D&D 5E Are "evil gods" necessary? [THREAD NECRO]

[Sadras]

Overall, I don't really think that the problem is evil deities per se, but, rather, how there is overall a lack of nuance or complexity in D&D religion. There should be reasons why good creatures provide prayers to evil deities and why evil creatures provide prayers to good deities.

Yes, the only way around this was to steal from conversations with @pemerton, to not so much enforce the deity intervening in the everyday affairs of the the PC and to allow the PC to establish their own perspective of their deity and there could be many perspectives.

In other instances (works for some examples only) in that you have good and bad priests in RL and that the transubstantiation (wine & bread into blood & body) is a matter of faith and not even necessary the faith of the priest but the faith of the receiver of the communion.

But yes your question is pertinent, similar in a way to why do churches/temples charge for their healing potions/services when PC heroes are battling evil?

 

[pemerton]

I don't really think that the problem is evil deities per se, but, rather, how there is overall a lack of nuance or complexity in D&D religion. There should be reasons why good creatures provide prayers to evil deities and why evil creatures provide prayers to good deities. To take the Dawn War Pantheon as a starting set, maybe orc warriors do say prayers to Gruumsh, as would many other infantry soldiers. But maybe orcs also venerate Kord for his strength, Melora for being the Earth Mother, and Bane for his strategy and conquest, Avandra for wealth and luck, and Moradin for caves, riches, and steelcraft for weapons.

In my 4e game the invoker served the Raven Queen, Erathis, Ioun, Vecna and Pelor. His view of Vecna was that secrets can be important, but Vecna didn't quite have the rigth normative calibration in respect of them.

The PC fighter/cleric who serves Moradin ended up taking on the portfolio of imprisonment, punishment and suffering when it becaome vacant after Torog's death. He saw this as part of being an Eternal Defender (his Epic Destiny).

EDIT: Forgot that the invoker also had Bane in his line-up - part of a compromise reached when he was returned to life although Bane was worried that he created a risk to the world's bulwarks against chaos and the Abyss.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Why have good gods when there are angels (solars, planetars, devas)? Or lawful gods when there are modrons? Or chaotic gods when there are slaad?

Just to try and make my whole point clear using this question... if the D&D game had an actual list of known, identifiable, named characters with complete personalities that were solars, planetars, and devas, (as well as modrons and slaad)... then yeah, I'd probably be asking the same thing about "good" gods too. Or inversely, if the extent of our devils and demons were just the list of generic ones (bone devils, chain devils, herzou, mariliths etc.) I wouldn't be asking the question at all.

It's really simply a matter of trying to figure out the use for all these "characters" that appear at least to me to be stepping on each other's toes. Is there a point to them? Does having 6 to 20 evil gods and the "evil cultist" worshippers of said gods that we use to present them into the game as antagonists make Glaysa an afterthought? (Just choosing an Archdevil at random)?

I suspect that the game repeatedly edition after edition has not given us an entire line of known solar characters specifically because they wanted the pantheon of gods to hold a higher place in the eyes of the players. And heck... even for the class where PCs directly interact with the known archdevils, archdemons, and archfey (the warlocks through their pacts).... when they added the Celestials option to the pact list they still didn't design a list of celestials "characters" to select from, they said "just make one up". And I find that interesting as well personally, that no known Choir of Angels has assumed any place in the D&D multiverse with any staying power. We can identify many of the archfey, archdevils, and archdemons in D&D we'd use as patrons, but no corresponding archangel character. Seeming to me as though they still want the "good gods" to maintain a place as over and above everything else in the divine order. But if all things were played out equally... we really should have a list of D&D multiverse Archangels for all of us to use just like we do the other three patron orders.

 

[Voadam]

Other named, planar technically non-god powers are there throughout editions besides demon lords and archdevils, just not as prominent.

Book of Exalted Deeds:

Celestial Hebdomad (Ruling council of the Seven Heavens - Archangel Equivalents):
Barachiel the Messenger
Domiel the Mercybringer
Erathaol the Seer
Pistis Sophia the Ascetic
Raziel the Crusader
Sealtiel the Defender
Zaphkiel the Watcher

Talisid and the Five Companions (Guardinals of Elysium):
Talisid the Celstial Lion
Sathia the Sky Duchess
Manath the Horned Duke
Vhara Duchess of the Fields
Kharash the Stalker
Bharrai the Great Bear

The Court of Stars (Eladrins of Arborea):
Morwel Queen of Stars
Faerinaal The Queen's Consort
Gwyharf The Whirling Fury

Monster Manual II
Modrons:
Primus The One and the Prime

Fiend Folio
Slaad:
Ssendam - Lord of the Insane
Ygorl - Lord of Entropy

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's really simply a matter of trying to figure out the use for all these "characters" that appear at least to me to be stepping on each other's toes. Is there a point to them? Does having 6 to 20 evil gods and the "evil cultist" worshippers of said gods that we use to present them into the game as antagonists make Glaysa an afterthought? (Just choosing an Archdevil at random)?

Not everything has to have "a use". Some things just exit. See: quarks.

And evil gods do not all have "evil cultist" followers. Some have hard-working priests busy interceding to stop the evil god stomping on people. Evil is not a synonym for antagonist. the world is full of evil, but most of it isn't trying to kill you.

I suspect that the game repeatedly edition after edition has not given us an entire line of known solar characters specifically because they wanted the pantheon of gods to hold a higher place in the eyes of the players.

No, it is because Monster Manuals are full of things for players to fight, and players do not usually fight angels.

D&D is very cagy about how it treats gods, leaving it largely up to the DM. This is because they do not want to step on the toes of real world religions and players' own beliefs. Most RL religions treat gods as being very different to angels.

 

[pemerton]

if the D&D game had an actual list of known, identifiable, named characters with complete personalities that were solars, planetars, and devas, (as well as modrons and slaad)... then yeah, I'd probably be asking the same thing about "good" gods too. Or inversely, if the extent of our devils and demons were just the list of generic ones (bone devils, chain devils, herzou, mariliths etc.) I wouldn't be asking the question at all.

Other named, planar technically non-god powers are there throughout editions besides demon lords and archdevils, just not as prominent.

Book of Exalted Deeds:

Celestial Hebdomad (Ruling council of the Seven Heavens - Archangel Equivalents):
Barachiel the Messenger
Domiel the Mercybringer
Erathaol the Seer
Pistis Sophia the Ascetic
Raziel the Crusader
Sealtiel the Defender
Zaphkiel the Watcher

Talisid and the Five Companions (Guardinals of Elysium):
Talisid the Celstial Lion
Sathia the Sky Duchess
Manath the Horned Duke
Vhara Duchess of the Fields
Kharash the Stalker
Bharrai the Great Bear

The Court of Stars (Eladrins of Arborea):
Morwel Queen of Stars
Faerinaal The Queen's Consort
Gwyharf The Whirling Fury

Monster Manual II
Modrons:
Primus The One and the Prime

Fiend Folio
Slaad:
Ssendam - Lord of the Insane
Ygorl - Lord of Entropy

To express my agreement with DEFCON 1: I have every AD&D 1st ed hardback, multiple 2nd ed AD&D and 3E hardbacks, and a close-to-complete 4e collection. Which is to say I'm not a novice to D&D.

The Slaad Lords are in the original Fiend Folio and pretty iconic. Primus the One is in the original MM2, together with the lists DEFCON 1 refers to of all the devil and demon rulers, which build on what was presented in the original MM. This stuff is core, and has been elaborated upon since the original MoP in subsequent MoPs, MMs, etc (eg in 4e all the archdevils are listed in the MM, and the Demonomicon has a list of all the lords of the Abyss).

Until this very thread and Voadam's post I had not heard of those Good beings. The Hebdomad and Guardinals are completely new to me. I've heard of the Court of Stars, but only in the 4e context where it has nothing to do with the heavens.

I think this runs DEFCON's way.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Slaad Lords are in the original Fiend Folio and pretty iconic. Primus the One is in the original MM2

Actually Primus was in the Fiend Folio too. But I think they make the point perfectly well. There are plenty of chaotic neutral gods who are nothing like the Slaad Lords. And there are lots of lawful neutral gods who are nothing like Primus. Saying you only need one type of outsider for each alignment is like saying you only need one kind of mammal, one kind of reptile, one kind of bird, one kind of amphibian and one kind of fish.

 

[pemerton]

Actually Primus was in the Fiend Folio too.

This is wrong. Primus appeared with the other Modrons in the MM2.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Actually Primus was in the Fiend Folio too. But I think they make the point perfectly well. There are plenty of chaotic neutral gods who are nothing like the Slaad Lords. And there are lots of lawful neutral gods who are nothing like Primus. Saying you only need one type of outsider for each alignment is like saying you only need one kind of mammal, one kind of reptile, one kind of bird, one kind of amphibian and one kind of fish.

Believe me, I'm in no way saying you need only one type of outsider. If they all have different purposes, then of course, the more the merrier. Modrons and Lawful Neutral deities serve two very different purposes in the game so it's never made me question why they both exist.

But it's when you have two things that appear to serve the same purpose that I've been questioning the need. But of course this is all coming down to personal use and preference. It seems pretty obvious many of the people here find evil deities and archdevils/archdemons to be two/three distinct and useful separate groups and thus having them all is better for their games. And I'm not in any way trying to deny that. I guess I'm just trying to use others opinions on the subject to challenge my own to see if perhaps I'm just missing something.

Now granted, thus far I don't think I've been convinced... but then again, who cares if I am. It's not like it's any of your jobs to convince me that my opinion was right or my opinion was wrong. I will say though I do appreciate @Voadam 's list of good-aligned known entities and that book might be something to for me to look into. Especially if I ever decide to follow up on my own setting and go with the "God(s) are not interactable entities" (a la Eberron) and instead the Archangels / Archfey / Archdevils / Archdemons are the four aligned categories of pantheons that the people worship and gain power from. So thank you for that!

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

It's not needed in this universe, why in any other?

The lack of a good explanation for why evil happens is in fact a serious argument against the existence of any "good" god(s) in our universe. But that's threading into dangerous territory.