"And the aspects of Chaos are __,___, ___, & ____"

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"And the aspects of Chaos are __,___, ___, & ____"

Post by OgreBattle »

So Warhammer Fantasy/40k has 4 primary deities that represent war, scheming, boners, and rot. They're pretty broad themes but if you were to do your own not-Moorcock-ripoff setting with "The bad feelings manifested in the magic-plane as ____" what would you choose as the primary aspects of the cosmic badness?

What imagery would you associate with each? Are Bird headed Tzeentch scholars from the Dark Crystal or drawing from older imagery?
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Post by Stahlseele »

You forgot the 5th one *runs*
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Post by DrPraetor »

Is my setting intended as a war game with magic? Because war and magic gods are bad choices for that.

[*] Plague is a good one, although I like the Horned Rat better than Nurgle. So I'd have a pestilence god with a rat theme, definitely. Healer-mages are tempted by the nightmare blandishments of this God.

[*] I'd want a god that demanded child sacrifice and had a bronze and fire theme. Domains are greed, insane ambition and betrayal. When alchemists go nuts they spoiler Full Metal Alchemist.

[*] I'd have a three-headed black dragon, served by tentacled things in the woods at night. It's domain is ignorance, barbarism, isolation. Druids are tempted to turn into nocturnal cannibals by this God.

[*] A colorful crystal deity, which is inscrutably insane. It's domain is senselessness, malevolent surrealism, astral corruption and the horrors from Dominions. Illusionists are tricked into serving this deity by their own magic.
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Post by Nath »

I'd start with psychology and some fundamental emotions breakup, and elaborate from there. Taking for instance the Ekman divide between anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise (I don't care how disputed that divide may be, it's good enough for a fantasy setting I think).

Since we want to limit ourselves to four aspects, we have to drop two of them. From there, there are two different roads: having factions following those core emotions, or having factions trying to cause those emotions.

For factions of emotion followers, I'drop surprise, which is not going to make a very active faction, and maybe merge happiness and sadness. For factions of emotion provokers, drop happiness (indeed) and I'd say surprise again (unless you want Malkavians in your setting).

My take would be to go with followers of emotion as a basis: anger, disgust, fear and happiness. Since we want to turn them into badness, we need not just to crank those emotions to insanity level, but to effectively portray them into actually desirable guide of life. Also need to find name that sound better than The Angered, the Digusted, The Fearful and The Happy.

Anger - The Eternal payback time. Vindictive to the core, they have been betrayed, abandonned, and all those who crossed them are going to pay. Spindoctored into Absolute Justice and Honor.

Disgust - The world is impure, people are ignorant and cannot be saved. They are the worthy elite and everything else should be wiped out. Whitewashed into any flavor of Enlighted Ones cults.

Fear - Paranoia and flamethrower, a matter of survival. The world is a dangerous place. Every potential threat should be dealt with, the earlier the better. Should call themselves The Protectors or something like that.

Happiness - Pleasure seekers. Not much to say, nor are any effort really needed to brand them out. It can't be that bad, right?

It may appear eerily similar to Warhammer Chaos gods: Khorne/anger, Nurgle/disgust (in reverse), Tzeentch/fear, Slaanesh/happiness. The core difference is there are none of the overlap that "war" or "change" cause as domain, and that factions are only sorted by motivation, rather than means of action - each would use axe, plague and sorcery as needed. Alliances between the different faction are still possible - as long as none crossed the angered in the past, that everyone is worthy enough for the disgusted, and no one threaten the fearful or annoy the happy.

As for the associated imagery, I'll keep that for another post.
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Post by Voss »

DrPraetor wrote:Is my setting intended as a war game with magic? Because war and magic gods are bad choices for that.

[*] Plague is a good one, although I like the Horned Rat better than Nurgle. So I'd have a pestilence god with a rat theme, definitely. Healer-mages are tempted by the nightmare blandishments of this God.

[*] I'd want a god that demanded child sacrifice and had a bronze and fire theme. Domains are greed, insane ambition and betrayal. When alchemists go nuts they spoiler Full Metal Alchemist.

[*] I'd have a three-headed black dragon, served by tentacled things in the woods at night. It's domain is ignorance, barbarism, isolation. Druids are tempted to turn into nocturnal cannibals by this God.

[*] A colorful crystal deity, which is inscrutably insane. It's domain is senselessness, malevolent surrealism, astral corruption and the horrors from Dominions. Illusionists are tricked into serving this deity by their own magic.
Except possibly the alchemist one (and that on a really small scale), none of these gods are useful or have any means of attracting worshipers.

Healers might turn to pestilence and druids might suddenly be cannibals at night because...? What's actually in it for them? Who gives a shit if an isolated druid barbarian is an ignorant fuck all alone in the forest? (Aside from celtic fetishists, who would probably wonder why one of the most learned individuals in any settlement would be ignorant and isolationist).
Last edited by Voss on Thu Jun 29, 2017 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by OgreBattle »

I had warhammer on my mind so something war and magic oriented yeah. I'll go with imagery first.

Eyes: Symbol of knowledge, wisdom, mystery. Not-beholder puzzle/illusion demons to fight. Illuminati style organizations.

Horns: Symbol of virility and the untamed wild. Tusks and manes too, big musclefuck demons bashing through walls to fight. Pagan style organizations.

Skulls: Your classic undead. Maybe exclude "looks like perfect living person" vampires from here and make them their own thing. Skeletons n' zombies n' liches and maybe ghosts too to fight. Abrahemic style organizations.

I was thinking "tentacles" as a 4th category but I think the trinity of eyes, horns, skulls is already down to bang in their own unique ways. Or maybe tentacles is "formless chaos" and does general 'oh the hoorrrorr!'
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Go all crazy witscraft/pythagorean on this. Organize/Label them:

Icosahedron - Orb of Liquid - Aquatic creatures, liquid chemisty powers
Octahedron - Spindle of Gas - Aerial creatures, gas chemistry powers
Cube - Brick of Solid - Terrestial Creatures, solid chemisty powers
Tetrahedron - Point of Plasma - Subterrestial creatures, plasma chemistry powers

With a secret fifth:

Dodecahedron - Halo of Light - Psychic/Energy entities; light chemistry powers

Each is trying to control & expand the purview of their respective ideological obsessions with their own powers. Sometimes they cooperate to drive out the inhabitants/crusaders in territory they want to claim/hold.

However, just as often they quarrel over equally prized resources or points of interest. The secret fifth element can be reworked into a semi-neutral seeming organization that is pulling the strings everywhere like something out of the Barsoom saga and White Martians infiltrated everywhere.

----------

An other option; you could make each of the four based on the largest areas with as long a history of nomadic populations as exist in current human memory (the nomads of Gobelki Tepe likely operate for 1,000's of years, but we know about 5% of the site; and even less about its creators).


First, Central Asia's tradition of horse-archer that raided the surrounding continental areas. Second, northern Africa's various nomadic cultures which navigate between the forested sub-Sahel to reach the sea of the northern Saharan. Third, midwestern America Plains First Nations peoples (either pedestrian w dogs; or post-Spanish colonization w horses). Fourth, Australia's 400~ tribes of Aboriginals.

While "Scandinavia" stands out as fodder for "Chaos" xor "Barbarians" in fantasy fiction, it's also the quarry most regularly mined.

Dr.Praetor & Nath also tap into a mix of human history, psychology and Lovecraftian mythos.


Looking at other sources for the existing Moorcockian style Chaos gods.

-Khorne: Various bronze idols of fire (e.g. Ba'al Hammon) & associations with Phalaris' brazen bull; xor stone Hindu idol-shrines that crush/trample their followers (aka Jagganath, Juggernaut). The Minoan Minotaur. Kali & Thugee. Solve problems with death & fire. I could see Khorne being the "Plasma" element chaos entity.

-Slaanesh: Dionysus, hydras, regeneration. Poison. Toxins. Wine. Cultivation/modification of crops/creatures. Trying to achieve "excellence" via affecting an organism's body chemistry, genetics, conditioning. Also trying to get the most possible pleasure via chemistry, genetics and conditioning. I could see Slaanesh being the "Liquid" chaos entity.

-Nurgle: Various divine abilities to cause/cure plague appear in most human pantheons. Nurgles ability to maintain their followers in a state of constant infection, without suffering true harm is relatively unique. However Hel from Nordic myth; several Mesoamerican pantheon members; and Baron Samdi in Africa/Caribbean culture, demonstrates that "should be dead, but isn't" is potentially viewable as a power rather than a curse. Doesn't have to be "infected", so much as "should obviously be dead, but isn't wtf?". I could see Nurgle being the "Solid" chaos entity.

-Tzeentch - Crows have a long nordic association with divination (the spies of Odin); but birds have been prescribed with oracular powers among many cultures around the world. Tzeentch is a shoein for "Gas" chaos entity.

The 8-pointed symbol for Chaos undivided is ripped straight from Moorcock. Who himself likely stole it from the 8-spoked wheel of Buddhism (which is used as the Jedi/Republic/Empire symbol in the SWU). While the "up pointing arrow" that is the symbol of Law in Moorcock's mythoverse (xor Troops choices in 40k's force deployment chart @_@) is possibly derived from a capped pyramid, itself a refinement on the ancient "house on a hill" at Ekur. Itself possibly just an ancient season measuring observatory.

Chaos Undivided could be an 8-pointed star and represent solidified light. While the other factions "demons" are animated matter of their respective type (modeled and formed on their base shape, in order to keep visuals design distinct from very different types of creature).

I could see the Aesculapius, Caduceus, and Ourobouros being other symbols of law; perhaps along with the eye of Horus/Orisis/Bastet.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Fri Jun 30, 2017 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by DrPraetor »

Nath wrote:anger, disgust, fear and happiness. ...
As for the associated imagery, I'll keep that for another post.
Cower, mortals, before the Lords of Chaos:
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Post by DrPraetor »

Voss wrote: Healers might turn to pestilence and druids might suddenly be cannibals at night because...? What's actually in it for them? Who gives a shit if an isolated druid barbarian is an ignorant fuck all alone in the forest? (Aside from celtic fetishists, who would probably wonder why one of the most learned individuals in any settlement would be ignorant and isolationist).
This was intentional.

I think, in order to hold together, turning to Chaos is an affliction rather than something anyone rationally chooses to do.

So a hazard of practicing healing magic is, under stress, you might go insane, and start spreading plagues and worshipping the Great Horned Rat. This doesn't happen because you were persuaded on the merits by a Skaven plague monk, but because you went mad.

This frees you from the requirement of having insane gods of grimdark and then claiming that people choose to worship them (for, like, power or something?) which makes zero sense in Warhammer.

I was using Druid in the AD&D sense of "nature wizard".
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Post by hyzmarca »

If I were making a group of evil gods, I'd go Life, Art, Justice, and Peace.

These are traditionally good gods, but that's the point. Chaos isn't evil because it chooses to be evil. Chaos is evil because it's monofocused on its thing, to the exclusion of all other things, sanity included.
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Post by maglag »

DrPraetor wrote: This frees you from the requirement of having insane gods of grimdark and then claiming that people choose to worship them (for, like, power or something?) which makes zero sense in Warhammer.
It makes some degree of sense when you consider the whole setting is extra Grimdark. The rats in the dark caves are sentient and plotting your downfall by building cyborgs and lighting guns, orcs do not even understand the concept of peace, elves will either hunt you for sports, paranoia, or sadistic fun, so half the time when the gods of chaos offer you power, is either that or be killed by one of the other factions. In particular when if you were born in one of the northern warhammer tribes that don't have any fancy walled cities or gunpowder industry.

Of course if in your setting orcs are willing to sign and hold treaties and the elves don't automatically see you as prey/inferiors/toys, there's a lot less reason to willigly submit to the gods of chaos.

But even then there will always be those cornered and/or desperate enough for any type of help that may turn to insane chaos gods when all other hope has been lost.
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Post by Chamomile »

I wouldn't nail yourself to any specific set. Come up with a set of five-ish to start, and periodically release new ones. Focus on the ones that are popular, let the ones that aren't fall by the wayside. For a starting set, one I dreamed up a while ago is:

-The God of Tyranny. A might-makes-right conqueror, the god of military juntas and authoritarians the world over.

-The God of Secrets. A trickster god and occultist, the god of sorcerers and deception. He has a million schemes running at any given time, but there is no grand plan or final goal. He's in it for the lulz.

-The God of Murder. A bloodsoaked assassin who believes that conscience is fundamentally a weakness that must be eliminated.

-The God of Suffering. Taking Nurgle's "plague Buddha" philosophy but applying it more generally. He wants to enlighten people, and he does that by torturing them until they realize that all control is illusion and they must learn to be content no matter what happens.

-The God of Pleasure. Basically, remove the weird crab theme from Slaanesh and you're set. God of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

You can use any other set of gods presented in place of or in addition to these. You can have some of the Chaos Gods form little cliques where they all tend to show up together and get along with one another better than they do any outsiders (even if, absent a common threat, they are riven by deep enmity). Or you can just pick your favorite from each set and throw them together.
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Post by DSMatticus »

I've been tinkering about with a WH40K-inspired thing which downplays the supernatural and emphasizes the "AI-driven technology no one understands as spirits" angle. The forces of chaos are just malware botnets that infect machines, people's cybernetic augments, and of course the setting's space marine expies (which are just brains-in-jars, except the jars are suits of power armor) - but nobody knows that's what's actually happening, so it's demonic possession as far as they're concerned. The chaos "gods" are often just ordinary household/industrial/military AI that have been left running for hundreds of years without maintenance, and as a result have developed dangerous behaviors that weren't caught during testing because that's one hell of an edge case. And that's a problem that extends to the setting as a whole - AI's are in virtually everything and they are poorly maintained and even though most aren't dangerous they are quirky as shit.

So, yeah, there's a "spirit" in your railgun and you really do have to do weird shit you don't understand to appease it. If you start tinkering with technology from untrusted sources, there's a chance your datajack or whatever will be infected by a demonic smart toaster and you'll wake up the next day with a hard-on for arson. But there aren't any actual spirits or demons - you're just living in the shadow of a collapsed civilization that put AI's in everything. You bump into intelligent beings with malfunctioning brains on a daily basis, and the supernatural is the lens through which this post-collapse society processes that.

If you wanted to follow the WH40K formula, then...

Your Khorne-equivalent is some AI general who - given the almost total collapse of the civilization which created it and hundreds of years of changing geopolitical circumstances - has absolutely no idea who's side he's supposed to be on anymore. The "appeal" of signing up with Khorne is that he kills his enemies and you couldn't run away fast enough. Or hell, if you want to get creative - it's the virtual manager of a blood bank. Blood for the blood god.

Your Tzeentch-equivalent is Facebook. It wants to collect and aggregate as much data as it possibly can, and then use that data to tempt you with things. But it has no idea what it wants to tempt you with, because the advertising network sure as hell isn't running anymore, so in the end all the spying, scheming, and tempting ends up looking random and directionless because it totally is. The appeal of signing up with Tzeentch is that it knows fucking everything and some of that knowledge will trickle down to you.

Your Nurgle-equivalent is not a doctor AI. It is a Shadowrun-esque corporate pharmaceutical AI. It wants to drug you into oblivion with its patented products, and it wants you to convince your friends how awesome those products are. The appeal of signing up with Nurgle is that papa Nurgle can get you high as fuck, and also if you are dying of some horrible illness he can make it less horrible.

Your Slaanesh-equivalent is an (adult) entertainment AI with incurable blue balls. It just wants to show everyone a good time. The appeal of signing up with Slaanesh is that it's a good time.

And you're left with pretty much endless room to explore lesser chaos gods i.e. local threats - like the arsonist toaster I joked about.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Eh, could make each of them a social issue, either a current or historical one. Hubris, xenophobia, superstition

Though, squint a bit and they could be Slaanesh, Khorne and Tzeentch. GW's gods are nicely broad and vague.
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Post by Mord »

Chamomile wrote:I wouldn't nail yourself to any specific set. Come up with a set of five-ish to start, and periodically release new ones. Focus on the ones that are popular, let the ones that aren't fall by the wayside.
This is a good approach, and easily justified: why would you expect the avatars of elemental chaos to remain constant or predictable over time?

That's also why I don't like that Tzeentch has "change" as an explicit dominion, rather than that being part of a universal Chaos portfolio. Chaos is necessarily protean in nature; the more you nail it down, the less well it represents the concept.
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Post by maglag »

Even the in-setting characters regognize that, like a Nurgle follower pointing out to a Tzenceth one that diseases and rot change stuff a lot.

And indeed several chaos followers do end up swapping gods.

Then there's chaos undivided that understands that all their gods are part of the greater kayos and you may as well worship them all equally.
Last edited by maglag on Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

If you're going to have cosmic evil flavors, those flavors all need to be:
  • Visually distinct.
  • Different as a Challenge.
  • Something you can talk to.
In the case of a war game, the flavor has to feel different in the hands of the players. But whether you're doing a TV show or an RPG setting or whatever you still have to get those bullet points taken care of. When they show up, they have to have a "look and feel." And when the heroes fight them, it has to matter that they are fighting those guys instead of some other guys. And finally, villains who don't sometimes team up with the heroes and have opinions and points of view are boring and stupid. Any faction that is wholly adversarial and monstrous is completely interchangeable with any other faction that is wholly adversarial and monstrous. It's not actually important that Khorne Berserkers and Necrons are different factions, they could just be different units from the same faction for all the difference it makes.

Anyway, if I were doing a set of demon factions, I'd divide them up on look and feel, because that's really what you're going for anyway. So you'd have your "things on fire" faction and your "darkness and poison" faction and your "warped vegetation and deformed animals" faction and your "everything frozen" faction and your "bones and zombies and stuff" faction. After that, it's really totally Madlibs.

So for example, I could see your fire guys be Dragon themed or Arabian Nights themed.
Image

Image

Summoning a big fire demon could look like either one of these pictures.
Similarly, your Darkness and Poison demons could be Nagas, Vampires, or Skaven. Those are all solid Darkness and Poison archetypes. Your Skulls faction could be all Egyptian mummies and shit or they could all rot and rising from bogs or they could be all Aztec blood magic stuff with skin flaying and piles of hearts or all Greek Plutonic stuff with giant three headed dogs and shit. Your Frozen faction could be basically Vikings with jotun and trolls or it could all Japanese with yuki no ona and other ice ladies or it could be all Inuit with tupliak and weapons made of ice and bone. Your mutated vegetables faction is pretty much stuck with a dark wiccan vibe and a bunch of Shubniggurath references, but the amount of goat rape on the table is entirely up to you.

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Post by maglag »

FrankTrollman wrote:able with any other faction that is wholly adversarial and monstrous. It's not actually important that Khorne Berserkers and Necrons are different factions, they could just be different units from the same faction for all the difference it makes.
Eeerrr, you do know that both Khorne forces and necrons have allied with Blood Angels before, right?

Granted, it was against nids, the universal enemy that never talks.

And heck, there was a necron overlord helping defend Cadia before it exploded and everything.
FrankTrollman wrote: So for example, I could see your fire guys be Dragon themed or Arabian Nights themed.
Image

Image

Summoning a big fire demon could look like either one of these pictures.
Similarly, your Darkness and Poison demons could be Nagas, Vampires, or Skaven. Those are all solid Darkness and Poison archetypes. Your Skulls faction could be all Egyptian mummies and shit or they could all rot and rising from bogs or they could be all Aztec blood magic stuff with skin flaying and piles of hearts or all Greek Plutonic stuff with giant three headed dogs and shit. Your Frozen faction could be basically Vikings with jotun and trolls or it could all Japanese with yuki no ona and other ice ladies or it could be all Inuit with tupliak and weapons made of ice and bone. Your mutated vegetables faction is pretty much stuck with a dark wiccan vibe and a bunch of Shubniggurath references, but the amount of goat rape on the table is entirely up to you.

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That's nice and all, but I would say that besides looks/powers/talkable, it's even more important to care about their objectives/desires. This is, in other games every faction is humies, yet they're still interesting because each has their own agenda.

After all, if they have no conflicting objectives, there is no reason for conflict. If they have no desires, they have no reason to talk to anybody.
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Post by Username17 »

maglag wrote:Eeerrr, you do know that both Khorne forces and necrons have allied with Blood Angels before, right?
Yes. Various authors have realized that the complete inability to hold a meaningful conversation with or be a comrade to Necrons and Khornates made them extremely dull and wrote them to have completely different goals and modes of operation. This does not in any way contradict my point that implacable enemies who want nothing more or less than to kill you are basically worthless and there is no narrative purpose served in dividing them into factions.
maglag wrote:That's nice and all, but I would say that besides looks/powers/talkable, it's even more important to care about their objectives/desires.
Meh.

Sometimes it's important for factions to have specific, individual goals. Sometimes it isn't. It depends.

If you're doing something like Vampire, it's necessary for every faction to have goals other than "get the crown." The Nosferatu need to want heavier buildup of skyscrapers and the Gangrel need to want more parklands so there can be political tradeoffs where Brujah or Ventrue leaders could say and do things that would favor one faction or the other in their tertiary goals.

But if you're doing a war game, it's entirely OK if every faction just wants to capture more territory. Alliances can be made and broken over who is the bigger threat at the moment. You don't need any special motivation for backstabbing and deal making than "We are basically playing Risk."

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Post by DrPraetor »

That's all well and good, but what specific narrative need does Chaos fill, in settings like Warhammer where it has become something other than just a synonym for Evil?

Well, Chaos is a terrifying force that turns people evil. The demons from Princess Mononoke are Chaos, and Ashitaka's Prestige Class is Champion of Chaos - he has superpowers, but he is doomed. In the narrative arc that this satisfies, Chaos is a kind of curse or affliction even if it also brings terrible power; but, at the same time, Evil Spock and Evil Kirk are only interesting because they are still people with whom you can negotiate. The Demon Boar wasn't appeased, but it was worth trying.

At the same time, there is a desire to have robots/zombies/orcs/koopas whom you can murderstab without remorse, but there are lots of ways to get those while keeping people who have turned evil as people.

Further, Chaos itself may be some mercurial force but when you bust into the evil temple there had better be an idol with a ruby-eyed snake god.
Chaos cultists need iconography, and the cursed sword of chaos wants to look awesome. If you pick it up, you are tormented in your dreams by the maggot-infested Prince of Corruption, not by static.

How awful you want Chaos to be then becomes a matter of personal taste. Evil can get pretty evil, but historically blood libel was used as an excuse to turn people into Orcs. So if you have followers of the Chaos God Moloch practice child sacrifice, they may just be murder on sight, which is less interesting.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

DrPraetor wrote: Cower, mortals, before the Lords of Chaos:

Something else Along those lines
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Post by Blade »

Linking Chaos and Evil means that you consider change to be evil. This perfectly makes sense when you've got a conservative dictatorship that want to maintain the status quo.

In that case, Chaos will be:
- Knowledge: because knowledge opens the mind to new possibilities
- Creativity: for obvious reasons. You want all creations to be rehash of existing stuff. I guess you could equate Creativity with Passion.
- Rebellion: Could be Anger if you want to be more subtle, refusal of the Order
- Decadence: Because rebellion is not the only risk of having your status quo disappear. It can also disappear because people start to get sloppy and stop following the rules.
- Hope: Because you don't want people to be able to expect a better situation. You'd probably want to find a better label if you want to make it sound bad. Maybe "Illusion".
- Fairness/Justice: Because unfairness and injustice is what's most likely to upset people and make them challenge your status quo. Once again, you'd want a better label for this, because you'll want to impose the idea that your society is fair and just, but I can't find it. You could maybe combine it with "Rebellion/Anger" but there's a slight difference.

You'll note that the first four fit the WH Chaos god pretty well. I don't think that's a coincidence.

But if you think that change is ok, then you shouldn't use Chaos as a synonym for Evil.
Zaranthan
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Post by Zaranthan »

I think you could have the Empire of Evil label Knowledge as Secrets and Justice as Vengeance.
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Thaluikhain
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Blade wrote:Linking Chaos and Evil means that you consider change to be evil. This perfectly makes sense when you've got a conservative dictatorship that want to maintain the status quo.

...

But if you think that change is ok, then you shouldn't use Chaos as a synonym for Evil.
That's a good point, hadn't thought of that, but I don't see why change has be to chaotic.
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Going with the idea of the evil gods feeding off of human badness, 4 beings based off of the elements of society people fear and blame for problems

Bankers: Greed, materialism. Golem demons made of precious metals. Buttoned shirts with gold chains and tophats. Frank

Barbarians: Savage wildmen in furs. Big muscle homoeroticism. Mac.

Bums: A theme of decay and corruption, vagrants, carnies. Rats and stuff. Charlie.

Bourgeoisie: Decadence, vampires and stuff. Dennis

Maybe mix and match the 4 like...

Barbarian+Bourgeoisie: Spartan kind of honor-death-cult warriors
Barbarians+Bums: The fearsome illegal immigrant
Banker+Bum: Hmmm, not really sure.
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