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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 2644368" data-attributes="member: 3649">I generally see Chaotic societies as fairly small ones. The government is by 'town meeting' where everyone has a voice and no-one is really all that much above anyone else. Usually someone is 'first among equals' because not everyone has the time or brains to put into that kind of job but if he loses the confidence of the ruled, he steps aside and gives someone else a try. Society is held together by shared culture, manners, family bonds and geography. The theocracy part probably plays out like this: they worship a pantheon but like most pantheists if someone comes along with a new god, they find room for him in their pantheon. The priests have demonstrated wisdom (gaining power 'because my goddess told me so' doesn't cut it in a chaotic society - you have to show you have the goods rather than 'received wisdom'), so for the most part people leave the 'running a country' details to them. They aren't dogmatic and they aren't inflexible, so they pretty much let people do as they please. Most everyone else does likewise. They try to cultivate 'good' in people, mainly be reminding them to treat others as they would like to be treated. They live their lives like the rest of the people and discuss the tenets of their god only if someone comes to them and asks about it. There isn't even a central text. Priests relate moral lessons by personal tales or observances. They attempt to be role models and act according to their tenets, instead of 'do as I say not as I do'. They never tell: they show, and if someone follows them, well then bully for them.An outside observer would be hard pressed to tell they have a religion much less a theocracy. If the new cult turns out to be evil, they get shunned. Nobody sells them seeds. Nobody buys their milk. No-one talks to them or lets their kids be around them. Attempts to be converted are met with a headshake and being ignored, or they just get laughed at. If people start going over to the new cult, well, people let 'em. Chaos is always and only about choice, personal choice. If they join out of their own free will, well... the rest of the family and community will be sad but will chalk it up to 'well, we just didn't know Bob as well as we thought we did'. His family will talk to Bob about it, and see what the new people offer that's so different or better. As Bob sinks deeper into Evil, they probably drift away from Bob, saddened that he's chosen to go down this dark path and now having so little in common with him that he's become like a stranger. Now, if Bob is being coerced into the cult in some way either through subtle evil influence or just by them limiting his choices until he has 'no choice' but to join the cult even if it's of his own free will... then things start to get really nasty. For the cultists. First, Bob's relatives and friends get into the act. They go to the cultists and take Bob home, by force if needed. The priests try, first, to see if something can be worked out. Then they try to see if the cult will simply leave the area and leave their people alone. If that doesn't work, then the priests get some allies and buddies together, beats the crap out of the cultists and then burns down their barn with them in it.</blockquote>

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