  We examine the status of the Chern-Simons (or Kodama) state from the point of
view of a formulation of gravity that uses only real connection and metric
variables and a real action. We may package the {\it real} connection variables
into the complex Self-Dual Ashtekar connection (and will do so to make contact
with previous work), but that operation is essentially cosmetic and can be
undone at any step or even bypassed altogether. The action will remain the
(real) Einstein-Cartan action, forgoing the addition of the usual Holst (or
Nieh-Yan) term with an imaginary coefficient. It is then found that the
constraints are solved by a modification of the Chern-Simons state which is a
pure phase (in the Lorentzian theory, we stress), the phase containing only the
fully gauge-invariant imaginary part of the Chern-Simons functional. Thus, the
state for the "real theory" is non-pathological with regards to the most
egregious criticisms facing its "non-real" cousin, solving the complex theory.
A straightforward modification of the real Chern-Simons state is also a
solution in quasi-topological theories based on the Euler invariant, for which
the cosmological constant, $\Lambda$, is dynamical. In that case it is enough
to shift the usual factor of $\Lambda$ in the wave function to the inside of
the spatial Chern-Simons integral. The trick only works for the quasi-Euler
theory with a critical coupling previously identified in the literature. It
does not apply to the quasi-Pontryagin theory.
