>Malia was at first a healing spirit with great powers over growth
>and birth. That fits with her discovering diseases, since they grow
>and replicate and it fits with her midwifing Wakboth. But it
>doesn't fit with her being evil.
It seems to me that Malia's crime must be selfishness. Blindness to all but her own short-term self-interest. She Just Doesn't Care. She is a goddess of life - but her life flourishes at the expense of the beings it infects. She can watch a human turn into a cancerous mass of tumours or a coughing, pus-soaked mess and rejoice in how pretty the diseases look, and not even notice the suffering and death of the man. After all, there are millions more coming along every year to replace him.
The way disease eats away at a body is a microcosm of what Chaos would later attempt to do to Glorantha. Its inspiration, perhaps. Would Malia rejoice in the parallel, or be jealous and angry because she wants all the world for herself and her diseases?
How did Malia acquire the power of Death? In other words, what's the mythical reason for people dying of diseases, instead of having to suffer from them for all eternity? I imagine that this could actually be a heroquest Malia *lost*: after all, death in such circumstances can be a mercy. Did Eurmal trick her into stealing Humakt's sword, without her realising what it would do?
Stephen
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