Re: Adept's questions on chaos

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_px6U4RmUFi8_J6xj4zlbYaBAprs5WAOv7sSKVo7jMJ0N8TWIG1xWFMld9ObQBOJDuIpQ6_mL>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 11:36:16 -0000

It's not a cast iron certainty though.
You can be reasonably certain that everyting with a chaotic feature is chaotic, but absence of a chaos feature is not a guarantee that one is not chaotic.
Nor is it a useful definition for Gloranthans, since not every chaotic feature is necessarily obvious as such.

And I don't think we do have an objective definition that covers all chaos that would be accepted everywhere. Sure some Chaotic Gods/ Entities are not an issue - I doubt you will find anyone who claims that Primal Chaos, Porchango et al are chaotic (The Orlanthi "Predark"  chaotic). However Malia is generally accepted as being "sometimes chaotic" and you have thrown doubt on whether Krasht counts (and I'd guess the Orlanthi would certainly claim that she does).

Then there are the creatures that followed the devil (that Jeorg called "Wakboths New Model Chaos") - Bagog and the Scorpion Men, Thed and the Broo, Cacodemon and the Ogres, Vivamort et al - These seem, at least to me as beings of a different sort of Chaos. In a sort of circular definition they are Chaotic because they followed the Devil, and they followed the Devil because they were Chaotic. (And we don't even have a single definition of the Devil as both Wakboth and Kajabor go under the title) - but we know little of the Devil, since he was defeated in Godtime and devoured by Arachne Solara. Were Thed and Ragnaglar already Chaotic when they summoned him, or did they tip him over the edge. (So if Thed were worshipped anywhere (presumably where the Greater Darkenss was not as well known) as Mother of the Broo, but not Mother of the Devil, would those Broo be non-chaotic?).

They generally accepted theory appears to be that these Chaotic creatures that arose in the great darkness were beings/races that turned to the old (pre-dark) chaos powers to help them survive - which does suggest they should be able to, on a personal level, reject chaos (eg "The Cleansed One" or the Wild healer of the Rockwood Mountains - Of course persuading anyone else that you are a non-chaotic and perfectly civilised Scorpion Man may prove difficult - Storm Bull may have a "Sense Chaos" skill, but they also have eyes, experience and notoriously short tempers, and are likely to strike first and ask questions later (if ever))

Finally there are the "Chaos Tainted" races - Telmori, cursed by Talor for their support of Gbaji, Romal (Cave Trolls) too, though I don't recall what is the cause of their taint. I'd guess that these "lesser" chaotic races are ones that have arisen "In Time"?

This now lets us look at some of the less-explored chaotic beings to see where they fit into this scheme. Walktapus I'd put in with the "Pre-dark" chaos along with Gorp and Dragonsnails, while Jack-o-bear I'd guess arose from the actions of their ancestors in the Great Darkness.

So to turn a full circle, how does this affect Krasht? My instinct (and judging by the reponses here, most others too) would be to put her in the "pre-dark) category. But maybe not, Maybe like Vivamort she was happily living down in the underworld, breeding Krashtkids and digging tunnels when she encounterd the Devil, or some other pre-dark chaos force and chose to accept some of it's power in order to preserve her existance (And Following one line of Peter's arguments, this may have occurred when Larnste trod on her, maybe collapsing her tunnels into a Chaos Nest she had previously carefully avoided?) The only "problem" with this is (one of) Peter's main arguments for her not being chaotic is her lack of a Chaos Rune, which all the other Gods who became chaotic in the Darkness do have. So the final solution is that Krasht is a non-chaotic Underworld god, Mother of the Krashtkids who has, since Time began, become associated with Chaos to the extent that it is now "True". It would be fashinable to blame the God Learners, maybe they confused her with some aspect of the Gorpgod, or saw her as Arachne Solara's "Other" - the part of her that was affected by the chaos that she ate, split off as it's own separate entity (occuring on the cusp of the creation of time, this allowed Krasht to both be "born" at the end of God Time, and simultaneously to always have been there). Or maybe her identification with Chaos originates with the Dara Happans - after all a being that lives in the darkness and undermines the surface world sounds like a very Darra Happan idea of Chaos - and spread to more general usage during the council of world friends era.            

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