Corruption: Cosmic Taint or the Evil that Men do?

[Nyarlathotep]

Hi everybody - New to the boards and game, but not to REH or Conan.

Question to you all: I've seen a lot of previous threads regarding the nature of Corruption and what will or will not cause it.

I've also seen a lot of competing views for that answer. I guess the question I have to ask is: Is there an official ruling out there for this?

Is Corruption really the "Cosmic taint" acquired from things that man should not know? Or is it a violation of a basic building block of what it means to be human? (I ask only because of what was written in Free Companies).

I remember the great British weird fiction writer Arthur Machen probed this question in his short story: The White People - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_White_People

Here's an extract from the larger conversation.

"No, I don't think we do. We over-estimate it and we under-estimate it. We take the very numerous infractions of our social 'bye-laws'--the very necessary and very proper regulations which keep the human company together--and we get frightened at the prevalence of 'sin' and 'evil.' But this is really nonsense. Take theft, for example. Have you any horror at the thought of Robin Hood, of the Highland caterans of the seventeenth century, of the moss-troopers, of the company promoters of our day?

"Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous importance to the 'sin' of meddling with our pockets (and our wives) that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin."

"And what is sin?" said Cotgrave.

"I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

 

[argo]

Is Corruption really the "Cosmic taint" acquired from things that man should not know? Or is it a violation of a basic building block of what it means to be human? (I ask only because of what was written in Free Companies).

Well... by the RAW it is "cosmic taint" since, the rules in Free Companies aside, 99% of the time the only way to gain Corruption is to consort with "things man was not meant to know" and/or those people who are already themselves corrupted by such sources.

That is the rules. However your game does not nessicairly have to follow the rules!

IMC the answer to your question is "Both". Corruption is both cosmic taint and a violation of morals. I believe this is in keeping with the flavor of the genre. The way I see it, in the S&S genre the human ideal is to be both natural, and at the same time far greater than nature, the pinacle of natural evolutioun. Even a wild and barbaric man such as Conan is still far more noble than the beasts of the wild. And of course his wholsome natural form crafted out of steely thews (physical) and an unconquerable lust-for-life (spiritual) is infintely greater than the twisted, unnatural abominations of the outer dark.

Thus a person may gain corruption by treating with dark horrors and being tainted by his exposure. But a person may also betray his own nature as a human being and become corrupt that way. Think of Corruption as less of a "positive score" measuring the "evil" you have gained and more of a "negative score" representing the humanity you have lost and this view falls in to place.

That being said, it should be far more difficult to gain corruption vial moral lapses than by treating with demons. This because man is far closer to a beast than to a wierd creature from beyond. So a reversion to "beastly" form ought to be less destructive to humanity than abandoning nature for the embrace of the unnatural.

Hope that helps.

 

[Krushnak]

i tend to limit the corruption gained from earthly evils(cold murder, rape etc) to about 3 or 4 pts so that it turns the character into a cynical bastard but he isnt gonna start growing horns or extra limbs unless he has a lot of contact with the things from the outer dark.

i'd suggest either getting or atleast looking at the Tome of Corruption for warhamer fantasy. huge list of mutations and chaos has always been inspired by the lovecraftian horror from beyond kind of evil so some good ideas for daemons and artefacts.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I'm still fence sitting on this one.

REH's fantasy world is a brutal and very morally confused one.

On the one hand we can X out any weird Tolkienesque conceptions of Morality - no Paladin like heroes and Upper Class Englis...err I mean Elves.

At the same time - there are still implied limits (cold murder, rape, etc) - as the world isn't relativistic, just savage and brutal.

I guess this goes back to how we view Corruption eh? Otherworldly influence or moral taint?

 

[urdinaran]

I also subscribe to Krushnak's idea. When I ran my campaign I made a player make a corruption save for the following:

- performing a successful heal check on a dying man
- questioning that man
- then killing him after the questioning was done, as he wasn't necessary anymore (leave no witnesses behind)

 

[argo]

- performing a successful heal check on a dying man
- questioning that man
- then killing him after the questioning was done, as he wasn't necessary anymore (leave no witnesses behind)

Yea, if that's not a corruption check then I don't know what is. :shock:

 

[Axerules]

I'm still fence sitting on this one.

REH's fantasy world is a brutal and very morally confused one.

On the one hand we can X out any weird Tolkienesque conceptions of Morality - no Paladin like heroes and Upper Class Englis...err I mean Elves.

At the same time - there are still implied limits (cold murder, rape, etc) - as the world isn't relativistic, just savage and brutal.

I guess this goes back to how we view Corruption eh? Otherworldly influence or moral taint?

I think Corruption should only apply to otherwordly influence, the rules for "moral" behaviour are about having a code of honor, an allegiance or a religious faith or not.