent and there's no talk about impregnating even males (unless you make the Alien connection yourself). (Thed is just another part of the unexplained jargon in the book.) There's no mention of soul-threatening corruption, and purely physical threats don't evoke the same level of horror (though maybe that's just me).
After this, read GIttHW as though GIttHW is the next book available to the newbie, and assess the threat of Chaos. It's given some pages, but not enough emphasis even within those pages to make it more than one of many threats. In GIttHW, Chaos appears to be a historical problem or a problem on the fringes of civilization. Some civilizations don't appear to have Chaos problems, and the Western treatment of it resembles philosophical contrariness (like automatic civil disobedience or tricksters?) (p. 33).
After this, read Cults of Terror and look through the RQ treatment of Chaos.
Now, if you've been exploring Glorantha since RQ3 or earlier, you can fill in the blanks for yourself. I'm examining Glorantha and HeroQuest through the viewpoint of introducing new people to it (which is the majority of my HQ/Glorantha RPG activity these days).
Also, I realize that all things couldn't be explained in HeroQuest (page count, priorities), but I'm just responding to the discussion of the diminishment of Chaos. I'm still playing the game and regularly demoing it.
>I am curious about the reworking that is held to be necessary.
>specifically: WHAT official history of Moonbroth?
>As far as I can recall, there is none that is "official."
>"Official" here means it is by me, or on the II website.
>
>NG is a very early source, and it is not a set of singular facts. It is a
>compilation of various reports about a series of events.
(snipped for brevity, not to take something out of context)
This answers my implicit (or poorly stated) question. I am interpreting these words to mean that WBRM, DP, and NG are not considered canon. Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks,
Andy
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