I think what this conversation repeatedly misses is that most of these acts: eating sentient flesh, taking heads and binding the souls within are ritual acts in this context. Eating someone because you are hungry is very different from eating someone's flesh in sacred rites at the Cacodemon alter or of the Cannibal cult. One is a violation of culturally acceptable behaviour (or not if you are a troll) the other a deliberate transgression for magical power. This notion of 'accidentally inviting chaos in' doesn't seem to have much precedence in the literature; I think its always a deliberate ritual act. I don't think trolls risk any chaotic taint from consuming sentient flesh, unless they explicitly do it as part of a chaotic ritual. I doubt this idea of 'accidentally becoming chaotic' or 'save against becoming a chaos monster'. The Cannibal Cult probably does not risk it, because their rituals don't use chaos, although they are powered by the transgressive act. The transgression is a way to break the barriers between the world as part of ritual, what barrier you break depends on the cult. Chaos cults may be forced to use transgressive acts more regularly because they don't have the numbers to use other approaches - hence the idea that chaos is borne from desperation.
Personally I think that stories where people realize that the only way to gain magical help is through chaos, for example sacrificing for Cacodemon's blessing by eating sentient flesh so that their children will be stronger, fairer and brighter, are far more powerful than stories where our uncle accidentally became a chaos monster because granny chopped off the tip of her finger while slicing vegetables and it fell into the soup.
For me the latter has nothing to do with chaos.
Ian
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Powered by hypermail