D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Chaosmancer]

Much more rested. Sorry if my reply was a bit more slappy than usual. It was not my intention.

A trope, is not THE trope. It is one of many possible. The fun thing with D&D is that you can use one, two, three or gazillion and it doesn't matter one iota. There are ways to make them work together with one an other without even scratching your heads on how. Gygax found one, and I am sure you can find one by yourself without throwing one set of beings down the drain. So wheter you like it or not, it is a solution. Maybe not the solution you want but it is a solution nonetheless.

I never claimed it was the only trope. So since we both agree that three versions exist ("a smaller force of powerful good beings against a much larger force of evil weaker beings", "A set of equally matched forces in power and number", "A much more numerous but good force against a far more powerful yet smaller number evil force") I don't think that trying to say that one or the other needs to be the case brings any merit. Especially since DnD has the Gods of Good outnumbered both by a massive force of weaker evils (demons and Devils), and beset by equally powerful yet also more numerous forces (evil gods, because there are a lot of them) AND facing a limited number of even more powerful beings (Great Old Ones) that they have mixed far too much into the same basket.

I also don't know what "solution" you are talking about in regards to Gygax. When Gygax was writing, these things weren't set in stone and so weren't a problem. In fact, mortal heroes could kill gods as easily as they could anything else and it wasn't until much later that the stratification started happening. Unless I've misremembered something, but if you have a potential solution to this issue, then bringing it up would be appreciated, instead of making these sort of comments. Because, honestly, I see no value in Evil Gods, the only way I can see to keep them and keep them more powerful than the other evil beings would be to make far more interesting enemies (orcus, Graz'zt, ect) their minions. Which is a terrible solution I think.

As for the bolded part.
What do we gain indeed. A lot of possibilities. Much more than if everything that has a name on it in the plane can be a god. By wanting to usurp gods' powers the demons and devils are effectively creating wars. They are numerous, endless but they are still bound by cosmological laws either given by the gods or by some other Overlord of the Gods (i.e. Ao in the FR and if you read the novels, you know that even Ao has an Overlord too.). And since that Overlord (i.e Ao) is present, then it makes sense that the Gods do have their own laws to obey... At which point do mortals get to interact with higher and higher beings?

Having Demons try to kill the gods, yet bound by the laws of the gods is kind of silly, don't you think? Ao is... honestly I think Ao is a terrible idea. He just exists to give someone to dictate new rules to the gods, which they needed to change editions, but in a world-building sense I don't think he is really needed. The universe itself or reality itself can fulfill the same function.

But, I think you are mistaken in the possibility of war created by having Demons and Devils and Evil Gods. Firstly, those wars can already happen between beings of equal power, see Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz'zt. They are in a three-way struggle. So, we don't need the Demons and Devils to be weaker than the gods for those wars to happen, and in fact, I'd say that those wars are more interesting if the opposing sides are more balanced, than if the Demon Lords or Archdevils need to skulk around because the moment the god actually takes the field they are boned.

Secondly, wars for increasing power don't need for one side to be weaker than the other. It could be that killing a god and subverting their power doesn't ascend a demon lord to a new tier of power, but it does increase their power. Some gods are stronger than others after all. It also gives them new territory. Perhaps access to relics or power sources previously unavailable to them. The spoils of war then can become a plot point, instead of the spoils being "I'm a god now"

Because Thirdly, we are back at the issue I brought up originally. Why do we fear Orcus becoming a god of Undeath when we have a God of Undeath? What does this do that is not currently capable of being done? If we have evil gods, then having evil beings ascending to Godhood isn't as much of a threat. Unless they are breaking the rules of gods.

See, there was a story I encountered some time ago, that laid this out in a good manner. I don't remember exactly what it was, but the idea was pretty simple. The Gods had warred and caused untold destruction, so the Gods made a deal, a pact, that said they couldn't directly interefere with each other, or directly interfere with the world. There were good and evil gods, and they all made this agreement. When a big bad evil guy was trying to attain godhood it was explained that this was a problem, not because he would be an evil god, but because he was not subject to the Pact. He could act uncontested in the world, and if the gods intervened directly to stop him... the pact was broken and the god's war might continue. In this case, having both works, but then you also lose the ability for the gods of good and evil to fight, which DnD allows them to do all the time.

The Immortal set of BCEMI told us what it was all about.

In resumé for the Immortal Set which brought a lot of lights to our games. It does, afterall, litterally make you play gods (ok immortals, but in the OD&D it basically amount to same thing.)

The first set of immortal beings (and my views on how they should translate in D&D) are the
Initiate (Basically the quasi deities, demon-lords, arch-devils and other non true gods.
Temporals (Novice, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) This is where you get your demi god and lesser gods.
Celestials (Novice, 1-4) This is where you get the major and greater gods.
Empyreals (Novice, 1-4) (Ao?)
Eternal (Novice, 1-4) (the devs knows what from this point on...)
and you even have higher immortals
Hierarch (Novice 1-4)
And Full Hierarch.

Note: In the Immortal set, demons are fully immortal beings with PP. The above is just an approximation we did for D&D. It is by no means something official but the ranks are.

In terms of power, the lowest temporal has about 500 PP. Each PP can be used to cast or create spell like effect with 1 PP for a spell level or its equivalent. And this can be in addition to its own spell casting ability (if any). Imagine a 36th level wizards being a god... To show the difference, A Full Hierarch has 15,000. And they can create avatars over that...

In that expansion, immortals/gods can use PP to fuel spells, but it is also a currency with which they barter their actions. The more power you put in joepardy, the greater the gain, but the less you have for other challenges and personnal defense.

Example: In a game, a group of evil immortals came to the players and started a claim on a region where the players had set a religion going for them. The claim was control of the whole region by either the forces of evil or good. PP were placed has a bet and players opted to have a group of heroes to foil the plans of the evil immortals. It was the most cost effective. So they went back in time, got the mothers of our heroes to be met their respective husbands, use PP to make sure that the group would meet. Placed challenge (adventures modules, homebrew and whatever) on the path of the group and placed a few "key" magic items to be found by the heroes. Then their champion would raise to 14th level and fight the forces of darkness. And the way to do it, you guessed it, was to play this group heroes.

All this to show that there are interaction between the various mythos, gods and even aspiring gods such as demons and devils. Removing one of the other is fine. But the RP opportunities loss are greater than the gain in doing so IMHO.

I disagree. In fact, your system there could just as easily work without ranks. All that does is make it possible to be a Demon Lord and have 500 PP. Because, again, this divide reduces the possible stories. If a Demi-God is more powerful than an Archdevil, then a full god can't be challenged by an Archdevil. Look at these rankings

Initiate -> Where the antagonist is at
Novice Temporals
1st Temporals
2nd Temporals
3rd Temporals
4the Temporals
Novice Celestials -> The weakest of true gods
1st Celestials
2nd Celestials
3rd Celestials -> A more likely place for a well-known god who would make the most story sense to target

Considering the scaling of the points is roughly 700 pts per tier (probably spikes at novice) You are looking at the story of, say, Orcus challenging the Raven Queen or Kelemvor as a being a fight with one side being potentially 30 times more powerful than the other. You might as well be sending a 5th level cleric to fight a Pitfiend, solo.

Your example of play is great, Immortals utilizing their power to position and fight each other in time and space is a wonderful concept that I support. But, what I don't see the value in saying is that Orcus, Demogorgon and the others have to stay below that 500 PP limit, while the gods like Bane and Vecna are working with close to 60,000 PP (rough math based on educated guesses)


You keep saying that we lose these great RP opportunities by making the Demon Lords and Archdevils more powerful... but I just fully disagree. We have already lost good RP opportunities, and with a bit tweaking from "personal power and status" to "artifacts and territory" then we don't lose the wars that you want, and they can actually be wars that have some hope of being won, instead of contrived occurrences where the gods are artificially weakened to the point where they can be threatened.

I also think that this set up opens up the Primal Power Source and Druidic sects, rather than just having nature be ruled by gods just like civilization is. I'd rather the term "god" be less about power and more about, well, what they are about.

 

[Mirtek]

Why do I get a déjà-vu? Wasn't there exactly such a thread before?

Edit: Found it

 

[Mirtek]

I don't know what to tell you, in one of the last discussions involving the god of the dead, this came up. I'll try and search the forums and see if I can find the discussion


It seems it was @Mirtek who brought up in this post D&D 5E - WotC Explains 'Canon' In More Detail

We talked about it for a while, but they could probably source it for you

It was in Prince of Lies

Cyric was dethroned, Kelemvor hat not yet ascended and the novel focused on a couple of unfortunate sods that would have really wished they could just die right now but found that they had to endure their very unfortunate circumstances a while longer.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Exactly. You could run as a N hater of undead and demons in a undead focused game.

And you could do the exact same as a Warlock of a Demon Lord opposed to those undead and demons. Again, just because the PC is going to focus on killing demons and undead doesn't mean that the goal of Nerull isn't Omnicide.

Nerull's goal is the cessation of all life. That is not something that you can say is a good thing. Not with how DnD defines Good.

Fiends don't get clerics in base lore.... ever.
Fiends don't get Celestial pact warlocks nor Divine Soul sorcerers.
In most settings, fiendish cults don't get official status. Evil clergies are more frequently given fringe access to offical land purchase.

So yes it's Warlocks and Sorcerers vs Clerics and Paladins.

And archfiends typically don't serve evil gods. More often they want to kill them and take their stuff.

Good vs Evil vs Evil vs Evil vs Evil

I know fiends don't get celestial pact warlocks or Divine Soul Sorcerers. Evil Gods would though, so in actuality that would mean that we are looking at:

Warlocks and Sorcerers and Clerics and Paladins vs Warlocks and Sorcerers.

We have the proof of Hell Knights, Paladins that serve the Hells though, so it is actually:

Warlocks and sorcerers and Clerics and Paladins vs Warlocks and Sorcerers and Paladins

It isn't official material, but we do have the "Disciple of Orcus" for Pathfinder, which is a cleric. According to the stub at the bottom, it was published based on notes from Gygax. These notes probably were directly having clerics for demons and devils, since he included such in his writings all the time, according to what I could find.

There is also a bit from the Bloodstone Lands sourcebook, from TSR, that has priests (ie clerics) of Orcus.

First Edition had Orcolla, a Duergar cleric of Orcus. Looks like he came from the Mines of Bloodstone adventure from TSR.

I also note that on this forum, the question came up and someone points out that on pg 105 of the first printing of DDG (Deities and Demigods) that the following beings "should be treated as lesser gods": Demogorgon, Juiblex, Orcus, Yeenoghu, Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Dispater, Geryon, Bahamut, Tiamat, Lolth, Ssendam, Ygorl, Cryonax, Imix, Ogremoch, Olhydra and Yan-C-Bin.

And THIS forum gives us some great sources specifically quoting:

It's correct that worshipping a demon lord the power is drawn from abyss its self - they will be drawn from Chaos and Evil. As such, a cleric that worships a demon lord should at least have one of these.

Source: Fiendish Codex I - Hordes of the Abyss pg. 82.

HOWEVER manu demon lords actually grant access to more domains, for instance Orcus grants his clerics access to: Chaos, Death, Demonic, and Evil - Source: Fiendish Codex I - Hordes of the Abyss pg. 74.

As for devil worship - ALL clerics that worship an Archdevil can choose the Baator domain, furthermore they get access to domains depending on the Archdevil they worship or cult they're in.

Source: Fiendish Codex II - Tyrant of the Nine Hells pg. 26.

So, that covers some 2e TSR stuff, and some 3.X WoTC materials. And from 5e I can point to the Cult Fanatic having cleric spells, and the leader of a cult to Orcus, having clerical spells, very likely means they are meant to be read as a cleric.

So, I don't think saying that "Fiends don't get clerics in base lore.... ever." is accurate.

And I don't care about the Good vs Evil Evil vs Evil, because that has nothing to do with the discussion. Nor did I say that any Archfiends currently serve Gods. But, if we are supposed to take weaker fiends serving evil gods, then Archfiends (who are still considered weaker) serving them makes sense as well.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't know what to tell you, in one of the last discussions involving the god of the dead, this came up. I'll try and search the forums and see if I can find the discussion


It seems it was @Mirtek who brought up in this post D&D 5E - WotC Explains 'Canon' In More Detail

We talked about it for a while, but they could probably source it for you

Maybe, but I still can't find anything. I looked up the year Kelemvor ascended and checked the timeline on the FR Wiki, and in the year of his ascension (1368 DR) and in the years prior to that, the timeline lists numerous deaths. Like for 1367, 100 people died in Mulmaster, the Zhent took minimal (but not zero) losses when killing off some woodland beings, Obould killed Greneire, etc. I checked the timeline for 10 years prior, and the overviews for the Era of Upheaval, Time of Troubles, and Second Sundering.

I have a sneaking suspicion that, if someone had written that people in fact didn't die during this transitional period, that got quickly retconned out of existence.

After reading those articles, though, it makes me sad that they made the Realms go back to normal instead of turning it into a proper post-apocalypse setting. Tons of wild magic, areas of land warped by the decay from dead gods, magical mutants, mad cultists trying to bring their gods back... I woulda played the heck out of that.

 

[Maxperson]

In the Forgotten Realms Bane is a mortal who ascended and became a greater god. In core 4e and 5e's Exandria he was a core and non-ascended god.

Asmodeus has been at various times an archdevil which gave him the powers of a lesser god when on his own plane (1e Manual of Planes), a greater god (2e Book of Hell), an angel who became a god (4e). In FR 4e he becomes listed as a god for the first time in the setting with the explanation "An ancient deity turned archdevil, the Lord of Nessus longed for untold millennia to reclaim his godhood. The destruction of Dweomerheart sent the dying Azuth (a patron deity of mages) into Asmodeus’s fiery domain. The archdevil killed him and consumed his divine essence. He then ended the Blood War by pushing the Abyss to the bottom of the Elemental Chaos."

Yes. I know who they are. Regardless of how Bane became a god, he's middle tyranny management being local to Toril. And regardless of which history you have for Asmodeus, he's the tyranny CEO being the ruler of the 9 Hells and has to deal with the bigger picture(all settings that the 9 Hells access).

And quite frankly, that's a really, really silly way to end the Blood War. Azuth was/is a lesser god. There's no possible way that even with that power, he'd be able to overcome the combined power of the infinite layers of the Abyss, let alone the combined power of infinite layers of the Abyss AND all of the many gods that dwell there in order to push it anywhere.

 

[pukunui]

I feel like this thread has rapidly descended into quibbling over minor points.

Meanwhile, I am still wrestling with how I want to proceed with my homebrew world. Partly, I'm debating how much effort to put into it, knowing that my core group of players tends not to care about this sort of thing that much. I'm also trying to figure out where the line is (for me) between adopting/reskinning material from other settings/stories and just giving up and using the original setting/game instead.

(In the meantime, I'm just continuing with my mechanical conversions with the intention of sorting out the setting details later.)

 

[Mirtek]

Yes. I know who they are. Regardless of how Bane became a god, he's middle tyranny management being local to Toril. And regardless of which history you have for Asmodeus, he's the tyranny CEO being the ruler of the 9 Hells and has to deal with the bigger picture(all settings that the 9 Hells access).

However in an early dragon magazine article about the 9 hells it was stated that the reason for sticking Bane into Gehenna rather than having his domain somewhere in the nine hells was to avoid the issue why he would not go about enslaving the archdevils to his will

That was at a time when all 9 of them were clearly stated to be lesser gods

 

[Maxperson]

However in an early dragon magazine article about the 9 hells it was stated that the reason for sticking Bane into Gehenna rather than having his domain somewhere in the nine hells was to avoid the issue why he would not go about enslaving the archdevils to his will

Other gods live there. Presumably there are divine rules, like the one that keeps the gods from interfering directly in a prime plane. Or maybe not and the other gods would just rip apart any god who tried, so none of them do.

Looking through my On Hallowed Ground I can see the following incomplete list of gods living in the 9 Hells.

1. Druaga - Babylonian - Lesser God
2. Inanna - Sumerian - Greater Goddess
3. Set - Egyptian - Intermediate God
4. Hecate - Greek - Intermediate Goddess
5. Tiamat - Dragon - Lesser Goddess
6. Bargivyek - Goblin - Lesser God
7. Kurtulmak - Kobold - Intermediate God
8. Sekolah - Sahuagin - Intermediate God
9. Kriesha - Birthright - Lesser Goddess(?)

Less than I thought(The Abyss had far more), but with infinite prime planes and infinite pantheons to go with it, there will be a tremendous number of additional gods of all power levels in both Hell and the Abyss. Asmodeus, even with his stolen lesser god power, could not have moved the Abyss anywhere.

That was at a time when all 9 of them were clearly stated to be lesser gods

I think I remember that. The Archdevils have been shifting between god and not god for a long time now.

 

[Minigiant]

And you could do the exact same as a Warlock of a Demon Lord opposed to those undead and demons. Again, just because the PC is going to focus on killing demons and undead doesn't mean that the goal of Nerull isn't Omnicide.

Nerull's goal is the cessation of all life. That is not something that you can say is a good thing. Not with how DnD defines Good

I didn't say good. I said N as in Neutral.

You can run a true neutral cleric of Nerull.

So, I don't think saying that "Fiends don't get clerics in base lore.... ever." is accurate.

And I don't care about the Good vs Evil Evil vs Evil, because that has nothing to do with the discussion. Nor did I say that any Archfiends currently serve Gods. But, if we are supposed to take weaker fiends serving evil gods, then Archfiends (who are still considered weaker) serving them makes sense as well

I think it is accurate.

Warlocks, as we see them today, didn't exist.

If written today many of the clerics of fiends would be warlocks. Clerics of fiends and celestials more or less disappeared within the reinvention of warlocks

As for Paladins. Well 5e doesn't even them domains anymore. So they are all Paladins of Causes. So yes they could follow fiends but they would be exceptionally rare as fiends cannot create paladins and lack the clerics and churches to formally and openly indoctrinate warriors into paladins.

So its Clerics and Paladins vs Warlocks.
Having portfolios vs Covering portfolios.