sahuagin worshippers

MaximumHavoc

First Post
the monster manual describes sahuagin as worshipers of sekolah, great demonic shark, who is an exarch of melora. however, given their chaotic evil alignment, i instead would have them worshipping the demon lord, dagon.


i supposed that i am inclined to see most, if not all, chaotic evil races worshipping demons rather than gods because, in my view, none of the gods are chaotic evil, with one explainable exception--tharizdun. originally, tharizdun was not chaotic evil. he became chaotic evil when he was overwhelmed by the shard of evil. anyway, he is locked up and largely out of the picture now, despite what his looney worshippers might believe. orcus, in my view, is a demon lord, not a god. so that leaves no chaotic evil gods.


so, who among the demon lords would best serve as the patriarch of sahuagin? well, an aquatic oriented demon would be fitting. dagon is an aquatic demon lord. also, from the monster manual 2, we know that dagon's temples are underwater. what else do we know?


i) dagon's [land-based] cultists reside in isolated seaside towns and villages;


ii) sahuagin dwell along coastal waters;


iii) villages prone to [dagon's] cult descend into savagery;


iv) sahuagin slaughter and devour anything they can catch, raiding coastal settlements in the dead of night;


v) a sahuagin kingdom can stretch along an entire seacoast, and the sahuagin sometimes trade for goods, but they are more inclined to take what they want by pillaging coastal communities and merchant ships; and


vi) dagon's temples include air-filled chambers and caverns for his terrestrial followers.


although not a completely compelling argument, i do think that the above information makes for a good fit between sahuagin and the demon lord, dagon.


edit

i just remembered a great little adventure in dungeon 156 called the last breaths of ashenport. i think that the fish men of dagon easily could be re-skinned as sahuagin.
 

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Klaus

First Post
I have no idea what an "exarch of melora" is, but if you are going to change Sokolah then I think Dagon is a great choice.
In 4e the gods have "exarchs", which would be pretty much minor deities or demigods. Example exarchs include Maglubyiet (Bane, god of war), Chronepsis (Raven Queen, god of death) and the aforementioned Sekolah (Melora, god of nature).
 


Derulbaskul

Adventurer
IMC, I have sahuagin worshipping Umberlee (FR's chaotic evil goddess of oceans etc...), Dagon, Demogorgon and Sekolah. I like the races IMC to have multiple deities/patron fiends because it sets up conflict for the PCs to wander into.
 

MaximumHavoc

First Post
IMC, I have sahuagin worshipping Umberlee (FR's chaotic evil goddess of oceans etc...), Dagon, Demogorgon and Sekolah. I like the races IMC to have multiple deities/patron fiends because it sets up conflict for the PCs to wander into.
yours is a much better and more realistic approach. i think, for the sake of covering all of its bases, wotc offers us the principal patron for each race, either because 4e still is young or because they do not want to slide down the slippery slope of fleshing out a full pantheon for each race, as they wotc has done in preior editions of d&d. in fact, i remember reading something to this effect, maybe in worlds and monsters. anyway, individual dms would do well to follow your approach.
 

frankthedm

First Post
Ia! Ia! Dagon!

Here is a Dagon illo tweeked with the Open office image editor trying to make a stone relief looking hand out.


http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2986/dagonbareliefa.jpg

And JIC if you aren't familiar with how Dagon went from Semetic deity of grain and agriculture to horror from the depths...

Dagon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dagon in popular culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft
Dagon by H. P. Lovecraft
The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
 


Henry

Autoexreginated
If I were DM I'd have multiple cults for any given race of creatures - most could worship Sekolah (or Dagon), with others worshipping the other deity, and the poor souls compiling the bestiaries looked at just a few examples and got it party wrong. Just like humans don't all worship the same deity, neither necessarily should all creatures of one type.

It'll be fun when the PCs run across a huge tribe of Sahuagin worshipping Kord, or the Raven Queen!... :)
 

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