Re: What does death by "natural causes" look like in Glorantha?

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_-315DKsshrC7qElqH2gW2z_UI39JltXg0FNAyvjoJhCKLWXiw1vg0yUieQxq4dI0OFR2j>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 09:29:11 -0800


Infortunately, Even Chalana Arroy, the pre-eminent Healing Goddess, cannot cure "age". (To do that, you have to Heroquest to become immortal, which is one of the first tests to make yourself a god).

Pretty mundane explanation:
"Natural Causes" is going to be from specific, or general, organ failure. Eventually *something* will just stop working, and won't be able to be healed. You can only "patch up" a heart or lungs or liver so many times before there just isn't enough left to patch up again. And even if you haven't been "maintaining" the body through the overuse of magic, it will deteriorate until it simply can't function. While "entropy" is not usually a word used in Glorantha, the concept that things "just wear out" even if they are well maintained *is* known. Unlike the real world, where you typically die from complications of a disease, "his heart just stopped" would be the reasonable Cause of Death for the person in the original example.(Of courese, "his heart stopped" is usually the actual cause of death in the real world, but we like to know *why* his heart stopped.)

All-encompassing Mythic stuff:
Barring an Immortality heroquest, Chalana Arroy worshippers know that their patient *will* eventually die, no matter what "heroic measures" are taken. Every culture will have an explanation of why this is so, from a persional Death assigned at birth, to a generic Death that reaps the lives of people, to an amorphic event that "just happens".

RR
>From such a face and form as mine, the noblest sentiments sound like the
black utterances of a depraved imagination.            

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