Chaos Rune in PCs

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 hours ago, Godweyn said:

High level politics on a regular basis, several important figures appear very often.

This could make a chaotic character problematic.

[Godlearner]

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Dorastor is already a stopping point in the next group vacations, it could be a good suggestion to demonstrate the advantages and benefits of this option xD

Well, make sure to pick up a one of our guides and see all the sights. 

[Martin Dick]

18 hours ago, Godlearner said:

The situation for us has always been a bit different as I find that most of the characters in our games are not Orlanthi, although there have been a number of Storm Bulls and Humakti.

Chaos itself is not really a problem for Humakti, the things they do are the problem, so if the character isn't doing those things, a Humakti can probably live with that. Storm Bulls on the other hand are a very different beast, if there is a Storm Bull in the party, then the player is screwed

[Godlearner]

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Chaos itself is not really a problem for Humakti,

That depends on how you view Humakt. In games I have played Death, and by extension Humakt, is viewed as the force which in the end is able to stop Chaos. Granted I am not speaking for the "Glorantha", but from what I seen published this view is supported. Even the Broo Legion in Dorastor consists of illuminated Broo.

[French Desperate WindChild]

Note that humakti followers are not only humakti but people too. They have their own value, from parent, .. they are in a community, etc...

if the community has no issue with chaos, they have no issue. If the community or leader has issue with chaos, the humakti may have issue too.

 

And don't hate or fear chaos doesn't mean love chaos: humakti cann kill people even without any passion

[Godlearner]

20 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Note that humakti followers are not only humakti but people too. They have their own value, from parent, .. they are in a community, etc...

if the community has no issue with chaos, they have no issue. If the community or leader has issue with chaos, the humakti may have issue too.

 

And don't hate or fear chaos doesn't mean love chaos: humakti cann kill people even without any passion

Except for that whole separation thing. I never bought into humakti as being part of a community. They are loners IMO.

[French Desperate WindChild]

21 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Except for that whole separation thing. I never bought into humakti as being part of a community. They are loners IMO.

but some did

nameless (to not name her) is part of colymar tribe. Maybe she will do nothing by herselh in this case, but if asked she will.

Humakt severed his family bound, for sure, but then became Orlanth's thane after some struggle.

 

I m not saying all humakti are in a clan or tribe, they can become mercenary or adventurer or what you want, just that is not because humakt is humakt than all humakti are on their own way. For example a pc humakti has probably a community : the pcs group

Edited June 9, 2021 by French Desperate WindChild

[Martin Dick]

45 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Note that humakti followers are not only humakti but people too. They have their own value, from parent, .. they are in a community, etc...

if the community has no issue with chaos, they have no issue. If the community or leader has issue with chaos, the humakti may have issue too.

 

And don't hate or fear chaos doesn't mean love chaos: humakti cann kill people even without any passion

The issue here is that a PC has been tainted by Chaos and the rest of the party knows that they have been tainted by Chaos, and the question is "Can we still keep playing this character?" Now, one answer to that is No, you're playing in Sartar, all Sartarites hate and fear Chaos, so the party just kills them outright or the PC commits suicide. Perfectly within canon, but pretty boring unless the player wants a new character and doesn't feel like doing some grimdark anguished roleplaying.

But if they do want to do some grimdark anguished stuff and don't want to roll up a new character, then as a GM, the best answer as always is Yes. Once you get to that, then the question is how do we do it? Which is what the OP asked. 

Now, we know that an Orlanthi all is 85%, so that means there are people who are willing to go beyond that good old Storm Bull maxim of "Any Chaos is All Chaos". So followers of which gods could tolerate a chaos-tainted party member, especially when that person is a friend/ally who hasn't actually done anything wrong (all IMO, of course😞

• Eurmal - Hey, sounds like fun!
• Orlanth - this could be difficult, hopefully he doesn't have a Hate (Chaos) passion, but if Orlanth can tolerate Eurmal, then they can probably come around for a friend who hasn't harmed anyone and of course won't hesitate much to kill him if he shows any signs of chaotic behaviour
• Ernalda - Is he useful? Can he be controlled? Can we eliminate him if he causes trouble? Can we hide this from the rest of the clan? Yes, to all of that means he can live
• Humakt - Are they violating anything to do with my Code of Honour? No, then he can live until he does
• Lhankor Mhy - I'm sure I can come up with a way to cleanse my friend of the taint, lots of interesting things to test on him until I find the cure
• Issaries - He's my friend, he's helped me lots of times, he's not doing anything wrong at the moment, it's a fair exchange to allow him to live for the moment
• Chalana Arroy - he's not harming anyone, so let him live
• Babeester Gor - is her harming the Earth? No, then I'll go with the Ernaldan
• Storm Bull - He dies, now! Alternative, he fumbles his Sense Chaos role and becomes convinced that his friend isn't tainted.
• Lunars - Welcome to the club!

So, lots of rationales for allowing him to live, all of which will lead to hellish complications and difficulties for the party, sorry, I meant interesting plot developments

[French Desperate WindChild]

11 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

So, lots of rationales for allowing him to live, all of which will lead to hellish complications and difficulties for the party, sorry, I meant interesting plot developments

you are absolutly right

My last comment was , for Humakt, but for anything else, there is no black or white answers. A lot of grey. And passions may help: you hate chaos but you love family, what about your chaotic brother ?

Just one point (but that is only my perspective, you could see thing differently of course)

For me if people (Ernalda, Orlanth ...) want to let some chaotic guy alive they would probably request or work to obtain to things:

- go far from the community, to not curse the community (attract chaos or attract stormbull fanatics who will kill all the chaotic community). It could be a ban approch or a "please do it for me" approach

- go to find a cure, don't stay like that, because chaos is evil (from their perspective).

that is not because you tolerate something that you accept and welcome it, particularly when it is a feared thing

Edited June 9, 2021 by French Desperate WindChild

[Godlearner]

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So, lots of rationales for allowing him to live, all of which will lead to hellish complications and difficulties for the party, sorry, I meant interesting plot developments

Yes, it is based on how you an your players view the whole concept of Chaos and the way you view the attitude of the culture to it. Let me show how it would be in the games I been involved.

• Eurmal - The one think tricksters do not get involved with and always oppose.
• Orlanth - Kill it now
• Ernalda - Can he be cleansed before it infects others? 
• Humakt - Why are we even discussing this? Get it cleansed (DI) and/or die
• Lhankor Mhy -Can I study it before you DI to remove it?
• Chalana Arroy - Please do not make him suffer as you kill him
• Babeester Gor - <hack> 
• Storm Bull - He dies, now! Its the only way to be sure. Maybe we should kill everyone he came in contact with in the last week for good measure?
• Lunars - Welcome to the club!

 

[Ian Absentia]

On 6/7/2021 at 2:57 PM, soltakss said:

I am not a big fan of "Oh, I have a Chaos feature now, so I must turn evil".

This.

This is the thing of it.

!i!

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Ian Absentia said:

This.

This is the thing of it.

!i!

Before taint: chop wood, carry water.

After taint: chop down entire tree in a single blow, carry huge barrels of water.

[Brootse]

On 6/8/2021 at 1:15 AM, Jape_Vicho said:

He can always buy a wolf and try to pass for a Telmori, which are the most tolerated of the chaos-cursed entities in Sartar. 

You can maybe ask for a roll against the chaotic affinity in some situations that you think fit, and if he fails, he does something chaotic and pumps up his Chaos affinity by 1d10% or something like that.

But having a pet dog is even worse!

[Darius West]

On 6/7/2021 at 10:21 AM, Godweyn said:

Well that's the question, how can the chaos rune be represented on a player character?

Our Humakite has earned the rune of chaos today by playing ... well ... with chaos.

What effects can that generate? Personality changes maybe? (He already gains 1 Chaos trait.)

Well the character is now chaotic.  The fact is, Humakt the deity doesn't love or hate chaos for its own sake, as Humakt is illuminated.  He hates chaos that is dishonorable.  On the other hand, most Orlanthi deities hate all chaos and won't be nearly as forgiving of a chaos taint on a character once it becomes detected.  In fact, even the Lunars are not especially fond of such things, truth be told.  The character's best option will be to make a beeline for Tarsh and the Lunar Empire.  While there are ways to potentially cure a chaos taint, people have to be tolerant enough of the tainted individual to help them, and that is not easily achieved, given that chaos generally involves dangerous and disgusting behavior.  It might be wise for the Humakti to follow rumors of illumination, as that can cover up their taint it is said, and is best sought among the Lunars, who have a preponderance of such folk.

[simonh]

I think it's important to distinguish the 'opinion' of a god from that of individual people that might worship that god. When we say Humakt doesn't have a problem with Chaos, that's because chaotic creatures can worship Humakt, sacrifice for Humakti magic and as long as they follow cult strictures they won't have any problems such as with spirits of reprisal. They can even do Humakti heroquests.

On the other hand, individual Humakt worshipers are part of the culture they were born in. They, and in fact entire temples or even societies of Humakti in e.g. Sartar might have a huge and deeply felt problem with having anything to do with Chaos whatsoever. Individual Humakti don't even have to like other Humakti, they can even be mortal enemies of other individual Humakti, so just because someone's a Humakti doesn't automatically make them best buddies. Culturally, Chaos is an implacable foe of all Heortlings and, severed family ties or not, Humakti born and bred in Sartar are still very much Heortlings.

Having said that, the Lunars have been in Dragon Pass for a while. Some Sartarite tribes have even allied with the Lunars and become more or less Lunarised. Tarsh is a Heortling culture and they're quite significantly Lunarised, but even then in the Empire overt chaotics aren't all that common. However there may very well be some Humakti around who are more chaos tolerant than your average Heortling. So you're likely to come across some very different, and highly polarised reactions depending where the Adventurers go and who they meet and if they find out about this.

As for behaviour, a chaos taint doesn't necessarily mean the character's personality or behaviour will change at all. What's more likely to change their behaviour is other people's reactions to it all. Lunars are more likely to be accepting. Sartarites are generally going to lean more towards taring, feathering and burning, and being judged and persecuted like that can prey on a mind. Also suddenly being preternaturally strong, and having a necklace of chaos spirits whispering in your had all the time, could be an issue.

Edited June 15, 2021 by simonh

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

The character's best option will be to make a beeline for Tarsh and the Lunar Empire.

Or Dorastor.

[simonh]

44 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Or Dorastor.

It's an option, but is Dorastor really all that much better for a chaotic than a non-chaotic?

[PhilHibbs]

34 minutes ago, simonh said:

It's an option, but is Dorastor really all that much better for a chaotic than a non-chaotic?

Absolutely not, but my thinking was twofold: firstly, the Orlanthi are more likely to be accepting of a chaos tainted person as it's more of an occupational hazard around there, and secondly, that bonus STR is going to be really handy against some of the horrors there.

And thirdly it's a great place to go out in a blaze of glory.

And fourthly there's material published there to go play.

Edited June 15, 2021 by PhilHibbs

[soltakss]

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

3 hours ago, simonh said:

It's an option, but is Dorastor really all that much better for a chaotic than a non-chaotic?

Absolutely not, but my thinking was twofold: firstly, the Orlanthi are more likely to be accepting of a chaos tainted person as it's more of an occupational hazard around there, and secondly, that bonus STR is going to be really handy against some of the horrors there.

And thirdly it's a great place to go out in a blaze of glory.

And fourthly there's material published there to go play.

I like the fourthly ...

[Darius West]

On 6/15/2021 at 10:18 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Or Dorastor.

I suspect even chaos creatures are reticent about migrating to Dorastor.  I have seen the "fourthly" above, and those stat blocks are obscene.  Not everyone wants to be eaten or molested by Chaos Godzillas even if they are themselves chaotic.  Far better to be a big fish in a small pond.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Darius West

[Shiningbrow]

My late couple of clacks thrown into the hat...

Firstly, is there reason for the PCs to suspect that the PC in question is tainted with Chaos, rather than some other reason? (Personally, I wouldn't go with the clear "mark of Chaos" idea, because if you do that to the PCs, you should really do that with everything Chaotic, and that would remove the fun and games of a Stormbull's Sense Chaos - you'd just need to carefully check someone over, instead of relying on potentially flawed Senses). I would, however, probably make the STR increase obvious - however, that alone wouldn't mean Chaos. It does mean needing to make a decision as to whether Chaos Features are always obvious or not. Certainly some have already been described as such (eg, +x natural armour). I'd personally rule that the +15 STR is very obviously unnatural - very highly suspiciously so! (And if the rest of the party aren't suspicious, smack their players around the head! - see below)

What should be more interesting is that it may be considered a Zorak Zoran gift - which would really make it fun for the Humakti. After all, it's not clearly obvious that Vamargic was Chaotic, but definitely obviously ZZ - and adding STR would make a lot of sense for them. This, as a consequence, would suggest that this new 'gift' is an anti-Chaos fighting feature gifted by the Troll god.

If we take these considerations as valid, then the responses will be quite different.

Even if they're not seen as valid, the 'knowledge' that there's Chaos is still missing (although, any reason to suspect Chaos should be considered... although, its should also be remembered that Orlanthi will tend to be somewhat paranoid anyway :p).

Also, I'd probably remember that Chaos Rune affinity, especially when other passions (such as Honour) get rolled. You could add a Passion (Complete Necklace) - remember that it just needs 1 more eye (human) to complete...

Regardless, the suspicious alone should be enough for any smart characters to stay away from most Orlanthi - so, as suggested above, go to various places.

[soltakss]

On 6/18/2021 at 10:30 AM, Darius West said:

Far better to be a big fish in a small pond.

The Gloomshark is the cult for you, then. That is a big fish in any pond, and it has tentacles, because a normal shark just isn't dangerous enough.