how to handle a Character tainted by Chaos?

[Zalain]

hello all,

 

Reading this topic about a Humakti who got a chaotic feature getting a chaotic necklace...

 

... i got a similar situation for one of my characters:

One Sorcerer took a sorcery spell book from a vampire, and studiing it to learn the "animate dead" spell. I allowed him to learn it by himself without a master (in fact, was a trap to taint him to chaos). The player doesnt care because he (and me) thinks he can handle it, not letting the rune grow (increase %).

In that book there are wroten some "evil" spells he havent learnt yet (steal breath, tap body)

The rest of characters (neither their owner players) doesnt know about it, and neither the existence of the book. And the sorcerer wants to try to keep in secret, and i think it wil make the future games more interesting. But, here the numbers:

As is said here: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/chaos-taints-qa/

i gave him a 10% of rune of chaos to begin with. And i think giving him extra 10% for each spell he learns from that book.

 

How can this Rune of Chaos increase or decrease? can any rune decrease?? (apart of power runes)

 

i think maybe giving him the passion of obsesion book, or maybe obsession with dead (and make him to roll dices everytime he uses animate dead spell. If he fall to the obsesion, the rune of chaos increases. What do you think about? How would you handle it?

EDIT: how the character will be changing until the chaos rune is increasing? Fisically? only behaviour?

 

thank you in advance!

 

Z.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Zalain
Just a question more for the experts

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Zalain said:

As is said here: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/chaos-taints-qa/

i gave him a 10% of rune of chaos to begin with. And i think giving him extra 10% for each spell he learns from that book.

If you're basing that on the first question, that 10% is the chance of gaining a chaotic taint, not the rune rating. A 10% rune rating is a chaotic taint, not a 10% chance of having a taint.

On a personal note, I would not do this. A chaos taint for me is either end-of-character-story, or story-becomes-about-removing-the-taint. When it did happen to a character of mine, it was a kill-me-now moment resolved via a deus-ex-machina from the GM who realised that she had misjudged the mood. It totally dominates the nature of the character and the game. But your game group might be more comfortable playing characters who are chaotic, if so then have fun!

Runes can go up and down, particularly opposed rune pairs, any strong action that is against the nature of the rune or a fumbled roll can reduce it, but I would say that the chaos rune is different. It's very hard for it to go down, and typically requires heroquesting. There is The Cleansed One ritual of the Zola Fel, @soltakss has posted in other threads here on his thoughts on that. He tends to go for a very gung-ho gaming style that isn't my group's taste.

[Shiningbrow]

Not sure if you're aware, but animating dead isn't necessarily Chaotic anyway. (one of the premier Chaos fighting cults loves to create undead to help them get rid of Chaos! (and probably also just to piss off their rival cult :p)) *

Neither are the Tap spells. Evil =/= Chaos.

 

(NB - Bestiary does say that vampires have Chaos rune at 60%... so, there is that!)

 

Of course, you're free to have it this way for your game...

 

("That is not what I meant when I said "go raise the fyrd"!!!")

Edited May 9, 2023 by Shiningbrow
bad joke

[Brian Duguid]

The scenario A Short Detour by @Lordabdul on the Jonstown Compendium has a 7-page appendix giving rules and ideas for what happens when an adventurer acquires a Chaos taint i.e. Chaos Rune affinity. It covers Chaotic Passions that can then arise; corruption of other Runes; how this manifests through changes in the character's behaviour; and rules for resisting / reducing the affinity over time.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/385037/A-Short-Detour?affiliate_id=1107865

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

The scenario A Short Detour by @Lordabdul on the Jonstown Compendium has a 7-page appendix giving rules and ideas for what happens when an adventurer acquires a Chaos taint

Yes indeed! Thanks Brian!

The appendix goes in depth into what is Chaos, the Chaos Rune, and so on. And then there are indeed rules for Chaotic taint, with a downward spiral mechanic and a quite hard-to-achieve way to get yourself rid of the taint -- although there are also a couple of leads towards magical cleansing and other ways to get rid of it. In my game, there was a heroquest to get rid of it, which was tied to how the characters got it in the first place (hint: they had to face Cacodemon)

6 hours ago, Zalain said:

i gave him a 10% of rune of chaos to begin with. And i think giving him extra 10% for each spell he learns from that book.

As @PhilHibbs says, the page you linked to gave the percentage chance of getting tainted by Chaos -- not the percentage of the Chaos Rune. Personally my first thought is to handle it as experience, i.e. get a check on the Chaos Rune each time you learn and master a new Chaotic spell. Otherwise, learning only a couple spells would taint you just as much as, say, a Telmori, born and raised into a society where the Chaotic taint goes back generations... that doesn't feel like these are equivalent to me 🙂 

 

6 hours ago, Zalain said:

How can this Rune of Chaos increase or decrease? can any rune decrease?? (apart of power runes)

See "A Short Detour". I present rules where trying to resist Chaos can backfire and increase your Chaos Rune. And where finally getting rid of the Chaos Rune might leave a "hole" in your soul.

 

[g33k]

The rulebook already has rules to increase/decrease runes...

If a character has a %score with the Chaos rune (and mostly, I think that's what "Chaos Taint" means) then it has the standard chance to increase/decrease in use; you get an experience-check when you use the rune & succeed, and it may go up when you later make the downtime experience-rolls.

It can decrease on a Fumble (though I don't allow a Chaos rune to "self-extinguish" -- you'll need a Heroquest to actually get rid of it).

There may be extra issues around the Chaos rune, such as those in @Lordabdul's JC title.
I presume we'll also see some "canonical" content in the GM's book and/or Cults of Glorantha:Chaos (when they are released).

[Squaredeal Sten]

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Not sure if you're aware, but animating dead isn't necessarily Chaotic anyway. (one of the premier Chaos fighting cults loves to create undead to help them get rid of Chaos! (and probably also just to piss off their rival cult :p)) *

Neither are the Tap spells. Evil =/= Chaos.

 

(NB - Bestiary does say that vampires have Chaos rune at 60%... so, there is that!)

 

Of course, you're free to have it this way for your game...

 

("That is not what I meant when I said "go raise the fyrd"!!!")

An additional thought in That direction:

The Chaos rune is not even listed in the Sorcery rules.  That doesnt mesn .you can't use it in your Glorantha.  But if the sorceror studies and masters it, remember that mastering a rune does not mean an affinity for it.

That's in the 3rd paragraph under the Runes heading, page 381: "An adventurer's understanding of a Rune for sorcerous purposes has no personality or psychological implications...."

Though what they do with it does have implications- 

Still isn't the same magical act OK for a non chaotic cult, as Siningbrow pointed out?

 

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Page reference

[Nick Brooke]

There’s a box about this in Black Spear (p.134), because reasons (he said, elusively).

[Darius West]

14 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Evil =/= Chaos.

A 99% correlation is not a perfect correlation, it's true.

[French Desperate WindChild]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

A 99% correlation is not a perfect correlation, it's true.

seems to me 99% is a little bit hard, isn't it ? 🙂

Yes, more or less 99% of chaotic activity is probably evil

 

however 99% of evil activity seems to me too much. Is black fang chaotic ? Is a cattle raid (or even a feud) a good thing because it is not chaotic ?

All thieves are not named Robin and don't work for the poors (and other activies).

 

It is, from my perspective "too easy" to consider any bad thing is chaotic.

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Yes, more or less 99% of chaotic activity is probably evil

"Evil is not Chaos" means they might overlap, but they're not identical. "Chaos is Evil (for all practical purposes)" and "Evil is not Chaos" are not the same phrases.

You can engage in a lot of evil acts that aren't Chaotic!

[French Desperate WindChild]

42 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

"Evil is not Chaos" means they might overlap, but they're not identical. "Chaos is Evil (for all practical purposes)" and "Evil is not Chaos" are not the same phrases.

You can engage in a lot of evil acts that aren't Chaotic!

yes that was what I mean, with my poor words 🙂

 

[Zalain]

Thank you ALL for our answers. Very apreciated ^^

 

The sorcerer won the taint of chaos handling (reading) a book owned and used by a vampire. So i gave him a direct 10% of chaos rune for learning a spell from a book stolen from a vampire´s library. i didnt wanted to give him a chance to avoid the counterpart.

Maybe he had to begin with a higher %?

 

then, in this case, this Humakti with a chaos feature and a chaotic necklace only had a 10% of being tainted? ...or, once a character is tainted, i have to give a chaotic feature? Im getting confused.

 

 

 

The rest of the group doesn´t know about this fact. And the sorcerer told me he wants to try to keep it in secret as long as posible.

20 hours ago, Lordabdul said:

The appendix goes in depth into what is Chaos, the Chaos Rune, and so on. And then there are indeed rules for Chaotic taint, with a downward spiral mechanic and a quite hard-to-achieve way to get yourself rid of the taint -- although there are also a couple of leads towards magical cleansing and other ways to get rid of it. In my game, there was a heroquest to get rid of it, which was tied to how the characters got it in the first place (hint: they had to face Cacodemon)

all my questions are about that downward spiral you said:

 

So how the behaviour of the character would change?

Could you have Rune of Chaos and be a "good person"?

what actions would make that character increase de % of chaos in him?

20 hours ago, Lordabdul said:

See "A Short Detour". I present rules where trying to resist Chaos can backfire and increase your Chaos Rune. And where finally getting rid of the Chaos Rune might leave a "hole" in your soul.

will look for it!

 

 

And what if one character were a Telmori???

....aaaand what if one characer were transformed in a broo by the Chaos Feature Rune Spell?? (could be cleansed in any way?)

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Zalain
lots lots lots of questions going throw my head

[French Desperate WindChild]

11 minutes ago, Zalain said:

Maybe he had to begin with a higher %?

it is really like you want.

the only point to keep in mind is more % = more chance of chaotic success (if pc uses the rune or if chaos uses the pc, in both ways)

 

here is not the rules, it is how I see the rules and all i do around :

 

16 minutes ago, Zalain said:

once a character is tainted, i have to give a chaotic feature? Im getting confused.

no you have not to do anything. You can give a feature (bonus or malus) or you can decide to only give the % rune. that's chaos, everything is possible except maybe the good 😛

 

20 minutes ago, Zalain said:

So how the behaviour of the character would change?

depends on the rune %, that is what I call the "chaos uses the pc"

I see it like a kind of passion. There is temptation to be evil. You can accept the temptation (and gain more %) or try to resist. In my opinion, if you resist you get for a while some penalty, for example -10% in any action for a day. I would not reduce the % except by using a dedicated quest (heroic or not, I don't know probably heroquest)

 

For example the house is in fire, the mother asks the pc to save her child still in the house:

option 1) that's not my business (no change for the chaotic pc)

option 2) of course I will go. Then I will do my possible to see the child burning, or mock her, or if I believe the child may be saved, do my possible to not let her succeed (without any witness if possible) That's the spiral => add d6% rune

option 3) of course I will go. Then I will try to save the child. roll a %rune,

--> success : you can't do what you expect, but you are sad to see what you are unable to do (-10% for pow test during a day)

--> critical : you can't do what you expect, and you must do something like option 2)

--> failure : you can do what you want, but a part of yourself is.... frustrated (-10% for any physical test during a day)

 

 

 

29 minutes ago, Zalain said:

And what if one character were a Telmori???

Their "chaos uses them" is the curse (even if the curse is from a "law" hero), they have to transform themselves and be wild. some of them can be more chaotic and act as any chaotic monster

 

29 minutes ago, Zalain said:

....aaaand what if one characer were transformed in a broo by the Chaos Feature Rune Spell?? (could be cleansed in any way?)

they are what they are : chaotic. They may be cleansed in the same way that any other chaotic way (so  0.001% chance of success 😛 ) but even cleansed they keep their broo shape (or they have to find another way)

 

 

but again that's my glorantha, my chaos perspective, etc..

 

a character with chaos rune will be hunted because for sure, some will see something, detect something, etc.. maybe not the first day but one day . Being chaotic is in my opinion very hard for the player (you can't do what you want without a lot of caution), very hard for the gm (you must have in mind all the time that some npc may get some alarm, and a lot of social interaction will be transformed in fight, of coure if you care)

 

 

[French Desperate WindChild]

by the way, see it like Ann Rice vampire temptation (or vampire the mascarade for the game). Some try to keep "humanity" (so fight against their own nature) some "accept"  their new nature, some "enjoy" it.

[Darius West]

5 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

seems to me 99% is a little bit hard, isn't it ? 🙂

Yes, more or less 99% of chaotic activity is probably evil

however 99% of evil activity seems to me too much. Is black fang chaotic ? Is a cattle raid (or even a feud) a good thing because it is not chaotic ?

All thieves are not named Robin and don't work for the poors (and other activies).

It is, from my perspective "too easy" to consider any bad thing is chaotic.

To clarify 99% of chaos is pretty evil.  Not all chaos is evil, just the vast bulk of it.  There is also plenty of evil that has nothing to do with chaos, agreed. 

As to your classic Orlanthi feuds and cattle raids being good or evil, we must remember that either side can tap out and pay tribute, but instead they prefer to do unto others knowing what can be done unto them in return.  This amounts to consent.  On a good feuds and raiding is money for nothing and your cows for free.  On a bad day it is the same thing, but you aren't the recipient.  On a really bad day you go on holiday to the River Styx.  It is therefore neither good nor evil, but a very dangerous sport.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Darius West

[Lordabdul]

7 hours ago, Zalain said:

So how the behaviour of the character would change?

IMO the Chaos Rune is just as diverse as the other Runes. Air Rune can be represented as being proud or violent or passionate or a mix of those or anything else that fits the bill. So you can make up your mind about what the Chaos Rune represents and pick something in there as a change of personality. Again, "A Short Detour" goes into that.

7 hours ago, Zalain said:

Could you have Rune of Chaos and be a "good person"?

Runes have nothing to do with one's moral standing. You can have a high Harmony Rune and be a horrible imperialistic bastard who only cares about his own kingdom's wealth. You can have a high Fertility Rune and be a creepy womanizer. Esrolian grandmothers are dangerous mafia bosses and a high Earth Rune makes that possible. Etc.

The Lunars will tell you that a bit of Chaos is needed sometimes. It might help you think outside the box. It might give you permission to dismantle archaic traditions and build new ones. It might give you freedom from outdated standards. And of course, it might also help you justify killing and burning down everything you want... something that comes naturally with TTRPG players, I might say 😄    Anyway, again, to each their own, YGWV and all that. But that's my own view of it. More details in "A Short Detour".

7 hours ago, Zalain said:

And what if one character were a Telmori???

The Telmori generally have Chaos 20%. It comes from their adulthood initiation into Telmor, whose traditions have included Chaos ever since the late First Age. It's part of their identity, and what gives them *very* powerful magic such as Wolfhide (which can thankfully be cast with the Beast Rune too!)  So what about Telmori? They have no problem with it. Most Princes of Sartar had no problem with it (the Telmori Royal Guard protected a lot of them). Many clans around Sartar *did* have a problem with it, but frankly the Telmori were just minding their own business until someone came to poke them with a sharp stick. Apart from that one regrettable incident, they don't raid or do "eeeviil things" more or less than anybody else. I think the main problem is that (1) they're Hsunschen people who adopt stone-age ways of living, and the nearby Sartarites are bigoted assholes, (2) they have like I said very powerful magic, and the nearby Sartarites are sore losers, and (3) they have a Chaos taint, and the nearby Sartarites are bigoted assh... wait, I already said that.

Disclaimer: I love the Telmori. I even wrote a one-shot scenario in which everybody plays Telmori people. Hopefully coming this year to the JC.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Lordabdul

[Zalain]

thank you all, again, for your aswers,

@Lordabdul, i just bought "A short detour", it will help me a lot.

 

i have more questions about sorcery and chaos, to not begin a new topic:

In RQ3 there was a sorcery spell called "create vampire". In fact, in the one shot adventure of the Basic rule book of RQ3, ("the black witch", i think could be translation?), there was about a female sorcerer who wanted kidnap a girl with extra ultra high mega POW (40?) and make her a vampire and then slave her using a ritual to vinculate "pets" to the sorcerer. My excuses if the translations to english arent correct.

In fact. The RQ3 sorcery ritual of create vampire doesn´t implies be a Vivamort follower, and doesn´t mention vivamort at all. then, what would be the difference between the Vivamort vampire, and the sorcery made vampire? Sorcery made vampire would grow chaotic rune if havent tainted at all?

I suppose the "new" vampire doesnt have to be tainted by chaos, but once he has hungry, have to feed from sentient´s blood, and it could be considered as chaotic action.

Trolls kill humans and other sentients to feed, and it isnt considered chaotic action.

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Zalain

[metcalph]

1 hour ago, Zalain said:

In fact. The RQ3 sorcery ritual of create vampire doesn´t implies be a Vivamort follower, and doesn´t mention vivamort at all. then, what would be the difference between the Vivamort vampire, and the sorcery made vampire? Sorcery made vampire would grow chaotic rune if havent tainted at all?

RQ3 was written to be non-gloranthan, therefore arguing from its rules in many cases will lead you astray.  We never got an RQ3 Vivamort cult and so really have no clear idea how it would have worked.  In any case, Vampires are chaotic because they have no souls rather than what they do.  There are suggestions of non-Vivamort vampires but again there's been no clear idea of how they work.

 

[Dragon]

8 hours ago, metcalph said:

RQ3 was written to be non-gloranthan, therefore arguing from its rules in many cases will lead you astray.  We never got an RQ3 Vivamort cult and so really have no clear idea how it would have worked.  In any case, Vampires are chaotic because they have no souls rather than what they do.  There are suggestions of non-Vivamort vampires but again there's been no clear idea of how they work.

 

Good points. I believe the suggestion of a non-Vivamort vampire is personified in Delecti. He is a different topic by himself. And IMHO should remain a mysterious figure that doesn't fit into any particular category. So I definitely agree "there's been no clear idea of how they work".

[metcalph]

18 hours ago, Dragon said:

Good points. I believe the suggestion of a non-Vivamort vampire is personified in Delecti. He is a different topic by himself. And IMHO should remain a mysterious figure that doesn't fit into any particular category. So I definitely agree "there's been no clear idea of how they work".

Delecti is an incarnation of Nontraya, which has been said to be another name for Vivamort (Cults of Terror mentions Delecti as a hero-priest of Vivamort even though his undead transmigration .  His mythology is quite different from that of Vivamort in Cults of Terror (and even the interlude in Lords of Terror) but I now think the Vivamort cult writeup reflects the (God Learner) understanding of his origins while the Nontrayan mythology reflects the Orlanthi experiences of him in the Great Darkness with his mysterious origin and all that. (he came from nowhere, he did awful stuff, he was driven off).  There's another Vampire God in the Eastern Isles and Fonrit's may (I stress *may*) be known as Vovisibor.

I don't think there is an essential difference between vampires of various regions (except trivia bits like the classic vampires changing into a wolf or bat while the Daughters of Darkness don't).  The way to become a Vampire was discovered many times in the Gods War and while there are many different methods of becoming a vampire (Western Vampires are probably grounded in the Vanus Credo, a twisted version of Malkioni religion while Dragon Pass Vampires might sacrifice their souls to Nontraya and Delecti), the end state is the same.

 

[Shiningbrow]

On 5/13/2023 at 1:16 AM, Dragon said:

Good points. I believe the suggestion of a non-Vivamort vampire is personified in Delecti. He is a different topic by himself. And IMHO should remain a mysterious figure that doesn't fit into any particular category. So I definitely agree "there's been no clear idea of how they work".

He's not supposed to be an actual vampire - just a powerful sorcerer who is 'immortal', and a Vivamort hero (-priest).

"Delecti the Necromancer: Delecti was a powerful sorcerer of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends who broke the barriers between life and death. By his arts, Delecti has achieved a gruesome sort of immortality: he can transfer his spirit into a freshly slain corpse and live through it until the rotting flesh can no longer sustain him, at which time he seeks out another corpse." (GtG p 170)

However, just to complicate things: " he “lives” there still, an immortal and powerful vampire." is on p. 190...

[DrGoth]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

He's not supposed to be an actual vampire - just a powerful sorcerer who is 'immortal', and a Vivamort hero (-priest).

"Delecti the Necromancer: Delecti was a powerful sorcerer of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends who broke the barriers between life and death. By his arts, Delecti has achieved a gruesome sort of immortality: he can transfer his spirit into a freshly slain corpse and live through it until the rotting flesh can no longer sustain him, at which time he seeks out another corpse." (GtG p 170)

However, just to complicate things: " he “lives” there still, an immortal and powerful vampire." is on p. 190...

From 30,000 feet it's hard to tell the difference between types of undead 😁

[Shiningbrow]

29 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

From 30,000 feet it's hard to tell the difference between types of undead 😁

I actually made the mistake of thinking D was a V... I was corrected.

There's a few threads related to the subject.

[Dragon]

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

He's not supposed to be an actual vampire - just a powerful sorcerer who is 'immortal', and a Vivamort hero (-priest).

"Delecti the Necromancer: Delecti was a powerful sorcerer of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends who broke the barriers between life and death. By his arts, Delecti has achieved a gruesome sort of immortality: he can transfer his spirit into a freshly slain corpse and live through it until the rotting flesh can no longer sustain him, at which time he seeks out another corpse." (GtG p 170)

However, just to complicate things: " he “lives” there still, an immortal and powerful vampire." is on p. 190...

Yep. The canon is semi-contradictory. Hence why I said he should remain a mysterious figure who doesn't fit into any particular category.

Lots of other 'powerful sorcerer's are immortal and follow Vivamort (but aren't heroes) and are specifically allowed by the old Vivamort cult rules - as vampires. Delecti isn't exactly. He is special and defies categorization.

But, I apologize for sending us down this rabbit hole of violent agreement re Delecti. 🙂