When do you become chaotic?

From: Michael Hitchens <michaelh_at_cNf9TulzQd_oYkHid5INIR9l18VtUJKSrVSsr5yXFT8ks4f92m3Tzai5fXjOAvhdo3P>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:01:37 +1000 (EST)


On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, valkoharja wrote:

> And now we come back to the question that's been bothering me. When do
> you become chaotic, and when is it permanent. Is it when you as an
> initiate of Thanatar? I would think you would register as chaotic then.
>
> But what happes when you abandon Thanatar? If you haven't sprouted a
> full blown chaos feature, can you still save yourself from quitting
> the cult? This is what I'm leaning towards at the moment, but I'd
> really like to hear a definite answer from Greg to this.

I answered this (at least gave my opinion) in my previous post, but it was rather long and people may not have bothered.

To me the "taint of chaos" is immaterial. It does not depend on anything in the material world.

"Taint of chaos" change to/feature of immaterial part of entity (soul/spirit/essence)
"Chaos feature" physical manifestation of immaterial taint.

You can have taint without a chaos feature, but no chaos feature without the taint.

When do you become chaotic? Some creatures are born that way (such as broo, scorpionmen, ogres, dragonsnails, walktapi, etc). How do those not (such as a human worshipper of Thed) become chaotic? No strict rule. I don't think even initiation is defintive. The more chaotic acts performed, including worhsipping a chaos entity, the higher the chance. Of course, if you turn into a Broo then you are chaotic, but the turning into a Broo is a symptom, not a cause. Chaos is unpredictable - no hard and fast rules. Simply greater and greater chances.

Can you stop being chaotic once you are? I would like to think so. It would involve heroquesting, as the essence of chaos is immaterial. It would be harder for those born chaotic. It would be harder the more your are tainted. I don't know if this matches Greg's view, but in my Glorantha it is reversible. But it is not as simple as saying "I'm not chaotic anymore and I don't worship chaotic entities". But if you were a worshipper and your didn't have the chaos taint, then yes you can just cut and run.

Michael



Dr. Michael Hitchens
Senior Lecturer, Department of Computing Macquarie University
michaelh_at_5pktJMfpV7eDGYHNUtksUPCsqFEyxeOdkEzh41ZGr8EdQD3Tk2G7X1813vkDSrivsdVyxqPi1wbpNynJZXI.yahoo.invalid            

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