Moral Relativism — Now with Added Bite!

[mfbrandi]

Continuation of the discussion in the Ethilrist thread.

19 minutes ago, JRE said:

As for eating human flesh, I believe the potential ogre connection requires that your culture sees such an act as taboo, an abomination, not the act in itself. It falls under Wakboth's corruption, moral decay … Most Orlanthi consider eating human flesh chaotic, so an Orlanthi that does so risks acquiring Chaos affinity, and that may well turn him into an ogre … Meanwhile … a Basmoli following secret Lion rites may well eat Human flesh often without any chaotic effect, because for them it is not a chaotic act.

Now, according to Greg — and who am I to argue? — a Chaos Taint is real but not physical. It can have effects in the good old efficient causality sense.

So:

• If I said that a Chaos Taint is not a real thing, Gloranthaphiles would crush me beneath their shields.
• If I said that a Chaos Taint is a purely relational thing — that it amounted to no more than my clanmates having taken a dim view of my past activities — people would scarcely be less happy. (Chaos Taints are hard to shake, so my reforming and my clanmates dying or changing their minds wouldn’t get me off the hook, hence the tenses.)
• If we integrate @JRE’s idea, we get to the point where you can cause me to have a Chaos Taint — a very real intrinsic property — by persuading my clanmates that what I do is abominable. It doesn’t matter what it is — rescuing puppies from Wakboth; helping old trollkin across the road; running a literacy scheme for hill barbarians — just so long as my fellows are persuaded that it is beyond the pale. If you are born into a society of crazy bigots, you are the one who will end up with a Chaos Taint, not them (so long as they live down adhere to their own low standards, anyway).
• You may even be able to change me physically through the force of your disapproval or disgust, make me a monster.

This is not a reductio of JRE’s idea — don’t think that — it just means that you may get a Chaos Taint by being (in effect) cursed by your fellows for breaking their taboos. It does raise questions, though:

• Why does my society have this power over me, when the nation next door does not?
• Should we — looking down from Olympus, as it were — regard someone’s having a Chaos Taint as a sign of their moral failure?
  (It may go on to have bad effects on them and their morals — perhaps! — but that is not the same thing.)
• Even if you do not plan to embrace Chaos yourself — because you lack sophistication, taste, and flair? — perhaps you would do well to be born into a laid-back, anything-goes society, so as to avoid acquiring a Chaos Taint via the crazy moral attitudes of your fellows.
• How magically powerful would I have to be to inflict a Chaos Taint on an innocent foreigner purely from the force of my moral disdain?
• If a society does not equate Chaos and evil, can it still inflict Chaos Taints on it members through moral disapproval?
• Do we really think that being evil is the same as being thought evil by one’s fellows? That moral corruption is the same as dissent from one’s society’s (arbitrary) moral standards? If so, perhaps it is time to toss the concepts of “evil” and “morality” in the composter (where Mallia, Mee Vorala, Kajabor, and friends can break them down).
   

Spoiler

Replacing “what my society thinks is evil” with “what I think is evil” would get us nowhere in rehabilitating the idea of morality. It might be fun for a psychologised notion of Chaos Taint as self-punishment, but we wouldn’t want to beat up on people for beating themselves up — that would be cruel — so it wouldn’t give a reason to despise those with the Taint.

[JRE]

It is you, the individual, who develop the Chaos affinity that we translate as a Chaos taint. Not public opinion. Except in what constitutes your education shaping your moral structure, your clan cannot make you chaotic, only you can. That is what I call Wakboth's influence, moral corruption, which requires you to have morals, and you deliberately break them. What your clan mates think is not the important part (although many have been killed as chaotic because their clan mates thought so, and I am sure a few survived by sacrificing their morals and becoming what they accused them of being). It is a personal change. Your soul is tainted, even if your body is not. So I actually disagree with your hidden content.

Some chaotic magics, such as Chaos Gift or Curse of Thed can also corrupt you against your will. That would be physical corruption, as presented by Kajaboor or Pocharngo, which often can also bring the moral one, once you accept you are tainted and part of the legion of the damned. A few strong-willed individuals may start the hard path of purification, or the easier path of enlightenment. In that case it is your body which is tainted first, and that may later taint your soul.

That is why I use the growth of the Chaos Rune affinity as a measure of taint. There are many ways to acquire the affinity, and it is not clear how high it has to be before others can notice or detect it. It is not clear we can put a definite number when you can be considered a Chaos monster. But I use a divided taint, body and soul taint, to separate the two main sources. 

[mfbrandi]

34 minutes ago, JRE said:

Except in what constitutes your education shaping your moral structure, your clan cannot make you chaotic, only you can.

First, my apologies for misunderstanding what you said.

Second, does that mean that the amoral cannot acquire a Chaos Taint through committing abominations or breaking taboos — because they cannot see abominations and recognise no taboos — even though they may be able to acquire one via one of the other routes (e.g. handling chaos tools)? Good news for me if so: I’ll be able to slip past those Storm Bulls, no problem.

So — and clearly my track record is not good — aren’t we back to “don’t pick on someone just because they have a Chaos Taint, they may not have met their own standards, but equally they may not have done anything we think is wrong”? Clearly, “if someone is aghast at their own actions, we should kill them” is a non-starter if we want to appear at all compassionate. Perhaps we don’t.

[John Biles]

11 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

• If we integrate @JRE’s idea, we get to the point where you can cause me to have a Chaos Taint — a very real intrinsic property — by persuading my clanmates that what I do is abominable. It doesn’t matter what it is — rescuing puppies from Wakboth; helping old trollkin across the road; running a literacy scheme for hill barbarians — just so long as my fellows are persuaded that it is beyond the pale. If you are born into a society of crazy bigots, you are the one who will end up with a Chaos Taint, not them (so long as they live down adhere to their own low standards, anyway).
• You may even be able to change me physically through the force of your disapproval or disgust, make me a monster.

This is not a reductio of JRE’s idea — don’t think that — it just means that you may get a Chaos Taint by being (in effect) cursed by your fellows for breaking their taboos. It does raise questions, though:

• Why does my society have this power over me, when the nation next door does not?
• Should we — looking down from Olympus, as it were — regard someone’s having a Chaos Taint as a sign of their moral failure?
  (It may go on to have bad effects on them and their morals — perhaps! — but that is not the same thing.)
• Even if you do not plan to embrace Chaos yourself — because you lack sophistication, taste, and flair? — perhaps you would do well to be born into a laid-back, anything-goes society, so as to avoid acquiring a Chaos Taint via the crazy moral attitudes of your fellows.
• How magically powerful would I have to be to inflict a Chaos Taint on an innocent foreigner purely from the force of my moral disdain?
• If a society does not equate Chaos and evil, can it still inflict Chaos Taints on it members through moral disapproval?
• Do we really think that being evil is the same as being thought evil by one’s fellows? That moral corruption is the same as dissent from one’s society’s (arbitrary) moral standards? If so, perhaps it is time to toss the concepts of “evil” and “morality” in the composter (where Mallia, Mee Vorala, Kajabor, and friends can break them down).
   

Glorantha is a place with relativistic morality in which different societies can have different moral codes, complicated by the existence of Chaos.

I'm going to deal only with the theistic societies here.

Your society defines what is Chaos because you are born into a society of people metaphysically linked to said society by their religious initiations and the one you choose will further bind you to the specific moral code of your cult.  If you initiate to a Chaos God or if you violate the corresponding taboos, then you invite Chaos into yourself by rejecting the protection against Chaos which every cult offers and every society since the Great Compromise.

Chaos taint is a moral failure if it comes by your actions, but because Chaos is a force of its own, you can also be tainted by it despite not wanting to be, just like if someone throws radioactive waste on you, you may get cancer.  This is because Chaos has both physical and moral components.  And physical things can interact with you in ways you don't like.  You didn't want Owen to cut your arm off, but he did anyway.

Glorantha has no laid back, easy going societies.  But also, far more people get affected by physical than moral chaos.

Don't think of it as 'being evil = being thought evil by your fellows', but more 'if you don't obey the signs which tell you to not go dive in nuclear waste, you end up radioactive' and if you're radioactive, you're exposing others to radiation too'.

 

[Joerg]

When does exposure to Chaos accumulate enough to receive a taint? Triggering the sense of a sufficient number of Storm Bull detectors might be a scientific criterion, but in that case the problem is shifted to what amount of Chaos exposure or emanation will trigger their Chaos sensing.

(And it wouldn't be Chaos if that was a reliable amount, would it?)

My day job involves measuring stuff, and there is no way to measure nothing, all you can get is an absence of a reaction to your probing. At some point, statistical distribution of impurities will outshine homeopathic potencing, even for the most exotic extract.

[Ormi Phengaria]

13 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Second, does that mean that the amoral cannot acquire a Chaos Taint through committing abominations or breaking taboos — because they cannot see abominations and recognise no taboos — even though they may be able to acquire one via one of the other routes (e.g. handling chaos tools)? Good news for me if so: I’ll be able to slip past those Storm Bulls, no problem.

That would put you in the company of unbonded and unsanctioned tricksters, which might actually be a step down in social acceptability. So I suppose it checks out from that angle, at least.

[Ormi Phengaria]

Let's have a look at the given canon associations of the Chaos Rune in current publications. The only place I could find this listed is in the RQG Starter Set. After the name and its type (Form), we have the associations:

Quote

Chaos,

Not off to a good start.

Quote

evil, annihilation, perversion of the other Runes.

Of these, annihilation we can be pretty confident about. Chaos is oblivion. This is often gravely misunderstood, but it does need to be recognized. "Perversion of the other Runes" leaves open the questions of how and into what, because "chaos" and "annihilation" don't seem to be answers.

So, evil. People in Glorantha have as many varying ideas of good and evil as do the people of Earth. Sure, there are often commonalities and some beliefs may be more prominent than others, but none of that can possibly be absolute, essential, and atomic in the way that a Rune requires. So it must be a very abstract consideration of evil: the universal force of moral opposition itself. Everyone has the idea of evil, but differ in what they place within that empty space.

To add a twist here, though, chaos taint hardly seems correlated to guilt over one's actions. Even among the dedicated chaotics (without chaos features, let's add), I strongly suspect that very few of them would identify themselves as evil, consciously or otherwise. They see their transgressions as correct or necessary.

There is no physical/spiritual divide to Chaos specifically. Overt chaos features are manifestations from the non-hole. We know this to be the case because it's very possible to gain chaos features without gaining a chaos taint: the rune spell Conversion of Chaos does just this. The extra arm is just an arm. What makes it chaotic is the chaotic soul it's grown upon.

Considering all of the above, let's again compare ogres and the Cannibal Cult of the Wastes. The Cannibal Cult serves hungry ghosts; Cacodemon initiates serve themselves and whoever can coerce them into service. The Cannibal Cult has some link to the Survival Covenant (they may just be a part of it!); Fiends are disassembled parts of the Devil which roam freely. The Survival Covenant is a part of the world; Cacodemon is the part of Wakboth that exists outside of the Compromise.

The Cannibal Cult are not a part of any social order with their prey, but they seem to be a part of the cosmic order, and that's what makes the difference. Acting against the cosmic order is chaotic. If your actions are in line with the cosmic order, integrated with it, performing some function within it, they are not chaotic. Even if they might strike someone as being worse, looked at another way.

[JRE]

I would agree that Tricksters are at a very low risk of developing moral chaos. That is their role, actually, a reminder that the social mores are relative, but not following them have actual consequences.

The key point, as John points out, the society mores are linked to the metaphysical reality, as envisioned by that culture. So, unlike in Earth, your chaotic actions, both extrinsic (what I call above "physical") and intrinsic, acting in ways forbidden, will increase your Chaos affinity, as your actions can also increase your Storm affinity or your Death affinity, which is something anyone playing RQG should accept.

[EricW]

The moral relativist path to chaos doesn’t explain why chaos gift gives you a taint, and implies illuminates with mutations might actually not be chaotic.

Lunars casting chaos gift are acting within the moral bounds of their society - so why the taint? 

I suspect while immorality, acting against your conscience, might lead to chaos, copying the godtime betrayal of glorantha’s enemies always leads to chaos, even if illuminates can conceal their treachery with Gbaji deception.

This further implies Sedenya is an agent or manifestation of Wakboth, the chaos gift corruption she provides must contain a fragment of that great betrayal.

Edited June 28, 2023 by EricW

[David Scott]

20 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

a Chaos Taint is real but not physical

It's worth noting that Chaos is a form Rune.

[mfbrandi]

Thanks everyone for your answers — a nice spread of views there.

3 hours ago, EricW said:

The moral relativist path to chaos doesn’t explain why chaos gift gives you a taint, and implies illuminates with mutations might actually not be chaotic.

It doesn’t have to: there are  many routes to Chaos and “chaotic action” (breaking moral rules/taboos — never mind whose for the minute) is just one. A Nysalor illuminate might be Chaos Tainted because “dedicated to a Chaos entity”, say — mutation or no mutation — though, of course, no one can tap the Taint with a hammer to see whether it “sounds Chaotic”. 😉

I am not a pusher of moral relativism. The game was simply: if we take moral relativism as the explanation of why cannibalism is only sometimes “Chaotic”, where does that leave us in respect of Chaos Taints — conceived of as intrinsic and non-relative — and what they tell us about someone (restricting ourselves to acquisition by Chaotic action to keep focussed).

Think of The Scarlet Letter: Hester has to wear the letter (acquires the Taint) because of what the people around her think (“moral relativism”: it doesn’t matter whether they are right or wrong, their writ runs), but the letter itself (the Chaos Taint) is a tangible thing, with an existence independent of the moral opinions that caused its creation. The parallel — like me — is less than perfect.

In play as theories of Chaotic action, we seem to have:

1. breaking your society’s moral rules (possibly no takers for this one — maybe @John Biles “Your society defines what is Chaos”, but maybe not as presumably it doesn’t define what is “nuclear waste” … and let us hope it doesn’t wish its toxicity into being)
2. breaking your own moral rules (@JRE, perhaps, but there may be some backsliding into the position that intrigued me in the first place)
3. breaking moral rules in service of moral necessity (this is my take on one of @Ormi Phengaria’s ideas, but they may think it misrepresents their view)
4. acting in opposition to or outside the Compromise or “cosmic order” (@Ormi Phengaria, again – with the same caveat)
5. betraying Glorantha (@EricW)

I don’t think that the last two collapse into each other: a creature of the Outside — Krarsht, say — cannot betray Glorantha, as they owe no loyalty in the first place, but presumably they could disregard the Compromise and seek to undermine the cosmic order.

Edited June 28, 2023 by mfbrandi
grammar

[mfbrandi]

7 minutes ago, David Scott said:

20 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

a Chaos Taint is real but not physical

It's worth noting that Chaos is a form Rune.

I was trying to capture in as few words as possible (whilst still wondering whether a hole was maybe — in some sense — a physical thing, after all; papers have been written on the topic, I am sure):

Quote

A chaos taint is a hole in reality, a hole in existence … There used to be something, but you have an awareness that now there isn’t. A chaos taint is like that, only more so … the absence of an underlying actuality. Something so deep that is inexpressible just simply is not … it is not tangible. — Greg Sez

I always think of Chaos-as-form as the chaotic feature rune (but I don’t expect anyone to agree):

Quote

Sometimes the world, protesting the violation of its reality, bursts forth in a wild effort to fill that non-hole, and this is expressed as a chaos feature. Chaos features are often tangible and discernable. — Greg Sez

The chaotic feature is of and in the world, not the Outside.

And this is a form rune, too: . I am guessing that it doesn’t designate a physical form.

[David Scott]

39 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

And this is a form rune, too: . I am guessing that it doesn’t designate a physical form.

The problem of adding the word physical is that a plant spirit would be plant and spirit. The plant part of spirit isn't physical either. Form Runes are just that, they don't have to be physical.

[Ormi Phengaria]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

• breaking moral rules in service of moral necessity (this is my take on one of @Ormi Phengaria’s ideas, but they may think it misrepresents their view)
• acting in opposition to or outside the Compromise or “cosmic order” (@Ormi Phengaria, again – with the same caveat)

Rather, the necessity of one's actions does not annul their consequences. And as a matter of course, chaos brings with it necessity. Glorantha was born by necessity, grown by necessity, limited by necessity, and driven into the Gods War by necessity. The world ended by necessity. But it was reborn by mutual recognition and compromise. That's what I want to emphasize: chaos was each and every being fighting the Gods War. The mutant goat-men, half-scorpions and slimes aren't chaotic because of their shape or even their specific actions, but because they never stopped fighting. Thed never stopped fighting.

[French Desperate WindChild]

i see things a little bit differently

 

On the  basis of my reasonning, there are hypoteses (from what I believe "canon", if I m wrong do not hesitate to tell me, with sources, to help me to learn more 🙂 )

A)  evil (against morale)  is not always chaos. Killing a mother and her young children is dishonnorable (honor as dragon pass) but not chaotic. and why not  or any "bad" pantheon are not chaos. Black fang is not chaos. So your word @mfbrandi disturbs me a litlle bit, even if morale has an impact

B) chaos has two meanings : 1) Oblivion 2)   As David said, it is a form rune so chaos "is", so not oblivion. For example chaotic gods of corruption are not obliterating the world, they are corrupting it

C) based on B, Oblivion is more a consequence, one among many -maybe the ultimate, maybe just one-, of tic activities

D) some acts are seen chaotic by people but not always (ex: cannibalism)

E) acting like/using chaos provides chaos taint, but not always (according to greg - first post of this thread)

F) some secrets actions (not seen by anyone except the actor) summon chaos (ex: sun county, some village... I will not spoil)

G) illuminates are not detected as chaotic (if they are) Of course they would being seens as chaotic for physical reasons...but it could be a wrong interpretation

H) Storm bullers power sense of chaos is not reliable enough to prove chaos (from irl perspective)

 

then I consider :

there is a hierachy of "it is chaos so there is consequences"

1) world level: it is chaos because it destroys the world (Oblivion, corruption, ...)

2) community level: it is chaos because the community rules/beliefs/morale/ ...  say it is chaos (ex cannibalism)

3) personal level: it is chaos because you believe it is chaos. Same that the level 2, except you did not convince (or have not yet conviced) anyone else it is chaos

 

Then my personal conclusion:

you acquire the chaos taint or you bring chaos curse * on you/your family/your clan/... because consciously (you know the rules) or inconsciously (you know the rules but don't keep them in mind) you feel guilty. If your feeling is strong enough, you get the taint (aka the % "according to Greg") or curse

that may explain why Illuminates are / may be not detected: they don't feel guilty. So in a illuminated society, you are not evil guilty if you use chaos. You consider your society as morale.

 

Now, let imagine I m right... Is Eurmal really "guilty" to have kill Grand father mor(t)al ? What if he detected this weakness in him (grand fater mortal and all his heirs are able to "create" chaos involuntary) Maybe he tried to "obliterate"  this power/curse, but partially succeed (they "just die" but they reproduce themselves)

 

* become an ogre (or/and your heirs),  "welcome" a succube, etc..

 

 

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Form Runes are just that, they don't have to be physical.

OK, I missed the point … again. Sorry.

So in the context of:

• MFB: a Chaos Taint is real but not physical
• DS: It's worth noting that Chaos is a form Rune

… what was the point?

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

Rather, the necessity of one's actions does not annul their consequences …

The mutant goat-men, half-scorpions and slimes are … chaotic because … they never stopped fighting.

Necessity does not avert consequences: exactly so. That is what I liked. A variant (or half-arsed reskinning, to taste) of a surely familiar idea:

• A powerful demon has two prisoners, one innocent, one morally suspect
• Morality requires that we do not allow the innocent to come to harm
• Morality requires that we do not eat people
• The demon says, “Eat this wretch or I will kill the innocent, who has never harmed a soul”

These moral principles may not be yours — or indeed mine — but play along for the sake of argument.

The idea then is that one becomes Chaos Tainted merely by being put in this position: whatever you do (or refuse to do, or dither over), you violate an important principle; you are a victim of moral bad luck. There is no getting out of it by saying “this was none of my doing.” You have faced the abyss and it has reached into you — none of this “I can only be Tainted if I have refused to do the right thing” crap. I rather liked that. (Though I don’t mean to equate the Chaos Taint with any of these: feeling guilty; doing the wrong thing; low self-esteem.)

People will vary in their responses to this case, and will vary further if we tweak it:

• Some will say you should eat the dodgy bastard to save the innocent
  — and remain untainted (because making the right choice leaves you morally spotless)
• Some will say you should eat the dodgy bastard to save the innocent
  — but you are tainted anyway (because there are no good choices, even if there is a right choice)
• Some will say that you should let the innocent be killed
  — because allowing someone to come to harm (passive) is not as bad as eating someone (active)
  — again, there can be tainted and untainted variant opinions
• Some will be swayed by numbers:
  — “I will eat one guy to save ten innocents”
  — “I am not eating ten ne’er-do-wells to save one innocent”
  — some may feel less (or not at all) tainted if they save a big enough group of innocents

As for being Chaotic because they refused to knuckle-under to the right-royal stitch-up of the Great Compromise — although I am myself a coward, giving ground at every turn — I rather admire them for that. But then I always rooted for Medea, and was somewhat narked when the production at the National with Helen McCrory gutted the ending.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

evil (against moral[ity])  is not always chaos … So your word mfbrandi disturbs me a little bit

Don’t worry, I am not asking you to equate evil and Chaos, and even if I were, you can safely ignore me. We are just playing with the idea of “Chaotic action” — only one way of getting the Taint — as connected to “breaches of morality.” What that might come to. What it might signify. Whether we like it.

I guess we all like the idea of the Chaos-touched as those who have stared too long and too hard into the abyss — well, OK, maybe it is just me — and it seems to me that the abyss can be a moral one, it doesn’t have to be a “cosmological” or “spiritual” abyss. That doesn’t mean they are all Pol Pot, or Hitler, or [insert cheesy example here]. Maybe they are Roy Batty … or even Liz Anscombe or Pete Singer: they don’t need bloody hands or sharp knives.

3 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

chaotic gods of corruption are not obliterating the world, they are corrupting it

Quote

Merriam-Webster, Corruption

• 1:
  // a // dishonest or illegal behaviour especially by powerful people (such as government officials or police officers): depravity
  // b // inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (such as bribery)
  ——– the corruption of government officials
  // c // a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct
  ——– the corruption of a text
  ——– the corruption of computer files
  // d // decay, decomposition
  ——– the corruption of a carcass
• 2: chiefly dialectal: pus
• 3: archaic: an agency or influence that corrupts

But corruption isn’t all bad: the corruption of a text is morally neutral; the corruption of a carcass is devoutly to be wished for. Detritivores like Mallia and Krarsht get a raw deal, but Mee Vorala and Gorakiki seem to dodge “accusations” of Chaotic natures. I don’t know where hyenas and vultures stand — wonderful beast both!

3 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

that may explain why Illuminates are / may be not detected: they don't feel guilty.

Maybe, but maybe they are Chaos Tainted — such an ugly way of denoting a beautiful thing! — all the same. They may go undetected because their clear conscience masks their Taint, but equally it may be that Storm Bulls cannot really sniff out Chaos, just some things possibly not invariably associated with it — like broo shit and (as you say) a guilty conscience.

Edited June 28, 2023 by mfbrandi
formatting

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

Assuming the Black Horses are not chaotic and if not would they become so if they eat broo or walktapus, as an example or would the fact that they are demonic prevent them from being chaotic?

According to 2007 Greg: “Devouring chaos is a deliberate partaking of chaos. It is using chaos to nurture oneself. Nurturing oneself on chaos is a way to become chaotic.”

So I guess then opinions divide:

• it is the principle of the thing: just as getting married is a way to cease being a bachelor and killing someone is the way to become a murderer, so eating chaos is a way to become chaotic — no demonic superpower can protect you from that, just as none can save you from becoming a goal-scorer if you put the ball in the back of the net;
• there is a force trying to punch a non-hole in you: if you are tough enough — demon horse superpowers — you can resist this and remain “lawful”, but lesser mortals cannot (the forces released by their action push them over the edge).

I guess the problem is that some want to have their cake and eat it:

• being chaos tainted is something like a moral status
  (which is the kind of thing that doesn’t show up in natural laws, just as being a bachelor, murderer, or goal-scorer don’t),
  AND
• chaos taints are part of the web of cause and effect, the flow of energy in the universe (if you are Quine)
  (and might even show up in causal laws, like gravity, charge, and all that jazz).

The “dodge” — which is completely ineffective, IMHO: we have seen it all before with souls — is to say that the Chaos Taint is real but not physical.

[Lordabdul]

It's worth noting that, if I remember correctly, some of the Maran Gor priestesses at the Shaker Temple engage in ritual cannibalism in a way that isn't Chaotic.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Lordabdul

[Ormi Phengaria]

7 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Some will say that you should let the innocent be killed
— because allowing someone to come to harm (passive) is not as bad as eating someone (active)
— again, there can be tainted and untainted variant opinions

This is where trying to tie the taint of chaos into specific moralities falls apart, because nobody in Glorantha will gain a chaos taint owing to other people harming the innocent. As much as everyone else regrets it, that violence and suffering is a part of the world, and you are not required to take bodhisattva vows to be free of the taint of chaos.

We can't avoid the interconnectedness here. Cannibalism for most Gloranthan humans is chaotic because chaos is the consequence of that act as it is situated in the world. Orlanthi society is the mediation of violence by honour and kinship obligations, but when the violence people commit against one another is motivated by a hunger the earth cannot abate, there's no way to stop the coming destruction, either turned inward upon themselves or outward upon everyone else. And acting as an agent of annihilation makes you chaotic.

Even within this context, not all cannibalism results in a chaotic taint. The Kitori know of how Ivarne sustained her children with her own frostbitten flesh. It just runs a great risk. If you make it a habit across feast and famine years, you've pretty clearly lost any benefit of the doubt. If you feel compelled to repeat cannibalism in the absence of any hope for an alternative, you've also lost the benefit of the doubt. And even transgressing just once may taint you, if you immediately embrace your actions as natural and acceptable (maybe you've always been more of an ogre than you know).

As an aside, there's only one method of completely coercive chaos taints, which is Corruption. This spell reaches into someone's soul and dissolves it. The visible effects are merely a reflection of the horror that represents.

[Erol of Backford]

Since we are discussing eating chaos... always loved this: Anyone foolish or depraved enough to eat the egg becomes tainted by Chaos and gains 1d6 chaotic features.

Sorry, a basilisk egg, a really old one, from Sun County.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[John Biles]

4 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Since we are discussing eating chaos... always loved this: Anyone foolish or depraved enough to eat the egg becomes tainted by Chaos and gains 1d6 chaotic features.

 

 

What egg is that? 

 

So, Chaos and how I see it. Chaos is basically everything and nothing at once, infinite potential - but most of the potentials are disasters for an orderly universe.  Chaos is nothingness as well, because if you can be anything, all at once, then you're not any specific thing and that makes you nothing.

The Great Compromise shields the world from the Chaos that surrounds it.  Violating the Compromise can let Chaos in, and once inside, it makes a mess.  The Chaos rune is reality trying to impose a specific, pinned-down identity on Chaos, which by definition, has no identity.  The core problem is that some of those myths which define the world also include Chaos and the struggle against it.  This effort to pin Chaos down is why Chaos Features happen in those infected with Chaos.  Chaos eats a hole and reality tries to fix the hole and the result is Chaos features.

It also means the battle is not winnable permanently on the current grounds on which it is fought - the existence of Chaos inside reality is programmed into the Great Compromise itself.  But it also means that Chaos has a connection to morality as well as the physical world, as is appropriate for a world sustained by myths.

In Glorantha, people mystically link themselves to these myths as part of their religion and culture.  Any given myth-system which remembers Chaos condemns some actions as Chaotic.  Doing those actions risks inviting Chaos into you, and because myths can affect the physical world (rune spells, heroquesting, etc), you can be not just morally, but physically corrupted by Chaos in this way.

Chaos can do impossible things and this is why illuminates are tempted to monkey with it, especially since they've basically severed themselves from being afraid of Chaos.  It's just a tool.  A tool which can destroy reality, but when you're high on illumination, you may not care about that.

 

 

 

 

[JRE]

Moral Relativism is baked in the Illumination system. Change your point of view and suddenly you can break the rules, which means the rules are relative.

Illuminates are the ones that take the Red Pill, while the rest are trapped in the Godtime simulation protocol.

[Nick Brooke]

There are some points in Black Spear Act 7 where adventurers can be tempted by the Devil to tolerate moral evils, and earn a Chaos Taint. There’s also two suggested “cures”: either rededicating yourself to whatever passion you betrayed (Fear, Honour, Loyalty, etc.), or else illuminating yourself until you believe that you weren’t doing anything wrong. I didn’t waste any word-count advising GMs how to handle amoral or already-illuminated adventurers, as anyone running a game for those types already has better answers than I could ever give them. (Because they’ve read and internalised Paulis Longvale’s explanation of Duty, of course.)