> What is the general impression of the Lunars interaction of Chaos? It
seemed
> that the core book and the material on the web site was fairly neutral in
> regards to whether it was evil or not, but I had a discussion with an old
> Glorantha fan and he made comments of confusion in regards to that. Am I
> missing something or is it safe to assume that whether a culture is "good"
or
> "evil" is based on an individuals cultures views more than anything else.
Yip, just like the real world. (Well, okay, I know the case on the United States is pretty clear cut, but other nations deserve the benefit of the doubt :). ) This relativism has always been basic to Glorantha on every level: from cults and spells right up to nations and vast sweeps of history.
I'm told that Lunars accept Chaos on the philosophical level and have a corresponding acceptance of it at least on some levels in everyday life. Obviously there will be enormous variations across the Empire according to education, class and ethnicity. For staunch Darra Happans, the impurities of chaos (not that they'd call it that are just one of a long list of things to be avoided (peasants, women, Lodrilites, clothes that combine wool and linen, cloven hoof salads etc. ) Urban Pelorians are the most sophisticated/decadent and doubtless use chaos the way some of us use style magazines ('Ulcerated tentacles are soooo last year dear, the ab fab look for the games are twin headed harmie poodles'. However, over just about all the Empire, the reaction to say a twin headed dragonsnail or wild broo among your herds will be indistinguishable from that of the most ardent anti-chaos barbarian.
I've found it useful to compare the Lunar acceptance of chaos with the Orlanthi acceptance of violence. Both are regarded as of themselves neutral, a tool that can be used for either good or ill.
Cheers
John
"Remember, we are dealing with barbarians..."
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