EricW

He he - but the bat only wanes if it runs out of victims. I wonder how many victims the other Lunar heroes need to power their magic?

One question - the existence of the bat implies a path to breaking free of the Lunar cycle. Some Lunar heroes have their own glow spot. Given the bat is extremely chaotic, this may imply the path to developing your own patch of moonlight is perilous and likely involves contact with a lot of chaos. Has anyone written such a quest up?

In "Orlanth is Dead" which describes the Wind Stop, the book makes it clear the Lunars are busy twisting myths to suit themselves, like substituting in Lunar entities to twist the outcomes of quests. But in "King of Sartar" Argrath finds his way through the broken mythic landscape and achieves his goals anyway, along with doing his own twisting of myths, such as the double heroquest which resurrected Sheng Seleris. So the answer is it is possible to prevail against Lunar godlearnerism, but you need to be a very unusual Orlanthi to push back against that kind of tampering with the mythic landscape.

He he - the Storm Bull dentist. “All tooth decay is disease and all disease is chaos, so we’ll knock all the teeth out to be safe!!!”. Now starting THAT train of thought would be an interesting Eurmal lie 🙂

Love to know the back story. Did they discover the world machine is irreparably broken and lose their way? Or did they become ensnared by a heresy and were kicked out?

I think the defining characteristic of adamantium would be incredible rarity? Otherwise everyone would have some, next to their gallon jug of Styx water. Like PCs never get their hands on it?

Yes but Gbaji cheated, he doesn't detect as law or chaos.

Wasn't the Nysalor project an explicit attempt to return the gods age? This implies a lot of people missed the old days - even though there are strong hints that Time is what keeps the Devil from escaping the Block. Given the Sunstop and the divine incarnations which appeared during the Battle of Night and Day, the followers of Nysalor came perilously close to overturning Time and releasing the Devil.

Ok a group of cacodemon worshipping ogres approach the tribe, openly identify themselves, and request a permanent alliance with them living with the tribe in peace so their combined forces can fend off marauding Broos who threaten all of them. A small number of ogres have visible chaos features. They offer to use all their magics in defence of the alliance, including their chaos magic. The seven mothers group point out the ogres have behaved themselves for years, only eating hostile intruders, and they should be given a chance to contribute to the welfare of everyone. All detect truth or detect honor style magics indicate the offer is sincere. What does the Khan do?

I think of them more as an area effect weapon - round them up in a compound guarded by people who can't speak their language, use shamen to train up their power, find a lie shrine so they magic up, dress them in Lunar military uniforms, then put sleeping drops in their free beer, drug them all unconscious and transport them in wagons under hay bales, dump them all inside the glow line, as near as possible to military bases. They'll be woken up and accused of desertion, but they can probably lie their way out of it 🙂.

An Argrath trickster army would be terrifying. For example, can you imagine the impact on Lunar logistics of hundreds of tricksters dressed in Lunar army uniforms armed with multiple lie spells? Especially if the second wave of tricksters posed as messengers from central command carrying instructions for new secure communication protocols to counter enemy sabotage attempts?

I love it - the Lightbringer Chaos Corps. Just keep them separate form the Storm Bulls 🙂

There was a character in “Blood of Orlanth” 2nd age scenario who was the epitome of someone attempting to achieve enlightenment the wrong way, who in one variation of the scenario achieved apotheosis and corrupted a true dragon by hacking the cosmos. I’m not sure whether Blood of Orlanth is still canon but it was a great taste of the abuses which occurred in the empire of the wyrms friends- so Argrath abusing his magic is not proof his illumination is Nysalorian

If this is the case, what prevents Gloranthans who witness the utter horror of the spike exploding from escaping by simply stepping back into the Green Age? There must be something, like awareness of the existence of evil, which makes it very difficult to undo the harm. Or to put it another way, you cannot defeat evil by ignoring it.

I'd always assumed the goddess met something horrible as part of her goddess quest, possibly an encounter with Krjalk who convinced her she needed to embrace chaos to heal the world, but I've never read a description of that event. Is there a canonical explanation for how and why the goddess embraced chaos?

I love it - definitely a worthy NPC with which to taunt PCs, even funnier if he is really nice. And if the PCs attack, the attack bounces off the Broo's chaotic 12pt armour, and the tax collector calmly explains that attacking a tax collector is a serious crime, but that by the grace of the Goddess he will overlook their offence if they take this as an opportunity to become better people by disavowing their barbaric prejudices.

I'm guessing a Lunar sprouting obvious chaos features will be dealt with sternly, but what about secret chaos? How rigorously is membership of cults like Krarsht or Thanatar or non obvious chaos features policed? Would someone have to be an illuminate to get away with membership of an illegal cult? How many Lunars dabble in things they shouldn't, and get away with it? How many Lunars have personal vices and illegal secrets they would prefer others didn't learn, such as occasional contact with the vile underbelly of Lunar society?

The Traveller in Black explores this. The traveller grants wishes, but every wish binds the world and stills its magic. The final story, people in a world largely bereft of magic conspire for selfish reasons to bring back the ancient gods, and undo the peace and freedom from arbitrary horror the traveller has created for them. Author John Brunner has largely been forgotten today but he wrote some amazing stories, like my other favourite Times Without Number, which starts in 1988 London, England, which is part of the Spanish Empire.

The bat is the proof the goddess is an agent of destruction. Things eaten by the bat are lost to the void. As the empire expands so does the region of destruction - central provinces are spared the bat only because they have already fully submitted to and are aiding chaos, but as the corruption of the empire rises, their suffering increases. How is this qualitatively different to being in Wakboth’s army? It’s just a little slower, that’s all. The empire cloaks its wickedness in nysalorian good chaos, presenting itself as a positive influence, but it spreads the destruction of the world, one bat size mouthful at a time, and the suffering rises for all as the dawn of the monster empire approaches.

I'm not sure, I suspect some dyes at least would have been comparable to today's durability. According to this source medieval dyers used Alum as a fixative, in medieval times there was a significant industry in modern day Northern Iran which mined and processed natural sources of Alum, which may have been shipped all the way to Britain. More or less the same Alum process was being used in the British textile industry in the mid 1800s, so it was pretty effective. They possibly also used other chemicals like copper sulphate and iron compounds both for their dying properties and their fixing properties. If you stain your clothes using Ferric Chloride while making printed circuit boards, good luck getting that stain out - ruined plenty of clothes spilling chemicals which would have been available in medieval times. .

Ah but it isn't absolute - the gods are allowed to awaken to conscious action if the world is threatened. And they get to have a little fun, play chess using their worshippers as chess pieces.

Wakboth is the end of the world made manifest, so I suspect lifting the block would be a bad thing. The possibility of Wakboth’s release is surely part of the compromise. No night without day, no day without night, no trap is absolute - even for Wakboth

I can think of 4 feats: 1. Seven Mothers visit the halls of death and return with a new goddess Sedenya (nothing like the LBQ at all guv, honest!) 2. Sedenya finds Nysalor/Gbaji on the heroplane, and rescues Nysalor by separating him from the clutches of Gbaji and defeating Gbaji. 3. The battle of Castle Blue - Sedenya proves her right to godhood, by defeating the Lightbringers and many other opponents. 4. First battle of chaos, Sedenya returns from her goddess quest riding the crimson bat. Problem is figuring out PC size versions of those feats, and relevant rewards. Maybe: 1. Return as a priest of a new hero cult. This isn't necessarily going to meet with approval from Lunar authorities, who may view the new cult as occluded, especially if the cult is overtly chaotic, unless you set your game in the monster empire period in which case any new powers are fine, the more hideous the better. 2. New insight into illumination - help a friend who is struggling to achieve sevening, automatic advancement in the mysteries, a bonus when persuading barbarians to join the Lunar Way. 3. Automatic elevation to priesthood, establish a new shrine, force the local gods to accept that shrine as a legitimate part of the local spiritual landscape. 4. A bond established with a powerful chaos monster or spirit, who can be summoned at need to defend the hero.

Maybe the problem is having a chaos feature makes you less durable. Riding around on the back of a chaos monster probably exposes you to a little chaos, like a chance of picking up a chaos feature every so often, with usual cumulative risk of dying for each feature.

I wonder if there is room in future to jack this up further, like for every thousand people the bat eats within the last 24 hours, there is a probability the glowspot will empower lunar magic beyond normal maximum? So Lunars feeding chaos can gain access to devastating powers to win battles, but it emphasises the dichotomy between use of the overtly chaotic bat to crush resistance, and Lunars presenting themselves as a peaceful alternative to the barbarian rabble.