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Order and Chaos, Together at Last
Order and chaos may seem like naturally opposed forces,
forever locked in cosmic battle. However, it’s also possible that the gods are
fundamentally Nature aligned and work together
to maintain cosmic balance. This arrangement can allow delvers who follow both
to peacefully coexist in the same party. A more complex cosmology can even have
Good or Nature gods of order and chaos opposing their Evil or Insane
counterparts!
Are They an Axis?
In many fantasy games, inspired by Michael Moorcock’s, Eternal Champion stories, order (or law)
is opposed to chaos on a moral axis orthogonal to the axis of good and evil.
This article doesn’t take that view and instead includes order and chaos in the
existing moral scheme described in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 7: Clerics. Order
can be Nature, Good, or Evil aligned, while chaos is generally either Nature or
Insane (though, more rarely, may be
Good or Evil).
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The original article had a "Body of Swarm" spell for chaos clerics, which was included in the original final submission. A few months after that I was reading through Dungeon Fantasy 5: Allies (as a player was making a druid) and I noticed the spell was totally redundant with the Insect Swarm variant of Shapeshifting in that book and I sent a corrected manuscript that replaced the spell with Shapeshifting (Insect Swarm).
Body of Swarm (VH)
Special
Change into a swarm of flying insects (like biting flies).
This is a one-hex swarm that does 1 point of damage (and otherwise follows the
rules for Swarms on p. B461) that flies at double the caster’s Move. The
insects can pass through cracks, crawl under doors, and infiltrate anywhere
that insects can.
The caster may scatter, as per the Swarm enhancement for
Injury Tolerance: Diffuse on GURPS Powers p. 53.
As with Shapeshifting (GURPS Magic p. 33), clothing and
armor vanish, while carried items fall to the ground. Also, as with Shapeshifting,
the caster must roll versus IQ each hour or lose IQ (until he has IQ 1).
Spells may only be cast if known well enough to be cast
without words or gestures and, when scattered, are cast from the caster’s
current viewpoint.
When the spell is canceled, dispelled, or expires the caster
manifests at the current location of his viewpoint. If the swarm is currently
scattered, it must first contract to the original radius (during which time the
caster must Do Nothing if the spell is no longer in effect).
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: 15 to cast. 4 to
maintain.
Time to cast: 3
seconds
Prerequisite: Chaos
Power Investiture 5
Item:
Jewelry in the shape of an Insect; usable only by a chaos priest,
chaos warrior, or a druid. The user pays the casting cost but maintains the
spell for free. It merges into the subject when cast. Energy
cost to create: 3,000
($60,000)
The final published form also cut the notes about alternate profession lenses for chaos warriors. They aren't terribly hard to derive, but for completeness:
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Kill for Chaos!
From self-mutilated berserker madmen leading hordes of redcaps
and chaos beasts, to laughing anarchists dancing past guards to cut a hangman’s
noose, chaos warriors are a colorful lot. Use the holy warrior lens for any
template (though not with non-chaos clerics or druids). Delete any Born War
Leader and Higher Purpose. Add Daredevil [15] and change the Schtick (Foes
slain personally do not rise as undead) to Brotherhood of Chaos. Take Trickster
(12) [-15] instead of the mandatory disadvantage. Replace Esoteric Medicine
with Poisons and choose from the above options for Hidden Lore. Make up any
difference in points by taking less (or more) in Holy abilities.
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Divine Elements:
One thing that I noticed when working on the article, is that Allies has the Good and Evil divine elements and makes them fairly essential for fleshing out a divine servitor. Clerics introduced the concept of Neutral and Insane aligned deities but didn't offer any Elements to go with them (and suggests that you build servitors without the "essential" alignment ones). I found this a bit unsatisfactory which is what inspired the Primal/Elemental Fae/Faerie Lens/Elements. It also got me thinking about some more generic Neutral and Insane Elements (and a whole bunch of other domain elements) which will probably end up being a full length article in the future.
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