I agree with Michael on this point. There is a table in one of the old RQ books that assigns chaos features randomly. This is what I have always understood "chaos feature" to mean. If that has changed, I missed it. Defining ogres' ogreness as a chaos feature does nothing helpful. We already have a label for what it is that Bullmen detect in ogres: it is "being chaotic" -- whatever that may mean. We have a different label for the thing you get by eating certain types of chaotic goo or joining certain cults or whatever: it is a "chaos feature." I don't see that we gain anything by conflating the two labels.
Detect chaos detects chaos. That sounds unhelpful, but it is like asking how you detect the color blue: you look at it and it's there. Each culture that has a detect chaos ability in it probably has its own explanation. Maybe it detects the things that were bound by the Compromise unwillingly. Maybe it is things with a connection to the chaos rune. Maybe it is the stink of something that does not belong in the world. No doubt the Mostali have a machine that very sensitively measures the chaos waves emitted by chaotic things (just like we have machines that measure the wavelengths of light), but are always on the fritz.
The detect chaos ability does not correspond 1 to 1 with having a chaos feature (meaning one of the things on the table). Individuals with a chaos feature are a subset of those that detect as chaos. However, I think (I could be wrong) that every individual of each species that has "naturally" occurring chaos features starts life as detectably chaotic, regardless of whethe the individual has a chaos feature.
I think it is more fun to have chaos detectable by people who are obviously fanatics about it where no chaos feature is discernable. It gives rise to arguments: "Hagerd isn't chaotic. Look, no tentacles or anything!" vs. "I smell it on him. It's not just the taint. The Bull tells me." (Which, in a properly ridiculous campaign leads to: "Let's kill him to see if he has the 'explodes on death' chaos feature!")
Chris
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